Thought For Food

Some trade-offs are sensible.
Not the off trades we've made.
Purchasing vanishing vapor
for the real things we gave.

The terms of the barter
are ever so clear.
We receive our addictions
in exchange for things dear.

Anesthetized well,
we don't see what we've lost.
Unaware to the end
of what it will cost.

Real flesh for an image,
Marriage bed for a bust.
We trade people for porn,
Seasoned love for streamed lust.

We don't want what is real
much preferring the dream.
We want only the sugar
not the health food between.

TV and no exercise...
we prefer the glazed gaze,
leaving sweating to those
who by commercials are paid.

These habits don't leave us
when we enter the church.
We expect the same deal there,
leaving Christ in the lurch.

We seek sermons that tickle
and worship that throbs,
but avoid all hard service,
giving pastors those jobs.

The church seasons we've tossed
but we still keep the feast;
greedy to own all the pleasures,
glad to rent apostles' grief.

Their grief turned to joy
to grief has returned.
Heaven sees what we do,
what we think we have learned.

"Let's gather to celebrate!
Jesus vanquished the tomb!
And because the deed's done
we can stay in our womb.

The great Houdini Jesus
has freed us from the law.
Now we can sit back
and suck life from a straw."

Black holes cased in flesh
we miss the mystery of sin.
We keep endlessly taking,
filling nothing within.

Taking cue from the prodigal
we seek only to feast.
We're consumed by consumption,
turned to dough without yeast.

We are blind how this grade
to our tomb gives us pull.
Wonder why we're so empty
with stomachs so full.

Like cows on conveyor belts
who never quite lived
we consume to our end
unaware what we'll give.

Consumed by consumer gods
at whose shrines we were served.
Thought ourselves the consumers
right up to the last curve.