Friday 19 August 2016

Legion


Legion with his “impure spirit” and wild and dangerous behaviour was frightening. I’ve heard it said that depression can be anger that has been ignored, repressed or denied. Anger can also be the energy we need for change to happen. But what happens when anger can no longer be bottled up, when it begins to erupt with the force we see in Legion, that can frighten us as much as other people. What do we do then?


Mark 5: 1-10
(Jesus and his disciples) went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.
When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones…


LEGION

This anger
Ice cold pools
Purified lakes of cold mercury
Poisonous
Alluring
No longer still
No longer quiescent

This anger
No longer supressed
Or safely sealed
Stirs
Deep within

This anger
Corrodes
Its hunger
Eats away the bricks and mortar
Carefully constructed
To cover and contain

This anger simmered over time
Over a cold, cold heat
Fingers its way
Through slits and pressures
To consume
All that I am

I am
LEGION

The howling that you hear
Night and day
is me
unleashed among the tombs
I do not rest in peace

Naked,
I cut myself with stones,
Bleeding,
you cannot restrain me
though you chain me
and you fear me

Chains
I wrench apart
Shackles
I break in pieces

No one
can subdue me
no one is stronger than I. I let
No one
near
No one
Dare

I am
LEGION

Then …
a voice
His voice
A voice like many thunders
Commanding attention
Holding me
Holding me
Until the anger drains away
And the wound is clean
And still I’m held

Arise, my love, my fair one and come away
For now the winter is past
The rains are over and gone
The flowers appear on the earth
The time of singing has come.     Song of Songs 2: 10-12

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