dolar (Pain)” (Job2:11-13)[Spanish Jerusalem Bible Series Job sub-series - # Job 2:11-13]

A Mohawk friend once said to me,
In pain one could detached then be;
As part of cultured-space from home
He’d lived it out – to there he’d grown.

In Job, three friends arrived to see
Their friend who’d had calamity –
Text says they did not recognize
Him from afar, before their eyes.

With cancer I found a standing by
More difficult than when ’twas I
Who walked that lonely walk back then,
But pain was stopped – I don’t pretend –

I have capacity for pain –
I don’t – hate dentists; and that’s tame
Compared to what Job here endured,
Or friends whose presence love assured.

No words for seven days and nights
Between the friends – ’twas awful sight;
What can one say when faced with such,
Where inner-life and out are touched.

The question here, for me, at least,
Is pain – from Kingdom-layer – increased?
Or cut way back as we look on?
Or, for us, if that’s road we’re on?

So far (five years), I’ve felt it ease
The roads I’ve traveled (none too pleased);
But as supported over such,
Freed up I’ve been to share love’s touch.

But that’s short part of decades seven;
Who knows what comes here under heaven –
I live in bubble – separate I
From most folks’ grind beneath the sky.

I sometimes wonder ’bout this guy –
Old story here retold – but why?
Is it retold at juncture this
(’Bout time of exile; end of bliss) –

Because they too encountered pain,
Without pain-killers in the main?
Disruption inner, outer there?
O Lord, Do You, through this prepare –

First readers with assuring word?
Correct a thought which might be heard?
Give sense of need for Kingdom-layer,
Which You for world, through them prepare?

So Lord, as I shift into text,
With chapter three, heard, like the rest,
Through Spanish Bible – word by word –
Help me attend, that You be heard.

Thanks Lord for this.

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