Like Thomas I Want to See Something

John 20:19-31
Gospel Reading for the Second Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Like Thomas
I want to see something
That will make me believe

I have no need for nail-scarred hands
Nor wounded sides
Of a Savior back from the dead

But I want to see something
That will make me believe
Resurrection is possible

For I have my doubts
Not in the risen Christ
But in the rising rest of us

There’s a darkness I see
Inside myself
More often than I’d like

And I am tired
Of cruel avaricious kings
And their power-craving priests

I shut my eyes
Yet can still hear my homeland vanish
Along with what I thought it stood for

Like Thomas
I want to see something
That can help me unsee

The children at the end of a gun
The refugee locked in the cold
The needlessly sick drifting away

The child of God
Demonized for some part of their being
Of which they have no control

I want to know
That these pictures can change
And change can be in me

That the people
Who pray
And celebrate resurrection

Can be people
Who embody
And enact resurrection

For I doubt
Even as I believe
Because I have seen too much

Like Thomas
I want to see something
That will make me believe

I believe
I want to believe
Help my unbelief