Out of Egypt

If my perspective isn't welcome, why should I stay?
If it's your way or the highway, why bother to say-
That you don't care that you tore out my heart
You couldn't care less that you broke me apart.
Your systems are worthless
Your religion mundane
I can't love your jesus
I've searched for a sign
To show me he's good-
But your gods are vile
You spit and you spew out
 the nastiest of bile
Towards people I've known as personal friends
Towards Muslims and gays and the misfits - to what ends?
You hate and reject,
You pushed me outside
You mock and you discard,
And I'm the one unkind?
You are nothing like Jesus
You hate ones our God so loved

You add to the pain
Of weak and the weary, the homeless, the cold.
Still I've found your pews are the hardest of all.
They just are not worth it,
So I'll sleep in a stall
The floor is my cushion, my ceiling the sky
My greeters some outcasts-  they'll be mocked for their zeal
Yet all that I wanted was to come down and heal.
Your hearts are so damn hard-
You listen to lies-
You're more outraged I said "damn" than that you call evil right.
Yeah-the metaphor's not refined
(no more is the rhyme)-
I may not be Jesus; I am exiled like He was-

A missionary kid, a foreigner, an outcast for love.
My God never changed, but you shut me out-
You cared more for winning; you wallowed in doubt
That our God is holy and you reap what you sow
You shut out the lowly,
And just so you know:
The very ministry you said you support
You've undermined and ridiculed
With your unrepentant vote.
You've told your children, your grandchildren too

That all that matters is fearing and abusing those unlike you.
I held out my hands to you- I know the ones you fear-
They are my friends-they're ordinary- some had less chances here-
To hear of a Savior-to trust in a Friend
Than you had on a Sunday, in a day in a month, in a life...
Yet somehow they are lovely, rejecting of strife...
But
You shut down your heart to me-and absolutely towards them
You wouldn't shed a single tear.




You've squandered abundant blessings- you've mocked what you don't understand.
So now like Wisdom I mock - I revile and despise:
See- your faith is worthless; these divisions deserved-
You watched while they told me,
To go back to my home - my parents' "mission field"
You jeered in silence as I endured abuse
There's no place for me here
Because I refuse to give in to your fear
I warned you, you countered, "But Hillary," "just politics," and despised,
And so I reject you,
Fools in your lies.
This year, I hope for better, with deep friendships forged
From seeing some real love,
and what can be abhorred.
It's sad that this evangelicalism can never be home
But you see-
I see now- you

In Budapest, 2006

never really wanted me
You prefer your comfort
I rock the boat too much
Prophets unwelcome
You slander and smear
As gossips, narcissists, and the angry
And so
In all that winning- because of fear-
You've lost generations
To your fake smiles and lies.
You have no idea what is greatness
You are foul-smelling and corrupt
And to be honest
It's no longer with sadness, but with joy set before
That I'm forgetting what's behind me
In pursuit of the Prize.

Melody Kay Young (December 2017)

Images not otherwise captioned indicating they are my own were all found online, precise sourcing unknown.