Empathy

Empathy. It's the great human curse and the great human gift.
When you see your friends smile - it gives your heart a lift
It's the thing that fills us with utmost joy
When we know someone blessed with a new girl or boy

But it's not all cheer. There's something else inside.
Like most things in life - empathy has two sides
For every head there's a tail,  courage for each fright
There's a hero for each villain and shadows are cast by light

So I'm sure you've felt sadness you wished you could stop
Often there's feelings we just want to block.
From the small to the large, it can overwhelm.
Life can be tough with empathy at the helm.

Empathy. It's the ability to feel what others are feeling.
So let us all be grateful that human empathy has a ceiling.

Imaging you had some people you made as your own.
You'd seen them flourish, see how they'd grown.
And then you'd seen them do wrong, seen them sin.
You've a welcome home, but can never let them in.
To be separated for eternity, to experience loss.
And the only way to avoid this has the greatest cost.

Jesus. He saw us suffering. He took our sin.
Took every pain on his back. Every wrongdoing. Everything.
And marched up to a death we struggle to imagine today.
And he did it out of love. He saw our toll, and decided he'd pay.

God lost a son. We lost a saviour. It is right to mourn and be sad.
But it is human to share this feeling, so let us remember what we had.


Last poem was written for a Maundy Thursday service - but they asked me not to mention the resurrection. So, I had to write another.