Letters to my Sons: The Fruit Ignored
Love, joy, peace… goodness.
Famous fruit of the Spirit. Gentleness…
To be grown and plucked.
And faith, temperance… by
A meekness, strong to battle
Injustices and friendly fire.
These we love…
We love to quote with patience,
But long-suffering is the fruit ignored.
It is the dirty fruit… the painful fruit.
It is the fruit of the Spirit that we mumble through.
Long-suffering is the wilderness goat,
The space we want others to handle, to hold,
To lead to infamy. Only for others to fellowship…
To sip it’s isolation. Disbarred. Shunned.
To wander the wilderness alone.
Yet a fruit of the Spirit, grown and
Watered and nourished and blessed…
Just like the other eight… but deemed
As leprous to angry lives… who are too busy
To fellowship its strength, its need, its nobility…
The black sheep of this family of fruit
Meaty spirit food… manifested, to those
Who are compressed, infected and insane
With this crazy intercessory love. Fruit of the Spirit… growing
A root out of the driest ground… the hopeless ground
Deep roots reaching a hidden river, a river with no banks
Pure life that ripens the sweetest fruit for the most bitter times
It suffers ignorance, rejection, for it is deemed as a fruit
That we must let the more saintly endure. It is fruit of the Spirit
That is for our every day… a fruit that is for the dear ones
Who ache running on fumes alone. It is the balanced fruit
Which the wise do not ignore
Lovedmadlydeeplymuchly…papa
