Perspective

in our alphabet soup of denominations
there is often a ready sneer
for “the wrong kind of Lutherans”
those who do or don’t welcome
the right or wrong kind of people,
scripture fashioned into daggers
for slashing apart divergent theology
at the very first hint of heresy.
yet I see my colleague across the table
with his faded white hair and tired skin;
I know there’s much on which we disagree
by virtue of our respective acronyms,
but today I see the clay worn thin;
a fragile fellow creature of earth
brought once more to the precipice,
to the edge of the great mystery,
and for at least a moment or two
all those letters that divide us
just don’t matter at all.