Stones: By Kester Brewin

Stones

If we could all

just stop throwing stones,

and stoop, knees bent

and write in the dust,

we'd see that the dust

was once stone -

grand, and hard, and proud, and tough -

now ground and dissolved

in grace and tears.

So... how much better

to be a grain of dirt

on that kind prophet’s hands

than a stone

in the cold, accusing Temple

of the pure?

© KB 2007

I wrote this poem out of anguish, I suppose. Anguish at the terrible propensity we have for throwing stones at one another, when deep down we all know we are all worthy of accusation. I simply love that passage in Scripture, where Jesus ‘writes in the dust’. I quote in the book how Rowan Williams discusses this passage in his short meditation on being in New York on the morning of September 11th 2001.  He writes that Jesus “does not draw a line, fix an interpretation, tell the woman who she is and what her fate should be. He allows a moment, in which people are given time to see themselves differently precisely because he refuses to make the sense they want. When he lifts his head, there is both judgement and release. So this is writing in the dust because it tries to hold that moment for a little longer, long enough for some of our demons to walk away.