The Cure for Consumption


To consume 
Without satisfaction
Is to take for the sake of wanting,
To look for the sake of searching,
To eat for the sake of craving,
To scroll in the hope of waking
From that stupor of consumption:
That wasting disease that wants
More, the more it gets.

It is a disease that tries
Making bricks without straw.
It turns lakes into mirages
And robs a parched man
Of the ability to drink while
He stands in the rain,
Face Heavenward, lips sealed.

He'll soon turn to stone standing there 
Taking but never having,
Looking but never finding,
Eating but never full.
His appetite whet
By the things pointing
To their maker, the one
Who fashioned man's strength
And vision and appetites.
 
One peek behind that veil
Would level him,
Would overflow his capacity
And wake all his senses to goodness.
But the God he wants 
He fears will ask everything.
So he does not look.
He does not kneel,
And thus, consumption
Consumes him.

Be not that man forever hungry,
Forever blundering and afraid
Of the God who wants you
As much as you need him.

Rather, be the man of courage
Who gives all now for that
Glimpse behind the veil here,
And, in eternity, entry
Into the very presence of God:
The one we are looking for.

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