false shelter

 She heard the call:

Let your false shelter fall

but she’d lived in it so long-
the walls bore witness to her story, her pain
they held up her medals, her lists
and the scores she’d kept all her life;
they kept out the cold fears (did they?)

And the outside, carefully painted
“she has it all together”
and “everything’s fine here”

plus, all the people like her like this
there is a seat for everyone on her porch
and all their drinks of choice in her fridge

yet in the wind she heard: “YOU, come- take and drink…”

out there? How could she leave?
she needed
the walls, with reinforcements
to keep out the ugly, the evil (did they?) 

she needed

it’s scary and unpredictable out there, after all.
She closed the shutters against the wind,
Leaned on her wall to steady herself
against the holy threat

she needed

And Jesus, looking at her, loved her.
“Leave all that you have and follow me.”
he said, with gentle eyes and an extended hand

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.