Raw thoughts on the parable of the good Samaritan, heard at Morning Prayer
Mercy does not come cheap
at two denarii,
a night’s unpaid delay,
the physical labour of lifting
a grown man onto a donkey,
walking with bags of
who-knows-what?,
sharing the burden with the beast;
the stress to the gut
of tending a stranger’s blood,
swallowing revulsion
that tastes like bile;
the promise to return
by a perilous road
which has already cost
a barrel of mercy,
which is worth its weight
in grace
over the water 