A Little Mud upon My Sunday Best

Accused of compromise, but not the sort that's seen
as something good and helpful, as in when parties
make concessions so that they can work together,
get things done.
Positive, uplifting, quite the coup at work, in politics,
a sign of understanding and detente.
This wasn't that,
but darker, with an edge, a cut, the compromise that says I've lowered once-high standards and now wallow
in the mire and muck of subterfuge, deception,
falsehood, lies, and nothing Good.
It stung a little, I won't say it didn't.
Am I wrong? I pondered (since that is a possibility),
and then considered what the greatest law has always
been: love God,
and equally important,
love the neighbors of this world we share.
I don't recall a stipulation that we also try to fix them,
push them in our same direction, tell them they are
going straight to hell unless they think exactly as
we think, exactly as we think that God thinks - he whose
mind and thoughts are (stated clearly) so much higher
than our own, including all the thinking that
someone on television spouts, or wrote a book about
or someone quoted someone's quote who quoted
someone else. I think it's more a matter of
attracting them, of having so much fun and love
and joy and peace right in the middle of the messes
that life brings so often,
that they're curious,
and ask to come along.
That's worth a little mud, I think,
upon the crispness
of my Sunday best.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015