His finger cut through the sand and dirt.   It wasn’t the first time he had seen his finger write in the the flesh of the earth.   On the mountain he had written the words in the stone.  He had given them to his people, those he had chosen to make his own.  Words that were meant for life.

And this is what they had done with it.  They had taken the very words meant for life and twisted them into an excuse to accuse and rain down death with stones, lists to decide who was right and who was wrong, who was in and who was out.   His words, their lists.

He could hardly finish.  They demanded that he reveal his stance on their lists: “What do you say that we should do?!?”

He stood up and looked at them. How many times had he told them his desires for them? His heart broke—for her, for them, for all those sons of hell bound by their rules.

“Whoever has no sin…you throw the first stone.”

He stooped again to continue writing, but this time he wiped the ground smooth.  He touched the ground softly and closed his eyes, he remembered what it was like when he first felt the clay in his hand that he had made into man.  He remembered the pain when they first turned away, and he had sent them from the garden.

(First written June 3, 2008)