I have learned that an open heart is a broken heart. A common reaction to pain, stress, or trauma is to close down as a defense mechanism. While the world has plenty of pain, stress, and trauma, a healthy response eventually requires opening up and taking risks, despite our vulnerabilities. The title of this poem is an allusion to the “preferential option for the poor,” a tenet of Latin American liberation theology, specifically that the poor and disenfranchised have special access or connection to humanity (and God) through experiences of vulnerability. This is the flip-side of a well-establish sociological fact, that the power of the rich and privileged insulates them from humanity, even their own humanity.
God’s Preferential Option
When we feel under
Attack
Our hearts contract
Until the beating stops
Pain no mind
To that open question
God’s preferential option
For the pour
Out into the whirled
A bloody mess
