Pilate’s Question

What is truth?


Does it have a name?

Though I have been called many things that I am not
And am many things I have not been called
I am

I have stood before
Rulers and the ruled
Knees bent
To Him alone

What is in a name?

It has been said that in life
Nothing is personal
But what is more personal
than this
Ritual of rites
Than the substance of things hoped for
The evidence of things not seen

What is in a name
That could be of such value
That even the King of Kings and Lord of Lords
Of whom one day every knee shall bow
And every tongue shall confess
Had to prompt his public for their praise
Beg his betrothed for their mercy

Yet is it not in His name that everything absolved by loss
Is restored?

Who, then, does she think she is?
This girl, this not even a woman, this child
That stands before us?

I am my mother’s daughter
A sister to Erica
A grand daughter To Harrison and Mary Rhynes
And Thelma and Walter Milam
Who chased the Hot east blowing wind
From dream heavy red Texas to California shipyards
I am the tears in my slave ancestor’s hopes
I am imperfection perfecting
A public servant
A private dreamer
A practical optimist
a mere moment held by this space
to disappear in the great vacuum of time
Yet in it, my hope is resolved
I was not supposed to survive
Period, not comma,
Period, not comma,
But I live because He lives in me
A woman of few means, but great resources
A child of God
a servant of Jesus Christ
Son of the most high God


And who knows if I have come to such a time
And place as this for this purpose?

So you ask me who I am?

I simply return the favor,
I simply pray that God grant you mercy
Kindness and love
And that you wake up in the morning, knowing
That you are not your own, nor are you here on your own

I answer the question with a question asked long ago

Who do you say I am?

What is truth?