When Jesus Plans Your Family Reunion

On Sunday, I went through my old files looking for a St. Francis poem that I thought I had written--but I was thinking of an Ash Wednesday poem. While searching, I found an old manuscript of Jesus in the world poems, many of which I had forgotten writing. Because my time is short this morning, I'll post one of them here. Let me make sure to mention that the people in this poem are not based on real friends and relations. It is published for the first time here.Reunion We let Jesus plan our family reunion, and we won’t be doing that again. He searched through the stunted branches of the family tree and invited them all: Weird PopPop Walter, who went to war and was never the same, Cousin Buddy who married that poor little black girl, Aunt Leona, who we never forgave for stealing all of Mamaw’s silver. And then Jesus went and invited strangers to our feast. People we didn’t know from Adam’s housecat. We’re lucky they didn’t rob us blind. Where Jesus thought all these people would park, I…