Are you listening,
contemporary Jonah?
There's that Voice again
. Go warn the people,
the people of Nineveh!
Share what you have!
Communicate!
Turn them on
with Truth!
Yes, there's a ship at Joppa
ready to sail to Tarshish,
far away, safe Tarshish.
And you have the fare.
How smooth that sleep below decks,
how bland the forgetting,
turning off the roar
of sea and wind.
And why should the "chosen,"
the formally religious,
inconvenience himself
to save a bunch of degenerates?
You argue—since they appear to
deserve extinction
why warn them?
That other Jonah crept below
and slept—but briefly.
He never reached Tarshish.
Don't wait, contemporary Jonah,
for the mountainous depths
and the entangling weeds
and the engulfing "fish"
and the pitiable gourd
to force recognition
that God's compassion reaches all.
No "exclusives" to Him.
No race or color bar,
no unwanted;
no second-rate citizen.
All—"Ninevite" and "Hebrew"—
one united generation
to be loved,
to be set free.
