She Is Constantly on Display

She is constantly on display
And seeking approval,
Even when no one is watching—
Worn out in the endless
Striving to meet expectations
That had never had anything to do with
Goodness and love and truth
In the first place.

And for the cold force of habit,
Established now these many years.
She cannot easily put it down.

And besides that, she is filled with fear
At the thought of changing audiences
And turning herself over completely to
The only Spectator whose standards
And approval really matter.

The choice is clear to her, she says,
But still she answers the call
Of the voices that echo in her mind—
And she will not decide
To tell them they are wrong
And have no claim over her—

For she still lacks the courage
She has always lacked in herself,
And had hoped to find instead
In someone else—

In some other human,
To be more precise.

She has been looking
In earthly places
For heavenly things—
Never really grasping that
Even if they find their way
Into hearts on Earth,
It is never so fully as
Not to disappoint
From time to time.

And having been disappointed much,
She is not certain that God himself
Would not disappoint her, too,
Should she should leave
The one hope for the Other.

So she wavers—
Stuck in a past
That does not work,
For fear of a future that could not fail.

She insists on bringing the past with her
To where it does not belong.

And I think it would help if she understood that
The fathers in this beautiful/ugly world—
Whether their souls be beautiful or ugly—
Were never meant to be that ultimate
Bastion of security that can be found
Only in our Eternal Father.

It is the duty of even the best of them
To turn their daughters’ hopes to the Eternal One,
Rather than to themselves.

So even if she had had one of
The very best fathers this Earth can produce,
He would have pointed her to the very God
She is afraid of now, and counseled her
To dare to invest her belief fully
In that Goodness.

To make matters worse, she mistakes
The void she feels in her heart
As a signal that she is damaged goods,
When it is itself the very calling
To seek the only thing
That can truly fill it up.

And still she seeks the approval
Of people that she knows,
Deep down in her heart
Cannot.

But I will keep hoping
That she will dare
To turn fully to God
While she still has time
To let go of the past—
Before it follows her
Up to that meeting
And ruins her prospects there
As it does here.