What Is It? Poem by Kathryn Tyler King

What is in the world that makes us sad?
What is it that causes many to hunger?
Could there be some work to be had
So that only one person could be freer?

What is it that makes us far from sight,
From the needy desperate lot of man,
From eyes full of tears and eyes lacking light
That must first be shown to our lives bent?

What is it in our lives that keeps pulling
Our minds and hearts from this world
Instead of helping those poor and healing
Those too many to count, numbers unfurled?

What is it this year that will bring change
In our lives as we walk close to these?
Will it cause much yearning to go and exchange
our lives of wealth and such ease?

What will it take to open our blind eyes
to the filth, despair, enragement and disease,
so that by a hand held out to the cries
of such a world needing love and release? Jesus is the light.