boxes

does God sort people into boxes,
saving them--

I guess He would need a whole room full of
separate
boxes just for the States of
american christians

the patriotic ones, for sure, go mostly in this box
waving their flags and their constitutions and their godly heritage
their ikons of pigtailed founding fathers

these ones are wearing bluejeans, they will lift up their hands,
they have free and beloved tattooed on their wrists and their shoulders
their box is blinking blueviolet
bass throbbing
over the praise chorus phrases
the phrases and phrases and phrases
that box contains a real worship experience,
they agree
some of them aren't solid on Who
does it matter

a box for the working class whites
much worn down around the corners
warped and speckled with grease stains and sweat stains
prickling, resentful
(what happens to the anomalies
who decide to go for doctrine
do they get a new box
or do they get thrown in with the middle class Presbyterians
and the wealthy Baptists,
with their skirts and their suits and their $400 youth camps and their
nice
christian
safe
expensive
white
church schools)

you would think the liberal box would be pretty big
with ample space for thinking
but mostly they just fill the room up with
pinkhearted sobs and hugs
in between their
(can we say it in God's room?)
social justice work

Boxes for the white ones
the brown ones 
the black ones
a few for the ones who want to be mixed up

the psalm singers
the amen shouters
the babblers and fainters

i feel like maybe i should slip into the box He keeps
shoved under the bed
the one with all the broken pieces--

Our stories get us most of us tangled
so maybe He (metaphorically) asks us
where we want to go do this whole
"one another" thing,
which other we feel will be the least
well
other

in heaven do we get to switch churches if we
get that "outsider" feeling?