People are Transformed

The professor speaks of proofs,
angles sharp as cathedral spires,
words thick as mortar,
logic stacking brick upon brick—
a fortress of intellect,
solid, immovable,
and as cold as stone.

The apologist comes with armor shining,
each rebuttal a polished blade,
answers as precise as clockwork,
clicking and turning,
tick, tock,
time winding toward some grand truth.
But the gears grind,
the machine hums in an empty room.

People don’t bleed for diagrams,
don’t weep over syllogisms.
No one stands at the altar of rational analysis
and finds the wounds in their soul healed.

What changes a man, a woman?
Not equations scrawled in chalk,
not debates that shine like glass
but shatter with a single breath.

A hand extended,
when the night is heaviest,
a voice that doesn’t argue
but says simply,
I see you.

I love you.

Transformation isn’t a storm
but a seed—
buried, hidden in the dirt,
where the intellect would never look.

The mother who stays awake in the blue hours,
praying for a child who spits anger like fire.
The stranger who shares a crust of bread
without asking your name.

These are the quiet fires,
burning in the shadows,
unseen by the debaters,
ignored by the builders of towers.

A man turns not because he is convinced,
but because he is loved.
Not because he loses the argument,
but because he finds grace
in the eyes of someone
who refuses to turn away.

God did not come down
with a chalkboard and a lecture.
He came with dust on His feet,
the grit of our streets in His voice,
and hands that touched
what others called unclean.

No apologetic method could weep
at the tomb of a friend.
No intellectual answer could kneel
in the garden,
sweating blood
for a world that didn’t understand.

People are transformed
not by answers
but by presence.
By a heart that doesn’t recoil,
even when the darkness
feels like it will swallow everything.

Let the fortress crumble.
Let the blades rust.
There is a simpler gospel,
a truth that whispers,
that breathes,
that holds out its arms and says,
Come home.

John 13:35: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

(c) R Gordon Zyne