The Samaritan woman…

Below is a poem written by one of our apprentices, Nora Ip. She wrote it for a ‘too hot to handle’ session we did at our church the other week. It’s a dramatic retelling of the Samaritan woman’s story from John’s gospel. I should probably put some kind of age restriction on it, but I’ll leave that to your discretion.

I think it’s a great piece of writing, so hope you enjoy!

A Samaritan woman.

A woman:
that’s all I am.
Lower;
lesser.
Unheard unless spoken to;
unseen unless demanded for;
unneeded unless annoyed with.

A Samaritan:
that’s what I am.
A half-breed; half-there;
never quite there;
not pure; not full.

And that’s how I feel.
How right I feel.
How fitting it is that I am who I am,
regarded what I am,
treated the way I am.

And I aggravate it;
I push to –
though not in order to –
see how far it all goes,
how far it can go.
And I think it should go much further;
it should all go much further.
Mistreatment is one thing; its ethical fallacy one thing.
But existence is another; the right to consider what’s right another.

How can I begin to judge what I experience,
what they put me through,
what the way of this world is,
when I can’t even begin to understand why I ever came about?

So I exist.
That’s what I do.
And the world retorts.
That’s what it does.
This is how it does.

And all I also do is comply.
That’s all the strength I find to do.
The world has its ideas,
its news and controversies.
It battles in passion;
it fights for glory;
it seems to live…
But I don’t relate to it;
I can’t feel it.

I’m just about me;
sustaining me.
That’s all I know,
and I despise it.
I can’t even do it properly;
I can barely keep with it.