I have posted a poem influenced by chaplaincy before but I am hoping to make this a more common occurrence in the future and so we will call this a series. Here is poem number 1:

“Love Has Room”

By Chris Barber

I walk into rooms

like water in a jar,

taking the shape of sorrow or silence,

grief or joy,

peace or hope.

Yet I remain myself—

clear, honest, whole.

I am learning

that healing does not arrive

in answers,

but in presence

in the sacred echo

of someone being heard

by someone who truly listens.

That empathy is not an effort.

It is surrender

to feel with, not fix.

To be near, not above.

To let another’s reality

unfold

without rearranging it

to fit my own.

Love,

the truest theology I know,

does not coerce or corner.

Love creates space

for struggle,

for questions,

for concerns,

for honesty,

And for becoming.

I trust now

that every soul

has something within

already reaching

toward the Light,

Reaching for Love

and my role

is to make room

for that reaching.