You Can’t Take Everybody With You

They won’t all follow—

not into the wilderness.

Not when your feet

step past the steeple’s shadow

and into the burning questions

that never made it into Sunday’s lesson.

You whisper the doubt

like a sin you’re still scared to name,

and they hush you—

with scripture, with shame,

with the smile that says

you’re slipping.

But how do you stay

when the Spirit that once stirred

is silent

and your soul grows louder

outside the sanctuary?

You tried to bring them.

Held out your hands,

offered the bread of your becoming,

but they wanted certainty,

not your cracked-open truth.

Sometimes the exodus

isn’t lined with trumpets and parting seas—

sometimes it’s silent,

with the ache of empty pews

and the knowledge

that love doesn’t always mean understanding.

So you walk,

barefoot and brave,

carrying only your name,

your questions,

and the firelight of your own becoming.

And if they never follow—

know this:

freedom still sings

even when you walk alone.