When one stoning is not enough

After Acts 9:1-3

He stands, holding the cloaks

of the rock throwers, nodding

in affirmation as stone after stone

hits chest, hits face, hits arm,

hits head, and the zealot collapses

in death. Heresy and error cannot

be ignored; it must be pounded

into insignificance. He seeks and

receives letters, recommendations

and authorizations, to smash

the heresy in other places,

destroy it, wipe it out. Letters

of arrest and imprisonment,

fill-in-the-blank for names, 

in hand, he travels north

on the Damascus Road,

unsmiling, grim visage, 

Torquemada without the sense

of humor, thirsting to find,

thirsting to bind, hungering

to destroy. Anticipating

the adulation of man,

the last thing is the blinding

flash of light from God.

Photograph by Stephen Leonardi via Unsplash. Used with permission.