A Womb For All
A Womb For All
Compassion is a womb—
not a wall.
It is the scandal of touch
when doctrine demands
distance,
the trembling hand that crosses
the purity line,
the ache in the gut
when another’s hunger
fills your own belly.
It is the mercy
that outlives law,
the wound that refuses
to close itself off—
a holiness that bleeds
into the world’s open sores,
refusing to stay clean.
It is the voice that says:
your pain is not foreign
to me,
your exile not beyond
my embrace.
To be holy,
not by separation,
but by solidarity—
to be wounded
and wombed
for the sake of the world.
Let us be unclean
together,
if that is what love demands.
Let us build altars
from broken bread
and torn veils,
where the only code
is mercy
and the only law
is a heart,
opened wide
as a womb
for all.
WJ de Kock
For more content from WJ de Kock, please subscribe to his Substack: The Rooster in Flight. His recent article titled “The Virus Of Purity: How America’s Mass Deportation Echoes Ancient Holiness Codes” is a vital read for this time in history.