Living as Salt and Light: Colton Bryson

Originally when I was asked to write for this week’s harvest post, I knew immediately that I wanted to write about Matthew 5:13-16. Although, as I was attempting to write a homily about it, I could not like anything I wrote. I would start a paragraph, read it, and start over again, with no word coming close to what I felt in my gut needed to be said. Rinse and repeat for several days; this was the rut that I found myself in. Typically, this bad habit is a sign when the need to be vulnerable crashes into my fear of rejection or, worse, being misunderstood. So, the night before the staff needed my post, a thought screamed into the front of my mind with the noise and wonder of a wizard bringing his homemade fireworks to a party. These words are what remained, and I am not sure what they are, so I’ll call them a poem. They come from the truth that Jesus proclaims to the disciples in these verses and how I have seen it lived out at my time here at The Wesley Foundation.  

Living as Salt and Light

When I came to this church, I thought I was fine

Another place to be a wallflower, another place to hide

They don’t need to know me, just the illusion will do fine

I give the place a week before I have to leave

No need to get close, no friends for me.

I give this place a week.

Blessed is the lonely for you won’t know heartbreak

Blessed is the silent for you won’t be rejected

Six years later, I was wrong

I certainly wasn’t fine, in ways I am still not

I stopped being a wallflower, I stopped hiding

I am being known now, what I am is fine

Not for what I can offer, simply for what I am

They love me here, especially when I can’t

I gave this place six years, and I will cry when I have to leave

We are the salt of the earth, we are the light on the stand

Living to love others, Living for others to see the light

We are the salt of the earth, We are the light on the stand

Come and see

Colton has been a faithful member of the Wesley Foundation for 5 years now. Colton is a great friend and brother to all he encounters. We are blessed to have him as a part of our community at Wesley. He truly has so much to offer, and we all look forward to him becoming an intern at Wesley Foundation.