Intro: Safety

I do not believe
But I celebrate and pray.
Loved ones pray for me.

Perhaps if I pray,
And someone is listening,
It will save my soul.

Probably, it won’t
Unless I believe in Him
And He’s really there

Perhaps, if I pray,
God will then reveal Himself.
Then I could believe.

It would be so grand.
If I knew He would take me.
To all my loved ones.

One friend has told me.
That because I once believed,
That still I am saved.

It feels like cheating.
But he insists it is not.
He says God loves me.

That’s what my name means
In the language of Moses:
“Beloved of God”

Once, I loved him back.
That feeling has never changed.
Though faith has withered.

Infinitesimal
The size of a mustard seed,
That can move mountains.

That’s what my friend says.
That’s reason enough to pray.
So I still do it.

Silent. On my own.
Sometimes I pray with loved ones.
It never hurt me.

It makes me happy.
When I do, I feel better.
Nothing’s wrong with that.

Pray with your loved ones;
It will make you feel better;
And won’t hurt at all.

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Sonnet: Grace

So did He come, or was He born, this day?
And verily, amazing then was He;
As all such told events involving Him?
This world he touched, were still it plain to see?

What kind of wisdom did He teach or say?
Were such He taught for all of us to hear?
And was it truly more than just a whim?
And is He, when I speak to Him, as near?

And what may any tell me of His way?
And how doth anybody truly know?
And was His story equally as grim;
Horrific as its end, at first, would show?

What chapter did betrayal then begin?
Is true, the hymn, He washeth us of sin?

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Sonnet: No Faith

Can now, I truly see the Holy Ghost?
Believing yet in nothing, not the Son,
And not the Father, nor the fallen one;
With only a desire to play as host

To a belief which, at its very most,
Do I admire to adopt–and shun
All else; for now, I see the truth, and run
To-ward a stark, inevitable, coast;

A coast whose beaches speak a Holy Truth;
Though that alone is not why I so care.
It is a great utility of youth;
Yet pains me that it cannot be a tool
Whose faith will serve me, if indeed ’tis there,
Unless a man accept it, as a rule.

Sonnet: Hidden Virtue

I thought, one day, I wrote a thing of beauty.
Later on, when taking it in hand,
And sharing it with those, as was my duty;
Neither they, nor I, could understand.

The virtue of a verse is that its meaning,
Often may completely hidden be.
And God, it seems, prefers a lack of gleaning;
With His truth revealed more cryptically.

I thought I could, from Heaven, feel Him looking;
Sung my hymn about it, none could hear;
Though none would deign to join me in my brooking;
Never did a votary appear.

I read, again, my words much later; and
I finally began to understand.

Sonnet IV: One Step Away

But really, I am fine as I began.
Without the curse of living free from strife,
I really have the very best of life.
Although not much is mine, I truly can

Bespeak my luck. I truly am a man
Who cannot duck his purpose, who is rife
With strength to take his coming step. That life
Is something best among, or better than

The best the universe can offer me;
Or better still–the strife that makes it sweet–
Its promise will, so  lift and ever free
My soul for endless triumph and defeat.
If only God, who gifts me so, could see
The need to keep His gifts to me discrete.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence: click here to read it all:

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Sonnet II: Sleep and Death

And yet, thou, quiet at my side, asleep
Hast thus me graced.  Thine own sweet breath,
Thy fairest face so still, but not as death,
As once I thought the only link to keep

Us ever joined would be.   So dark, so deep
Would be our misery; our fate, beneath
A cruel, unblinking sky, would us bequeath,
Or God should grace us, but to weep;

For dreams forsaken, squandered; and to those
From which we shrank, unbidden, with resolve,
With fear, or anger; yet our lives revolve
Around the one, and only one, we chose.

Though only death was certain, dearest wife,
‘Tis better still that it began with life.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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