[Yesterday’s gospel reading inspired my response to today’s prompt.]

The fisherman had left his work, his boat, his nets;
he had left his home, his family, his life
to follow this man who had filled his nets
and then called him to leave them, to follow him.
And he had gone.

Never had the fisherman felt so close to God,
never had he felt so free and yet so safe,
never had he seen such wonders, heard such wisdom.

I could follow him forever, the fisherman thought.
I am happy begging with and for him.
I am content to puzzle over his words.
All I want is to stay close to him, always and forever.

Who was this man, after all, the fisherman asked himself.
A holy man, certainly;
a prophet, without doubt;
the Messiah, perhaps;
but also, it now seemed, a crazy person.

Because now this holy prophet
who perhaps was Messiah
told them to leave him,
not to return to their homes,
but to do all that he did
without him.

“Go,” Jeshua said,
“Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse lepers, drive out demons.”

The fisherman struggled with pride and anger.
Pride because the man he called Rabbi and Lord trusted he could do this.
Anger because what that man,
whom he thought might be the Messiah,
asked of him, of them, was absurd.

What had been a privilege suddenly seemed like a trick.
This was more than even the Pharisees expected
and they expected the impossible.

Maybe, just maybe, with intense prayer and strong faith,
he could cure the sick
at least some of the sick
once in awhile.

Maybe, just maybe, with even more prayer and stronger faith,
he could drive out a demon or two
if they cooperated
once in awhile.

But raise the dead? Raise the dead?
His thoughts skewed into panic as he tried to picture it.
He saw himself standing in front of a grieving mother at her son’s funeral
offering hope and delivering – nothing.

Surely that is what will happen, thought the fisherman.
And yet, and yet, I have seen what this man can do,
I have heard his words of wisdom.
I believe in him and he believes in me.

Can I do this, the fisherman asked himself.
And then he remembered the words of that frantic father,
“I believe, Lord, help thou my unbelief.”

[A work in progress in response to another challenging prompt from Two Sylvias Press]

I fear no evil says the psalm
As I recline on God’s green knolls
Choirs sing of Gilead’s sweet balm
To heal our sin-sick souls

But I fear that faith is but illusion
A tale told but to soothe my soul
I fear my life’s too soon conclusion
My self, my story just more burnt coal

I long for a simple fear – like heights
Clowns, drowning, living alone
Spiders, snakes, or even flight –
To be my comfortable millstone

Ah, but then, perhaps, I’d live my time
Without the need to ever rhyme

[The poetry prompts from Two Sylvias Press keep me writing – even when my head is too full of gunk for much thought.]

Tonight I believe in

Smelly old dogs
restless at my feet

A warm nightshirt
Warmer slippers
Warmest robe
worn all day

Achy breaky bodies
Endless snot
Used tissues
Tiredness
Hot cinnamon tea
Echinacea
ADP
Vitamin C
But also
Kroger cold and flu meds

Has anyone ever died
of sneezing?

Has anyone ever lived
with an endless cold?

Tonight I believe in
Health
despite all evidence
to the contrary

[A new day, a new prompt from Two Sylvias Press, and what poured out is not entirely comfortable but probably, in the way of poetry, more true than I would like to admit.]

“I think I’m getting sick”
I told my husband
the evening before I drove to New Jersey
without him
for a Thanksgiving family gathering.

(The hardest problem
Perhaps
with a later in life marriage
when original spouses are dead
The hardest problem
as I was saying
is grown children grown possessive
after your years alone
The hardest problem
is the hard pull
over-balancing togetherness
to different children for holidays)

So it was that I sniveled
“I think I’m getting sick”
“Likely the bubonic plague, or worse”
As my bones froze
my heart stopped
my gut wrenched
Another family gathering
on my own.

“I lose myself”
I whimpered
My already melting confidence dissolving
“I can’t find my mind”

“It’s not fair”
I whined
My always shaky adultness devolving further
“Your family is easy”
“Mine is terrifying”

Brené Brown tells me
(During one of our cozy chats)
of the difference
between belonging and fitting in

A fascinating but moot point:
I neither belong nor fit in

Still, I went
The odometer on the car
proves that I went

But
terror-stricken
certain of failure
fearful of disappointing
Again
my mind stayed home
or waited, shivering, by the highway

I wasn’t really there.

[Inspired by the 3rd day of Advent prompts by Two Sylvia’s Press]

Though the patriarchy circle their antique medicine wagons
Though pale men study ancient hallowed tomes
Though cries of heresy resonate in archaic templed halls

Still the veil is frayed, split
The inner sanctum opened
As it must, as it should
As justice rolls down, finally,
A woman raises high the chalice

No extra nor extraordinary revelation needed
For women to be priests

[Inspired by the second Advent prompt from the Two Sylvia’s Press]

Most of my time was a millennium ago

Starting school
Row upon row of old wooden desks
Dozens upon dozens of us
Unformed, uninformed, uniformed
Precisely perfectly seated
Soft unmarked hands folded
On hard scarred desktops

Sister Somebody fingers through the beads
Hung in the fifteen decade rope from her waist
Fifteen? Maybe more
Whatever the length, Sister Somebody’s rosary
Is longer, presumably holier, than ours

Our Father, who art so mysterious
Yet so very teachable, memorizable
In Baltimore’s catechismal certainties

We learn who made us, why we were made
The how of the making understood
Without teaching: The Who answers the how
But the how of the why: that is critical
Why were we made?
To know, to love, to serve
God
How do we know, love, serve
God?

Still, in this new millennium, the old anger surges
The answer to God is…
All answers are…
The Church!
(Unnecessary
Entirely
Superfluous
To say the Roman Catholic Church –
There is only
One true Church)

In our time, this is how we save our souls
With the Apostles’ Creed
And every other belief, rule, regulation
Of THE Church,
The one and only
True and holy
Catholic and apostolic
CHURCH

(Not for our time the later teaching
Of small c catholic universal
No, in our time it was always and only
Capital C Catholic)

The long decades slip
Through Sister Somebody’s fingers
Our Father, Glory be, Hail Mary
I believe in one and only one
God, Church, Pope, Virgin Mother
Way to save my soul

The long lines slip
Through Father Faithful’s confessional
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned
(Ah, the seemingly blessed naivety
Of believing Father and Sister sinless
We the only in need of forgiveness)
I confess my forbidden urges
Desires, imaginings
To hide the worst:
My questionings

The long dreams slip
Shod in soulful supplications
Robed in tattered efforts
Bare of unearned grace
Through my life
My faith, my prayers
My secret garden of questions

And then,
Unexpectedly
Abruptly
Into my time
Bursts puberty
One war
Three Johns
Four Beatles
And one colored preacher

Sister Somebody’s beaded rope ruptures
Father Faithful’s confessional closet collapses
Hell no, we won’t go
Church windows creak open to new breezes
A white American male scribes a circle above the earth and returns
A Catholic is President of Camelot
Lucy is in the sky with diamonds
And we imagine a world without religion too
As a black man proclaims his dream at Lincoln’s feet

Our time (though still a tired old millennium)
booms with new revelations
holy revolutions
unholy anarchy
no longer secret questions
and two new-old answers
two great commandments

Because all you need is love

Until the time of the new millennium