There is no lyric
in my soul today
and I fear that
my theology
my church
my religion
are shovels of dirt
thrown down and over
my lyrical soul
as we talk about
evidences and truth
explanations and outlines.
Mystery is summarily executed
and faith is a word
lobotomized and defined.
The hope in a lonely sparrow
tracing the rooftops,
the mystery and depth
of wilderness and wildness,
the flash of color
glimpsed through trees
on a winter day.
Such embodied and liturgical –
yes, sacramental – elements
of creation and new creation –
yes, eternity – are thought
peripheral, perhaps heretical,
banished to the trash heap
of blasphemy.
This shrinking of the world –
yes, of the Spirit –
to fit inside these
brick and mortared walls,
inside these syntaxes of grammar,
inside these boundaries
of flesh and bone
turn the Bible into
a thing to be memorized,
theology something to be
systematized, and creativity
something to be utilized.
Worship a thing to
be organized.
When the wideness and
wildness of God comes
in flashing shadows
across the snow at dusk.
When ears yield
to the language of
praise from the beak
of a cardinal.
When I have eyes
to see and ears to
hear the density
of beauty in the
world all around us.
Then my mind takes flight
and a lyric begins
in my soul.