Worship

Worship
Copyright 2017 Don Ray

It is of course worship, desperate, frantic, clinging worship.

It is worship of a memory, a past and prescient and present memory,

a memory alone in its nature,

a memory ineffable.

It is merely worship,

worship pure and distilled,

worship clumsy and groping;

worship of the unknown,

worship of the uncertain,

worship born of faith undeniable,

that kernel of faith left when all that once passed for faith has dissolved away.

It is worship curious and reactive,

necessary and driven,

worship demanding and submissive,

worship surrendering and waiting.

It is worship intensely alone, 

excruciatingly individual.

No convenient totems and trinkets, 

mandalas and statues,

idols and altars, 

none of that for this worship.

This is worship without rules and regulations, 

without dogma and dictates.

This is worship without preconception,

worship without expectation.

This is worship by the soul that understands nothing.

This is worship immune to liturgy and lecture.

Let the priests play in their robes and vestments,

let the congregation sit and rise and recite, 

let the supplicants bow and prostrate,

but this worship will have none of it.

This is worship alternatingly steely eyed and teary eyed.

This is worship lived out in life.

This is worship honest and stripped,

honest with the self and honest with that unseen Greater beyond the self.

This is worship perplexed and angry and grieving and despairing.

No wishful thinking, this worship.

No blind acceptance, this faith.

This is worship in abject doubt underlain by immutable certainty.

Yes, it is worship indeed,

this thing called living,

this struggle for spiritual survival.

It is indeed worship,

holy and authentic.

Let others answer questions, and others avoid questions.

This is worship of 

the questions themselves - 

- the Spirit that insists there is more to know -

- the Sustainer that assures there will be answers - 

- and the Source that empowers us, empowers these children, to ask the questions.

Copyright 2017 Don Ray
Pass it on.