Every month, I post one of my poems (paired with one of my pictures), sharing its origin and some of its essence. Here is my Poem & Pic of the Month for March 2015:
Blind Faith
by Patrick Bishop
I don't care about the labels of your morality:
Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Zen, Agnostic, Atheist
mean little to me
What I want to connect with is
the goodness of your soul
the tenderness of your heart
the joy of your being you
the suffering that breaks you open
I'm scared of people
who always have the right answer
Your beliefs don't make you holy
It is not who you project to me that I love
My heart resonates with your
fragility, weakness and courageous vulnerability
passion, kindness and strength of character
because that's when we're one
That's when we become the face of God
That's when we become
the cosmic Christ, the spark, the Buddha,
the mercy, the Atman, the Tao, the who knows, the nothing
Faith isn't certitude
Faith is living with doubt
Faith is walking blind on the path It's holding the pain and loving the question
It is not faith that moves mountains
Faith moves me
so I can appreciate the grand splendor
of the unfathomable mountain
and come to realize
my place is not to move, but to be moved
Background
I wrote this in August 2014, sitting on a deck overlooking a tiny lake in Newaygo County. I grew up a staunch Catholic, spent time as a fundamentalist, considered myself a Buddhist for a while, travel to the edges of Agnosticism and Atheism, and then came back again, but in a completely different way. For many years, I read almost anything I could get my hands on regarding spirituality and-or the origin of religions. On this particular day, I was reflecting on how far I've come in my personal journey and how the labels of religion don't hold much meaning for me anymore. I was also thinking about how little I used to know about some pretty basic tenets of my faith; even the meaning of the word faith itself. I've had my view of spirituality and religion and the human heart completely turned upside down and put back together in an entirely new way these past ten years. This poem reflects some of these changes.
The Picture
I am appreciating the simple beauty of this little chapel dressed in flowers within the framework of "the grand splendor of the unfathomable mountain" (Sedona, California).
© 2015 by Patrick Bishop; all rights reserved.