Friends go to church on Sundays and girl sleeps in.
Friends wear tiny little crosses on their necks and she wears nothing.
Friends believe in a divine, arbitrary, God and she believes in nothing.

“She is more of a scientific girl,” she says.
“God created the universe,” they say.
“The Big Bang created the universe.”
“Well, why did the Big Bang happen?” They ask.
“Scientists do not know but it is not because of a God,” she says.

Yes, she turns to science and friends turn to their tiny pretty cross necklaces.
She likes science because science is reliable. science is consistent, does not forget, does not lie, does not exile you for making one mistake.

Maybe that is why she does not believe.
Not because she thinks herself above them.

But because she is afraid.

“Do not fall for tricks of the devil,” they say but she has fallen for the snake's lies many of times and relished in it every. single. instance.

She is Eve and has taken from the poison tree again and again.
That is why she is afraid.
Because if Heaven is real then she would go to Hell.

“God is all forgiving,” they say.

Lies, Adam and Eve ended up lying in a pile of broken promises and death at the end, didn’t they?

If God was so forgiving, would he forgive her for having more sins than she does hairs on her head?
If God was so forgiving would he forgive her for losing faith?
If God was so loving then why would he curse her with this fate?

If God believed in love, why doesn’t he love her? Why does he not love me?

Today, Catholics celebrate the Presentation of Mary (by her parents to the church). In the days of old, the church was the primary medium of education and, in some cases, parents would dedicate their first born to the church as a sort of tithe giving back to God in gratitude for the first fruits of their blessings.

When we are young our parents took us and presented us to the church, and we are placed in the care of wise men and women to be taught and brought up in the life and the way and the truth. This is in hopes that we would grow in wisdom and age and favor before both God and man. When we are a little older, we can choose to present ourselves before the Lord and confess by our lips and our actions that we believe and serve. We take ownership of our faith. It is not simply our parents' faith anymore.

The presentation is an offering, a sacrifice, a return in gratitude of blessings. Let us, then, come daily before the Lord Our God and present ourselves to Him, to thank Him, to offer Him all our joys and sorrows, blessings, temptations, work and play. Let us begin by presenting Him with our day.

What would happen if WE would rededicate our hearts, our days, and our lives to Christ our Lord? Doing it can't make things any worse than they are by not doing it. So why not give it a shot?

Christ and disciples
gaze from the stone tympanum —
Frozen redeemer

In darkness, a church
of carved Baroque stone
catches me walking
unawares and alone.

Two stone hands reach out
from the church outer wall.
A gesture of blessing
or a prayer for us all

in stony carved silence
that echoes the voice
of a God we can’t hear,
who stays quiet — by choice?

Just when we need
to hear they’re right here,
they feel like a veiled cloud
that is more distant than near.

Still these outstretched hands
remind me of this:
Divine’s in the touch
of human hands’ godlike gift.

Week by week, winter
clouds shroud the sun, sullen sky —
Church arch, bridge to light

The darkness of the fog
the flowers withering away
Once so full of live
Now sadness above towers
The Shows not over
Each drop leaves a scar
Soon it’ll look like a bar

It throbs and aches
It makes me remember
The unseen within
The taste of her lips
The wicked love you give
God forgive my heart
isn’t love the law

A bruise a cut a bit of blood
Hits the ground
The coldness escapes
I’ll clean up soon enough
The once blooming rising flower fields
Burn with my admire for Battlefields

Nightly I wake to the tenderness of knowing
I’m made of blood and bones
My very lifeles exilar
nothing more than a useless knife
Helps me out in the eye of the storm during my darkest nights

The pictures above
The memories in mind
I recall the beauty of your smile
Why my heart beats
Out of sync with my will
The darkness crawls in my skin
Its home is my spine
My bones may bleed a nice
place to stay away

Maybe after tonight
An uncertain event
takes my life
my dreams
my kindness
I’ll be sorry for going so soon
“I tried my best” it’s a lie
may I lay and die
without a dark thought in mind

The mason works the living stone
to shape it for its slotted place.
Pale flakes of rock fly as he hones
it to a rough-hewn sandstone face.

With chisel and mallet in granite hands
and flinty grey eyes to plumb the line,
the rock gives way in grains of sand.
He chips and flicks one blow at a time.

His fingers trace each pit and dell
that he’d worked in with his iron tools,
while nostrils fill with chalky smell —
light dust clouds through his workshop move.

As one by one his blocks are laid
by his apprentice at his side
to fill the role for which they’re made:
they’ll be joined in one more arch of pride.

More arches form as months move past
then building up to many a year:
They mark the time of a life well cast,
his mason’s mark left on each stone sheer.

Each arch arises, pointing high
to the master mason of us all,
who carves and fits in his workshop sky —
by shaping, marking us in his wall.

Then piece by piece, the church takes shape
while grains of sand from worked stones fall;
The mason, now old, his final finial makes
as falling sand an hourglass recalls.

And here I stand in centuries hence
to spot the mason’s mark he left behind,
his arches pointing upwards whence
the mason built his final shrine.

A-walking in a cobbled street,
I breathe the brittle winter air,
the crunch of frost beneath my feet.
The early hour’s sunbeams flare.
Arising in the ice-blue sky
three stone church towers stand and wait.
Their spires point to the most high
as morning sunlight splashes paint
across their well-worn windswept face.
These turrets of a sacred keep
stand silent witness, each stone traced
by time’s sharp fingers etching deep:
I hear each crack and crevice sing
a murmured prayer for us to stand
and listen to the brass bells ring
over sunlit frosted land.

Itchy white sweater
A day before December
Bells are ringing,
Ringing, singing
“Hallelujah, Hallelujah”
The people are singing
Commotion and speed walking, don’t be late!
The first day of advent,
2 lowly snowflakes falling
Too early,
And they disintegrate into the cement.
Statues of angles, and Jesus, our savior.
The bells stop ringing
And begins, “Our father who art in heaven..”
My tongue knows what to say
But we are all silent in our sin
Sinning, remorse.
Then, miraculously
He cries
Or maybe it’s a she
A Little baby.
But their cry gives a weight to the words
“Our kingdom come”
Faces turn, including mine, all guilty
While the one crying has nothing on their record.
“Thy will be done”
Their mother is smiling, stressed, shushing her bundle of joy
Who’s singing sweetly for them, for us.
Crying, pouting
Peace in the innocence of her tears
Like those 2 little snowflakes that came alone, brave
Before their harsh, downcast winter storm
“As we forgive those,”
Voices fade
“Who trespass against us”
And light pours upon the sweet child
Loving arms hold her tight, away from everything around.
Time moves fast.
“And lead us not into temptation..”
Their cry becomes desperate, louder
The mother is pleading, “shh, shh, it’s okay.”
And I die inside.
Little baby sneezes
Then pouts, again.
The cry, carrying the problems of all
Every insult,
“But deliver us from evil.”
Every regret.
“Amen.”
Every forced smile and somber moment.
And everything sits down,
All the stars in the sky,
For the poor, poor child.
No worry in those eyes,
I wish she wouldn’t stop crying
For the evil in the world.
My heart cries along with her
And together we are reassured that love exists.
“Hallelujah,
Hallelujah.”