Jesus and Me

For a dyed-in-the wool agnostic, I find myself making religious references often in my writing. Not quite sure about why but this poem, I hope, helps to explain it.

agnostic prayer (de profundis)

from the heart of my arid soul
and the depth of my lack of faith
a surprise

the procurator's blood red cloak
the prisoner's willing suffering
jeering mob
crying mother
frightened followers
the hard violence 
of swords and soldiers
nails and crosses

impulses and feelings
thoughts the material world
cannot explain

perhaps my upbringing
dominus vobiscum
et cum spiritu tuo
or a touch of the sun
or a touch of the son
agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi

pierce my side

perhaps
his willingness to suffer
reluctance to blame
tears and sweat and blood
at what must be

pin me here

they say god is above
they say god is love
faithless now
yet still there is love

I suppose, for me, poetry has always been what I referred to in my St Monans blog as "trying to write the trouble out of my head."  After all these years away from a faith I rejected as a teenager, I am still deeply affected by images from the New Testament.  Cynical friends will probably say, "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic" but it really isn't that. I have no interest in participation in any organised religion and feel only dismay at the spectacle the Catholic Church has made of itself in my lifetime - ironically through a lack of Christian virtues.  Years ago in the Sacre Coeur in Paris I picked up a leaflet produced by the Church aimed at non-believers and "Catholiques, negligents peut-etre" which ended with a prayer that has stayed with me.

"Oh God, whom they call love, if you exist, enlighten me."

But he never has.