My exposure to Christianity was primarily through interaction with the Catholic Church. When I was growing up we lived in walking distance of a convent. I often played with the novitiates in the apple orchard behind their dorm. Their chapel was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. The stations of the cross exquisite tempera's with gold leaf, the statues, the flowers, the scents, the music; this was really my first exposure as a child to ART.
I thought I'd put up for you, some of the poetry, The Church has inspired in me. Maybe it will help you to speak the beauty you have found in your own relationships with the Creator?
St. Brigid's Well
A rush reverberates through sodden air.
Birth and afterbirth abound;
candle's burnt stumps root in wax puddles.
Within the cave like enclosure over the fresh water course,
before chipped plaster statues of Mother Mary and Himself;
rush crosses run rampant.
Strings laden with pacifiers, babies barrettes and bows,
icicle the age crusted walls... thick with longing and grief.
Knee polished granite near tear drenched moss.
The air was thick with angst.
Prayer cards vie with business cards, photo memories,
a favorite baby doll, gifts from supplicants,
petitioning for aid in home, hearth, health and verse;
Saint Brigid’s domain.
From WikipediaBríg was a pre-Christian Celtic Goddess. She is said to have invented keening, a combination weeping and singing, while mourning for her son Ruadán, after he is slain while fighting for the Fomorians. Brigid is the patroness of POETRY, smithing, medicine, art and craft, cattle and livestock, sacred wells, and serpents she also brings on the Spring.
In the Christian era, nineteen nuns at Kildare tended a perpetual flame for the Saint, which is widely believed to be a continuation of a pre-Christian practice of women tending a flame in her honour. Her festival day, Imbolc is traditionally a time for weather prognostication:Saint Brigit of Kildare (
Irish:
Naomh Bríd; c.
?451–525), also known as
Brigit of Ireland, is one of Ireland's patron saints. She is sometimes known as
Mary of the Gael. She was said to have been an early Irish Christian nun, abbess, and founder of several monasteries of nuns. Her feast Day is 1 February, formerly celebrated as the
Imbolc quarter-day of the
pagan Irish year, which marked the beginning of spring, lambing, lactation in cattle, etc.
Absolution's Font: Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo, Egypt
Await the zenith of the sun,
cross clay courtyard a beckoning
barefoot walked, heartstring undone,
Oh Lord, there’s love, no reckoning.
Soundless clarion of tears fall
toward absolution’s bright blessing,
within the domed sabil I call...
Oh Lord, there’s love, no reckoning.
The fountain's dry, but not my eyes
sounds of grace rebound, amazing,
Amazing Grace, sang such as I
Oh Lord, there’s love, no reckoning.
We are but one beneath the sun
for all our fears and wandering
all creation our companion...
Oh Lord, there’s love, no reckoning.
Let spirit rise on minaret
and phantom penitents come hieing
all is well, we are God’s get
Oh Lord, there’s love, no reckoning.
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 - 1964)
Mission Dolores
The air heavy with the scent and weight
of sea green is trapped in the enclosure
of the century old graveyard languishing.
Inside the crumble of stucco walls,
walls which do little to keep
the soot of San Francisco's traffic
from the ancient pocked crosses of
of Mission Dolores and its rich benefactors.
The sad spirits of Yelamu Ohlone
indians haunt behind, beneath and between
the spaces which hold their unmarked graves.
Sad the day when the Christ worshipers came,
with their tales of crucifixion and their flaming hell.
Came and brought the shame of naked Eve
and Adam, came like God's to judge.
From the bounty of the land they had lived in harmony,
fed on roots, berries, nuts and small wild life,
their ways teaching of man's place with nature.
Clothed, schooled, worked and worried
were they by the emissaries of Rome.
Even today, it is the Vatican which takes credit
for the rising up of the heathen.
Yet, it is the art and artisans of Ohlone
who built Mission Dolores, and upon
their unmarked graves
white feet still walk.
People look many places for their own path, where have you looked and have you found your own path?