I Have A Faith My Very Own

If there is faith we each must own

Mine must be one that I have sown

Not organized with mumbo jumbo

No robes of red or black.,

No ceremonial flowing white

I want none...yes none of that.

I lift my hands to help not quote

Do deeds of good not prayers in rote

And follow, trust my intuition

Without a fear of sins contrition

Make place for mitzvahs that I do

Squash evils mans unthinking stealth.

My choices made are infinite 

For each undertaken , then solved task

There is no right nor wrong to judge

I have myself alone to ask .

I have myself to answer to 

No mythical ethereal cloud

No tablets nor some ancient wall

Nor deteriorating ancient shroud.

If I must answer to a god

She will be my very own

And if need be I’ll answer her

For it is to her that I’m best known.

I have a faith my very own.

C Schlessel © 3/2011

We leave behind disaster

We leave behind disaster

Both natural and man made

Aids, Chernobyl, Darfur, the Holocaust

With more to come; I am afraid.

We wished as every parent does

To leave a better world

Yet as we spin life’s nesting threads

Another crisis now unfurls.

Natural disasters that we’ve had

Are out of man’s control

And in the aftermath of challenges

We can barely help surviving souls.

Katrina, wildfires, oil spills, wars,

No clear horizon from the blight,

Unanswered prayers repeatedly

Offer up no end in sight.

Held high there’s still our shining jewel;

Hope lives in heart and mind,

Beseeching holy intervention

While knowing it is blind.

And if love is the answer

The question still remains

Why is this not a better world

Why is our love not unrestrained?

I know I know the answer

Too much hate that beats us down

Each tarnished heart repeating;

Wear not angelic crown

Hate rips away the thought of love

Destroys our hope and our redemption

We need discard hates old restraints

Replace our hate with good intention

To wear an angels glorious crown

And so show love

And so show care

Be there be there be there be there.

C Schlessel © March 2011