All The Names We Call It

I’ve been told I should and should not.

I’ve been told I should, a-lot.

But most of all I’m often told that I am ill of thought.

Funny though, it seems to me

That you should choose to say-

There is error in my living and to correct it, I must pray.

But not the way I know to,

Nor the way that brings me peace

I should worship to a foreign thing. Some greater entity.

I should do so while I’m seated

Hands folded neatly in my lap -

Or I should do so in repetition; bowing down atop a mat.

I should pray not in my language

But in the ancient one you speak

In Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic; in Silence or in Greek.

Because it matters not the message

Nor the way in which I feel.

Nor does my souls’ connection to what I know is real.

What matters is the method.

Commandments written in a Cave,

That we follow tooth and nail - precise instructions that he gave.

But he does not have a Gender,

Nor a body and nor a face.

Except he and she who do and all their million names.

But we must never say them

Nor carve, nor draw, nor paint.

Except for when we do - recall to whom that we must pray.

And you mustn’t burn things

No rituals or spells

Except candle burning; fire is reserved for hell

And do not kill a thing

Or be the cause of spilling blood

Except for in Remembrance of the Mighty Will of God.

And those awful things they do or did-

They do not speak for our Faith

It’s up to interpretation- But theirs is not the one we claim.

So since I’m ill of thought

I’ll share with you the things I think-

That while staring in your armor I have found a million chinks.

You fixate on these factors

Tiny ever changing things,

Language, method, temple, Prophets, books, spirits, Kings.

We’ve been here thousands of years

And your religion is what’s now

It was once called something else; will change again, though we can’t say when or how.

But if we choose to think above it all

To let go of you and me-

The rules all lose their meaning

Once you choose to simply be.

For it is all everchanging

So why cherish things that go

When the fact that life is infinite

Is all you need to know.

If we remove these images

Of how we think we’re meant to be

And center our thoughts towards feeling

How it is that our hearts beat,

Then the differences between us

Won’t be as great as they now seem,

As it is the breath of life alone that brings us inner peace.