Stain glass Sundays
fire & damnation
Condemned by birth’s sin
Killed my god
With my very first breath
guilt for his death
Just in existing

Roman robed men
Preaching, thundering
Iniquity at a child
Credulous, Defenseless
Against dogma, bent them to
sacrifice self on the altar
of an unappeasable god
Internalized the impossible measure —
unattainable flawlessness
With pain of condemnation
Suppress the “abhorrent” self
Protection in dispossession

Burdened by the
Cross bars of the cross
– Perfection or Rejection –
Unquenchable
demands of an unrelenting deity
where mercy never stood
Grace had teeth
And love had terms
Every misstep a mortal wound
Hamstrung by inadequacy’s weight
Verdict:
— Guilty & Unworthy

Every stumble,
Every scar —
   A harp unstrung
   A hymn unsung
   A life unflung
   A soul effaced
   A self withdrawn
And lost myself
And my psalm

Age begat distance
   and wisdom
   and courage to question
   and trust in my truth
   and healing
   and softening
And self-absolution

Creation,became a humane guide —
Rabbi, teacher,
gentler than pulpits,
less cruel than creeds

The day sky preaches in silence
its liturgy of light
The heavens proclaim
what sanctuaries forgot —
Glory in wildness
Holiness in stars
Mercy in motion
A psalter without words
sung by constellations
And still, the sermon continues:

The night unveils insight
not with thunder,
but with stillness —
A hush that speaks
in silver syllables
to those who’ve learned
to listen in the dark
Stars like scripture
scrawled across the void
each light a verse
every shadow a pause
in the sacred sentence
written not by wrath,
but by wonder

That we, like the sky,
gather both
light and shadow
in the long unfolding
of our becoming
But the church taught us
to fear the night inside —
to cloak the darker self
in guilt,
in shame,
to split the soul
into palatable halves
to bury what didn’t sparkle
and feign that fracture
was unity

we broke —
into sacred and profane,
acceptable and intolerable
Each side bleeding
from the severance
And when others came near,
we turned from them
clutching the mask,
fearing that their gaze
might glimpse
what we’ve learned to condemn
that they might reject it
believing love
required perfection

But even Jesus said,
“Why do you call me good?
Only God is good” —
perfectly good
And we are not God.
We are dust and breath,
gathering wisdom
through wonder and wound

Still sometimes, we reach for light
Trying to hide our dark
forgetting the moon’s truth:

The moon is always whole
despite its phases
of bright and blackness
and being whole
is and never was the same
as being flawless

Originally written:5/14/2025 - 5/31/2025