by Andrew Taylor-Troutman
Answers have to do with my birth,
both to family and country of origin.
But I practice the faith for mystical reasons—
belief that Wisdom, gentle and merciful,
would not leave us alone,
but freely chose to enter
the cauldron of pain, the crucible
of humankind, so flawed and so fragile.
True, the Church is a house that needs cleaning,
sullied by greed and hypocrisy.
Yet, here, we break bread, taste hope;
here, we glimpse the eternal with water;
here, we sing of the hereafter,
and hear now that we are so loved.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Gently Between the Words: Essays and Poems and pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Agape Review 