Journey's End

image borrowed from bing

Journey’s End

“People see God every day, they just

don’t recognize him.”--Pearl Bailey.

As a kid, probably the first time

I ever heard of the word God,

I thought his last name was

Damnit.

Then I heard other children

talking about “loving Jesus”,

parroting the platitudes

their parents conditioned them with.

My own parents were not religious,

we never attended church

as a family--so I asked permission 

to attend religious services

with some of my friends & their families--

eager to find out who this God was,

or might be.

Off I went, my expectant arms around

the shoulders of my pals, & visited

churches, chapels, cathedrals,

temples, synagogues, & mosques,

sat in every kind of sanctuary,

sang songs from aged hymnals;

heard sermons from preachers,

priests, ministers, sanseis, teachers,

rabbis, elders, & Islamic holy men;

added my pocket change as contribution

every time one of those baskets, trays,

tambourines, hub caps, hats, or gunnysacks

was passed around--

filling their coffers with tax-free revenue,

praise Jesus;

blessed holy income,

praise Allah;

money from the multitudes,

praise Buddah;

cents from sinners,

praise Mohammad;

dollars from dopes,

praise Oral Roberts.

I spent much of my childhood

trying so very hard to understand

the exact nature of faith, worship, & prayer

within all those dimly-lit

cavernous yet claustrophobic,

incense-clogged,

sanctified, certified, thrice-blessed, holy

wooden--adobe mud--brick--cement--steel--

glass--silver--golden--ice---plastic

palaces of the many prophets,

somehow all serving & honoring

the same God;

finally emerging more confused

than enlightened, not finding

all that strictness, those mandates,

that forced fellowship within each faith

appealing--finding only

hypocrisy, dishonesty, arrogance, & cruelty

beneath the robes, 

behind the pulpits--

never embracing the succor,

salvation, answers, or comfort

I sought;

becoming an outrider,

a proud pariah, seeing

as much of God

in industrial waste,

in dumpsters,

in killing fields,

& on city buses

as I ever found

in those gilded privileged Clubhouses

labeled as acceptable venues

for spirituality. 

It took several dark decades

for me to finally manage 

the anger I felt,

the betrayal I sensed,

the distortions I witnessed--

until that beauteous summer’s day

at sunset when I stared at my own

reflection in the calm surface

of an alpine lake, and finally found

the truth, the answer, shining

out of my own eyes, 

& that quiet smile

that formed on my astonished lips

has remained accessible

ever since. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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