When one day I walked into a Fellowship,
searching for some way or form or fashion
in which to find god, in whatever manner that is possible,
I was greeted with a flaming chalice, and a singing bowl.
The structure of this church – if church it can be called –
is in form and subject different from those I have known.
I was born an atheist. For long, I thought
not believing in god meant I believed in nothing.
To try to have something I could adhere to,
I went to services, chanted my Pater nosters,
dug up my grandmother’s old rosary and prayed to Mary
(calling her Stella maris and Alma mater and other kind names),
and tried to find in ancient happenings, miracles.
I looked then to Yahweh, in all his power
to flood and to ignite, and to part the waters and render
null the fires which he had been keen to create.
I looked further, into the east, trying to still my mind
enough so as to find peace in connection in and through everything.
Wherever I searched, I wanted more. I looked to science
to fill the gaps, to see all that is as merely a reaction
on a purely physical level, and that’s the end of the equation.
This satisfied me until I came to how we can never know
beyond the borders and the boundaries of the universe we live in,
for at the very beginning, all the rules we know founder.
I suppose, for all they share, the two domains, of faith and of science,
one instead complements the other, but the domains remain distinct.
Then there is, too, the matter of meaning.
If the universe is all there is, and if we cannot know
beyond it, as science asserts, then what is there to validate
the whole? Is this not where “god” comes in?
Why can I not believe in all at once, this being called “god,”
and, at the same time, this system called science?
The Fellowship – from the moment I entered – greeted me.
I sat, and listened, and stood when I was asked,
sang, in my tinny little voice, hymns I had never heard before.
In the chalice there burned a light, a little candle, to symbolize,
maybe, what validates all life, connecting science and faith,
faith and science: the little tendril that joins the two.
During that hour, I was convinced: not too sanguine; I know
this, like everything, will take some time and consideration,
right now, which is above my station to fully consider.
What it is the light represents, I do not know, not in full,
and maybe never will, no matter how I might study.
For, the light is the simplest, most profound truth,
that runs through everything that is and has motion,
that signals comfort in the dark and supports life.
I may not know the name of it, or how to say it in words,
but I feel and have felt it every day I am alive.
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