I wake from a recurrent dream.  It unsettles me.  Always

in slumber I am Searching for meaning

to life.  For love,

taking on many forms.  Assurance

of the illusive, improbable God to talk. To me.  Give me some sign.

Speak my LORD, won’t you?  Prove [again] that you are real.

Shake the heavens —   Flood the earth– Heal the sick — Give sight to the blind, yes sight for me.  Today.

I feel ashamed of my doubts.  Fear

that religion is some celestial apothecary, erected by the weak in our need

to silence our spiritual afflictions.  A contrivance.

And yet that very Truth that I seek is a need — So exacting.

Out of my heart comes my deepest longing for God, meaning, Truth. How do I sometimes know

so clearly, so absolutely?  And other days I feel a universal, colossal Absence. And I am terrified

of the possibility — Are the heavens vacant?

Ashamed

of my heart, so quick to Doubt — Demand — Need.

So many crazies,  I do not want to be one of them. I want Knowledge.  I Seek Truth.

I Seek absolution and forgiveness.

I Need reassurance that our buildings, our rhetoric, our activities aren’t simply tokens

of our need.

Anne Rice rejects

the bricks and mortar of faith — Stepping

away from judgment and scorn to something else.

A Floridian pastor chatters hollowly about prayer for God’s will to burn a Holy Book, taking a civic stance

against America’s “enemies.” A lesbian cleric challenges us to love our enemies, meaning her.

I try to stay open, loving, faithful — and some challenge the very core of my faith.

Absolutes come with human judgment.  Scriptures wrongly translated

and easily misunderstood.  For thousands of years Men

have held their power over women, crushing spirits, and then questioning

our faith when we stand up against this treatment.

Why would a loving God not give me complete access and authority?

Why would a loving God not accept the prayers of gays and lesbians, dear faithful people

seeking Truth as much as me?  Why do Absolutes bring judgment and misunderstanding, when put in the hands of misguided men and women?

Thank you, but I’ll take my doubts and questions to scripture.  I’ll stumble my way through original meaning, cultural influences and climate.  I’ll implore the mystical and Holy Spirit of God.  [who on most days I know is active and real]

to teach me, a Woman, but also forgiven

sinner first before a sexual being.  Teach me, I am humanity

with desires and longings unfulfilled over a lifetime.  Teach me, I am humbled.

And I fall prostrate and hope that I am not one of the Crazies.

That God hears Me.

** I use the term “Crazy”  for the lunatic fringe.