Shake off embroidered
robes disguising your shape.
Peel away the gilt blinding sight.
Melt golden goblets too
precious for fingerprints.

Let fall cathedral headdress.
Silence inflated ritual.
Disentangle the ruling class.
May dogma of the martinet decay.
Our Holy One has gone missing.

Our Love has been bricked
over in a wall of self-indulgence,
a show of pomp and honors,
power swelling.

But my soul yearns to rest in the
arms of my Beloved not covered
in brocade but unadorned,
incarnate and gentle.

My soul sings with a Tender
Voice sighing in my joy,
whispering my name in dark
of night, holding me safe.

My souls walks with the One
who stays by my side not
altared on fussy chairs wielding
spiraled crooks, untouchable.

It is in simplicity I want to
dwell with my God, not
prostrate in submission
but surrendered in ecstasy.

I cannot find your heart when
it is so deeply disguised, florid
in its covering, raised so far
above me I am not to touch you.

It is not a ring I need to kiss
on a hand offered in dominion,
but a soft cheek that knows
my tears and sorrow.

He came to be fully human
just like us, not a maker of
rules, a tribune robed and
ornamented in anything but
genuine Light.

Let the grand facade of god
fall away. Pause in Grace, the
only embellishment necessary.

.

.

.

Author’s Note:

When I left the Roman Catholic Church, I didn’t realize all of what I wanted to leave behind. I can no longer accept the pomp. Not the ritual, but the glossy, overindulgent showiness of wealth and power.

I have come to a time in my journey where I now want a simple way of church. But it’s more than just simple, it’s a move to authenticity. Real. Not one of boastfulness. I love the Mass and the consecration of the Eucharist, but it doesn’t need a lot of “stuff” surrounding it.

I long to see our clergy in simple dress, closer to regular clothes with just an elegant and simple statement of some piece of something to recognize their light that shines a bit differently with wisdom than mine. That is respect.

On the other hand, I long to see the gold cups and the fancy robes over more robes and belts and stoles thickly embroidered and hats that look like something at a fancy KKK ball, gone from site. Surrendered so that the chasm between clergy, especially the higher-ups, and us is leveled.

He did not come to make classes of religious worshipers. He came as you and me and lived as a real person with real feelings and emotions and fears. He wanted us to know that if he could do what Our God asked him to do as a real human, then we could also. Dividing us into classes of worshipers was not on His agenda.