As of late, my faith in all things
but mostly God, can be likened to
a young child dragging around a ragged
old baby blanket full of holes, grubby,
grey, worn at the edges, once soft, silky,
unstained and comforting
No doctors have asked me in years
how important this is to me
like breathing, like not going blind,
like not breaking with the next blast
of bad news so I stopped listening to
music because my inner chaos could not
be calmed by cellos or violins
I looked for my lost faith at the worst
times, when sleepless, when overwhelmed,
when angry, hungry, or with the wrong people
so on Tuesday when circling a full parking garage
listening to my son talking, eight dizzying circles up
about health improving when people are prayed for,
whether they know it or not or are believers
all I could say to him was there have been
times I have experienced the gathering of the Spirit,
the ecstasy of silence, the connection to all
both in and out of church settings
but on that particular day, at that moment, a prayer
for an empty parking space was barely mentioned when
a free space appeared exactly where needed
I'm not saying there was a divine correlation
and I felt no fleeting nor lasting lovely feeling.
The rest of the day was full of grime and glass
but yes, I can hold however tenuously to that
practicality of when I needed something simple,
just saying the words was more than enough
and only cost seven dollars and fifty cents