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Page: Profile: Poetry
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Poem Specs
VxPoem ID: 16084
Category:
pagan_spirituality
Posted: September 12th. 2005 6:54:43 AM
Views: 750 |
Altar Call/Dedication
by Mysteries Child
Age Group: Adult
"Choose this day whom you will serve."
How those words terrified me
at the age of eleven
kneeling before the pulpit
kneeling between the pews
of a church I felt in my heart to be false.
How those words terrified me
thirteen years later
kneeling before my Divinity
kneeling between the worlds
on the soft and muddy ground.
"I don't understand!
Too much I don't know!
You can't call me yet!
I still don't understand!"
That voice, tone of soft command:
"Child, you know enough.
This day you are called.
The time of your choosing is now."
I'd never given my promise.
Never given my oath, my self.
I walked the outsider's middle road,
kept silent, kept skeptical.
I wandered the tall grasses
the groves and the brambles
between the paths of my truth
but never felt part of either one.
I kept silent, kept solitary,
thought that exempted me
from formal committment,
but this oath will bind me.
"Choose this day whom you will serve."
It comes back to Altar Call.
Who do I trust?
What can I give,
and which do I choose?
"Child, you know enough. The time of your choosing is now."
"Mother, I yield.
I'm Yours.
I give it all.
It's up to You--
and so am I."
So I said in my heart and knew
peace
love
acceptance
and knew it was true.
I rise from my Altar Call
the Dedicated child,
given in Love and
accepted in Grace,
of the One I have called Mystery.
I finally understand
what they meant
when they spoke of
being born again,
a new creature.
Who's right and who's wrong?
Or is there any such thing?
Distinctions no longer matter.
Neither theirs nor my own,
I belong to the Mystery, to the One.
Author's Notes: Just as I am, without one plea, but that They love and educate me.
I was raised, nominally, as a mainstream Baptist, but received a strong fundamentalist influence from my best friend's church. When you're nine years old and your parents are Independent Baptists, you and your friends become Independent Baptists by default.
I don't remember when I discovered in myself a tendency toward a generalized Pagan mysticism, but I do know it was long before I was able to give it a name.
I am not a fan of fundamentalism in **any** form. Yet, though I feel most comfortable labeling myself a Pagan, I remain in many ways a Christian as well. The massive antipathy between the paths of my learning often leaves me saddened, for it seems that, thanks to hotheads on both sides, it leaves me able to be a part of neither.
I anticipate this meaning that I will remain a Solitary for life, but that's not so bad. It is, after all, to the One Mystery that I gave myself, not to any church or label.
It is, after all, the One Mystery to which we all belong in the final analysis.
Be blessed.
Author's Location: Garfield, Arkansas
More Poems: Mysteries Child has posted 12 additional poems- View them?
Author's Profile: To learn more about Mysteries Child - Click HERE
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