Stop calling it God

Sunday morning thoughts from a concrete box

Church bells resound through this city of glass
and I sit on the balcony-
this rectangle of freedom
built like the inside
of a television screen
with a view,
a prism of available real life
and a channel that changes
with the weather…

I watch the fronds
of a plastic palm tree
Whip in the winds
on a balcony nearby.
It’s the only green I can see
and it vibrates loud
beside the grey boxes
That I see every side.
From his concrete-framed outlook
reflecting ashen clouds today.

I’m slipped inside this geometric recess
looking out.
Thirty-one floors up
removed from the ground,
I listen for birds
I hear traffic
I listen for people
I hear the ambiance of high air.

Church bells resonate
off the walls of glass,
That surround me
with packaged people like me,
sealed inside
Like insects stuck in resin
we are kept behind the dampening fields
of surfaces that reflect
other surfaces.
and mute the real world.

The creak of the building
defeats the city sounds
and the howl of the wind
outranks the people far below,
who move through city streets
like ants with less purpose
moving between tarred squares
between homes
between work
between shops
between desert bars.

Yet the church bells continue
their ancient song,
As someone faithful pulls the rope
to remind us that the world
is clinging to traditions
that are tattered like old parchment
Left plastered to brick walls
after dashed by a rainstorm
and faded by sun.

I, so faithless,
Listen – stilled.
Faced with the ugliness of the world
I desperately want to believe
That what religions claim to uphold
is true for all people;
do not harm the vulnerable
do not break each other’s loves
do not murder sleeping babies
do not shoot other mother’s children.
Do not betray your own kind…

The buildings are unmoved
by this song of tradition.
They reflect each other to each other
like mirrors holding up mirrors.
They stare unblinking into each other’s faces
gazing endlessly at their own reflections
warped as they are
motionless and surreal
It’s a disturbing kind of beauty
that changes with the light.

I wonder
as I sit in my box of freedom
Is this living? Is this life? am I alive?
Are these buildings of glass
the tombstones of our civilisation
like the giant statues on Easter Island
Watching civility crumble
Will the people that built them
leave them gaunt and unattended
and meaningless under the sky.

Here we worship vanity
and build dwellings of mirrors.
Now we chose which reflection to look into.
Either the hand held oblong that scrolls
Or the mirror on the wall
Or the black rectangle of fantasies
that stands where the hearth once stood…
or this box of concrete, 31 floors up
looking across the way
at my reflection
in another persons home.

As I look at reflections of cars and cement.
I spy a sliver of faith
between the glass towers.
I can see the church spire
Once the tallest building in town
now diminished to a toy
its sandstone red against the green of park trees.
And it seems to me it hums,
vibrant
against the grey sky and leaves
And I listen to the bells and I feel something stir

Because despite the perpetrators
that have abused it’s truth
It’s what that tiny building
really means.
Built by hands long since dead
housing songs long since sung
It stands resolute
In its message
That hope is not something that can even be named,
Let alone caged, or categorised or claimed.
Hope is so powerful
that even old men who crave power
cannot control what those church bells mean to me.

In a time where we seem to
have forgotten what matters,
the bell toll travels
through this city of metal and steel
and bounces off the buildings
and permeates the glass.
Its lovely to awaken
to one beautiful sound
to be reminded us
That so long as there are humans,
some things will remain.

And this thing they’ve named “God”
and controlled with rules and prayer
is not a religion, but really a deep knowing
That all of us share;
that there’s more to us than skin and hearts
that there is something that unites us all
And it is surely the desire
for peace.

And I don’t need to enter that building to know it
I don’t have to subscribe to their control of faith.
I don’t have to sing songs to their version of god
I just have to stay true to my truth.