The Spiritual Church
The spiritual church has no walls, no stained-glass
windows or marble halls. Its doors are open to breathable
air and all are welcome from wherever, or anywhere
and of those who come we priestly serve, without a
rote-learned creed or tithing cost required of anyone
we priestly share what we first received by grace alone
as the price for what we dare to give in the name of Love.
We all are priests in the spiritual church, our heads deep
pressed by Sophia’s hands and our brows made smooth
by the oil of grace as we go forth un-tonsured in our simple state
Oh! happy chance! Oh! gift of grace to serve and officiate!
we vest not for conversions won but for the work still to be done
we celebrate not for goals already reached but for mercy’s sake
and we transform our communal lives by what we give and take.
The spiritual church is a handshake of welcome beyond
the pews for one or for two or however more there might be
who see the Presence in me, in us, and in you – as we hug-out
the old and love-in the new. And we add our voice to that ancient
earth-based hymn of praise first sung by creatures small and big
that burrow and creep, that walk and fly, to the Cosmic Hymn
that scatters star-notes of praise across the endless sky.
We testify to what is real in the spiritual church, the discounted
bread, the wine gone bad, and the cardboard shacks over winter
grates that would-be prophets pass by; held aloof from the dirt
and grime they pass by the desolation where the helpless and
abandoned lie.
I grieve the un-ending stream of tears that flows past the things
not done for children of sexual abuse and victims of violence who
wait bewildered for a deliverance that does not come. It is there in the
hardscrabble heart of what is real, that the spiritual church takes form
and knowing grows.