This poem when my friend Arlene Erickson, hearing about what ministers have been taught in most seminaries since the 1950s, demanded, “Why haven’t we ordinary people been told any of this stuff?” Something about the content led me to put it together in lines vaguely resembling the discipline of iambic pentameter.

“Behold,” he said, “thy path unto salvation.”

“What path?” I asked, “for all that I can see 

are thickets of incomprehension; thorns

that reach to snare unwary travellers,

quicksand salivating for a sucker,

roots that rise to trip my thoughts; and tigers 

burning bright, crouched to leap with tooth 

and claw upon my slightest flaw. I see 

a tangled maze, confounding clarity.”

“That is indeed thy path,” the priest replied.

“It has been trod by countless mentors wiser 

Far than thee. By struggles they devised

doctrines thou must hold beyond thy doubts —

of sinfulness and fall, of sacrifice, 

redemption, death, atonement, life restored…”

“Then come with me,” I said. “You know the way.” 

“Nay, thou must take thy journey by thyself, “

he said. “Salvation comes to each alone

Each holy soul reclaimed, renewed, a pact

Enacted between none but thee and God.”

“And is there not another path,” I asked.

“Thou shouldst not ask of me,” he answered soft. 

“Tis not my mission to de-thorn thy route;

I do but point thee to tradition’s course. 

If there be paths that ancient feet have not

already trod, I must not, dare not, speak,

for thou hast not the wit to grasp the subtle

nettles of the scholars without sting. 

And so I feed thee back the platitudes 

that thou hast always known, ‘lest thou be lured 

to unmapped meadows bright with shining hopes.”

“If I must meet my God alone,” I said,

“then I may seek a route that meets my needs. 

And so perchance I meet along the path

seekers who are similarly bent

we may set out, as one, beyond horizons  

unto destinations still unknown.”

“Nothing remains unknown,” he sighed.