I am always amazed at the folks who seem to find their religious identity in a rigid and certain belief that is unchanging. Where does such a way of believing come from in this world? It seems to me faith is precisely not having that kind of certainty, but depending on something or someone we only hope to be dependable. As one of my favorite writers, Frederick Buechner puts it colorfully: "doubt is the ants in the pants of faith." Here is a little poem full of ants. (The picture is a walking iris flower opening in faith to a spring morning.)

Faithful Despair

Unglued jumble
Hesitating skip
And stumble
Falsely humble
Heartbeat out of tempo
Half-formed questions
Answers scorned.
This is where faith is born
To grow
The swallow turned to gulp
That does not satisfy
Or comfort
But draws us
Out
Empty
Lost
To God.

The photo is of Nat, my second son, trying his hand at surfing at Manhattan beach last summer. And the poem is from an experience I had at the Atlantic a few summers back now on an early morning. Nat -- do you remember your moment's pearl?

Sandman and the Crab

The tiny crab's eyes folded down and then popped up again Like the nursery rhymed weasel. Before us the waves had formed a new mound of sand With a design on its back to imitate the crab's. And the waves still rolled, of course, Clapping every now and then to keep me awake to the dawn. They created a small inlet at the side of their mound And crept back behind it . . . to rest? Or, when boldness and the tide gave the impulse, They would push their dirty white foam right over the mound to slip down the other side. And as the wave left again, returning to where it came from, The mound's back glowed with the water's pearl For a second, or longer if your eyes were popped, And your mind awake with the last clap. Then the mound would swallow and sift the pearl into itself Out to the wave's edge And back to the pond's edge on the opposite side of the wave's mound. The crab and I both saw it, I think, and sensed our part, For, as I rose to return to the day, The crab scuttled sideways into this sand cave To search out the moment's pearl, a dry glory, And the bold impulse to Awaken.

If nature is God's first word to us before we can even read a Scripture, then surely one way I have experienced God is in my fascination with collecting rocks. It goes well with my other obsession with plants, since the rocks can be lovely additions to the garden or the planter. But as I hope you will see here below, I think they do much more than just add a decorating flair!

Geologos

Rocks. I confess. I have a love affair with rocks.
Not faithful to one, but groping faithfulness
For them all, I -- and we -- strain like blocks
Of wall leaning one into the others to bless
The whole with stability, depend on grace in gravity
The rocks know so well -- even though, at times,
A fine round flat one skips a brevity
And walks on water's surface, climbs
The air, before it settles sweetly in the deep.

Stone-mongering may be my life's best task,
Although these creatures of the earth will keep
Long past my final sleep, I, cornered then, must ask
To hold them for a day, a breath, a life
Then let them pass to find another way
To sun warm in the morning's chill and ending wear away -- strife
For these rocks, a past creation, born of pressure's morphing play
And sometimes sun-flare heat, or spit like watermelon seed from earth's red groin
To rocket high the crusty life we know to join.

I keep them in my pocket now -- one at a time -- where my right
Hand surprised can rediscover their whole, dense solidness -- or
Pull them out to watch and glint in my half-sight
A hint of something bright within, that is before,
Was now, and holds its own. Beyond, for me, my youthful
Breath in Gabriel's angelic mountains, when I
Homed at the feet of Old St. Luke, whose snow-white rule
And crown beckoned my child's light to rise with it, explore, and sigh,
Annunciating births my pocket wombs but cannot hold.

Science's disinterest cannot our relationship design;
The rocks do not experiment with me. But we enfold
In experience, roll up together, to hone a moment fine,
Or more finally, to pound out heart sublime. Carbon dating
Is not our way. I do not use the rocks to list and know
But bow vulnerable and bare my dusty self with them, bating
The holy dirt between us, the mud of us to flow, and to grow
To show us who we were and are to be. I scrape in roughened palm
Obsidian's glass Alice and Narcissus to avoid, expelled with nature's balm.

I finger topographies of basalt, whisper what truth I guess into
Unaccountable holes of limestone, allow the quartzite
Light to laser through my center to discover, perhaps, that I too imbue
Refracted color, bent yet true. A bit of shale crumbles at my touch right
Beneath my wandering boot -- at appointed fissures, turns to dust.
Breathless, these rocks and I explore like lovers first undressed
To discover one another, to plumb love. Amidst the orange rust,
The bodies naked, flawed and cracked w muscle ourselves blessed.
Rock face, stone grace, inanimate trace -- a glance of space where Logos dwells.

I fairly new friend has been sharing with me her absolutely amazing photos of butterflies. I can never get them right in a photo myself. They close up their wings right when I want to take the shot or they flit when I need them to float. But I have caught them a bit in a poem I wrote a few years back now.

Fritillary Dance

Guessing when to tighten the muscle
So that delicate sails rise to attention,
And when to lay out flat in honest proclamation.
Knowing in your weightless being
The grace to soar in the warmth
Or pull and flap through a lull
And how to fall.
Living the design of your wings,
Trusting the breeze,
Tasting the blossom at your feet,
Resting on the outstretched finger of a leaf.
Arching through the sky's mutability
To write God's current name
In the breathless light of a day.