When you say, she said,
that you are a creature
of habit, I have a hard
time imagining you as
any sort of nun, or even
a monk for that matter.
Perhaps, he responded, I
should emulate King
Henry and start my own
spinoff church, where
the priestly vestments
would be jeans and tees.
But I would require that
parishioners not wear
tie dyes on Sunday and
Crocs are an abomination
so none of them, but
sandals are always welcome.
Every Sunday morning my parents,
usually my father at mother’s direction
would drive me the four blocks
to attend Sunday school.
I could easily have walked, a long
block and a half by cutting through yards,
but they were afraid of I have
absolutely no idea what.
My friends that weren’t there with me
were probably in church so
it wasn’t like I had anywhere else
I might go, anything else I could do.
I never asked why my parents were
so insistant I attend the school, they
knew I’d be Bar Mitzvahed with or
without the Sunday mornings,
and they were Jews only in the loosest
secular sense, and I was in those
awkward years and the only thing
else that came to mind, fed by
my father’s not so well hidden stash
of Playboy’s was too grim to imagine
and given how little they liked to be
around one another, could be rejected.
Strange as it may seem,
I was tempted to consider
Catholicism, not the Roman kind
but that of the breakawy churches
who accept all, gay or straight,
married or divorced, the whole
lot of mankind just because.
They do believe in heaven
which is a good alternative
to the Bardo, and having choices
is a good thing even in death.
I was truly tempted to give
it my all when I realized that
it was problematic, for it had
led me into temptation and that
is something you pray doesn’t happen,
and if I want a conundrum
Buddhism offers me plenty.
In the middle of a rouund of zazen
I hear the bells of a nearby church,
although I am nearby no church.
Zen teaches you to be present
in each moment, to be immersed
in and not witnessing life around you.
The bells break my struggle
to not think, they introduce time
again where there should be none.
Just as soon, the bells are silent,
and the silence of 1300 miles away
pervades our small zendo,
so just perhaps Zoom, or the ability
to control its transmission, is
after all, a mindful Buddhist tool.
I have already visited
countless churches
basilicas, shrines
and admired the art,
the simple beauty,
free of liturgy and belief.
I did not stop
to pray, to implead,
merely to see,
to listen, to absorb.
for I was a Jew.
a nonbeliever
in a Christian world
silently tolerated.
Now, I have learned
I was only half Jewish,
half, hidden a polyglot
of Christianity,
a descendant of saints,
and now churches
have a heavy weight
I find hard to bear.
One downside of growing up
Jewish is that you never meet
an angel or a church mouse
I have met angels, although they
were in the guise of Bodhisattvas,
and there are a surprising number
if you look carefully enough.
As to church mice, I do have
to wonder why they are symbolic,
for they have vast homes,
direct access to God, or
the Bishop or synod, and if
they aren’t tapping into
the collection plate,
they aren’t real mice, and as
for starving, do they keep
the communion supplies
in a safe, for if not, the mice
are certainly never go hungry.
In my dream, the world
was at peace, and I was riding
across Kansas on a unicycle, towing
my car, packed to the windows,
my dog walking alongside urging
me to speed up because she
wanted to visit South Dakota.
I am due for a tricycle, I
remind the dog, “the grave
more likely,” she responds
with a sneer that teeters between
love and spite, always precariously
balanced, as is her food bowl
on the roof of the car.
I could tell it was a dream
which is not often easy
from its midst, by the utter
lack of churches, synagogues
and mosques, none to be seen
and the Great Blue Heron
nesting in a scrub pine
on the shreds of Holy Books.
First published in EKL Review, Issue 3, 2021
https://eklreview.com/issue_3/
It is almost Pesach, early this year
so I will get a birthday cake
not the rubbery sponge cake
of matzoh meal, eggs and
ginger ale, covered in fruit.
We are peeling the applies
and chopping them for
the charoset for the communal seder
most to be thrown away
along with the paper plates
and chicken bones, and shards
of matzoh, dry as the winds
of the desert, the memory
we drag out each year
as the last snow fades slowly
from the streets and trees.
My friend enters the church
as he does each holy week
and stops at each station
of the cross, imagining
what it must have been like
to carry the great cross up
the hill, knowing that atop
the centurions stood with spikes
in hand waiting to pierce his wrists
and ankles, ready to watch him
droop against the wood as
the heat licked between his toes.
I imagine what it was like
pushing the stones up the ramp
the taste of sand and the whip
burning my tongue.
In ten days we can again
eat sweet and sour pork
and shrimp in lobster sauce
and wait another year
for the bits of horseradish,
and he will imagine the fires
of hell as he slips the five
into the waistband of her G-string.
Over the next few weeks I shall
step into more churches than is safe
for a formerly Jewish Buddhist, but
in Europe it seems no tour is complete
without one or more churches, at least
one of which will be the most
beautiful cathedral in all of [choose
any country you wish and inserted here.]
I will take off my hat, for that is easier
than the opprobrium of the faithful,
I will stare at the beauty of the stained-glass,
try, in some cases, to ignore its message,
and hope, beyond all logic, that this group
will stop at a synagogue were all
of the men and women, save me
will have to put on kippot or head scarves
and most will vow it will be their last visit
do such a heathen place, at least until
they get to Antwerp or Amsterdam.
The church is about half full,
which is to be kind, a quarter
of the pews are filled, but people
are spread widely apart to give
the family, to give the priests,
just to be on the safe side
to give God, the impression
of a fuller house, although
it being a Mass of Resurrection
on a Saturday morning, the more devout
are fairly certain it will not count
toward their weekly obligation.
The recessional hymn complete, the priests
greet the parishioners with a smile
that is equal parts joy and Surprise
and the pews return to their afternoon naps.
an old writer and his words 