-- Is Faith Enough --

by John Herlihy

Is faith enough when we run out of belief,

Faith turned stranger that offers little relief.

Is prayer enough when we run out of words,

Blown into the wind as the tweeting of birds.

Suffering and pain in the world seems more real,

More convincing than what our hopes may reveal.

We feel the desire to question divine providence,

Enduring pain shows little mercy and no kindness.

Perhaps faith a little less blind with a sense of doubt,

Not every mystery answered that we may ask about.

For all of our doubts, the mystery still hovers there,

When we entreat the Divine to listen to our prayer.

Faith is a kind of waiting, a waiting without any thought,

The waiting turns beautiful, hopeful of what we sought.

I will rely on the stillness of my soul, its ability to wait,

Whatever I wish to learn lies beyond the eternal gate.

The origin of all our thought lies in a kernel of a belief,

Life long and arduous, but the decision to believe brief.

I ask nothing more of the soul but that to quietly wait,

To discover stillness before it arrives at heaven’s date.

If faith be a sea, then reality must be its abiding shore,

A reality that takes us by the hand when we implore.

Make not our seeing the sole basis for our believing,

Make our believing the ultimate basis for our seeing.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Sunday 12 May 2024