cleansing my body and renewing my mind from the toils of this life and sin.

for heavy are the affects of its burdens in which my soul does bare,

and resolute am I, in reaching the idealistic  goals of a life so unfair.

Although now, with my mind so still.

I often question the reason of my ordeal.

And I sometimes ask, what if…what if had I taken a different path.

Would these meaningless questions, which I ask still, be pondered?

Would they even be there, if the way I choose delivered a life squandered.

What if in a different turn, I had chosen a profession in which to learn,

Would I be a doctor or lawyer, if I had only stayed in school?

Moreover, if I had, what would that had made me, a saver of lives an instrument of right,

Or would I have just merely been…a better educated fool.

Would I even still… be alive today?

Or would have some crazy foreign war whisked my soul away.

Too many ways it seems, in which a life could go,

Nevertheless, if in all honesty I should confess,

I would not change a thing that resides in my past roads,

For it is who I am…not who I could have been.

for I was built from a predetermined design…mastered only by Him.

So with my mind and body now relieved of its self inflicted pain,

I think I shall gather together my garments from this grassy knoll,

And get out of the rain.

J. Allen Wilson © 2004