I have sat in plenty of church pews;
heard many a priest or deacon lecture
From plain altars in farm town parishes
to urban cathedrals dripping with statuary.
The Catholicism of my college was not
a conscious choice, but delivered unto me
Music theory with Sister Margaret,
Aristotle’s ethics with Father David.
I kept the Easter vigil at St. Procopius
and read from the Rule of St. Benedict
Embracing their moderation and community
and, oh yes: ora et labora
I trekked with Father Michael
to the churches of France and England
In and out of Chartres and Canterbury
up and down Westminster Abbey
I heard mass at a church in Rheims
half in English, half in French
Crossed at low tide to Mont Saint-Michel
more than enough to stir the soul
But I find more of God
in a few verses of song
Than in all the official holiness
of stained glass and censers
And I hear more of God
in the guitars of modern troubadours
In the strings and ivories of Mozart
and the chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth
In a cello keening Dvorak
and the pulse, pulse, pulse of Glass
And I see more of God
in the ever-changing lake
In the blue wink of the warning beacon
amidst the invisible blackness of night
In the silver fire of early morning water
dancing spots before my eyes
In the sun’s wide beam sweeping
east to west – a heavenly searchlight
I even imagine a chord or two
in the clatter and rumble
of those eternal trains