Try Not to Hate
Do not despise
If you wish to rise.
There is a place
Where you belong
Where you are not wrong
To love.
Though the journey is long
And the shades of night
Are dark.
Hard to Believe
It is hard to believe
And, therefore,
Receive
A love so great
That it covers every failing,
Perfects all things.
Making the desires of the heart
Complete.
Faith is given,
Not attained.
Yet life must grind us
Before faith can find us
Small enough to embrace it.
Lift
Sadness welcomes a lift
For surely it wishes a
Return to joy.
When will Joy rise again?
To take its flight
across time
To create laughter
once again?
I was brought up in a staunch religious world being taught that my religion was the best one, the true one. I was brought close to the altar serving Mass at the age of 5 or 6. I memorized Latin. The first two words | learned in Latin were. “Ad Deum” or ” To God Who is hey joy of my youth”. Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam, meaning “To God Who is the joy of my youth”. That was many years ago. Since then, my life has been indelibly affected by “the church”. For years, I hardly asked questions about what it all meant. It was so illustrious and mysterious to me that I just followed.