What I was getting at in the last post is simple: most inspirational writing requires no mental unpacking. It tells; it doesn’t show.
Nell Maiden (who, I recently and sadly discovered, died in 2003) shows:
Prayer, September 29
Lord,
if it’s going to happen,
pack it in an earthquake.Give me epiphanies that blind,
that trip or wring
and tear but leave no doubt.Deliver me from diurnal grinddown,
from innuendos, suspicions,
from mere cells quitting.Let it be fatal and instant.
Or stripe it with rainbow.
Call me to action with purple.Lord, let me know.
I sleep in lieu of deliberation.
I’m strung staccato.
I’m insensitive to puns, hair growing,
the lampshade wearing thin, that shy kiss
that hardly costs a breath.Lord, grant me moans.
And when it’s over, give me
a moment to realize and leave
me breath enough to say:
yes, yes, yes.Amen.
That is what I mean.
But most Evangelical believers don’t seem to be interested in things that have multiple meanings, especially when it comes to belief and faith. They seem to be less interested in instant epiphanies than instant religious gratification: microwave dinners for the soul.
I don’t want my soul filled up with cliches.
There is a certain pop-music sensibility to religion — not just evangelical Christianity, but practically everything here in the Western world — that renders it pretty shallow. And helps justify the argument that believing in God is the same as believing in Santa Claus.