Poem after Sunday morning church service in a tent
In a huge hotel where the concierge told me there had been count themThree weddings the day before, which is why they erected the epic tent.I got there early and watched people file in. The tall guitar player askedMe if I was the minister. The minister turned out to be a lady who onceShe got started talking never really stopped except for the music. WhenThe songs started everyone except me stood and held hands and swayed.I am a Catholic man and we only hold hands with children and we don'tSway. I tried for a while to figure out what species of church service thisWas but you just could not tell. There was the swaying, which seemed toBe Baptist, and discussion of sacrifice and fasts, which seemed Calvinist,And there was talk of the Spirit and the One and suchlike, which seemedUnitarian to me, but then I heard the name Christos ... Greek Orthodox?For a minute there I wondered if there would be snake-handling or maybeA sudden burst from the Koran, or a pause while we discussed the Torah,But the service stayed determinedly undeterminable. In the opening salvoOf this service I was amused, thinking that it might be something offeredBy the hotel for its guests, an attractant, some expensive consultant's ideaFor adding value to your stay at the hotel, and I marvelled at the marketingBrilliance of it — welcoming everyone, offending no one, proffering ritualWithout a trademark, adding bonus usage to the rent of the tent, as well asExcellent community relations. But soon I stopped being amused and wasMoved, despite the endless blather of the minister. People had come to beMoved. They had come to hold hands and sing. There were bright ribbonsOn the folding chairs by the aisle to signal the bride's or the groom's side.There was a man's green tie knotted to a tent stake. There were tiny babiesIn their mothers' arms. There was a man hunched in a wheelchair. Why doWe ever bother to argue about religion? All religions are the same gloriousWine, susceptible to going bad but capable of quiet joyous gentle elevation.They're all useful and useless, mesmerised and ruined by power but alwaysPregnant with the possibility of humility. They are so easy to ignore. You'dBe wise to sneer, with every reason imaginable for the curl of your knowingLip. Yet here I am, on Sunday morning, in the wedding reception