The Sanctuary of Skin and Bone (Poem)

Perhaps faith isn’t the echo in stained glass,
nor the hymnal’s worn, familiar pass.
But the quiet space between two hands,
reaching out in broken, shared demands.

We chase a deity in gilded halls,
while the heart’s true temple gently falls.
Like a forgotten melody’s refrain,
have we mistaken sanctuary for pain?

In seeking scripture’s perfect,
binding thread, have we lost the path our souls once tread?
The sacred whispers, not in hollow stone,
but in the fragile seeds of kindness sown.

Not in the verses we so blindly claim,
nor in the hollow praise that fans our name.
But in the cadence of a love unbound,
where seeing others, truth is truly found.

To love the flawed, the lost, the intertwined,
to see the god in every human mind.
Perhaps the change we crave, the shift we yearn,
is learning to see, before we’re seen, and learn.

SES 4/2/25