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Sunday morning Gospel

At a southern Baptist church

Praising with the choir

Listening to the Word of God

Where grudges are forgiven

And friendships re-united

We sinners find forgiveness,

Family, and a home

But here I sit

Alone at home

I couldn't be roused

To my own Father's house

I can hear the church bells in the distance

Calling white-washed tombs to repentance

Calling broken souls to be renewed

Calling crushed hopes to stand firm

Yet, here I sit

Looking out the window alone

Listening to their tolling

Refusing to be more

Than an armchair theologian

If my “deeds” are just words

Then they are not worth talking of

If I didn't speak to my Father today

Then why do I expect answers

If we are “the Body”

Why are we so apathetic

So CONSUMED by our own lives

That our faith wastes away

And as these thoughts come to me

I make myself more comfortable

Still refusing to be any more

Then an armchair theologian.

1.

I couldn’t make my bedroom church

reading psalms and Lord’s prayers

the light of my lamp and

the portion of my cup couldn’t

lift my soul mired in passions

and silence of the morning

the confessions couldn’t remove

my anguish of ages

nor the tears and cries strengthen

faith  hope  and love – the rock

slips the grip for enemies

within don’t halt my body

glues to the ground seeking

darkness of the womb and joys

ever restless the child doesn’t

grow  and the father  fails

in verses I can’t hide fears

my face I despise, can’t find

freedom from the chemicals

sprayed in the air and the smog

oppressing my breath, the sun

fails to keep the covenant

There, there in the graveyard was Silence,

No, not Peace, just not Violence.

Anger and Torment had left, but Silence had remained,

For what had happened, only Silence had been gained.

Silence had hung around,

Just hanging there, starring at the ground.

Silence was not old, but was among them now,

Silence was there, tied to the bough.

Take me to church so I can finally slam shut the door
I don’t believe in all that nonsense anymore
Hell is already here so you cant scare me
I wish I could take you to the places I go at night to see
Its all about control and fear to manipulate the masses
But I now see the world through these shit tinted glasses
If there is a creator up there he must be disgusted
By the children abused by the priests that they trusted
My church is my brothers that I went with to War
The  alter the battlefield that we hate and adore
My holy water the blood that was spilled by the young
The dead my saints and my soul the songs that we sung
So take me to church so I can slam shut that door
You call me a heathen but your God created War.

 ©  Tony McNally

Is it ironic that our prophets are marketed to profit the preacher's pocket?

It seems prophetic scripture is a profitable mixture of spirituality and social interaction; last time I stepped in a church, I envisioned cats goose steppin, their hands raised to acknowledge the Spirit but I'm wonderin if Der Führer is present.  Speaking of prophecy, these profits we chase will be the end of humanity - death creates a war economy where PMCs are commodities bought and sold to perpetuate global homogeny.  

New World Orders dictate a rise of profit, so our prophets are shifted to suit the pockets of those in suits and suites; our politicians accept legal bribery to sell us up river, our population swells and our problems become bigger.  We give in to fear and accept propaganda while we demand actions from those with hidden agendas.  Overseers out of officers above our written laws roam these streets looking more ravenous than their dogs.  As the blue line stretches from state to state, the state of the union dissolves; to state it simply, the Police State seems reminiscent of the Third Reich.  

RFIDs implanted as governments demand their chattel be branded; the mark of a beast we fed with our blood, best mark your numbered days of "freedom" as you chatter about your favorite programming.  Can it be coincidence entertainment on television is called programming?  Manufactured characters from sitcoms to newsrooms, distorted opinions layered like a cake with as much sugar coating, ensuring you will swallow the harsh medicine of reality crumbling.  

But never mind that, what color is this dress man?  And never mind THAT, douse yourself with this bucket of ice man.  From one scam to another, our attention is commanded - ironic that the only real deficit is attention.  If our attention had intention to shift our intended goals from profit to parables utter by prophets, imagine what our pockets would hold then.

Every day, if I open my eyes, I realize another layer of the real lies -- how we're compliant to the point of reliance on a system that simplifies human lives to assembly lines.  A culture that preys like vultures on the disenfranchised, selling lies to shallow minds encapsulated by fear; never did they mind the depth of the graves dug here.  For the truth it seems has been categorically smeared with distractions, millions booking face time to clear collective ADHD like ten second Tom.

One week, two weeks, three weeks, gone.  Attention deficit, human destruction imminent, and the cycle resets because we were too lazy kid.

Who are you?

what am I?

this is life--

we're passers by.

radiance falls

& fragrance lingers

this subtle numbness

tingles through the tip of my fingers

could love fill the empty room?

this desolate space,

it consumes 

the human race,

like a black hole 

a vacuum to the light in your soul..

hazey eyes

gloomy skies

sunshine cries--

the funeral's today..

the windows shine

stained glass

colored in disarray

I prayed to God, may you stay..

As I grew up my father told me to don’t assume everything is important, so I don’t really give that importance to things, but one of the most valuable thing I have, not talking about price but about sentimentalism; the ring. A ring is a round shape that you put in your finger, and they have several purposes like marriage, but this is not the case. A consecration ring, one of the valuable things for a person of God, that’s my greatest possession. Some years ago, I met this priest that was wearing a tunic and there was a ring hanging so I ask for it, he told me it was one of the valuable things for him. At the end of talking with him and living next to him for 3 weeks, he give me the ring as a gift because he thought I was a really good person and should become a priest. That moment was really magical and felt really nice. I wear it all the time and almost lost it many times, but at the second year of having it, I lost it.

Lizbeth's hand
is on the metal ring handle
to the church door.
The hand twists.

Hard to move,
jerks, pushes.
The door gives
and they are in.

Smell of oldness
and damp.
He closes the door
behind them, his

hand giving gentle push.
It clicks, holds firm.
Small and old,
the walls a fading white.

Old beams, pews,
altar table clothed
in white a cloth.
She looks around,

eyes scanning,
hands by her side,
fingers of one hand
holding her blue dress.

He follows, footsteps
after hers, scans her
before him, the walls,
the old wood pews.

They stop and turn
and look back
at the smallness
of the church.

Here will do,
she says,
pointing to a pew.
He shakes his head,

we can't, not here,
people may come.
No one comes here,
except on the monthly

Sunday or the odd
visitor or tourist.
He scans the pew,
old wood, wood knots.

Who's to know?
She asks. He walks
down the aisle
touching pew tops.

She watches him,
his reluctance,
his hesitation.
Some boys would

jump at the chance,
she says. But not
here, he says, turning
to face her, not in

a church, on a pew.
Some might, she says,
running a hand
over the pew top.

They had parked
their cycles outside,
at the back
of the church wall.

The sun shines through
the glass windows.
What if someone
comes and finds us?

She smiles. Moves
towards him.
Touches his face.
Imagine their faces,

she says. No, I can't,
he says, not here.
He stares at her,
her smile, her eyes

focusing on him,
her red hair loose,
about her shoulders,
her blue dress,

knee length,
white ankle socks,
brown sandals.
We're only 13,

he says, shouldn't
even be thinking
of such things,
let alone doing them.

His body language
tells the same.
She gazes at him,
his short hair,

his eyes wide
with anxiety,
his grey shirt,
jeans, old shoes.

We'd always
remember it,
she says, here
on a pew, me

and you, this
small church.
We could come back
years later

and view
our love scene.
No, he says,
not here, not

anywhere.
He looks at
the walls,
the roof,

the pews,
the altar table,
white cloth,
brass crucifix.

She sighs, looks
at the pew,
imagines the place,
the area of pew.

He and she.
But it is just
imagination,
mere thought,

she has not so far,
nor he, just an
impulse on her part,
an urge, a hot

compulsion to
experience,
experiment.
Let's go, he says.

Wait, she says,
let's just sit
in the pew,
just sit.

He studies her,
her eyes lowered,
her smile gone.
Ok, he says,

and they enter
a pew and sit.
The sunlight
warms them.

He looks at
the high windows,
at sunlight.
She sits and looks

at the brass crucifix,
the distorted Christ,
the head to one side.
She wonders how

they would have done it,
he and she, here,
on this pew.
She is unfocused.

She feels the sun
on her. Blessed,
she thinks, maybe.
He feels a sense

of gain and loss.
He has stepped
to an edge,
stepped back,

gazed into
a dark abyss.
She turns to him,
leans to him,

thank you,
she says.
They close eyes,
lips kiss.

My mother was Catholic and my father was Jewish...just imagine what that does?

It caused discord in their child as I never knew which one I was.

My mom wanted us all to be Catholic, but the synagogue Dad would have us attend

I’m not sure how or what battles were fought but Catholicism won out in the end.

They decided to bring us up Catholic and build us a basic Catholic foundation

They sent us off to Catholic school to give us a well-rounded Catholic education

But it didn’t take long to become disenchanted-Yes, the nuns were pious during mass

But back in the classroom if we broke any rule, those same nuns had no trouble kicking our ass.

The ruler was their weapon of choice, they’d hit us on the fingers, the wrist or the thigh

They’d even smack us on the mouth if we talked out and I never could figure out why

Or how these same nuns who at mass seemed filled with religious devotion 

Could treat us in a totally un-Catholic way...and seemingly devoid of emotion.

In fact I couldn’t wait to get away from the nuns and their strict Draconian rule.

It seems I never found the God my parents had hoped for in the halls of that Catholic school.

As I grew up and could think more for myself and was able to gauge and assess

I found I was not only disenchanted with the nuns but I agreed with the church less and less.

Their views on divorce, birth control, gays and the fact women could not be ordained

Along with the pedophile sex scandals meant my Catholicism was permanently stained.

Of course Catholicism is a religion..you don’t have to agree or believe

And since I could in good conscience do either, the Catholic church I chose to leave.

Recently Pope Francis has been giving the Catholic church a slightly more liberal nudge

By saying as long as gay people are looking for the lord then, “Who am I to judge.”

While, divorce and birth control have not entered the discussion- as far as I can tell

And he hasn’t addressed the bigger problem- the priest pedophile carousel.

No, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to being Catholic- on many points we just don’t agree

It seemed I learned a long time ago in Catholic school that the Catholic church isn’t for me.

But I might be inclined to begin to forgive the church and the nuns for kicking my ass

If I walked into church one Sunday morning and a woman was performing the mass.