Tag: faith

I Believe

~ Lauren Nicole ~ Leave a comment

More than any other color, I believe in blue

The widest outstretched arms I’ve ever seen above and below the moon

In bright pastel or tempest grey, she always builds a day anew

With hope of sun or fear of pouring rain, my prayers may still come true

If I were to pick a religion, I believe it would be you

You, the watcher who hides away and watches from a brighter view

The invisible smile of a stranger that I picture in my dreams

I ponder on how you’ll never know how much your unseen smile means to me

More than any time, I believe in midnight

The one second on the clock that an erroneous day is blown away

A flitter of hope in a shivering heart beat leaps awake

Ready to make right this fresh new day

Yes, I believe in this the way I believe in virgin snow

That quietly covers our footsteps and holds our secret close

She wistfully shifts around our frozen trails

And slows the time just enough for us to observe the small details

I suppose it’s hard to not believe in God;

Who else can I find to blame the hardships of life on?

Or where do my prayers go after they fall as weary tears?

What idol can I rely on to placate all of my fears?

But no one can reply to all of the questions, all of the demands

They fall back into the frail fingers of my tired hands

So I believe in magic, the magic that makes up time

Who meticulously grooms the sea and the sky

Patiently healing wounds and removing the iron ball and chain

So the hope in my heart can finally fly.

Repetition

~ Lauren Nicole ~ 2 Comments

 

A young and silly child, my mother asked me to wash the dishes

I stood on the ladder and scrubbed them clean, toweled them dry and placed them away

She ran her finger along the brim of a glass, her eagle eyes not dismissive

Without sparing me a glance she said “Do it again. Do again until you get it right.”

I traced my letters carefully and tried to get them in the lines

But I was always rather clumsy, I could never get my words upright

My father was there with his critical stare as he couldn’t make out the words

So he said ‘Do it again. Do it again until you get it right.”

When I got older, I began to run – from many things, if I’m honest

And I was somewhat fast, a bit impressive if I refrain from being modest

But my coach would never cheer when he watched me dive through the finish line

He’d just say “Do it again. Do it again until you get it right.”

I never was one to strive for perfection, I truly appreciated the arts

I painted, I wrote and I loved to sketch – the passion burned brightly in my heart

I’d stay up for hours, for days even, painting in low light

Until the instructor critiqued me, said to “Do it again. Do it again until you get it right”.

When I was somewhere between a girl and a woman,

I somehow found my way on the fight for freedom

In combat boots and camouflage, I had never felt quite so lost

A man with a red ribbon across his chest watched me doing push ups all night

I always found myself crying on the floor after pushing with all of my might

And every day, he’d seek me out and make sure he saw my eyes filled with fright

And every day he’d tell me to “Do it again. Do it again until you get it right.”

Years later, I found myself working a job, a standard nine-to-five

I never imagined I’d be in an office filling out invoices in my life

But I was awful with numbers, and someone’s paycheck wouldn’t be  quite right

Until my manager told me to “Do it again. Do it again until you get it right.”

It wasn’t the place for me, and I meandered from place to place

But there was one thing that I could never escape

No matter where I went, I would make a mistake

And I’d be forced to correct it no matter how late

Yes, I hid away and I ran from my flaws

I avoided the mirror, I ignored the missed calls

How could I live in a world where I’m so imperfect?

Who could possibly accept me when I constantly fall?

But although people lie, mirrors don’t, and I can’t deny my face

I’m only human, and I’m not one of the few who keep a constant pace

I face my worst foe, my critical reflection and how she glowers in the light

And I don’t flinch the slightest bit when she says “Do it again until you get it right”.

My Theology.

~ Lauren Nicole ~ Leave a comment

I believe in an attentive ear that seeks the somber sound of crying in a dark and sightless night. The truth in hearing and believing a life beyond one’s own beating heart is a religion of its own. If faith is mandatory, I’d rather believe in the pensive mind that yearns for justice; a law not written by man, but inherited millennia ago from the sky.

As you believe in God, I believe in a love for life so strong that no small flower be set to a flame. My deity is the beauty of an unkempt green valley, and the dandelion seeds that form clouds upon the horizon in a hot summer gust. As you believe in angels, I believe in the mindless creatures that roam the world with hope in their hearts of falling in love – those silly things are so romantic, they brim with more hope than could ever be discovered in a mine filled with diamonds.

Your belief in heaven is comparable to my belief of a sunny afternoon under a pale blue sky, somewhere far away from the city where I can hear the cicadas and the bullfrogs. There are no gates here, just a noisy silence that raptures me in a way that no psalm ever has. I can read catharsis from the cumulus clouds, or hear a chorus in the little things that live in the loam. What we have in common? We both call our heaven our home.

But what about hell? Well, I don’t believe that exists as long as there is another day. For there are days, nights, weeks and months that I lie awake with teary eyes. There are days that I wish I could simply stop my heart-beat on demand. The heat under my skin is comparable to the literature that describes the underworld, I suppose, when I feel this insatiable need for something, for anything to bring a chill to my fiery anger, or my branding sorrow.

Although I know that it won’t be for ever. Each time I watch the clock, and the arrow hits one minute prior midnight, I know that shortly there will be another day. As the seasons shift their way around the cyclical conundrum that life is made of, one spring day I’ll see my deity, one summer day I’ll fill my heart with hope.

Even in the season of the dead things, the fallen leaves remind me of the hearth of a cozy home. Though I may brood alone, I know that 11:59 is the truest worship time. Idle and fatigued I bide the time, the sixty seconds that always drags my atheist heart out and gives it a moment to practice religion – one second at a time.