VII-IX

VII.

Religion is a universal norm,
an instinct that will never go away.
We’re wired from before the day we’re born
to hunger for the holy on our way.

Beyond this fleeing world of change and chance,
beyond the mechanistic laws of fate,
intuit we a deeper, truer dance
in which our ev’ry longing may abate.

Philosophers appeal to our reason
while silence is the mystics’ common tongue.
Our folklore helps to synch us to the season
while art and science each provide a lung.

Allow your education to be broad
for goodness, truth, and beauty lead to God.


VIII.

The Week presents a pleasant overview
and sets the major outlets in discourse.
Economist provides more meat to chew
and proves itself a weighty, thoughtful source.

The JFA’s a must for all who hope
to understand the nations and their aims.
Atlantic, although narrower in scope,
can often put the powerful to shame.

While Harper’s is a newer rag for me,
it’s one so far I thoroughly enjoy.
New Yorker makes me feel so bourgeoisie,
enticing us with each subscription ploy.

I can’t pretend to get through ev’ry page
but this is how I keep my brain engaged.


IX.

The pagans who read Plato knew of God,
the One who is all beauty, good, and true,
so at their myths they’d often wink and nod
whenever gods were petty, flawed, or cruel.

Were there such fundamentalists in Greece
as read the works of Homer lit’rally
while men of education and of peace
found deeper truths within the Odyssey?

The masses lauding gods of war and strife
while others seek a higher, deeper love
sounds rather like the followers of Christ
embracing both the lion and the dove.

The Christian horrified at his own kind
might with the classic pagan share a mind.