How Might I, in Faith, Do as You Ask

September 26, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, which begins on the evening of September 29.  The ten days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are a time when one’s repentance may affect whether one is written into the book of life or the book of death for the coming year.

Today’s poem is a poem for the High Holy Days about the desire to repent free of religious convention.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

How might I, in faith, do as You ask?

Innocent, I hung upon Your Word,

Great with the intention to be good.

However, here we go a different way.

How might I remove the righteous mask,

Opening my heart to the absurd,

Letting go what shibboleths I would,

Yet holding on to what I have to say.

Deliver me, then, naked to this task,

And turn away, Whom I so long have served.

Yearning to repent, as well I should,

So let me see myself in my own gaze.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/howmi5.html. For more poems for the High Holy Days, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/yomkippurpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement

September 25: Holiness and Faith Are the Rewards

September 26: How Might I, in Faith, Do as You Ask