Holiness and Faith Are the Rewards

September 25, 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 how religious behavior can often precede and ignite religious faith.

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

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holiness and faith are the rewards:

In doing lies the promise of becoming.

Given what a life of faith affords,

How could one not still be in the running?

Holy days are opportunities,

Open doors to being who one would.

Longing to be touched by grace, one sees

Yet one more chance to choose the wished-for good.

Do not think that faith is ever certain:

All one's life, like love, it comes and goes.

Yet one can always stand before the curtain,

Singing for one's soul the prayers one knows.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/holin2.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