Remember, Too, the Holy Month of Fasting

April 24, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith.

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

A poem for Ramadan about the transformative power of a moment of faith:

Remember, too, the holy month of fasting.

Absorb the word of God like burning sand.

Make yourself through prayer a single yearning,

A single breath of faith, a single turning,

Dawn to dusk a diamond in God's hand.

A moment of pure faith is everlasting,

Nor need one know aught else to understand.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ramada.html. For more poems about religion, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/religiouspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith

4/20: Proverbs on Faith

4/21: Lynnette likes Tigers, Roses, Navy Blue

4/22: Some Are Picked for Pleasure, Some for Pain

4/23: People Who Are Certain Are a Curtain

4/24: Remember, Too, the Holy Month of Fasting

People Who Are Certain Are a Curtain

April 23, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith.

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

A poem about faith and certainty:

People who are certain are a curtain

Draped between the object and the word.

One sees only formulas repeated

Tirelessly, like stones thrown at the wind.

Such faith is evidence of little faith,

For faith knows very well it cannot know.

Doubt becomes a glass through which one sees

A star or two between fast-moving clouds.

A truth will never last as long as Truth,

For truths must be devoured before they melt.

One may believe, of course, but not too tightly;

When one looks, one sees one's God is free.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/peopl2.html. For more poems about religion, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/religiouspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith

4/20: Proverbs on Faith

4/21: Lynnette likes Tigers, Roses, Navy Blue

4/22: Some Are Picked for Pleasure, Some for Pain

4/23: People Who Are Certain Are a Curtain

Some Are Picked for Pleasure, Some for Pain

April 22, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith.

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

A philosophical and religious poem about how, despite inequalities of fate, all are loved equally:

Some are picked for pleasure, some for pain;

Some for pity, others for perfection.

Some are unfortunate, and so remain,

While some seem chosen for the gods' affection.

Some lose limbs or sanity or joy,

Stranded on the road from birth to death;

Some find all the world in their employ,

Riding through rich fields, the lords of breath.

But all are souls, and therefore lost at sea,

Lost, lost, and drowning in eternal grace;

And all must suffer the same agony

And vanish into time without a trace.

And all are loved, and lavished well with love,

And live within a love serene and good.

Fate may cruel or expeditious prove,

Yet one may dwell in glory if one would.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/somear.html. For more poems about religion, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/religiouspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith

4/20: Proverbs on Faith

4/21: Lynnette likes Tigers, Roses, Navy Blue

4/22: Some Are Picked for Pleasure, Some for Pain

Lynnette Likes Tigers, Roses, Navy Blue

April 21, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith.

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

A name poem contrasting the self with the soul:

Lynnette likes tigers, roses, navy blue,

Yet all these preferences cannot be she.

Nice long brown hair, brown eyes, loves poetry,

Needs pets and people, cuddles, gentle, too.

Even these are not the girl Lynnette,

The mystery that is her childlike being,

The sacred soul beyond what we are seeing,

Embraced by love more deep than we've known yet.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lynnet.html. For more poems about religion, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/religiouspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith

4/20: Proverbs on Faith

4/21: Lynnette likes Tigers, Roses, Navy Blue

Proverbs on Faith

April 20, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is faith.

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

Proverbs on Faith

1. Faith is a choice; knowledge, an understanding.

2. The choice of faith can be made only outside the boundaries of knowledge. So, for example, if one knows that one is six feet tall, one need not choose to believe that one is six feet tall. Nor could one reasonably choose to believe that one is five feet tall.

3. Similarly, if one knows that God exists, one need not choose to believe that God exists. Just as if one knows that God does not exist, one could not reasonably choose to believe that God exists.

4. The question of God's existence is, however, beyond the boundaries of knowledge, and is therefore a fertile field for faith. For while science may eventually discover the origin of our universe, it will never discover the origin of being itself, the uncaused cause of which is a paradox that defies reason.

5. The choice of faith ought to be made on moral or esthetic grounds rather than on epistemological or metaphysical grounds. For epistemology and metaphysics are concerned with knowledge, while one's experience of goodness and beauty is affected by faith.

6. What, then, does it mean to say that one believes that God exists? It means that although one cannot know whether God exists, one has chosen to posit God's existence and act accordingly.

7. Since the choice of faith can always be unmade, in every faith there must always be an element of doubt.

8. One chooses faith because of its effect on the quality of one's life, and on the quality of the lives of those around one.

9. In its social manifestations, faith provides a rich tradition of rites and practices that bind people together in ways that reason and knowledge cannot. This is why even some who do not choose faith choose to practice faith's rituals at various turning points in their lives.

10. There is room for faith in even the most rational of societies, not as a substitute for knowledge, nor even as an additional way of knowing, but as something altogether different from knowledge, as ordinary movement differs from dance.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/faith2.html. For more poems about religion, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/religiouspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Faith

4/20: Proverbs on Faith

To Be Happy, One Must Know the Rules

April 19, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is happiness.

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

A philosophical number poem setting out rules for happiness:

To be happy, one must know the rules.

We are the gods against whom we rebel.

Equal orchards need not equal seeds,

Nor can a stone escape the laws of laughter.

The rules are ancient, yet none of them are strange.

Years alter them, but they never change.

Savor sweat, and give away the jewels.

Earn your leisure; your pleasure never sell.

Value grain no more than wild weeds.

Ease the lust to own what you are after.

Never fence what should be open range.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/haprul.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

4/13: Fulfillment Is Entirely Up to You

4/14: Fortune Is More Fortunate Within

4/15: Jayden Has the Recipe for Joy

4/16: Happiness Is like a Sun

4/17: Thirty-Eight Has No Fear of the Future

4/18: Thirty-Six Sings Well the Song of Life

4/19: To Be Happy, One Must Know the Rules

Thirty-Six Sings Well the Song of Life

April 18, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is happiness.

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

A philosophical number poem in which happiness lies in passion, joy, and love, resting in the arms of death and pain:

Thirty-six sings well the song of life,

Having long known well its sweet refrain.

In passion, joy, and love lies happiness,

Resting in the arms of death and pain.

There are those who battle for success,

Yet wind up winning much with little gain.

Sing, then, of what is neither more nor less;

In music limn the grace beneath the strife,

X-rays of a silence, spare and plain.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/36e.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

4/13: Fulfillment Is Entirely Up to You

4/14: Fortune Is More Fortunate Within

4/15: Jayden Has the Recipe for Joy

4/16: Happiness Is like a Sun

4/17: Thirty-Eight Has No Fear of the Future

4/18: Thirty-Six Sings Well the Song of Life