Poem at the River

Ted Pope doesn’t want to go

To Heaven and I do not

As well—he has his reasons

I am sorting through my own.

There was a night a lot like

This one when a facebook friend

Made an offhanded remark

About how there was a likely

No historical Jesus,

An idea I had not thought

Possible, the myth firmly

Woven into my world,

Bible stories in Sunday

School, reinforced at home, no

Prayer missed before any meal.

No historical Jesus—

My brethren would have of course

Blamed my doubts on the Devil,

The idea that everything I’d

Been taught might be a fraud and

Suddenly I knew it True

And I understood what a

Paradigm shift was, how it

Cleaned you up and gave yourself

Back to you.