Finding Peace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Another new poem today as I take time off (among millions worldwide) to attempt minimising a dual sense of  frustration and despair caused by the coronavirus. As I have said many times on the blog, creative therapy always helps me.Try it sometime? Writing, gardening, sport or simply going for a walks and engaging with the more positive aspects of life around you ... birdsong, the smile on a stranger's face, bumping into an old friend and reliving the brighter side of life on Memory Lane, and more besides ... it all helps put a positive spin on even the most negative days ... yes, even if it's raining. 

As the world continues it fight against the coronavirus, there are people from different backgrounds and ethnic origin desperately anxious for families, friends, neighbours, and how the pandemic will affect us all both in the short and longer terms.

A neighbour commented only yesterday that she fears she will never know peace of mind ever again.

The human spirit is a tough cookie, and so are human beings; nor does it need religion to focus on what the host body needs most. Yes, religion offers many people the social and spiritual support they cannot find elsewhere, but the human spirit is something altogether different, part of our individual condition, which is why I often refer to mind-body-spirit as one entity.

I am not attacking religion; if it helps a person through life, so much the better. Religion is simply not something with which I have felt comfortable since childhood; as a pantheist, I see nature as, not the creation of any God. I daresay some readers may be horrified, but different religions have their own agendas and dogma through which they express their faith, why not a pantheist?.

 If God is all things to all people, why not to a poet? A poet, moreover, who believes very strongly in free as well as positive thinking, and agreeing to differ rather than constructing fences.

FINDING PEACE

It has been a bleak mid-winter

of the heart, the world’s natural seasons

overpowered, to the extent

that even Earth Mother’s gift of spring

has failed to either reassure

or bring hope to millions left engaging

with an invisible enemy,

chances of success 50:50, some estimates less,

world in distress

Governments trying to beat

unpredictable odds, racing against time

(and each other)

to produce a vaccine, between delivering

short fixes if not always

in time to prevent death rates rising,

street demonstrations

but inciting the usual party-political squabbling,

solving little or nothing

Leading clerics, unable to explain

any Covi19 turn of events in terms holy agenda,

customised dogma

rising to the politic, trusting the rhetoric

of dogma to fuel such a need

for reassurance as will fuel repentance,

swell congregations,

let rooftops ring with songs and hymns of praise

in the hope of finding peace

Peace, though, makes its home in mind-body-spirit,

having sought, found, and sees fit

Copyright R.N. Taber 2020

[Note; This poem also appears on my gay-interest blog today.]