Walking with God or alone? June 26, 2012

  

I tend not to believe in coincidence. So, when she posts a poem with a nearly identical title to a poem I posted previously, I suspect a connection – especially when she got enraged over an image I used when I posted my poem.

On the other hand, she posted this poem today a whole month after I posted mine, leaving room for doubt as to whether or not it was a reaction.

These two approaches alter the interpretation in subtle ways, even though in either case, the poem largely says the same thing.

In this poem we get a definitive “I” who is walking through a massive church filled with gold and wood, slight streaming through large windows and onto the pews with warmth.

And she speculates on how years ago, people coming into a space like this might think they are walking with God.

This is something of a cynical perspective, a disbelief in the artifice of faith, perhaps seeing these things as trickery that deceives people into believing in God, or at least God’s presence, while she casts doubt about it, perhaps even going as far as to question the existence of some all-powerful spiritual being.

“Non believer,” might be too strong a term to descript the speaker in this poem, but she is skeptical, and judgmental, looking at other people from another time as being fooled.

The meaning of the poem changes subtly if seen as a reaction to my poem where I talked about a craft vendor who pulled me aside during one of my many trips to Woodstock to tell me I walked with God. (She, the poet, mistakenly assumed my trip there had something to do with her, a perception aided by the fact that among the photos I posted was one of a street sign for a restaurant where she once worked.)

The vendor’s remark came at a time when I struggled emotionally and struck me as a sign of hope, if no faith.

In either case, her poem questions the foundation of faith, claiming we get impressed by the trappings of spirituality when in reality there might not be anything there. We assume we walk with God because of the massive architecture we have built around our need to believe.

If her poem is not a reaction to mine, then she is simply questioning people’s gullibility. If it is a reaction, then it is a cynical reproach for me not to believe everything people tell me -- not just that vendor in Woodstock, but closer to home as work.

In both interpretations, her poem seems to say, if there is a god he walks elsewhere and most likely he walks alone.

 

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