Inventing the Wheel

Well, la! One head on the little YouTube screen
says we need a new religion, and another says
it's stupid to reinvent the wheel. And I would think
the second was right (because I like cathedrals),

but then I think: those of us unchurched 
are creating a new religion willy nilly, 
and the only question is do we do it right
or do we do it like chuckleheads -- worship at the temples
of commerce, make offerings to the algorithms
of liking, train our attention
to ever greater feats of distraction. That
is our present devotion. We're inventing it anyway,
a lonely lopsided Flintstone 
pentagon of a wheel. Stop.

Here is what we do in our church: 

we never gather and we never sing

we blame but never praise

we cultivate indulgence; we wallow in dread;

we pick the scabs of anxiety.

The stupidest Congregation of the Bigot

in Podunkville does better than that.

Any meditation, any contemplation, any prayer

is better than this. Any tradition, old or made up.

And the thing is, I have always had it backwards

You don't find out the truth first and then 

go looking for the church that matches. That's

a project bound to fail. 

The people of the church

must gather first, and build and find together.

What we know is: this does not work. That's

enough to start with. The rest comes later.