SCRITTURA SATURDAY POETRY PROMPT

Worship

benefits and perils of faith

Satan’s Strategy hot irony…

He works through people like most archetypes, men and women, various religious stripes. He loves the stench of burning flesh, no matter who fanatics worship as they kill for their faith true.

For this impostor’s hot irony, half the fun’s convincing true believers he’s in other ones, while he plays God, inspiring such ferocity they create hell on Earth with each atrocity,

thinking they assure through cruelty heaven pure, for all who share their hate; of this they are so sure that Satan cackles as they fiercely join the fight to destroy love and truth in winning what is “right”.

~ Wry Welwood late 20th century, re-edited April 2021, published in Scrittura.

Whom or What do you worship, if anything or being at all? A provocative question, I know. Over millennia the question of Whom or What to worship has led to the spilling of oceans of blood. It also has inspired beautiful art, ecstatic soarings of spirit and monumental acts of charity. Confusing, eh?

These days, I worship an Irish goddess named Brighid, matron of healing, poetry and smithing. She is also known as the Fiery Arrow of inspiration. In the course of my life, I have also worshipped the Christian God and Jesus, the mythic protector of nature Greenman, an Irish goddess named Morrigan (Queen of Phantoms), “You Who Are Beyond All Names”, interspersed with periods of agnosticism and nature worship. It hasn’t been boring. My faiths have not called on me to disparage any others, let alone harm anyone. They have sustained me through difficult times and inspired me toward being my best self. On occasion they have brought me close to egocentric delusion, but that is my own fault.

It is possible to worship without belief in any god, by devoting oneself to other forces, such as consumerism, science, nature, humanity, poetry, war, etcetera. Worship of self could be the worse ship ever sailed, or not. Some people seem to make it work. Please pardon the breaking of my own rule to not put down the faiths of others. Couldn’t resist the pun.

This week’s prompt is a challenge to write of your own worship or faith without disparaging the beliefs of others. I believe faith has its dark side, but what I’m asking for now is expression of the life-enhancing aspects of your worship, rituals, religion, or other expressions of spirituality.

I have faith in you, siblings in ink, and look forward to your words. Please observe Scrittura writing guidelines, include a boxed link to this page and tag me.

~ Wry Welwood 19th or January, 2024.

Thanks to Viraji Ogodapola for publication.

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