My report card

My best guess on this piece is that I wrote it sometime in early 2005. I can't remember what was happening when I wrote it, but I remember writing it. I'm not holding it up as a paragon of poetic work, but I am offering it as a gesture of vulnerability. Anyone can obviously see the emotion in it and I'm hoping that most people can sympathize, seeing something in their past that connects to what this piece is trying to articulate.

I work so hard

to be called “holy”

but put to sermons’ standards,

I don’t really add up

I feel bad

I feel insufficient

I wish I could see

God’s report card for me

do I get an ‘A’

in Piety?

and am I earning enough

extra credit in Stewardship?

I wonder if I am creative enough

in Bible Study views

oh, how I wish I could see God’s comments

in that box at the bottom of the page

so that I can truly see

what percentile I match

my trouble lies

in where to find this card

where do I look

in God’s wide creation?

do I look to the stars

or down at my hands?

do I look high and low

or wait for the mail?

perhaps the best I can do

is buy me a copy of the Good Book

open it up

and find where I fit

cause doesn’t it say

God loves me so?

doesn’t it say

that I just need believe?

after all this

God’s message, I think

is not directed toward my doubting

but more to my faithing

the Lord leads me blindly

but of course the Creator knows

which heading to follow

to keep from sticking to the muck

by that celestial sea

the Lord is my shepherd

and if God leads me by still waters

then I’d best go swimming