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osmosis, softly and with guilt
Jun. 3rd, 2020 07:40 ami. 'if i should fall from grace with god' is one of the most catholic songs i know, for a certain brand of it.
ii. when notre dame de paris burned, i wrote a poem. i had been once, and bought my catholic grandparents a candle there. i shouldn't have feelings more than that, i said to myself, my heart already across the ocean staring in anguish.
iii. i am working toward being legally jewish, but my past with the paternal family's liberal catholicism bleeding through doesn't have to stop mattering.
iv. i have a hundred confessions and none, i have a hundred guilts ten times over. the apologies i make will never be enough to feel like i can stop seeing ghosts in every word and movement. it's the trauma, it's the catholic osmosis, it's a hundred different feelings and none.
v. sometimes i think i'd make a better catholic than a jew: in my darkest, most insecure moments, when all i can do is prostrate and confess and beg forgiveness, but even beyond the 'holy trinity' issue i could never...
vi. ...because my path must be atonement, for past harm involving both others and myself. i must spread across the stars and spill color onto the canvas of my body and mind. catholicism cannot do that for me.
vii. sometimes there's a war going on in my head, shadows and light and words, poetry in motion: a poet reads his crooked rhyme; holy, holy is his sacrament... i heard a church bell softly chime, in a melody sustainin; it's a long road to caanan... (1)
viii. if i should fall from grace with god where no doctor can relieve me, if I'm buried 'neath the sod but the angels won't receive me, let me go... (2) you can bring me holy or bring me broken before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah (3)
ix. (i would never be a good catholic even if i believed and tried, and by some measures i'll never be a good jew). but i can hold them both: the faith of my grandparents that bled through osmosis sacred as a concept. and judaism, in all the myriad forms, even closer as a faith of my own, no matter how close we can or cannot get to canaan.
________
(1) Bleecker Street by Simon & Garfunkel, 1964
(2) If I Should Fall From Grace With God by The Pogues, 1988
(3) Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, 1984
ii. when notre dame de paris burned, i wrote a poem. i had been once, and bought my catholic grandparents a candle there. i shouldn't have feelings more than that, i said to myself, my heart already across the ocean staring in anguish.
iii. i am working toward being legally jewish, but my past with the paternal family's liberal catholicism bleeding through doesn't have to stop mattering.
iv. i have a hundred confessions and none, i have a hundred guilts ten times over. the apologies i make will never be enough to feel like i can stop seeing ghosts in every word and movement. it's the trauma, it's the catholic osmosis, it's a hundred different feelings and none.
v. sometimes i think i'd make a better catholic than a jew: in my darkest, most insecure moments, when all i can do is prostrate and confess and beg forgiveness, but even beyond the 'holy trinity' issue i could never...
vi. ...because my path must be atonement, for past harm involving both others and myself. i must spread across the stars and spill color onto the canvas of my body and mind. catholicism cannot do that for me.
vii. sometimes there's a war going on in my head, shadows and light and words, poetry in motion: a poet reads his crooked rhyme; holy, holy is his sacrament... i heard a church bell softly chime, in a melody sustainin; it's a long road to caanan... (1)
viii. if i should fall from grace with god where no doctor can relieve me, if I'm buried 'neath the sod but the angels won't receive me, let me go... (2) you can bring me holy or bring me broken before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah (3)
ix. (i would never be a good catholic even if i believed and tried, and by some measures i'll never be a good jew). but i can hold them both: the faith of my grandparents that bled through osmosis sacred as a concept. and judaism, in all the myriad forms, even closer as a faith of my own, no matter how close we can or cannot get to canaan.
________
(1) Bleecker Street by Simon & Garfunkel, 1964
(2) If I Should Fall From Grace With God by The Pogues, 1988
(3) Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, 1984
