Agnostic.
He grew up around severe nuns,
in starched habits.
They told him that,
if he didn’t do what they said,
he would burn in the fires of Hell.
He began to pray.
He prayed to be spared the eternal flames,
and adjusted his behavior.
Then, he was told that a wafer,
baked by a local baker,
was actually the Body and Blood
of God,
and he was commanded to eat it to live.
Again, he did as he was told;
although, he wondered how this was possible,
and
he continued to pray.
As he grew older,
his sexual urges emerged,
and he was again told that such behavior
would result in Hellfire and Brimstone.
He was conflicted about such natural feelings,
and what he was being told.
But,
he continued to pray.
He realized, as he grew older,
that both the Agnostics and the Atheists shared something.
They believed in something they couldn’t explain.
They called it Faith,
and he thought it sounded like wishful thinking.
He realized that it was possible
that everyone was wrong.
He realized that nobody could know
what was on the other side of midnight.
But,
he continued to pray.
After a while,
he knew that praying
had become a meditation.
It was a way to be mindful
of his existence.
It was a way to recognize his
insignificance in the universe.
Still,
he continued to pray.
Then, one day,
while he was pretending to understand the cosmos,
and praying to a God he was unsure existed,
he saw a photograph of a galaxy.
It was sizzling with exploding stars,
and bubbling chaos
that was impossible for a human mind to understand,
much less to create.
He realized it no longer mattered what his thoughts were called.
There was something in the universe
greater than himself,
and it didn’t matter what you called it.
He continued to pray.
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