Humble torchbearers
Let not your sole Word silence all the rest,
Nor Truth be prisoned in a single speech.
The soul’s ascent is not a narrow stair,
But rises in a thousand dialects of hope.
We wake, we pray, we dream by different stars,
Yet each stirs awe, and awe is neighbour to the Real.
The call to kneel may echo from a minaret,
Or flow with incense through the temple gate,
Or birth a silence held in Quaker hush,
Each sign a flame that’s lit by mystery’s breath.
What hubris to insist the ocean ends,
Upon the shore we know, when other winds,
Bear sails toward horizons we have never dreamt.
And who shall say which mountain trail is best,
If all converge, beyond obscuring clouds,
Above – where language fails and only light remains?
Let us not build bombastic walls of creed,
But precious bridges of astonishment.
For God (if God there be) is not a monarch of divides,
But gentle gardener of infinite bloom.
He walks not just in Galilee, but alike in Ganges’ mist,
In synagogues and in the swirl of Buddhist flags and wheels,
Not trapped in stone, but beating in the heart’s reply.
Plurality! Not chaos, but a harmony with counterpoint,
Each faith a note, distinct, essential, whole.
Together, they disclose the music of our soul.
And we, expectant listeners all,
Can learn at last that difference is not doom,
But truest test of love’s unbounded reach.
So let us sing, and let our chorus be diverse.
The holy shows more dazzling faces than we know.
Then walk with reverence beside another’s truth;
We’ll find, perhaps, it mirrors something true in us.
For whom among us owns the final flame?
As humble torchbearers in endless line,
Some lift on high the radiant light of Christ,
Some chant the names of Vishnu manifold,
Some bow to earth, to sky, to sacred peace.
Yet all, in wonder, seek the same great fire.
May it be so. And let no one speak scorn,
That others scan the sun from unknown heights.
It is the same sun.
It is the same light.
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