Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Religion

Down Under

Audio Recordings, Flight, Travel / tagged Faith, Reincarnation, Religion / December 22, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Flying toward the sunset
crossing the International date line
you do not exist on this earth for a day

You may be in heaven or hell
depending on who you are meeting there
and it may seem or be that you're there forever

Fortunately there are alternatives
plenty of religions believe in return tickets
and you may get to fly again into another sunrise

Church Windows

Audio Recordings / tagged Faith, Fear, Religion / December 12, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Someone, I think it was Rilke, said
Religion is like a window
you can see God through it
but it keeps you from touching him

Summer job at sixteen
removing for re-leading
panels of old stained glass
from Moose Jaw's St. Andrews Church

Rickety extension ladder
up to a plank between the parapets
another ladder barely on it
and a long drop to the stone steps

Hands trembling, knees shaking
glad I was on the God side of the glass

Thelma and Louise on Garden Tractors

Audio Recordings / tagged Humor, Pathos, Politics, Religion, Women's rights / November 17, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Thelma and Louise
on garden tractors heading for the irrigation ditch

Thelma and Louise
tired of the praying at and preying on
are running from the suburbs hell bent for leather

Running from the suburbs
with a posse of protestants hot on their tails
gun racks on their riding mowers big iron on their hips
firing commandments and amendments with fifty shot clips

We’ve seen the movie before, we know how it ends

Good Company

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Mother, Religion / July 25, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

eating God the way
a bear eats meat against winter - John Steinbeck

Though mother hungered for heaven
she did not wish to reside there alone

Got dad therefore Baptist drowned to wash away what he washed down

Dressed us often in Sunday best
to learn the answers to the entry test

And awaits our fates by the pearly gates

Biblioscholical Bombardment

Audio Recordings, News / tagged Control, Religion, Shame / June 26, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sin calling sin sin
grapeshot at by bible quotes
light wielded as dark

A Caution Against Too Much Church Too Soon

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Religion / April 9, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Brother Wally at age three or four
sitting on the tracks as the train approaches
wanting to find out what it’s like to be an angel

The last minute rescue
granting him some fame and slack
when he went back to being
the little devil he had been the day before

1 Reply

Little Church

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Childhood, Religion / April 8, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sometimes, as far from everywhere as we were,
a visiting or student minister would make the
long trek and our one room school would
become a church for the day

It didn’t happen often
so the first time my three year old brother
sitting in the second row heard him say
“Jesus Christ”
he turned and said
“He swore mom, the minister swore”

“Shh” said my mother,
“He swore, he swore, he swore” said Wally
every effort to silence him only increasing his
insistence and volume

Most fun that most of us, except my mother,
ever had in church

2 Replies

Statues

Audio Recordings / tagged Religion / March 9, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There is a St. Francis in our garden with a squirrel at his marble feet and a small bird on his shoulder
Under the big oak out front
a stone Buddha holds firm
his mudra calling for discourse equal balance of give and receive
As a Christian in a Christian land
it would be nice to have a Jesus too
If only we could find one of him
holding a fish and a loaf of bread
in each outstretched unpierced hand

1 Reply

Church Windows

Audio Recordings / tagged Faith, Fear, Religion / April 2, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Someone, I think it was Rilke, said
Religion is like a window
you can see God through it but it keeps you from touching him

Summer job at sixteen
removing for re-leading panels of old stained glass from Moose Jaw's St. Andrews church

Rickety extension ladder up to a plank between the parapets another ladder barely on it and a long drop to the stone steps
Hands trembling, knees shaking, glad I was on the God side of the glass

1 Reply

A Protestant Boy at Catholic School

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia / tagged Religion / November 29, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Pain in the ass at catechism class
where why was a four letter word to the nuns

Lover of the Latin mass - music is music
and that swinging-bell scenter
what did they put in that

The Body and Blood Protestants had too
but that phone box to God confessional
was, and yet remains, a mystery

Guess I’ll have to
continue to count on unearned grace

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