The small voice

My improbable start with the Benedictines
doesn’t fully explain the degree of
self-loathing that often has a firm grip.

The quiet and raging rituals were frightening
and it’s taken half a lifetime to accept
a small voice can be the right one.

Perhaps I didn’t have enough time
with the Baptists for more than a breather
or the Quakers with their zen waiting or
the Lutherans or the Presbyterians
before finding Methodists a middle ground
for my wandering and wondering.

Mostly, what I hold closest I find
in the woods or in a smile or in a cup of tea-
what I don’t understand, I now embrace.