Abandoned Faith

 

photo credit: Karen Roe

A few years ago while I was walking through the woods in Nowton Park, near Bury St Edmunds, I came upon and archway door, and an upturned font. These religious relics, overgrown and neglected,  profoundly affected me.  The following is a reflection prompted by the memory.

Abandoned Faith

This is England –

Land of Anselm, Becket, and Bede.

Where “Hallelujah” so moved a king –

As to rise him from his royal seat.

 

But now gone is Lent and fasting,

and memories of the martyrs who died;

Lonely Lindisfarne,  now beset –

By a different kind of tide.

 

Football and Sunday shopping,

Now, our time requires,

Faith abandoned for “the new and now”  –

Leaving forsaken, empty spires.

 

This is England –

Home of Lennon, Dawkins, and Fry.

Land of no “Hope and Glory” –

“Above us only sky.”

 

Padre