At the Monastery

Stone polished by a thousand years of devotion.
Incense hanging in the air.
Icons darkened by the smoke of generations.
The quiet confidence of men
who believed they stood
a little closer to God
than the rest of us.

I walked the cloisters
wondering how many lives
had been surrendered here,
not to love,
but to certainty.

How many men
had withdrawn from the world
only to return
as its appointed interpreters.

Woe to you,
keepers of mysteries
you cannot know.

You inherit stories
and call them truth.

You inherit power
and call it authority.

You inherit silence
and call it revelation.

You speak of heaven
as though you have walked its streets,
of hell
as though you have returned from it,
of God
as though He had whispered
only to you.

You answer questions
that no honest person
could answer.

You comfort the grieving
with certainty.

You burden the fearful
with certainty.

You govern the living
with certainty.

And all the while,
the mountains remain silent.

The sea remains silent.

The stars remain silent.

Only the professionally holy
cannot bear
to say,

“I do not know.”

Perhaps that
is the original temptation.

Not to eat the forbidden fruit,

but to claim
the knowledge of God.

I left the monastery
and stood beneath the open sky.

The wind asked nothing of me.

The olive trees
made no demands.

The sea
offered no doctrine.

For the first time that morning,
I found a place
where mystery
was allowed
to remain mystery.