Photo by Michael Manulevich: https://www.pexels.com/photo/majestic-eagle-perched-in-aviary-at-sunset-33166976/

I’ve always been very cynical regarding the amount of influence religion has on society, I should add that I can only speak about the UK, and specifically the Christian Church. What particularly bothers me is the way that vast numbers of people have bought into the concept of being judged at death. The judge in question is an all-loving God, however, there’s a catch. The all-loving God is also angry,  jealous and vengeful, and “He” loves you so much that if “He” deems that you haven’t loved “Him” back in accordance with the conditions that “He” imposed on “His” love, then you are for the high jump. Or, to be more precise, an eternity of hell-fire and brimstone. Of course, this is absolute nonsense, but it’s actually good nonsense because it has given me the inspiration for another book.

I have tentatively called it, Death – A New Beginning, and it will consist of a series of poems and (very) short stories that deal with death as a process. The process that enables us to transition to our next reality. In other words it will look at death from a spiritual perspective, but minus the angry God. So, this is the way my writing will be going for the next few months. The following piece, entitled “An Eagle Caged” is one such piece that may end up in the book.

Encased in a body of flesh

I was as an eagle caged

I existed to fly

But with clipped wings?

I was but a dreamer

Spending my days pondering

On what might have been

And what might yet be

If Only I could free myself

From the living death

But, is this not life’s greatest conundrum?

To seek freedom

Only to find that one was never caged

Merely a slave to the ego

 

Yes, a slave to the ego was I

A believer of life’s dramas

As they played out in my mind

I was the star of the show

Stumbling around the stage

Like a drunken actor

Struggling to remember his lines

Now, as the deluded await judgement

From their angry God,

My latest adventure concluded

I dissolve into the nectarine sweetness of Divinity