I noticed a competition for a religious poem when I was helping my mother go to her church.  the prize was £250 for your church, though they didn't actually specify it should be a christian poem.  I sat there thinking 'I don't have anything to say about Christianity- well, only this .... ' and that is how this poem grew.  

Only this

Only this,

That He showed the divine within us all.

Being born in a body,

To make choices only a body could make,

Stripped of everything except humanity itself.

Feeling it all – grief, anger, fear, shame.

Even in the midst of ugliness and horror,

The divine is present.

It is the god who suffers,

Who enters life and stays,

Who is in every moment,

Who breathes life, simple life,

Here, now, present,

Even in the worst moments.

Not an outside hand

But within – your deepest wisdom

That He embodied.

Don’t rush too soon to proclaim “Halleluiah, he is risen!”

The gift at the end of suffering

Stay: seek the quiet voice,

The invisible thread of connection,

The divine within and without,

Present in us all

If it would

Only awaken.

©Catherine Blackfeather