All my life I’ve had a sense of God. I’m no saint – maybe I should be – but I can never deny this sense, this awareness, this ‘heart knowledge’.
Do we live just by what we think,
Or does feeling and emotion rule?
What steers our path and dictates
Character, to make us individual?
Many folk are schooled to a point,
But it’s not dogma, do’s and don’ts
That grip our soul and set our stance;
It’s what forms perception that counts.
A sense of God! A sense of God!
What greater gift can anyone have?
If one classes oneself atheist or believer,
These labels stem from a deeper well;
Walled with sharp pointed experiences,
Far beyond memory and intellect to tell.
Facts are flimsy, feebling into fiction,
Debates descend into passion’s trench,
Backs rear up in testosterone prone,
And we defend in gut-reaction clench.
A sense of God! A sense of God!
What greater gift can anyone have?
The modern day missionaries’ despair:
How to keep the rumour of God alive?
When decent ordinary folk haven’t a
Clue – however will the faith survive?
One generation’s lapse is another’s
Complete stoppage of any practice;
The baton dropped, the race abandoned,
And what is normal shifts its axis.
A sense of God! A sense of God!
What greater gift can anyone have?
As for me, I bless and thank my Lord
For parents devout and unassuming.
Whose firm and sincere faith meant a
Home where God could find a rooming.
Where a daily family rosary chanted
In familiar drowsy droning – boring to
A child for sure, yet warming, soothing,
And utterly and deeply reassuring too.
A sense of God! A sense of God!
What greater gift can anyone have?
A Catholic school where religion was
Implanted with often grim determination,
By a bunch of scary nuns and priests
For whom dereliction meant damnation.
Yet for all the sin and guilt, and silly little
Rules, we had limits, and we had structure,
And ritual, and colour, and smells and bells,
And weekly benediction – nunc et semper!
A sense of God! A sense of God!
What greater gift can anyone have?
All my life, I’ve had a sense of God;
Nothing to be boastful about – indeed,
Perhaps a summons to witness better:
How have I fed and nurtured that seed?
But I know this for sure: such a sense isn’t
Forged by logic and dry argumentation,
But in those precious early years of family
Formation, by a heart to heart implantation.
A sense of God! A sense of God!
What greater gift can anyone have?