Blind Man in the Sanctuary

You sit in the sanctuary.
Colored light filters in.
Outside, where you left the door open,
wind blows. You can smell the farms,
cattle and sheep and fresh cut hay.

Your life has been spent traveling
from sanctuary to sanctuary,
cathedrals and temples and your own bed
and it’s sharing.
You are no safer there,
but you feel safer. Centered,

and perhaps that is the answer to your prayers
for peace.
Not that peace surrounds you,
but that you are peaceful,
even when your world is not.

Perhaps. It is hard to know.
All you know is that you are here. Now.
surrounded by neogothic woodwork
and turn of the century windows
heavily influenced by the Amish.

All you know is that you are here.
Less sure of who you are than where.
Unsure of what gifts matter
and what sets you apart,
feeling foolishly ordinary,
still learning at an age and time
I am supposed to be more.

And yet. And yet, I am content.
I have been given adventure,
opportunity and danger.
I have made my own mistakes,
rarely twice, but even then, they were mine
and I own each spectacular error
like a prince with his tarnished treasures.

I am content,
for I have the secret of sanctuaries,
the simple truth of them,
that the gods in each
matter less than your own power
to let them in
and choose.