I Am A Little Church

I am a little church (no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-I do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
I am not sorry when sun and rain make April

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and I wake to a perfect patience of mountains

I am a little church (far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature
-I do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
I am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, I lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)
~ e.e.cummings ~

(Complete Poems 1904-1962)


Act 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
for "In Him we live and move and have our being"; as even some of your own poets have said, "For we are indeed His offspring"


2Co 6:16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."