Not long after I spent a few minutes staring at this amazing piece of art in the sumptuous Seville Cathedral, I popped into a neighborhood church on the way to more gelato. Unlike how I imagine frustrated Francis patiently enduring his place in the wall of a treasure house, treasuring a lost bird winging through the  air near the ceiling, and seeing Christ in the hordes of tourists, I felt a bit too much bite and bile rise up in reaction to the state of the church — my church, and God’s.

This dashed-off psalm down the road by the pool reflects my examination.

An instinctive turn into the church:
Sevillans are intoning a rosary.
The leader gives a glance to verify
We are invisible tourists.

I make my companion sit with me:
Sevillans creating a foreign atmosphere,
Making a world for the initiated.
I get through a cycle and leave.

Out on the sidewalk I speak softly,
A sotto voce of contempt lest they hear,
“That’s a good reason for the church to die.”
I am self-righteously upset.

I am right again. So right. So right.
But my scorn is also a good reason
For your beleaguered Church to die.
I kick its last leg in the shin.

Every time I wander here, I lament
When the baroque church was powerful,
When they got a cut the land and gold
From which I still benefit.

They spread out art in every corner of each town:
Brilliant details amplify your honor and glory
With the ill-gotten gains of thieves and murderers.
I inherited murderous thoughts.

I am instinctively turning into this psalm,
Into a place outside my bite and bile.
If for just a moment, I am freed by worship
As my heart sees the invisible.