At the Edge of the Sea of Faith

Depend on me, but only if you must in measured time.
This chimeless, spectral clock called life winds down
Down down to timeless dust;
To shrouded form,
And remnant of God’s flock.

Faith follows with sedate serenity
Few mortals without just reservation;
When, all the while, within the Trinity
Rests the only sacrosanct oblation. 

No mortal can insure a faithful creed
Beyond our nature and our human wiles.
It’s always left to God to supersede
What we’ve begun when Lucifer beguiles. 

The Curator’s Notes: This poem is a meditation on the limits of human faith and the necessity of divine grace. It deliberately invokes Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold’s 1867 poem using the same Sea of Faith metaphor to argue against despair in the face of modernity. Dover Beach begins with a peaceful seascape but moves to the metaphor of the “Sea of Faith” which was once full but is now retreating, leaving the world without certainty, joy, or peace—”a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight / Where ignorant armies clash by night.” Arnold wrote during the Victorian crisis of faith when scientific discoveries (especially Darwin) seemed to undermine religious certainty. His poem is essentially about the loss of faith in modernity. The title of this poem “At the Edge of the Sea of Faith” deliberately positions this poet at the edge; not drowning in doubt like Arnold, but standing at the boundary, looking out at the vast uncertainty while acknowledging both human limitations and divine intervention.