Lauren Downington’s Doubts
Over coffee, the seminarians
ask each other questions undisclosed
to ordination committees.
Is it worth it if this is just a myth?
Lauren says, Sometimes it just
feels like I’ve picked my favorite
story and decided to live in it.
She stares down at the Bible on
the table and adds, And even then,
it’s a story I hate half the time.
But the other replies: Has anything
else ever produced the same wonder?
Lauren shrugs and admits nothing has.
We’re wired for it, the second says.
Even if it’s false, it’s ours. And that
is enough to put a stopper on streaming
questions – for them to pick up
their readings again and try to make
sense of the senseless.
Megan McDermott is a poet and Episcopal minister based in Massachusetts. She recently graduated from Yale Divinity School and Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, an interdisciplinary program dedicated to religion and the arts. Her poetry has been published in The Windhover, Rock & Sling, The Cresset, Letters, Saint Katherine Review, and Episcopal Café.
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