By Rhea Sustar

Our beliefs are the stakes that tent us down.
What do we house in our hearts but the culmination
Of every story we’ve ever lived
All of the hope and hunger for the future?

What happens when you become cemented in belief?
When you’ve built load bearing walls around certainty?
And stone upon stone
Thought upon thought
The foundation is built.

We build our lives on permanence
On fortifying our castles
When we should be pitching tents.
Nomads, living in this world and the next
This body and the spirit.

We are a holy trinity of our own -
Mind and soul and spirit
Touched by the dove
Brought an olive branch offering
From the crown of Christ.

Our body, a temporary home
Our spirit, a temple -
A tent of praise
A liminal reality of all that is
And all that will be,
The everlasting and not yet.

Our beliefs are the stakes that tent us down.
What do we house in our hearts but the evidence
Of the Christ-story -
Well loved
Tabernacled,
God’s resting place.