Here’s a poem I’ve been working on now for several months. It’s titled simply, “Roofless Church.”

There are so, so. many denominations. I’ve been a Baptist, Presbyterian, attended a Methodist church; gone to a “non-denominational” church. I considered becoming a Catholic as well. Now, I belong to an Episcopal church. Suffice it to say, I’ve gained something from each one—but not until recently has my inner “itch” been touched and found the relief and peace I’ve so long wanted.

It’s fair to say of me that I have been searching for a very long time. My search has been a spiritual quest to find where I belong. With this search, can another quest—to find “my people.”

It was not until I went to Scotland on my pilgrimage that my search was assuaged and I found a spiritual home. I’ve become a student of Celtic practices and find them inspiring and so helpful in the modern complexities that we are navigating today. There are many similarities that forced the Celtic people to find their home in the natural world. As the Roman Empire grew with power and control, these dear people seemed to not only find a refuge in their own ways of loving the Creator but because they were so remote from the grip of power, they found a freedom that is liberating people to this very day.

I found words that spoke about the great cathedral of earth, sky and sea. I read the writings of the old Celtic pilgrims who found solace on a rugged, lonely isle of Iona and began to live out their own longings to honor the Creator and Creation more simply.

Now everyday, I read their prayers and they are becoming my own. It’s refreshing and a homecoming for me. It is a place of deep belonging. And I am discovering my people too.

I like to describe this as a river—not the only river but one of the rivers that I am now standing in which is making sense for me. It is a place that many of poems I am writing now give language to for me—perhaps for you.

This particular poem, though long in coming, puts language to my own longings and desires. At the core of this are the Apostles Paul’s chilling words when he wrote a letter to the church at Laodicea (Revelation 3). That was a church that had become ‘lukewarm.” It was a church that had left its first love.

I want my first love rekindled more and more in a world that seems colder and meaner than ever before. I want to live and die with a first love kind of faith. The roofless church is helping me so much in this regard. I really do think that our modern angst; depression, mental and emotional illnesses can be so helped by spending more time in roofless churches. It just helps. I see in my work now a direct correlation in how my spiritual direction clients are “doing” with how much time they are spending in roofless churches. The more time outside; the better we are on the inside.

This has always been in the back of my mind—that I never wanted to be luke warm in my faith; that I never-ever wanted to leave my first love.

This poem helped me state my longing more succinctly and to be more forthright in what it is I am after in my life.

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