It seems to me that intellectual assent to
Some doctrinal formula
Won’t cut it
If you stay the same person
Or rebirth isn’t new birth at all
And repentance is but a Biblical, Latinate word
Some say faith will do it, alone
Some say without works, faith is dead
If I stay the same, the same nature, natural man, I’m dead
I shudder, chagrin at where I’ve been
And in the development I know hope blossoms
Planted in this fallen, fallible flesh, this clod of clay
Torment, foment, and a breath of inspiration
Bringing life,–they say I’m living better
If living matters amid faith alone
All I can say, can see, is I’m less restless, fractious, caustic, cynic
I know life is better for me, some serenity
I don’t know if it’s the Spirit moving over the faces of the deep
If it’s rebirth,
Or even if new life matters amid intellectual assent to
Some doctrinal formula
I know what I am, and what I am agrees with me
And I agree, assent, with the life coming at me
David Fekete 