I was updating my Author page on this site tonight, and I was reminded once more of this quote that struck me so powerfully by poet Joe Weil. It’s from a great interview posted on Patrol Magazine a while back. I wrote about it when I originally first found it almost exactly a year ago. It’s incredible and describes the nature and substance of my faith like no other set of words I have encountered before or since–coarse language and all. I hope it speaks to you as well:
“I once described faith as something I got on my shoe and can’t kick or wash off. I’m stuck with it. My poems are the trespasses and blasphemies of a malpracticing Christian, one who can’t stop ogling an attractive leg, or wanting to be first, who is venial, foolish, seldom at peace, horny and lonely, and so far from the kingdom of God that his whole life becomes the theme of that distance, someone knowing he is in deep shit. It’s the perfect place to be, where you can’t fool yourself into thinking you’re on the right track… The only thing I have to offer God is my sins. I am interested in mercy when it appears in places where you would never expect it. I am interested in love that shovels shit against the tide. I am interested in grace… It is better to be annihilated and crushed by God, if you are in love with God, then it is to have no relationship at all. Better God smite you then merely be absent. God does not ‘tolerate’ me. God loves me.”
How do these words strike you?
the long way home 
hey paul
joe’s got a new book out called “the plumber’s apprentice.” you’d love it if you liked this interview.
micah
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