So I sit once again on the steps
outside St Louis Cathedral
and wait here, quietly, for daylight.

When it comes, I will go into the Cathedral,
into the presence of God, or of Mystery,
and a man who believes what he’s saying
will tell me what he knows of truth.

Then he will lay his hand on my forehead
and leave a tiny smudge of ashes in the center of it,
a reminder of those truths in this life that remain unknowable,

and I will open myself to mysteries greater than death
and to the possibility of believing in them again.

– Elizabeth Dewberry

Sacrament of Lies (New York: BlueHen Putnam, 2002)