The passing wistfulness of faithlessness

Across another Christmas morn
So rang out the bells of Christ
And naught there was to truly hear them
Save the few
The faithful host triumphant
Who with choired hearts await the star
And the cross that shadows, with it

In this fallen Eden
Those of us with faith no more;
Who’ve never felt the touch of grace,
Whose eyes are empty with disbelieving;
A hunger is all we hold.
Driven by questions away from the bliss
That warms those whose hearts never wavered
We feel the same first seeds of doubt
That were the terror of youth

And even if the lines
“Adeste Fidelas”
I shall sing for all my life,
Still my fate, forever more,
Will be to wander godless
The joy of belonging, the wages of my unrest
Though were it not for my uncertainty
It is a path I would gladly have followed