Day Eleven of Twelve Days of Devotion to Gwyn ap Nudd

I come this eleventh day
to consider Your cauldron
and how it will not boil
a coward’s food.

“Why, then,” I ask,
“do You allow me to eat from it
when so many times I have failed
to live up to the demands of the world,
to match up to its worthy warriors and bards?”

You tell me that I “lack not courage but confidence”
and remind me that everything I believe in I have done –

I have stood and recited poems for You before
a world that once derided You as a devil
and now derides only those who
dare speak openly about
their religion in public.

I have climbed mountains,
run half marathons,
forded a river
in leaking waders.
Ascended Glastonbury Tor
in torrential rain in the dead of night
to gift to You the first book I ever published.

I have stood before Your cauldron made my dedication to You.

I have fled the world, but I have not fled from You, my God.

I pray that You, Your cauldron, will grant me
the courage to face my fears.