Losing Religion and Finding God in The Day Zimmer Lost Religion :: Day Zimmer Lost Religion Essays

Losing Religion and Finding God in The Day Zimmer Lost Religion           Paul Zimmer's sonnet The Day Zimmer Lost Religion recounts the storyteller's regard and dread of Christ as a kid. He is currently a man and sets out to challenge Christ. The normal discipline doesn't happen, and Zimmer loses his confidence in religion as he presently sees it.      The first refrain is about youth dread of God. The storyteller says, The principal Sunday I missed Mass deliberately/I stood by the entire day for Christ to descend (1-2). Zimmer felt he had the right to be rebuffed, to have Christ Club me on my flippant teeth, to swim into/My disrespectful gut and drop me like a/Red hot thurible (4-6). Zimmer obviously anticipates that something horrendous should occur, underscored by the nearness of a watching, envisioning Devil.      Stanza two is about defiance. It was a long chilly route from the days of yore (8). Zimmer could never have set out to miss Mass in his more youthful years. Zimmer feels he has made some amazing progress from his childhood days, far from the messy breeze that blew/The sediment like excusable sins over the schoolyard (11-12). Is the grimy breeze the powers in life that we can't control? Is the sediment the blemishes we start to find in our seniors as we become more seasoned? Has Zimmer seen how feeble man can be and addressed why God permits our offenses? In the schoolyard, God ruled as an undermining,/One-peered toward triangle high in the warm sky (13-14). Does Zimmer feel God had reigned high in the sky and watched each wrongdoing we do? He likens the schoolyard with the world. Zimmer knows the minor sins of the schoolyard. God knows the transgressions of all.      The last refrain is about developed confidence. Zimmer rehashes that he stood by the entire day for Christ to move down . . . furthermore, pound me/Till me skeptical tongue hung out (16-19). Zimmer appears to feel that Christ is committed to rebuff and that in actuality He even appreciates it. Zimmer never makes reference to a God of adoration; is this why he feels there must be more to religion than what he knows now? In the last two lines, Zimmer lets us know, Obviously He never came, realizing that/I was grown up and prepared for Him now (20-21).