The Holy Traditions

Every culture – each family – has them,
the holy traditions, the ​rules​, the right way.
Learned at mother's knee, not subject to doubt,
the mandate is clear; to question, heresy.
The God of your understanding? Like parents',
years after they're dead and gone —
the ​family ​God, the one you were raised to trust.
We find new paths as easily as we can change
the dressing recipe, the menu, the routine.
But what ​is ​tradition but ossified habit?
Patterns can be hard to break but can be —
even routines long-since morphed to addiction.
Holy traditions hold us from respect,
from habit, from inevitability.
They hold us because we cling to them...
until we don't.