Losing Religion and Finding God in The Day Zimmer Lost Religion Paul Zimmer's poem "The Day Zimmer Lost Religion" is about respect and fear of the narrator towards Christ as a boy. Now he is a man and dares to challenge Christ. The expected punishment does not occur and Zimmer loses faith in religion as he now perceives it. The first stanza is about childhood fear of God. The narrator says: «The first Sunday I skipped Mass on purpose / I waited all day for Christ to come down» (1-2). Zimmer felt he deserved to be punished, to have Christ “Hang me upon my irreverent teeth, to wade / My blasphemous stomach and drop me like a / Red-hot thurible” (4-6). Zimmer clearly expects something terrible to happen, emphasized by the presence of a Devil watching, anticipating. The second stanza is about rebellion. “It was a long, cold trip from the old days” (8). Zimmer would never have dared to miss Mass as a young man. Zimmer feels he has come a long way since his childhood days, "A long way from the dirty wind that blew / The soot like venial sins across the schoolyard" (11-12). Is the dirty wind the force of life that we cannot control? Are these the flaws we begin to see in our elders as we age? Zimmer observed how weak man can be and asked why does God allow our transgressions? In the schoolyard, "God reigned as a menacing triangle, / One-eyed, high in the soft sky" (13-14). Does Zimmer believe that God reigned high in the sky and watched over every sin we commit? He equates the schoolyard with the world. Zimmer knows the minor sins of the schoolyard. God knows everyone's sins. The last verse is about mature faith. Zimmer repeats that he "waited all day for Christ to come down...and strike me / Until my irreligious tongue hung out" (16-19). Zimmer seems to believe that Christ is obligated to punish and in fact even likes it. Zimmer never mentions a God of love; is this why he feels there must be more to religion than he knows now? In the last two lines, Zimmer tells us, "But of course He never came, knowing that / Now I was grown and ready for Him"." (20-21).