Surely a god
There is a sermon
called sinners in the hands
of an angry God, it tells
of a god standing ready
with an elbow in the door to hell,
my list of sins in his hands, catalogued
by date and severity of offense, this god
unwilling or unable to hear my defense
and no one to speak, for I’ve been told it’s too late
for penitence at this door to timelessness.
Perhaps I misunderstood.
But there’s been too much anger already,
too much hate, too much shame,
too much killing of innocence and
laugh-lit eyes and feet dancing that
I cannot believe it will end with more
of the same, that it will end with a court case
of hopeless proportions, that it will end
with life cast into blackness
beyond even this?
There is too much darkness already.
It is enough.
If it must, then let me be
in the end,
liquid fire poured down the throat
of this god, a wine of his own vintage
to quell his thirst for blood pressed from our skin.
But surely not.
If a human
can know that eye for eye leaves us blind, can
dare to have a dream beyond separation, can
hold the untouchable, can see that darkness
cannot drive out darkness,
Surely a god can too.
If a human
can wrap her arms around lepers
in the slums of Calcutta, can
forgive the murders of their daughters
in a one room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania,
Surely a god can too.
If a human can understand
that vengeance sickens the air
we all breathe and that
flinging others to the flames
demands burns on our own hands,
Surely a god can too.
If I, human,
can long to see shame dance free
and grief wrapped in healing, if I
can long to hold the world in my own small arms
and love it back to wholeness again,
Surely a god can too.
For surely all of this, these skins
of ours revealing glimpses
of light aching to release
are only whispers of a Love deeper
than we could ever imagine.
Surely someday, this shimmering reflection
will open to reveal the Source
of this hope, and we will fall in to find
just under the surface
the Love that has been there all along.
