For 40 years I too believed--
Life was how I saw it
Life was what I made it
If I just worked a little harder
or better, or faster
or was younger
or prettier
or sang clearer
or louder
or longer
people might listen
people might agree
people might soon wake up and take responsibility
Ever have children?
My own children taught me to listen
Did they need a lot of "things" to be happy?
(We were poor then)
No--they said they only wanted my attention
One night I showed up at PTA meeting
I listened for awhile and raised my hand
If we weren't all here filling this room with
Bright ideas and strutting around
puffing out chests and back-patting one another
concerned with results--I cried--
driven by our PhD.'s--
We might know what our children are doing
and what they truly need
They didn't hear me then and wake up
Who hears now
We live in a world where the acquisition of things
Is everything--
Toys, points, degrees, WMDs
Each one of us comforting himself, believing
Surely God is within each of us?
But His book says He isn't
He never was
He never will be
We don't really know Him
We won't even read His book
(We made up another version
better suited to our needs)
He was the original Potter
We are but clay formed
How dare we say
How could You make me this way?
And while
we're at
it....
How come we can't all sit down and just figure things out?
How come in 5000 years of civilizations
We can't build a better aqueduct
How come we fashion new world orders
on fallen ones?
We think we have evolved
Our wagons just move faster
We think we have advanced
We've read a lot of books
We still look within ourselves for the answers
It's what we like to do
We think that because we think--
Therefore we are
Another ego-centric delusion
Absolute relativism
Quantum mechanics
Tolerance for everything is the last vestige of
A dying civilization
We were never given control
No matter how much we take
No matter how many bombs we make
We were only ever clay
We were never The Potter
(Some of us artists try to be potters)
Clay cannot know why it was formed
It can only guess
Pinnochio cannot be Gepetto
We cannot be loved into real-ness
We are the way we are
This is reality
We had no vote in our forming
No choice in our own birth
We have fought for control of our lives ever since
Believing one has control is but an empty comfort
To another who has lost a child
One who has lost a spouse
is losing a sister
a parent
a neighbor
a country
is losing their own fight with AIDS
Control?
It's all we've ever desired
Now or then
Here or in the garden.
Eve saw that the fruit was pleasant to look at and desirable for
consumption
This was not about food
Turning away from the Potter was not about hunger
Turning away was about DESIRE
Worse yet--it was about the desire for knowledge
To be as God
'You can be as god'
You can be as selfish as you want and still be god
Go ahead and quench your desires--you won't surely die
(Satan was right all along--they didn't die that day)
So what is this thing happening to us
Why, if we try hard enough, can't we live forever?
With all our education and communication, why can't we find a cure for
cancer?
Why can't we stop a child--your loved one, here-- from suffering?
Let me ask you...
Could you
Give up your life so that another may live
Give up your food so that another may eat
Give up your home so that another may have shelter
Give up your notions so that another may not be led unto destruction
Wash another's feet instead of get a massage
Serve instead of lead
Settle for invisibility while others receive acclaim
Pray quietly
Seek to do another's will instead of seeking to reach your own goals
Give instead of take?
Well, now it seems
You have indeed chosen your gods
You made them carefully to fulfill your desires
You even wanted credit for making them
Go ahead
In your deepest sorrow
Wallow in your wants
Call out to your creation, your elohim
Let them explain how your own father could forsake you
Let them explain how your own wife could cheat on you
Let them explain how your own husband could even look at another woman
Let them explain why Janet Jackson's breast has occupied more time on
the evening news
than George W. Bush's military records ever will
And if you yourself are your only god
Then comfort yourself in all your losses
Restore your father's dying breath
Restore your mother's dimming memory
Destroy the cancer slowly feasting upon this nation
Cure
loneliness
Chase away the clouds filled
with
this year's stealth pathogens
Call out to yourself and see if you can save you from the others' gods
And when your own delusions prove futile
Consider this
My God says we are not evolving
My God says we are not going to get better
My God says we must nearly destroy ourselves in order to understand
what we truly are
before we are afraid enough to consider Him
My God says we desired the power of the choice
My God says we desired control
My God says He granted free will
(My God said be careful what you ask for)
With Free
Will we can
make up our own minds, we insisted
You can only make the choice, He reminded us
You may never choose the consequences--
And until your hearts change
Your world cannot
Call out to
Me, He said
I AM quick to forgive
I restore blindness
I open hearing
I lift hearts
I remove fear
I raise hope
And the dead
He is strong enough
He will answer
He is smart enough
He planned us this way
He is powerful enough
He deserves the credit
Death couldn't hold him
He paid our cover charge
He will provide for every need
50,000 international travelers witnessed his torture
He lay down HIs life for us
He died for those who hated Him
For those who spit on His wounds
They laughed and shredded his garment and pieces of His tree for a
profit
Few could die for a noble man
Less would die for their enemies
I wish I could take my children's suffering from them
He died so we didn't have to fear death
50,000 saw Him nailed to that tree
by the gates of the city
And that tree of death became the Tree of Life
(The other forbidden tree in the garden--yes, there were TWO)
500 witnessed His life after death, and recorded what they saw
Our Living God
No cardboard god
Today we all will die
Broadest is the way to pleasure
Narrowest, the door to truth and life
One must
enter not by
the golden gate
But by the sheep gate
Many are those who speculate on
the
meaning of all this
Jesus claims to have told the truth of it
The world cannot change until your hearts change, He said
We don't know what such words mean, we said
Be as children, He said
How can one go back into their mother's womb, we said
It is about a change of heart, He said
What about all these diplomas, we said
I have chosen the foolish things of this earth, He said
But I am the master of my fate, we said, the captain of my ship
I AM the way, the Truth, and the Life--He said--lean on Me
You will not surely die, said
another from the garden--
so eat of the tree, drink and be merry--said that one
You are already dying, said He
Death is relative, said we
Death is the price of separation from Me
I do not like such words, said one
My Word leads to life, said He
I do not like your rules, said another
Have it your way, then--said He
--©2004 Elizabeth E./ RedBird
Cafe'.
All rights reserved.