If God Then God, If Not

 

If God is good

Why is the world so bad?

This is not a child’s question

Only in simplicity

And it has taken faith from many

Over time

There will be some number today

 

There are two things, as is

God and the world

And while we eschew puppetry

We take it right in judging

God by what we do in freedom

 

Nature’s indifference

I can chalk up to a fallen world

That fell with us

Depravity a Calvinist discretion,

How widespread

(the narrator had it slice through Jupiter

Out of the Silent Planet)

So it’s the need to fall

The interest to

That is decided

 

Have faith because

The world is falling

Henny Penny, Chicken Little

All the birds that find they cannot fly

By nature or by nurture

(Chomsky, Skinner)

Or by how thick the sky

Has become

 

We are not the world

And we are

We take it with us

Into our decisions

Which is to say are we at the root of evil

More than the devil?

I don’t know

I cannot notebook hell

But we are pretty bad

And can be pretty good

And, if to be allowed

Either say or way,

Then discretion is not valor but

Needful as air

 

We don’t make heaven or of hell

But I think we can contribute

And each essence must matter

While we do

Come home to one or the other

The invitations must be that dire

Life must be that real

Real choices

We know

Real consequences

 

Choose faith

Sometimes in something

Or release it

Take something or walk on

Must be breathing as an option and

Have muscles

No excuses but our own

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Paul Carroll on Unsplash

 

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