Tell me you have the best god,
and I will tell you how
you dreamed a dream.
Tell me you have known and given
grace, and I will show you how
you traded air for air.
Tell me you have found
living water, and I will spit
at your quest to bottle the river
and sell it piecemeal to the thirsty.
Tell me of your forefather’s greatness
and how you have restored it.
I will crown you the holy
reinventor of spinning wheels.
Tell me you are always for life,
and I will show you how life
becomes the universe’s cancer—
a fungus devouring oil and gold,
rusting the armor of our existence.
Tell me, tell me again,
tell me on a Sabbath, please.
Build me a cross and I will
build yours, for none should
have to build their own.
Once upon a time,
the ancients gave us gods;
now we all get crosses.
Questions for Discussion
What are your reactions to the above poem? What lines stood out to you? Why?
Featured Image Credit: Jake C.
Wheat & Tares 
It was an enjoyable poem, reminds me a little of my predecessor’s handiwork. If you don’t mind I would like to share it:
“Through benediction
You tried to rid your mind of malediction
But through all this time
You try to peel it off, and it’s such a ride (ride)
Your desolation led you into this
Vile incarnation of consummated bliss
I know you need it now to make you feel alive (alive, alive)
All your faith, all your rage
All your pain, it ain’t over now
And I ain’t talking about forgiveness
All your faith, all your rage
All your pain, it ain’t over now
It’s the cruel beast that you feed
It’s your burning yearning need to bleed
Through the spillways (spillways)
You keep a casket buried deep within
You try to mask it, but fall back in sin
You want to shake it off, but you are stuck inside
When stripped of rags of skin and spine
Human decay, Corpus dei
Terminally dispelled
And it’s such a ride (ride)
All your faith, all your rage
All your pain, it ain’t over now
And I ain’t talking about forgiveness
All your faith, all your rage
All your pain, it ain’t over now
It’s the cruel beast that you feed
It’s your burning yearning need to bleed
Through the spillways
Through the spillways of your soul
Through the spillways
(Spillways, spillways)
It’s the cruel beast that you feed
It’s your burning yearning need to bleed
Through the spillways
Through the spillways of your soul
Through the spillways
Through the spillways of your soul
Through the spillways
Through the spillways of your soul
Through the spillways
Through the spillways of your soul”
Thanks for letting me post here! You have given me inspiration for my next song!
W&T EDITOR NOTE: The above lyrics come from the song Spillways, by the band Ghost
I like the poem. To me this reads as a critique on the hyper-individuality of American religion – and this applies equally to trendy, corporate “woo” spirituality as it does conservative Christianity and Mormonism. At least when the Christian God was a regional storm deity, he was concerned with the everyday needs of the collective. We have now divided God into a million bifurcated, algorithmic sized pieces. Once the ground of being, the ultimate reality of the universe, the pure form of universal love, now a kitschy quote on my Facebook feed, a cheat code for the afterlife, a word in an upside down Bible held for a photo op. What the hell has happened to God?
Tell me you have the best god
That we are the apple of his eye.
I will show you an ocean vent with
creatures that never see the sky
Who live their lives in inky dark
And happily move from warm to cold
Without ever looking up.
Tell me you have the best God –
That he loves mercy but requires sacrifice
I will show you a storm that churns
In Jupiter’s ocean of a sky
Deeper than the earth is wide
It turns and burns, a malevolent eye.
Never blinks, never winks,
Just rages without a thought.
Tell me you have the best God –
All knowing, all powerful, all that
I will show you a drop of water
Full of busy tiny lives.
A zoo of touching and seeking
Reaching and growing
Dying and dividing.
I really liked the poem.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Papa Perpetua V and Brian G. If a poem can prompt readers to remember or discover the poems in their own mind, that may be the best thing a poem ever does. Peace
Jake C,., I appreciated your poem and admire your talent and your way with words and images. I wonder, though, about the perspective, or point of view. I prefer works that edify over those that destroy, and this work, and Bryan G.’s, might seem to take the position that believers are wrong, deluded, and maybe stupid. That probably wasn’t your intention, but as a reader I walk away seeing words that point a finger at those who believe, instead of words that point to something. My mission president, many years ago, tried to teach us not to teach against the religions of the people we taught, but to show them what we believed. I realize it is a fine line and too easy to cross. Admittedly, for one person to tell another, I have the best God, certainly suggests that you have the wrong God, so maybe my distinction is more ephemeral than real, and is in my mind more than it can exist in reality.
To the extent that you’re making a comment about faux practitioners, 21st century Pharisees, and people who worry about the mote in my eye rather than the beam in their own, then I agree with you. They point to something that they themselves do not live well. Instead of checking boxes, going to the temple more than the neighbors, accumulating works, and criticizing those who might watch a football game on TV on Sunday. I think another poet, Micah, was talking about these people when he wrote: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8). Is this not the opposite of finding fault with our neighbors? One can do great, mighty, and many works in the Lord’s name, and not do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Paul spoke about that, also, as did others. It is a hard lesson. It is easy to find faults in others, and it is easy for me to do things better than someone else, but I am not sure that is what God seeks. And yet maybe here I am also pointing the finger, but sometimes, as Molière showed, we need to point the fingers at the Tartuffes in our midst. Thanks!
Georgis
My answer to the anyone that says they have the one true and best god is to challenge them to look at the world a different way. If that makes you feel judged or criticized, I feel your pain. I am not a missionary anymore. I do not intend to convert you or anyone, but do encourage everyone to look at the world in ways that may make you feel small in a good way. It is a big complicated world with beauty in both the tiny and galactic that is bigger than any of us. It is good to see and feel that deeply. If you find your god in that, great! I don’t any longer, but I still feel the wonder and awe about the world around me without believing in the god of my childhood.