THE TRIAL OF GOD

Implicit in my sullenness
my brooding self-involvement
     and easy to infer
is my burning wrath
my rage
with God.
You don’t see it,
but of course you know
     it’s there.

No rehearsal of suffering and sorrow,
anguish, desperation or despair—
     these are opportunities for Faith!
And after all, can’t we read our Holy Texts?—
or at least pray?
Is comfort not at hand?
Praise Him? Yes—
     it’s in the rules
that He wrote.

     A cosmos created to reveal
His glory,
     and eternal hell to please
His justice.
     And free will, that our adoration
     might best redound to
His satisfaction.
     And how perfectly unanswerable are
His verdicts.

The God of infinite glory only
     is contemptible—
a malignant narcissist
Who loves His creation the way
     I might love a song or a ceramic pot
I have made:
“Me oh My, I’m so creative!”
If there were a hell for gods,
this god of self-involvement should be there.

And God is without excuse
     except for Jesus,
Who reaches out His hand,
pierced,
to save me,
and if I take hold
He will never let me go.
This God has integrity.
This God understands thirst.
In his Son,
God is vindicated.

___


Dark dark dark, until the end. Because that first god? -- the narcisistic one? -- the one who's all about himself? That's not God. Tricky, huh? The God who is God needs no vindication. All the others do.

J