IT MUST BE LONELY TO BE GOD

Now that Minneapolis has some snow on the ground, and especially on the trees, the world is brilliant and beautiful.  We need the moisture to help our long-term drought, and if it’s going to be below zero, as it will later in the week, it seems right to have snow on the ground to hug the earth and brighten our eyes.  Last week, it actually stayed below zero for more than a day (the first time in over four years), but the ground was mostly hard chunks of dirty ice, and bare patches of grass.  Not good for our small fruit trees resting in the earth.

Today made me think of a poem I wrote over 30 years ago, when we used to have brilliantly bright sunny days with highs of 15 or even 20 below, and the whole world seemed to be on fire:

TRANSFIGURATION

Today is a cold stillness
broken only by clouds of smoke
pouring from warm, internal worlds.
The sun, afire with eternal Love,
burns every snowflake to a sun.
Consumed by fire, yet cold, yet still,
snow dances in eyes.
Eyes bleed white tears.
“You cannot see my face,”
God said to Moses,
“For man shall not see me and live.”
Today, the earth clothed in white,
images God’s beauty, God’s power,
God’s loneliness.

To some of my Christian friends, and probably some of other faiths, it may seem strange to think of God’s loneliness.  Because if we do, then we have to admit God’s need.  And that gets scary for us, because it means that maybe God is not Omnipotent as we believe. My reading of the bible shows that omnipotence is a foreign concept, borrowed more from the Greeks than from Scripture.  I can see a God in the Bible who is All-Mighty, but standing before that, I see a God who is All-Love.  And love makes us vulnerable.  Love wounds us, when it is not received, and sometimes even more when it is. Ask your own life to see if that is true.

Part of my work is to encourage people, inspire them to follow God.  I won’t stop doing that, and I hope that our little church on the corner of 28^th Street and 15^th Ave. and the church throughout world is incredibly inviting people to follow God.  But today, at least, with the earth clothed in white, I think that what God needs and desires more than anything is not just followers of God, but friends and lovers of God, filled with the same fiery passion that God is.

To speak more of this would be folly, I dare say.  But I would like to hear what you think. 

One of the poets who first got me to write was Gwendolyn Brooks, and I love her poem:

The Preacher: Ruminates behind the Sermon

I think it must be lonely to be God.

Nobody loves a master. No. Despite
The bright hosannas, bright dear-Lords, and bright
Determined reverence of Sunday eyes.

Picture Jehovah striding through the hall

Of His importance, creatures running out
From servant-corners to acclaim, to shout
Appreciation of His merit’s glare.

But who walks with Him?––dares to take His arm,

To slap Him on the shoulder, tweak His ear,
Buy Him and Coca-Cola or a beer,
Pooh-pooh His politics, call Him a fool?

Perhaps––who knows––He tires of looking down.
Those eyes are never lifted. Never straight.
Perhaps sometimes He tires of being great
In solitude. Without a hand to hold.

Note the title.  I first read this poem when I was an agnostic, but wondering about my vocation.

Go play in the snow!

 
Be power.  Be love.  Be a friend.

Patrick