When God prays, in reverse
imagine if God actually prayed back at us
[ Context for this poem: I had been watching coverage of yet another mass shooting in the US during the past week, while thinking about the passive comment we often hear, such as ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims’. I say passive because it seems so meaningless to merely offer up habitual, religious thought bubbles into the clouds, like that would actually help stop these atrocities that humans produce! It reminded me how much religion is a type of mental straitjacket. I’m not talking about having a genuine, strong faith, rather the extremes of pointless babble we hear – from wimpy prayers to megaphone, partisan-political shouting that dominate the airwaves and ‘prayer-waves’ these days. And it got me thinking, ‘What would Jesus Himself say to the things He hears us speak in His Name, but in reverse?’ … ]
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I hear you,
But I don’t know you,
you with your finger on a trigger
beyond spec, not My design.
I made you to love, not fight,
I wrapped a gift of passion
for making promises
stronger than lies.
You say, ‘O Lord’,
but I’m not the God you want to hear.
I’m not the Jesus of your swear jar,
or the one you think I am,
say I am,
cajole I am
Not!—
your personal Jesus
with a 2nd amendment right to bleed
out.
I’m not your God of war,
or the side of a fence you demand I shout from.
I’m not your God of vengeance
or justice by the terms of your imagination.
You call and shout and say I’m not ‘just’
Because I don’t
just
force your will to bend and break.
But I’m not going to change
because you refuse
to alter your course.
‘Prayers and thoughts,’
and ‘prayers and thoughts,’
and ‘prayers and thoughts,’
never reach me,
when reaching for my approval
of your bullets shot,
blood spilt.
They are not prayers;
rather envelopes without an address,
dumped on my doorstep
infected with hate as pandemic.
If you only knew that
the oceans are my tears,
filling inverted mountains of
my pain.
You can still call My Name,
but don’t name your feats of madness like they were trophies I desired.
And don’t pretend you
hear Me anymore
now that you are deaf to truth
and blind to the blood you spill
and claiming I am mute.
I hear you
and I reserve
the time and day
of my response,
in a voice you’ll say
cannot be mine.