God Is…A Solstice Prayer

Man was created in the image of God
Not just the pure stream of light
We imagine…somewhere out there
Giving us hope that there lies something beyond
This world of complexity, confusion, elation and despair

We want to believe that
Someone, some being has risen above
That which bewilders us
And holds the Vision, the Truth, the Way

God is everywhere, in us, outside us
Giving life, taking life, nurturing, destroying
God is the sunrise, sunset, supernova, black hole
God is the serene mist of tropical green, the vicious hurricane
The jaws of the tiger, the screams of its prey
The hand of the sculptor, the bludgeon of the killer
(For even the killer sculpts history)
God is the prayer of the suicide bomber, the last gasp of the victim
The fire’s gentle warmth, or deadly conflagration, taking the fighting hero from
The lonely woman who aches for the lost tender touch of her lover
The Satyr unsated by 72 virgins
Moonbeams and silent airplanes over city lights

To know God we must only open our eyes and our hearts to man
“By his fruits we shall know him”
(Man is the “first fruit” of God)
So by our actions, God himself is judged
Did God’s creation get out of hand?
Or is it the concept of God that needs adjusting?

What can we say about the malice in the hearts of men?
There would be no space for such if it were not part of the design
The engineer of life has decreed the capacities
For our loves, hatreds, lusts, brilliance, despondence, vengeance
And in so doing has given us the tools to craft a world, or be crafted by it
Not so we can then judge half the world to be in error
By our own puny, divisive concepts of what is good, what is evil

God has shown us the totality of his creation, it is there for the taking
We only must get past our fears and dogmas, lest we miss the point:
There is no light without darkness, no sadness without joy
No negative without positive, no ending without beginning
No hot without cold, no ‘God’ without the ‘Devil’

In new highs, we find new lows, sinusoid of existence
Like the movements of the sun, to the depths of winter solstice
Even the next day is already longer
Every orgasm quickly leaves us craving the next one
If you feel ‘good’, don’t worry, you’ll get over it
If you feel ‘bad’, you’ll get over it too
And maybe find some peace that life is never the same

There is no ‘even keel’ to count on, the only constant being change
No fulfillment in reliance on person, place, or situation
There is comfort in the cycles of birth and death
The increase in entropy is somehow reassuring
As the universe winds down like a top
The only certainty is that even those cycles continue and will renew
In some far distant place and time beyond this awareness
Out of reach of our values and evaluations
Whither Churchill or Mao, saints or de Sade

The world is a church
Every molecule an altar, every breath a mantra
Life is religion, daily routine the liturgy
How will you live?

God plays no favorites, the same rules apply
He is there in the gentle waves, the torrents of lava
The industrial wasteland, the art museum
The whorehouse, the monastery,
The drunkard’s vomit, the baby’s breath
The symphony hall, the mosh pit
The marriage feast, the used condom in a parking lot
Why do we associate some with beauty and some with depravity?

Beneath every patine lurks something we’d rather not see
Elegant chiseled granite marks decaying flesh
Cheap new wood paneling covers up rotting timbers
A fresh coat of paint hides the bloody crime
A child’s smile holds no hint of future dark deeds
The smooth talker contains his bilious rage
Bold shiny airplanes conceal fatal cracks in their structure
Devotion masks murderous bigotry

Many roads lead to the summit, but the summit leads only to another valley
How many people can live on top of a mountain?
Only the self-righteous crowd the peak,
And they eventually run out of food and air and must descend
To the reality that seeming evil is only a messenger of life out of balance

Viewed from a distance the most horrendous wars and atrocities
Are the work of kids playing on the beach
Kicking over each others’ sandcastles
With the full knowledge that
All the castles will eventually be swept away by the waves….

I am God, you are God, Beethoven is God, and so is Osama Bin Laden
Let God be seen and judged by his works this day