I’m not sure whether this is a poem, a meditation, or an experiment. And I almosthope you find it confusing. You see, we all know what pronouns are. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines them as “a word used instead of a noun to designate a person or thing already known…” In theory, then, a pronoun is simply a stand-in. But a pronoun is also a word in its own right; the choice of pronoun has its own implications. It conveys singular or plural, gender, and even the closeness of the relationship. So how, I wondered, do the pronouns we use for God affect our perceptions of that, umm, whatever?
Perplexing pronouns
In the beginning, I didn’t need pronouns for God.
But if I did, God would have been an IT —
a something, somewhere out there,
beyond space and time;
impersonal, unperson, superperson,
more than I could ever know,
thus no concern of mine.
Later God became a HE,
still third-person but more personal:
grandfather, judge, almighty Geppetto
pulling strings,
keeping his immortal eye on mere mortals.
As a minor minion
I didn’t matter much.
Someday I would be judged --
but not yet, thank God.
Then God became a SHE.
When I scraped my ego,
She wrapped her long blue arms around me.
Wiped away my tears. Kissed me better.
But motherly, shehovered in the shaadows.
Because she was always there,
would always be there,
loving me without conditions,
I could safely ignore her.
Most of the time.
Then one day God became a YOU.
A Thou, in Buber’s terms, second person.
You and I became friends, partners, lovers.
Together, you and I launched into life.
Whatever I did, wherever I went,
you was with me.
I didn’t know what you is, but you
danced with me in the dark,
sang with me in the sunshine,
wept with me in my emotional winters.
You made skies shine bluer, flowers grow brighter, birds sing sweeter.
Your rain fell gentle on my hair, my lips, my tongue.
In everything I seemed
to see You, touch You, taste You.
But then You called me to a fuller relationship.
when you and I merged into WE,
a single entity, a singularity, imploding
into unmapped implications.
He and She and It and They
belonged to an obsolete grammar,
a lexicon that had lost its relevance.
I love We; I fear We.
For when You and I turn into Us, am I still Me?
or is Me dissolved in We?
Can one still be one when two are one?
Now I am We, and They are I
And He and She are You and Me—
And I don’t know who I is anymore.
Jim Taylor, August 2018