It’s easy to say what I don’t believe in anymore – an all-knowing grandfather God who sits on a cloud somewhere up there, out there, distant but keeping an eye on everything, delivering rewards and punishments,, and upsetting things here on earth with what we call “acts of God.” But then people ask me, “So what kind of God do you believe in?” And I find prose can’t do it; poetry at least comes closer.
A shining
Faces talk around a table
knees warm around a campfire
voices sing in a circle
hands clasp in the darkness
and in between, among, around them
hovers a shining
Eyes cannot see it
ears cannot hear it
fingers cannot touch it
but all feel it
deep, deep within
The shining glows
and pulses
and sings high and clear
and tastes sweeter than honey
whenever two or three
or four or more --
humans or trees
herring or chickadees --
meet and merge
in holy harmony
Though there is nothing there
everyone knows
something is there
that can’t be explained
or explained away
I call it God
What do you call it?
By Jim Taylor, September 2018