We Scrape Creation

We Scrape Creation

(“Our Lord, it seems that you have just begun to show me your great power.” Deuteronomy 3:24a)

We scrape creation like wiggling comets
bursting with snow. There is nothing we know better
than ourselves,
nothing we know less.
Until I find a God who does not mind
that I detest destruction of any kind
I will keep on following Jesus alone
and let my other questions float loaded
with regrets it took so long to see Him
as I do now.

We make believe we believe and become
like the God’s we believe in. Angrier than
we ever become at children or spouse
we make Him wrath-Man full of thunder,
named Destruction, and hating the same enemies
we’ve hated all along.
Oh God of my choice, how glad I am You
chose me instead of the neighbors I’ve learned
to love to hate.

We scratch the surface of the universe like
fingernails of unseen travelers pulling giant Airstreams.
Still we fancy perfect knowledge about where
the imperfect spend forever hotly regretful.
We snub our noses at parents struggling to hold their own,
at teenagers with parents nearly disowned,
and at everything that doesn’t match our 2011
North American Christianese excess that says
you can have it all if you play the game
I’m playing with the rules I’ve invented, recently,
and thought were the rules all along.

Do I sound bitter or discouraged. No, I just know it all
better than anyone else who knows it better than the rest.
But I’ve come to my certainty more recently than you
and that makes me the closest to truth for now, without
counting what may be discovered tomorrow.

We mine the skies like fireflies thinking our tiny shine
illumines the entire firmament.