Man Speaks, “Hey God…Where Are You...Are You Listening?”
Job found calm, discovered his place,
met with a God who created our race,
and his vision was clearer when he grasped that point of view.
Solomon’s ‘Preacher’ saw virtue in innocence,
no meaning exists in the pursuit of our senses;
We should obey our creator, when our days are new.
The Psalms had a God you could engage,
Elijah’s Deity would comfort his rage,
Back then His interventions showed His perfect character.
Daniel was not eaten and his faith overflowed.
Jonah obeyed after he had been stowed.
But now the works are so sparse, they are no longer a factor.
In the ancient stories men saw God's glory,
But our modern world writes a different story,
that God seems odd, and at times frivolous with His wishes.
We are everywhere surrounded by death and disease;
yet we can claim His help to find our keys.
Such indolence and distance make Him look and sound capricious.
This is not some modern complaint,
and past generations mused over the restraint,
while our lives are chaotic, and history so bloody and violent?
Recent voices have rephrased these questions,
yet the modern world has left us little to rest on.
When we look into the universe it appears to be empty and silent.
The pattern of history is that cycles repeat,
and with acres of past lives under our feet,
the unseen realm where God dwells is cold and aloof.
Divine plans are no longer clear nor straight,
and daily something new challenges our faith.
If He is sovereign why can’t he just give us some proof?
-----------------------------------
God Speaks, “Hey Man…I Am Here...and I Am Listening”
“You say I don’t act to protect you now,
or magically appear in your world somehow,
and stand before you with some incontestable proof?
But I might still be receptive to all you ask,
and my power to provide not lost to the past,
you are the ones who chose your hubris over my truth.
“You have your breath, and memories of Eden,
you make endless choices because of your freedom,
If you were all robots there wouldn’t be talk of that tree.
I’ve never forced my will or schemes,
and I gave you 1st Corinthians 13.
So where is your love, and what wisdom can you show to me?
“You see you pray for rain in a drought-ravaged nation,
to save the innocent from starvation,
but don’t you have enough already to help your brothers?
A pet in one place gets a better feed,
than far away families with greater need.
So why can’t you get the resources from one place to another?
“Aren’t hungry souls your fellow man?
You act as if their lives aren’t worth a dam?
Like they are all Shylocks that don’t matter when they bleed?
You have these smart ideas and challenge me,
and sound like you understand what you see,
but then act like you’re driven by some farcical racial creed.
“You act indifferently to the lasting harm,
as you rip up third-world subsistence farms.
Yet the damage from your cheap coffee is there if you want to see.
When a baby starves, have you ever been near?
Because I get to see a few million die each year,
Sometimes being omniscient is not all it’s cracked up to be.
“You seek neutrinos, study quantum mechanics,
eschew the laws of thermo-dynamics,
yet dark energy and dark matter like string are still hard to find.
Your obsessive stumbles toward self-reliance,
channel so much into research and science,
that your fellow’s pain gets forgotten and pushed behind.
“Your military machine is stark and frightening,
yet your Cassini rocket can pick out Titan,
I’m puzzled at how you create and destroy with one accord.
So much technology has now appeared,
but from my perspective it just looks weird.
Some have cashed in your planet, and got fat while the money poured.
“St Peter’s Basilica is confusing too.
Is that a service I requested from you?
Didn’t My Son say the poor are actually your brothers?
Who derives benefit from that financial drain?
Because rituals and ceremonies never ease pain,
And all that beauty doesn’t stop you from hurting/hating each other.
“So don’t thank me when you find your keys,
it’s likely to have nothing to do with Me.
But then don’t blame Me when you discuss the ‘Holocaust’.
I think you’ll find that was the work of men.
They caused the horror, so don’t try to pretend
that your cruelty can reach a level you will ever exhaust.”
--------------------------------------
Man Responds, “Yes God, but from what I see….”
...the further I travel the more troubled the view,
the deeper the debates over which scenes are true.
And the higher the demands, the smaller my source of energy.
Convictions once framed get cast as debris,
The more one searches the less that we can see,
With mostly broken scaffolding left aside to clutter the way.
Once Jericho fell to a blast and a shout,
with Israel’s holocaust a sanctified rout.
Now images of babies put to the sword continues.
Your man of great faith created your nation,
but was asked to kill his son to cement the relation.
Should esteem be given to a murderer, or to his holy muse?
Aeons of death’s rapacity preceded Eden
before those opposing trees required heeding,
and the first one to kill from jealousy was casually sired.
Job may have discovered there’s peace in waiting,
but his woes were premised on a deal with Satan.
And the role of hapless pawns by his offspring was also required.
Both history and nature are ‘red tooth and claw’,
so is the reward the reason for what goes before?
for persistent failure here, heaven will be our ultimate prize?
I know Matthew 5 emerges from the violence,
And 1st Corinthians 13 flickers amid the silence.
But do they answer all the queries and the ever moving guides?
Is it all about a Sunday morning encounter,
and those who were there were no longer doubters?
And is that now to be repeated daily in the hearts of the kind?
I am not disposed to an abyss of meaning,
I know who I am, I’m inclined to believing,
so I will continue to search as long as I rule my mind.
What does suffering say to belief?
It’s so easy when my privilege gives relief,
and I eat, drink and breathe the best of whatever goes.
That’s not an answer, but it’s sincere in a way,
For I can only know what is mine today,
while I shun the freedom and luxury of my epicurean egos.
-------------------------------------------
God Has the Last Word, “Patience…”
“It’s important that you express your doubts,
because that is the way you’ll turn things about.
Remember real life isn’t like some tired old bedtime story.
You can’t kneel down and say a prayer,
and expect it to all work out from there.
That’s never been the wisdom and love that attends My Glory.
“At any one time my actions affect more than one,
and even if My plans may look underdone,
the liberty of the cosmos is bigger than any single situation.
There are many problems I won’t fix today,
in creating free will, I gave control away,
and grace and patience are what I use as the current best options.
“For instance – If there’s a marriage but love isn’t present,
and one knows me, and the other doesn’t.
And one person prays for help to heal the marital fissures.
I can only give help to the one I know.
As the choices of others I won’t overthrow,
for my intervention would be ignoring their clearly expressed wishes.
“Consider – Let’s take that concept a little bit further.
You are a loyal husband, and a trusted father,
And you’re a useful and committed member of the local parish.
But you have a weakness, you occasionally drink,
and when you do, you don’t stop and think.
You drive your car, and put yourself and every one else at risk.
“Your family prays to me for your protection,
and asks me for angels with clear directions,
to ensure you avoid accidents, or not encounter an RBT.
When you lose your licence, and everything else,
should I have been protecting you from yourself?
Is the fact of your life falling apart then down to me?
“Well the same rules apply to earth’s environment,
and you know full well whereabouts it all went.
Should I ask for your wallets in return for making it rain?
You have used your riches like that drunken driver.
Should I put it all back, make the planet revive, or
redesign nature for you to abuse it all again, and again?
“All of the earth is my burning bush,
not the marketer’s barrow you’re compelled to push.
Poor guardianship of your prize has always been the raison d’être.
Exploiting all of life to grow your girth,
and putting nothing back for all your worth,
ignoring consequences has become a well-seasoned mantra.
“You insist you are free to live as you like,
then pick on me when disaster strikes,
as if Aids was something I created to try and get you back.
There are many ways to keep you from pain,
but you’ve trampled them under with total disdain,
and forgot how nature acts quid pro quo down the track.
“You ignore simple rules and laws on health,
accept cash from industries that only deal in death,
then say I’m a ‘delusion’ who’s to blame for all you can see.
Your lifestyle comes at the cost of your brothers,
as each indulgence takes away from another,
so why is it only the misery that gets credited to me?
“You boast so proudly of all you do,
and yet it always ends up the comfort of a few.
Out of sight, out of mind is your overriding mentality.
An aborted foetus can whip up your rage,
but innocent Iraqis are just collateral damage.
How can My much-loved creation live with this unreality?
“Brothers who know me yet are split by schism,
fundamentalist conceit, and numinous narcissism,
who argue, judge and kill, and do so in my name.
Like a spiritual fifth column, white-anting hope,
using their privilege with breathtaking scope
to justify whatever when using me to support their claims.
“Then from the edge of the chasm insults you hurl,
but surely you’ve read Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’.
The existence of freedom carries with it a potential to fail.
I can’t simultaneously cease to exist,
and be responsible for the pains that persist.
And I won’t remove autonomy to disarm the scorpion’s tale.
“Inside of you all there’s a God-shaped hole,
You can call it the heart, spirit or soul.
Only the arrogant think they have my exclusive attention.
I am Jesus, Allah, Krishna and Yahweh,
so don’t waste your life with pretentious gainsay.
I’ll reveal myself whatever your flawed perception.
“And I will feel every pain of those who suffer,
being omnipresent gives Me no buffer.
But look to those stories, and the continual stream of love letters.
Take notice if you will of the apostle Paul,
he says that pure love is truth above all.
And just like David, his problems encouraged him to do better.
“I’m not responsible for tragedy and pain.
Bathsheba’s baby didn’t die to create shame,
but the loss made understanding grow from that moral disgrace.
David showed the way to turn a new page,
there is always a future with a fresh a new stage,
The past is mine to forgive whatever your current place.
“Don’t assume when things are done in my name,
that they are my deeds, and I am to blame.
Look to your own heart, and discover what you truly feel.
I want to rescue you and your earth,
so search my ways, and know what you’re worth.
Understand there are solutions, and the love you find will be real.”
--------------------------------------------------------------
Man Speaks, “Hey God…Where Are You...Are You Listening?”
Job found calm, discovered his place,
met with a God who created our race,
and his vision was clearer when he grasped that point of view.
Solomon’s ‘Preacher’ saw virtue in innocence,
no meaning exists in the pursuit of our senses;
We should obey our creator, when our days are new.
The Psalms had a God you could engage,
Elijah’s Deity would comfort his rage,
Back then His interventions showed His perfect character.
Daniel was not eaten and his faith overflowed.
Jonah obeyed after he had been stowed.
But now the works are so sparse, they are no longer a factor.
In the ancient stories men saw God's glory,
But our modern world writes a different story,
that God seems odd, and at times frivolous with His wishes.
We are everywhere surrounded by death and disease;
yet we can claim His help to find our keys.
Such indolence and distance make Him look and sound capricious.
This is not some modern complaint,
and past generations mused over the restraint,
while our lives are chaotic, and history so bloody and violent?
Recent voices have rephrased these questions,
yet the modern world has left us little to rest on.
When we look into the universe it appears to be empty and silent.
The pattern of history is that cycles repeat,
and with acres of past lives under our feet,
the unseen realm where God dwells is cold and aloof.
Divine plans are no longer clear nor straight,
and daily something new challenges our faith.
If He is sovereign why can’t he just give us some proof?
-----------------------------------
God Speaks, “Hey Man…I Am Here...and I Am Listening”
“You say I don’t act to protect you now,
or magically appear in your world somehow,
and stand before you with some incontestable proof?
But I might still be receptive to all you ask,
and my power to provide not lost to the past,
you are the ones who chose your hubris over my truth.
“You have your breath, and memories of Eden,
you make endless choices because of your freedom,
If you were all robots there wouldn’t be talk of that tree.
I’ve never forced my will or schemes,
and I gave you 1st Corinthians 13.
So where is your love, and what wisdom can you show to me?
“You see you pray for rain in a drought-ravaged nation,
to save the innocent from starvation,
but don’t you have enough already to help your brothers?
A pet in one place gets a better feed,
than far away families with greater need.
So why can’t you get the resources from one place to another?
“Aren’t hungry souls your fellow man?
You act as if their lives aren’t worth a dam?
Like they are all Shylocks that don’t matter when they bleed?
You have these smart ideas and challenge me,
and sound like you understand what you see,
but then act like you’re driven by some farcical racial creed.
“You act indifferently to the lasting harm,
as you rip up third-world subsistence farms.
Yet the damage from your cheap coffee is there if you want to see.
When a baby starves, have you ever been near?
Because I get to see a few million die each year,
Sometimes being omniscient is not all it’s cracked up to be.
“You seek neutrinos, study quantum mechanics,
eschew the laws of thermo-dynamics,
yet dark energy and dark matter like string are still hard to find.
Your obsessive stumbles toward self-reliance,
channel so much into research and science,
that your fellow’s pain gets forgotten and pushed behind.
“Your military machine is stark and frightening,
yet your Cassini rocket can pick out Titan,
I’m puzzled at how you create and destroy with one accord.
So much technology has now appeared,
but from my perspective it just looks weird.
Some have cashed in your planet, and got fat while the money poured.
“St Peter’s Basilica is confusing too.
Is that a service I requested from you?
Didn’t My Son say the poor are actually your brothers?
Who derives benefit from that financial drain?
Because rituals and ceremonies never ease pain,
And all that beauty doesn’t stop you from hurting/hating each other.
“So don’t thank me when you find your keys,
it’s likely to have nothing to do with Me.
But then don’t blame Me when you discuss the ‘Holocaust’.
I think you’ll find that was the work of men.
They caused the horror, so don’t try to pretend
that your cruelty can reach a level you will ever exhaust.”
--------------------------------------
Man Responds, “Yes God, but from what I see….”
...the further I travel the more troubled the view,
the deeper the debates over which scenes are true.
And the higher the demands, the smaller my source of energy.
Convictions once framed get cast as debris,
The more one searches the less that we can see,
With mostly broken scaffolding left aside to clutter the way.
Once Jericho fell to a blast and a shout,
with Israel’s holocaust a sanctified rout.
Now images of babies put to the sword continues.
Your man of great faith created your nation,
but was asked to kill his son to cement the relation.
Should esteem be given to a murderer, or to his holy muse?
Aeons of death’s rapacity preceded Eden
before those opposing trees required heeding,
and the first one to kill from jealousy was casually sired.
Job may have discovered there’s peace in waiting,
but his woes were premised on a deal with Satan.
And the role of hapless pawns by his offspring was also required.
Both history and nature are ‘red tooth and claw’,
so is the reward the reason for what goes before?
for persistent failure here, heaven will be our ultimate prize?
I know Matthew 5 emerges from the violence,
And 1st Corinthians 13 flickers amid the silence.
But do they answer all the queries and the ever moving guides?
Is it all about a Sunday morning encounter,
and those who were there were no longer doubters?
And is that now to be repeated daily in the hearts of the kind?
I am not disposed to an abyss of meaning,
I know who I am, I’m inclined to believing,
so I will continue to search as long as I rule my mind.
What does suffering say to belief?
It’s so easy when my privilege gives relief,
and I eat, drink and breathe the best of whatever goes.
That’s not an answer, but it’s sincere in a way,
For I can only know what is mine today,
while I shun the freedom and luxury of my epicurean egos.
-------------------------------------------
God Has the Last Word, “Patience…”
“It’s important that you express your doubts,
because that is the way you’ll turn things about.
Remember real life isn’t like some tired old bedtime story.
You can’t kneel down and say a prayer,
and expect it to all work out from there.
That’s never been the wisdom and love that attends My Glory.
“At any one time my actions affect more than one,
and even if My plans may look underdone,
the liberty of the cosmos is bigger than any single situation.
There are many problems I won’t fix today,
in creating free will, I gave control away,
and grace and patience are what I use as the current best options.
“For instance – If there’s a marriage but love isn’t present,
and one knows me, and the other doesn’t.
And one person prays for help to heal the marital fissures.
I can only give help to the one I know.
As the choices of others I won’t overthrow,
for my intervention would be ignoring their clearly expressed wishes.
“Consider – Let’s take that concept a little bit further.
You are a loyal husband, and a trusted father,
And you’re a useful and committed member of the local parish.
But you have a weakness, you occasionally drink,
and when you do, you don’t stop and think.
You drive your car, and put yourself and every one else at risk.
“Your family prays to me for your protection,
and asks me for angels with clear directions,
to ensure you avoid accidents, or not encounter an RBT.
When you lose your licence, and everything else,
should I have been protecting you from yourself?
Is the fact of your life falling apart then down to me?
“Well the same rules apply to earth’s environment,
and you know full well whereabouts it all went.
Should I ask for your wallets in return for making it rain?
You have used your riches like that drunken driver.
Should I put it all back, make the planet revive, or
redesign nature for you to abuse it all again, and again?
“All of the earth is my burning bush,
not the marketer’s barrow you’re compelled to push.
Poor guardianship of your prize has always been the raison d’être.
Exploiting all of life to grow your girth,
and putting nothing back for all your worth,
ignoring consequences has become a well-seasoned mantra.
“You insist you are free to live as you like,
then pick on me when disaster strikes,
as if Aids was something I created to try and get you back.
There are many ways to keep you from pain,
but you’ve trampled them under with total disdain,
and forgot how nature acts quid pro quo down the track.
“You ignore simple rules and laws on health,
accept cash from industries that only deal in death,
then say I’m a ‘delusion’ who’s to blame for all you can see.
Your lifestyle comes at the cost of your brothers,
as each indulgence takes away from another,
so why is it only the misery that gets credited to me?
“You boast so proudly of all you do,
and yet it always ends up the comfort of a few.
Out of sight, out of mind is your overriding mentality.
An aborted foetus can whip up your rage,
but innocent Iraqis are just collateral damage.
How can My much-loved creation live with this unreality?
“Brothers who know me yet are split by schism,
fundamentalist conceit, and numinous narcissism,
who argue, judge and kill, and do so in my name.
Like a spiritual fifth column, white-anting hope,
using their privilege with breathtaking scope
to justify whatever when using me to support their claims.
“Then from the edge of the chasm insults you hurl,
but surely you’ve read Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’.
The existence of freedom carries with it a potential to fail.
I can’t simultaneously cease to exist,
and be responsible for the pains that persist.
And I won’t remove autonomy to disarm the scorpion’s tale.
“Inside of you all there’s a God-shaped hole,
You can call it the heart, spirit or soul.
Only the arrogant think they have my exclusive attention.
I am Jesus, Allah, Krishna and Yahweh,
so don’t waste your life with pretentious gainsay.
I’ll reveal myself whatever your flawed perception.
“And I will feel every pain of those who suffer,
being omnipresent gives Me no buffer.
But look to those stories, and the continual stream of love letters.
Take notice if you will of the apostle Paul,
he says that pure love is truth above all.
And just like David, his problems encouraged him to do better.
“I’m not responsible for tragedy and pain.
Bathsheba’s baby didn’t die to create shame,
but the loss made understanding grow from that moral disgrace.
David showed the way to turn a new page,
there is always a future with a fresh a new stage,
The past is mine to forgive whatever your current place.
“Don’t assume when things are done in my name,
that they are my deeds, and I am to blame.
Look to your own heart, and discover what you truly feel.
I want to rescue you and your earth,
so search my ways, and know what you’re worth.
Understand there are solutions, and the love you find will be real.”
--------------------------------------------------------------
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