Polytheism

This poem was inspired by the court case in which the phrase, "under God," was deemed unconstitutional. It speaks to the expectation from many evangelicals that the state conduct its business according to God's revelation in Scripture.

One Nation Under Gods

They say polytheism is dead,
but I am too American to believe it.

We call it diversity, pluralism,
the eclectic spirit—an enlightened land
where disagreement is our only agreement.

But this is the land of many gods,
each dutifully worshipped in congress
by those too clever to worship any one
exclusively.

Deferential homage is paid to our
celebrities, politicians, religious leaders and their gods,
like Lincoln in his majestic Parthenon.
And each in his proper turn.

We Americans look back on prior civilizations
with haughty eyes,
in the manner a modern physician looks
upon the barbarism of bloodletting.

Who can compete with the sophistication
of the American Pantheon?
We offer no Messiah!
We offer a thousand Messiahs—each
dancing for our amusement, and,
more importantly, each subject to our approval.

The American spirit abhors the
Theocratic tyranny of a single Deity!
No solitary god will enjoy a monopoly here!
In America, the best Jesus can hope
for is to be one of our many representatives,
like Ted Kennedy.

Americans demand their options!
Our options define us. Without them we
are controlled, but this freedom must
extend to our gods as well.
Our gods must be subject to fluctuating
market conditions and the complex
variety of our appetites.

We must be free to find the god that suits us!

And the prophet says,
“Perhaps it is we who must be transformed to suit God.”

November, 2001

Pearls

A poem written after my 3rd or 4th year of teaching.

“Do not cast pearls before swine”
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl of great price”
~The Words of Jesus

Pearls

While the teacher stood and expounded the ancient truths of God
heaven opened,

and a shower of pearls rained down upon the students,
clacking and dancing upon the tile floor,
bouncing off petrified hearts
like hail on concrete.

The sound was deafening, but no one heard,
no one reacted, grasped the priceless pearls,
no one noticed their presence.

Seeing they could not see and hearing they could not hear.

Stillness settled over the room. The dance of the pearls was over.
An insolent student asked,
“When does this class end?”

Whereupon the bell rang
and the students herded for the door
like suffocating desperate animals pressing for air,
trampling and kicking the pearls
now scattered aimlessly about the antiseptic tile.

A few tripped over them and cursed them,
incensed that they had impeded progress to the exit.

But at last they were free of the classroom.

Later that evening,
the night janitor was puzzled to see that thousands of pearls were left behind.
He assumed they were worthless, having been so abandoned.

And so, these pearls,
the sublime treasure of God,
the fruit of God’s mind,
offered freely in order to be treasured as ornaments of the human mind,
were both regarded as trash and discarded as trash.

May, 2005