a poem by Bonnee Klein Gilligan
No matter what religion
Creator dwells within
and God has never left us
he can’t… you see, he is us
and all Creation too.
You say that God made pain
I reply he didn’t, he made
emotions, mind and spirit.
It’s we who choose the outcome
of how we feel and what we think
our happy, sad or worried
comes from us alone.
How I respond to others
or even to myself
is my responsibility
not God’s, not yours nor others
it is mine alone my friend
and yours alone as well.
God called us ‘human beings’
he says ‘Just be… my children… play’.
But we take that play and twist it
and call each other names
we poke and hit and banter
until we feel the shame.
We hurt ourselves my friend
not God nor other either.
God called us ‘human beings’.
we call us ‘human doings’
for the being part escapes us
in our daily life of doing.
God’s gone missing in existence
from our minds, and words and lives
and we blame God for our suffering
and we blame God for our pain
and we blame God for every other thing
in life that brings us shame.
It is we who have created that
not God nor other either
we put everything outside of self
when it’s us that’s the creator.
God loves us beyond reason
and allows our will and folly.
For this is how we grow and change
and choose again a different play
a different game, a new response.
It can’t remain the same for long
for this is how we grow our soul.
It’s through our pain we change
or stay the same and suffer.
So it’s a choice to stay the same
as well a choice to change.
God loves us and supports our choice
with majesty and might
he doesn’t even mind it much
if we only choose to fight.
For he knows one day we’ll get it
and we’ll change our haughty ways
and move back again to love and peace
for our eternal days.