Saturday, May 15, 2010

Apropos a lot of things

Another poem from F. Ohler's collection Better Than Nice and Other Unconventional Prayers

Life Is God-Sized

We bring our idols;
You are God.
We come with our theologies;
You are "God only wise."
We keep trying to reduce life to size
with our theology
our biology
our psychology
with all our ologies...
and
You elude our logic
You burst our boxes.
For that we praise You
and rejoice
that life is God-sized
never fully understood
drenched in mysteries
more startling than all our systems.

Humble us all
lest we shrink Your world to what WE know
or can handle.
Help us each
to let it be as unruly
wild
and grace-full
as it is.
Loosen us
to dance with joy
and to wail with sorrow
to laugh to cry to celebrate to grieve.
Help us
not only to be caught by the exceptional
but to be stunned by the ordinary
to marvel at what we call "common"--
sparrow
the people
sense
touch
and all the small and daily blessings.
My God
how incredible that we are here (and not a million OTHER places)
that we are together
that we are alive
that we are at all.
Keep us
young expectant unsure open
nervous sensitive
and alive...
at whatever age

amen.

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