This God thing

​
This God thing
 
Early this morning I was listening to a rebroadcast of a conversation between Krista Tippett and the Irish poet, theologian, and philosopher Kohn O’Donohue.  He died in 2008 but left a rich collection of wise love and beauty.
 
During the interview he quotes Meister Eckhart who says in Middle High German, “Gott wirt und Gott entwirt” which he says means “God becomes and God un-becomes” and then goes on to say “translated it means that God is only our name for it, and the closer we get to it the more it ceases to be God. So then you are on a real safari with the wildness and danger and the otherness of God. And I think when you begin to get a sense of the depth that is there, then your whole heart wakens up. I mean, I love Ireenaeus’ thing from the second century, which said, the Glory of the human being – The Glory of the God is the human being fully alive.”
 
Who is this this god 
of whom you speak 
and to whom you pray?
 
What is the God thing? 
To whom all praise is due
for all the pain 
the suffering
the injustice
that is inflicted on the pure 
and the impure?
 
What?
 
God of my understanding?
 
There is no understanding of 
a God which lacks understanding
or compassion.
 
What is this God thing?
 
“This place within which  
knows no wounds.
This place which is alive.
This place which is birthed 
each day afresh.”
 
What you say?
 
I have no place which
knows no wounds.
No place which is alive.
 
No, that was not a smile.
I killed the smile which 
like fake news lied.
 
I will not, cannot bear to lose
another smile.
 
I cannot, will not smile.
 
There is no green eggs and ham.
 
And then
 
And then the plate of green eggs and ham.
 
Appears.
 
I smile in spite of myself or 
out of myself
to myself.
 
God is green eggs and ham.  
 
I am green eggs and ham.
 
Am I then God?
 
Oh! 
You are green eggs and ham
 
Then
 
Then
 
There are two of us and if two
 
Three?
 
Or?
 
I live
 
God lives?
 
We live?
 
Written September 1, 2017