To those who never get to verse 3...

I was hoping we would vote this blog back open, but I do appreciate the hesitancy, maybe even moreso as I realize what I want to talk openly about.  It is the very thing that nearly got Dan in trouble: trying to understand and even empathize with the despair of a friend who did not know God and/or did not want to live.  If we are to believe that life, and God, is good, why can’t we talk about it?  And when life isn’t easy, when we cry out for help in our unbelief, as perhaps even Tony did, why should we be stifling this?

Here is a poem I had started writing just before Dan had been told to remove his postings.  I had written and emailed Dan a partial version of this poem, which then ended before the denouement, at “God is love,” but I have since finished the poem.  Or maybe it isn't finished yet.  The title, at least, is only a working title: its reference, picking up on my last poem, is to Genesis1:3.


To those who never get to verse 3

To say that God knows those who don’t know God
Should not offend those who do not believe
In the existence or the mind of God,

But they might be insulted who do not
Find comfort in whatever they believe,
Those for whatever reason knowing God
As one who doesn’t care or won’t receive
Their prayers, the hopeless souls who think that God
Is never there, and anyone who’s thought
That God hates those who struggle to believe
That God is love...
                             But this I do believe,
That God will walk with those who don’t know God
And weep with those who say he wasn’t there
And listen to an unbeliever’s prayer.


Also posted on Poems by J.A. Vold