Is God a Poet?
by SELASIE BULMUO
There is a group on LinkedIn called ‘POETS’ which I joined sometime ago. There is a discussion thread on there in relation to the Question; ‘Is God a Poet?’
There are mainly two factions;
Those who believe God does not exist and even if he / she does then he/ she must be evil given all the suffering in the world which in their view he/ she seems to be doing nothing about.
The other faction all have glowing compliments about God and stand by what they believe.
These discussions got me thinking about how we perceive ‘evil’ vis- a- vis God. The following is my understanding:
Someone asked: if God made all things, did he make evil as well?
Well I answered: Yes. But evil was simply a measure on the continuum of creation, a measure of the distance between what God considers good and what he does not. He did not make evil to exact on his creation. He put a boundary on it and said to man, let me be the judge of what is good for you. So he looked at all he had made and pronounced them ‘good’. But man decided to break the bounds or human limitation set by God and chose to do the judging himself thereby getting exposed to the part of the continuum of creation called ‘evil’. As long as we continue to refuse to choose what God calls ‘good’, we and our world will be exacted upon by evil from which we cannot escape. So my advice is this: Choose God, choose good, choose blessedness. Live within God’s boundaries. He knows what is best for you.
Comments are welcome.
I cannot write whether I believe God does or does not exist because that would personify her/him. I’m not sure exactly what I believe in relation to the different religious doctrines that exist, but I do know that my thinking, because of the limited spiritual evolution that humankind has experienced, is not expansive enough to explore the possibilities of what God could be. Our natures are such that we will always look for something or someone to blame. If there is evil in the world, it is humans’ evil, not God’s.
Thanks for this comment. It does show how we all need to keep searching given our very limited human capacity to totally capture the whole construct of ‘Godness’ ( my word for all the debates about God).
Also, isn’t it such an easy cop out to just blame ‘God’ as we tend to believe that he cannot do anything about what we choose to say, do or believe.
I subscribe to Joyce Kilmer’s opinion:
I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
God is the ultimate poet!
Wow!, nice poem. Creation is awesome isn’t it?. Thanks for the comment.
It’s a beautiful poem. Testament to our wonder of the world and also, one of our great human traits, a sense of humour! And yes, I truly believe it is a cop out to blame ‘God’ (or Godness – I love that), it makes us seemingly uncountable for our own actions.
Thank you Roz De’Ath. It is a wonderful world indeed. Filled with so many different kinds of people, with different views about the world and ‘Godness’ (I am liking this term more and more now). The challenge is getting us all open minded enough to at least catch a glimpse of ‘God’s point of view. But who is qualified to give God’s point of view? And who is qualified to say God and his point of view does not exist?
Unfortunately the mere mention of God or the attribution of anything beautiful to him provokes a strong reaction in some people. there are always at least two factions.
‘How dare mere mortals like us question Godness – the existence of God’ or ‘How dare anyone belittle ‘ human awesomeness’ and human ability to govern itself without resorting to the madness of beleiving in God’.
Until we can bridge the gap between these two factions, the debate about ‘Godness’ will never cease.
Thanks for your lovely comment. Whatever be the case, we do have to take responsibility for ourselves.