Bad Religion

4/29/22

Every word

wrapped in ether

that somersaults off our tongue

first splashes

then sinks deeply

into eternity.

 

If words are a bubbling brook

above the geyser of our hearts,

they’re poised

to say something about

the nature of our spirituality—

a disjointed but shared reality—

seeking comfort

in the womb of bad religion.

 

What then about true religion?

 

It’s not about finding one

that fits our personality.

 

It’s about conforming

our personality to the truth

and all that that entails:

 

our motivations,

and our self-defense mechanisms,

our prejudices,

and our prideful dispositions.

 

Only then

will we live happy

and fulfilled lives

worth emulating

to privileged youth,

 

whose generational curse

has blinded their eyes

from seeing the warning sign

in a blood red sky:

 

privilege without responsibility

breeds entitlement

with bragging rights

of insecurity.

 

God spoke into existence everything;

everything for His glory came into being,

consistent with a cosmic breath

and privileged sustaining,

 

a metanarrative,

words assigned their order

and prayed over,

etched in ether

across the multiverse

by the living Word,

 

a love letter

written in royal blood

to break the Adamic curse

 

so everything,

once destined for death,

can see its true reflection

and catch its first breath.

 

A bubbling brook,

a reminder of what’s within,

a life behind the life

that lies deeply hidden

 

like the scriptures of the sea

written in aqua marine

and navy blue

that invite us to dive deeper,

exploring the secrets of divinity

with the turn of a page,

unlocking doors,

rusted for centuries

to lead adaptable creatures

to their next clue.

 

And that’s to say nothing

of living above the horizon

to be kissed by the sun.

 

But better yet

what about swimming

with dolphins,

learning to breathe underwater,

retraining lungs

and reshaping organs

to speak sea mammal

with an echolocating voice,

crying to be accepted into a pod

and counted among the stars?

 

Every wave tells a story,

a microcosm of the Big Bang

with its metaphysical implication:

 

something stems

from something.

 

So, it smells

of dolphins decomposing

on jagged reefs

of brazen bravado

to suggest

something stems

from nothing

or life pulled itself up

by invisible bootstraps:

 

a pell-mell seeking

in a humanist manifesto,

a crescendo of special pleading

that requires more luck

than getting paid at playing Craps

or more faith

in spontaneous generation

than the inspired words of Genesis,

the something from Something

of Creation.

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