Just God

Beautiful tents pitched in fields
So beautiful the people
Extending the kind hand
To the stranger in their midst

Still there is that quaint
Tradition of sexual mutilation
For actual membership
I feel I must forego

Stoning of the adulteress
The Sabbath firewood carrier
Or the wayward son -
What cost belonging?
Certainly a just god
Does not want this.

In a few thousand years
They will evolve
Forgive the adulteress
Accept the dissenter
And realize the wayward son
May just be
The enlightened one

Too late for me
Simple goatherd
Living here
In the Kingdom of David
Remembering to keep track
Of which day to do nothing

Beautiful houses built on belief
“The Lord will provide”
Extending the kind hand
To each other in time of trial
Charity to the poor
and the servants of God
In their midst

In the ‘Land of the Free’
God can forgive all
Except disbelief
Demanding a price
Human sacrifice
Paid in advance
Himself made flesh

Is God’s mercy
Seeing even to the sparrow
Providing life’s every need
Forgiving the most brutal
The most ignorant and cruel
Bought with human blood?

My God is both
Merciful and merciless
Good and evil
Love and hate
Nothing and everything
All of us

I pray
To what lives inside
You

© 2011 Tom Rubenoff