* * * For the sake of formatting and visual clarity this poem is best viewed in a web browser on a device like a computer or tablet with a larger screen than a phone. This poem also contains footnotes which the Substack editor will not allow me to insert into “Poetry Block” which enables you to see the spacing and formatting I intended when I wrote this poem. If you would like to view the footnotes there is another post on wishbonepoetry.substack.com.
Here is a conversation between friends,
Or maybe among two colleagues.
No, a teacher and a student definitely . . .
Whatever! It is a relationship with which to pretend.
Here it goes.
Just know the two are not foes.
(Evodius):
There’s one thing I have long understood:
That God gets to define God’s own version of good.
(Boso:)
Is that not the epitome
Of dictatorial tyranny?
(E): Why should it be thus understood
Since God is good all the time and all the time God is good?
(B): I guess it depends, maybe,
On what God is defined to be . . .
(E): We define God?
That sounds rather odd.
(B): Yes, we must be clear on what we mean
Should the word or title, “God” communicate anything.
(E): But God is God and God is who God will be.
Just read Exodus 3:14.
(B): Narrative word play is not definition.
It is a clever name in this instance
Contrived precisely to avoid definition.
Still, a name does not necessarily convey substance.
(E): God’s name proclaims that God is free.
God is more powerful than the Egyptian deities.
(B): That is adjective
Not substantive.
(E): But adjectives describe.
That is much of what it means to define.
(B): Yes, but your name does not designate you a human.
In fact it does little other than say you are not her, him, or them.
(E): But to the ancients there was power in a name,
Authority and control coming with the name one proclaimed.
(B): Man named woman in Genesis,
But God already gave her substance.
(E): Sure. God can do that with God’s creation,
But we cannot do that which exceeds our station.
We do not define God or grant God’s designation.
That would make God a product of our imagination.
(B): Precisely! Now we are getting to substantive conversation.
Set aside that hierarchical intimidation.
(E): Okay now I am lost.
Are you saying humans are higher than God?
(B): No. Come back to the issue at hand:
What is God, not what structures does God demand.
(E): I feel like we are entering a fog of heresy . . .
At the very least abandoning any sense of orthodoxy.
(B): Maybe, but such things are secondary to this issue.
Our definition of God provides parameters for those two.
(E): I am officially confused.
Will you just say what you need to?
(B): Why, you already said it,
And we must not forget it.
(E): I said we know God’s name,
But you said that is not the same.
(B): No no, the part about an imaginative product,
One which we together thought up.
(E): We thought God into existence?
That idea will meet with terrible resistance.
(B): It is not a matter of existence.
We are talking about what God is.
(E): You do believe God is real right?
That there is a God presently alive?
(B): Of course I believe.
That is the root of my curiosity.
But you are getting distracted.
Follow the conversation. Stay on track.
(E): I started this discussion. It is mine to direct.
You have deviated from the initial subject.
(B): The first mover might not control
Every direction the moved might go.
(E): But the creator determines the designed intention.
That can be said without causing contention.
(B): Intent and result are different
Read chapters 2-4 of Genesis.
(E): Parsing and dissecting every little thing . . .
Why can you not simply believe?
(B): I said I do. Were you not listening,
Or were you distracted by all your notions preconceived?
(E): I just wanted to share my wisdom.
It is you who would not listen.
(B): I simply asked a question.
Is that not essential to learning a lesson?
(E): Sing it with me, “Trust and obey”
That’s what I was taught and what I now say.
(B): Ok listen,
Can we get back to definition?
(E): Yes I’ll come back around.
God is not bound.
When I say God is good
Good is what God is. Understood?
(B): Then good needs defined,
And good can be whatever we decide.
(E): We don’t decide, God does.
God defines all that will be, is and was.
(B): If God is good then good defines all
Making everything good since under it everything falls.
(E): That’s nonsense.
Use some common sense.
(B): So we agree that good is no definition for God.
Instead it is an adjective and we must move on.
(E): Good is not all that God is.
There is too much to say if I’m honest.
(B): So be honest and say you don’t know God’s definition.
And continue to join me as we pursue this question.
(E): It is not that I don’t know.
It is that God is too expansive for one to express.
No matter how far we go
I fear we will never end or even find a place to rest.
(B): That is excellent! Fear not!
I agree, the collective community gives shape to God.
(E): No! God shapes us, not the other way around.
God is the potter. We are the clay spinning round.
(B): Fine, whatever. The point is we.
God is defined by community.
(E): “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Where two or three are gathered there I will be.
And then there’s the blessed Trinity . . .
Yes, communion is obviously essential.
(B): Exactly, and how do we know God’s will,
What God intends, wants or feels?
(E): Through the holy scripture,
God’s Word, and the Spirit in the church . . .
(B): And who deciphers all these things?
Who interprets scripture and provides the lens through which to see?
(E): It is God through the Spirit working in the disciples of the Son.
God works through the people until the day of judgment comes.
(B): In other words the church fosters an experience of God.
The particular community defines God’s will through collective thought
Weighing things with one another
To determine what is of God and what is other.
(E): That is such a crude way to express it.
The church is the body of Christ living out the good message.
(B): There’s that word “good” again,
The point at which we began,
That which the community aspires too,
That which you would say God will always choose.
(E): Yes it is rather important that we reach for what is good,
Set our minds on such things to embody the creation declaration of being “very
good . . .”
(B): To be judged “good and faithful” as a flock of sheep
Together working toward something greater than one’s own imagining . . .
(E): To become one with God freed from devastation
Like the new city in chapter 21 of Revelation . . .
(B): A living part of the collective imagination,
The divine experience of transcendent cooperation . . .
(E): In the kingdom of God with the river and tree of life with leaves to heal the
nations.
Death and corruption are gone because the fullness of life has replaced them.
(B): What is God but that which pushes us to fulfill this dream,
That which brings us together to create a society beyond our wildest imagining?
(E): God is more than that but that is surely part.
If God must be defined that may be a decent start.
(B): I agree. God will always be more as long as we continue imagining a heavenly society.
For it is the collective imagination in which God finds being so we might become the good we want to see.
(E): Yes, the good God wants to be
For God created good in the beginning.
God determines what good is
Because God is goodness.
(B): The only way that isn’t tyranny
Is if God is the collective imagination about the society we wish to be.
(E): I reject that potential way of understanding
But I see there is still some upon which we agree.
(B): Ugh . . .
You’re too much . . .
(E): I am the wall upon which your ideas bust
[shrugs].
Two parties each unconvinced by the other.
Frustrated and sometimes confused,
Uncomfortable with the way words are used,
Often growing tired of one another.
And so it goes in conversation.
We explore and test our imagination.
