Mystery

1.

A man’s deep need for a woman
is of a kind
with the ancient hunger for God;

developed, realized in the body
in the way a child
is developed from egg to fetus
and, then, expelled.

God’s most important creation
is, in fact, gestation:
incorporation
of himself in the human,

such that Mary has set the standard:
every birth is imprinted with God.

2.

So it was we came to blame Eve,
her desire to know,
guaranteeing reproduction of the species,

and, thus, the woes
brought about by abrupt eviction
from a perfect world
to death, mayhem and murder,
childbirth’s dark pain.

So we do what is expected:
we grieve, complain.

3.

And so we focus on the womb,
every human’s Eden;
proclaim we are each born in sin
and so expelled
to a world of terror and error
and a driving hunger
in which God has no part to play.

From the womb we emerge unresolved,
of ourselves a quarrel,
a contention, if you will, of two wills
and have none to ask but ourselves:
God himself too silent
and the Devil forever too loud.

4.

If we’re lucky, we seek out silence.
We create another womb of our making,
deny all pleasure,
invest ourselves in prayer, hymn away our lives.
Thus do we worship.

Then, something else takes over.
We deny ourselves,
treat anything human as sinful,
confess our sins,
turn our lives into a fearful struggle.

In the end, are smug,
consider ourselves better than others.
And what of God?
We lose him along with any friends.

5.

So tell me: What then is the answer?
What do we do? Being made of two minds as we are?
In two words: Be kind.
Treat others as you wish to be treated.
Give up on hate.
Hate eventually turns back on itself.

Do not judge others.
Especially be kind to yourself,
as you are to others.
Learn the lesson of love: There is no sin
so bad it makes you inhuman.

In the end, what you must: trust God.