Saturday, March 7, 2009

"There is a curious paradox, which no one can explain..." --The Fantasticks

Just some of what's been feeding my thoughts lately. Agency. Curious concept, that.

The God Who Loves You

by Carl Dennis

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you’d be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you’re living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you’re used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

2 comments:

  1. Substitute all references to god with "parent", and it comes close to the same feeling. We aren't omnipotent of course, but if the point of parenting on earth is to prepare for parenting in the heavens, why it makes sense that it feels the same.

    Of course, you could also substitute all references to god with "paramecium" and just be ridiculous ...

    I love you!

    Mom
    XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know the ending is supposed to make you feel better, but the middle depressed me soo much, I couldn't feel better at the end :(

    ReplyDelete