Psalm 53: “Fools say in their hearts,’There is not God.'”

So fools say in their hearts,
And what say I in mine?
No god is here, no evidence clear,
so do not fear, simply decline?

 God or no God, is that the question?
Or many different gods lurking about?
Or a piece of One God burning within
each living soul and never burning out?

 There are other options for one’s divinity,
but the “no god” choice borders on insanity
No god at all leaves little comfort or hope,
to the no-god of Whatever, all is vanity.

Are we accidents of chance, or accidents waiting to happen;
accidental tourists in a happenstance land
where the present evaporates, leaving no past,
and futures unwritten erupt unplanned?

How to measure our pleasure,
except present delight
and morality falters,
whose to say what’s right?

No saints or sinners,
nor a disappointment can one be,
For who’s there to disappoint?
With no God Almighty?

We might stand and shake our puny fists
at the vast and empty, uncaring sky.
Think of the time we’ll save on prayers and petitions,
and pondering over some reason “why.”

And what is justice with no god around
to somehow hold us accountable,
and could  the cause of mercy be
anything but merely laughable.

In the absence of divinity,
with no first cause nor ground of being,
we’re left to be each our own god
each in thine own self believing.

No standard, no law, save
to thine own self be true,
but when there’s more than one self
where does that leave you?

You’ll be serving my god of me,
or I’ll be taken in by the god of you
one will consume the other
for with gods there cannot be two.

Where’s wisdom in this gross incompatibility
dog eating dog till only one remains?
Top dog, only dog, lonely dog,
dead dog, dog gone it, this is insane.

Wisdom is born of humility
a luxury no god can afford
‘cause if it’s either you or me,
humility will lose to the sword

By the sword we live, by the sword we die
we kill with the swords of our choosing
from harsh words to suffocating silence,
and the slanderous back stab we find amusing;

we kill with kindness, destroy by co-dependence,
use victimization to win by loosing
for if there is no God, and the gods are us
then it’s people we’ll end up abusing

Gripped with fear, for we get what we give,
we know someone’s hot on our heels
to do unto us as we’ve done unto others
and the devil ain’t making any deals.

But if there is a God, and this God’s not us,
then maybe the colors change hue,
and might need not make right except
where my might makes right for you.

For that’s what they see, those who seek God,
the God who risks humility
the might that makes right hanging on a cross,
the way of true divinity.

Walt McCanless