Screaming inside… September 15, 2009
Posted by Phil Groom in Christianity, Life Issues, Poetry, Theological Reflection.Tags: Breast Cancer, Cancer, God, Prayer, Screaming, Waiting on God
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The Scream
… as another friend is diagnosed with breast cancer.
Watching, waiting, hoping, praying… wondering at the futility of praying to a God who seems to have already opted out of the situation … is not the God we cry to for healing the same God who — if s/he is the God so many Christians, so many passages of the Bible, so much of the Church crack him/her up to be — could have prevented the situation?
That God is a myth, a fantasy, a desperate hope … like Father Christmas at Christmas time as we all collude in a massive pretence for the children … we know it’s not true, but we want the magic …
Another friend I spoke to asked me — if the God I wanted to be real, was real, what would that God be like? This poem emerges from that question …
The God I want God to be
would not allow
such things to be
The God I want my God to be
would sit a child
upon her knee
and gently speak
then set her free…
That child would learn
to walk alone
yet never lonely be
that child would soon
become full grown
and fully adult she
would dance
and sing
and joyful be
and tears of grief
would never flow —
she would not know
such things could be.
… and still, deep inside, I scream, and the echo of that scream, repeated by a billion other voices, haunts my dreams…
He herd my cry… April 26, 2009
Posted by Phil Groom in Theological Reflection.Tags: Prayer, Psalm 40, Spirituality, Waiting on God
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Just came across a wonderful typo on a post about waiting:
Wait…and Other Four-Letter Words
David wrote: “I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, and herd my cry.” Psalm 40:1. I researched the verse a bit because the word “waited” popped out at me. Of course, any derivative of the word has been popping out at me for some time: wait, waiting, waited. In this particular verse, waited patiently means (in the modern vernacular), “I waited, and waited, and waited…”
I’ve always loved U2’s rendition of Psalm 40, but the thought of God herding our cries kinda lends a whole new meaning to the concept of prayer: does s/he herd our prayers like a shepherd at the sheepdog trials, arranging them in amazing formations?
Or more like a farmer, herding the cows in to be milked, knowing that his or her own livelihood depends on getting it right?
Or is it the final track, herding them off to the knacker’s yard? Hmmm. Let’s not go there — being milked is ominous enough…
Head on over to the original post at Write His Message; after the four-letter word that popped out at me, it’s well worth a read.
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