A Psalm Admitting Reluctance

Sometimes I think that my reluctance to believe in God

Is nothing more than adolescent spite

A scoop of “You can’t make me believe in you”

In a cup of “I’m in control here”

With a dollop of “If you’re so divine, why aren’t I happier?”

 

It’s as if I’m saying 

“I’ll believe in you if…”

As if God might say, 

“I gave you the heavens and the earth and the miracle of life

But if that’s not enough

Here’s another fifty bucks

Now are you satisfied?”

 

I’d love to scapegoat God

And bring God down to size

Beneath it all 

I yearn for God to say “I’m sorry”

 

(Although I suspect that if God ever did apologize to me

I’d be awestruck

Or possibly just embarrassed

That God called my bluff)

 

Perhaps I’m simply afraid

To leave the solitary confinement of my ego

And allow myself be released into the vastness of the unknown

 

It’s like I want a pre-nup

Before I’m willing to have a relationship with the Divine

And say

Yes, I will give you my love

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The Replica

I believe in the Commandment

Not to worship false idols

But some of them are so shiny and famous

They obstruct my view of the Divine

 

I think the god I was raised to worship

Was only a replica of God

So popular in my neighborhood

That my parents felt obligated to believe 

 

Rooted in their identity

Not in their experience

Their God was a concept

Backed up by stories with plot holes I was supposed to ignore

 

I hesitate opening the door to God

Because I fear the replica will enter

And my disappointment will be so deep

That I’d prefer atheism to this second-rate deity

 

I open the door just a crack

Praying to connect

Not with a replica

But with the tantalizing incomprehensibility 

Of the Divine