by Brenda Miller
You are the God I cannot understand
And I’m living in this cold strange land
Where You let people get away with sin
Like putting carrots and celery in
Molded, fruit-flavored wiggling gelatin
That I recoil in horror from.
I’ve got questions.
Like: If You’re so good, which I sometimes doubt,
Then why do You let sauerkraut
Exist in any form?
And, though You’re the all-powerful God above
You let someone write that song “Muskrat Love”
About rodents jitterbugging in the spring.
Just how do I trust in a being like You who allows such things,
When I can’t trust in there even being buffalo in buffalo wings?
And sauerkraut exists. In so many forms.
God would probably say that I’m complaining
And ironically ask forgiveness for not explaining
What I can’t claim I ever could understand, much, at all,
Anyway. The “Fisherman’s Prayer” I now recall:
“The sea is so wide, my boat is so small.”
And, no doubt, loaded down with sauerkraut.
Still, as I wonder about what You’ve got planned,
Spiritually sailing my cargo of questions about this land
And merciless sea, it seems those questions somehow collide and swarm
And form supernatural hurricanes, sharks and thunderstorms
And I simply go on. Forward. More
With the God I cannot understand.