Not So Keen on Broccoli Either

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.