The Gift of 'Not' Knowing - Now With Comments
The Gift of ‘Not’ Knowing
I have toyed with the thought of free-will as a curse
(Hell reserved for bad choices, but Grace earned a joke?)
Is there madness or peace for those gifted by God
(or by dust from a star) with a brain that aspires
to find meaning in life, who’ve a heart that would rhyme
for thief’s victim what’s absent in their Life as well
(truth be known, they’re not sure that Love ever was theirs).
“Free-will” posits there’s choice! Did you choose to be born,
make your home on dry land (our kin rose from the sea),
we chose lungs and to tame fire, plumb depths of Life’s math?
Still, I flirt with free-will when constrained by rhymed verse,
and though some think it loathsome, feel blessed by its yoke
and jazz rhythms as well! I love paths some find odd
with will tied up in forms that lend shape to desires,
as verse colors, dents fabric (though blip in space-time!)
Will dust’s kin claim ALL truth? Truth’s ‘conserved?’ Can we tell?
Does time’s arrow (1) (in action) go up or down stairs?
We aren’t Gods, that’s my guess! Can genetics suborn
fate writ large in the stars? Let what be what will be!
For if God’s just what ‘is,’ Grace unclaimed sure’s not wrath.
Brian Johnston
4th of July in 2021
Poet’s Notes:
(1) 'time's arrow' - the idea here is that time goes only in one direction. This is one example of poetic expressions in Physics.
All (of the things we think we know, have high confidence in) can fail us. This is not a proof, however, that we don’t have souls, that God does not exist (or love us (if he does)). For our dreams (God’s existence, your own death even) are never certain, always faith! To recognize that all live life in ‘faith,’ to embrace life’s uncertainties, seems a logic (to me) more likely to encourage brotherly love and to diminish tribalism or wildly divergent political views. It’s sad some in our democratic(?) nation would lie, cheat, and steal to make it more difficult for other segments of society to vote (or have their votes count). May God protect us from such fears!
Prove to me that our bodies are not a caterpillar launching pad for our souls, that death is not a door to a new existence, and I will counter by proving to you that God in fact loves YOU and is real. All such ideas are faith, poetic expressions (if you will), and not provable facts (like Math) or even a testable model (such as Science offers). Only faith is certain! ??
Please note that this poem has a new poetic form (I may have invented) which I call "Distant Rhyme." It has a singular meter and rhyme scheme, but incorporates many of the advantages, the techniques, of free verse!
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