I am getting lots and lots of hits as a result of Google searches for Amy Richards, and this is the top result at the moment for those folks who take issue with her choice. The debate has been very stimulating for me, I've read a lot of blogs I don't normally read, and I've been humbled by the depth of feeling on all sides. I grieve just how vast the gulf is between the two core positions on this issue, and while continuing to stand against abortion, I am ever more eager to listen to and reach out to the other side. Given that the other side includes friends and family dear to me, it's got to be done.
After a long time of languishing in "Flappy Bird" status, I am happy to report:
Given my guardianship of Matilde, this is most appropriate.
Anyhow, on to the Thursday short poem. It's by Carl Dennis, an American poet who has only become well known in the last four years. This one really resonated with me the first time I read it last year, and I've come back to it again and again, even if the theology isn't exactly "sound"!
The God Who Loves You
It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.
It's good stuff.
Congratulations on becoming an adorable chinch, Hugo!
Interesting thoughts in that poem. Could spark a lot of theological debate, too. But i noticed the style too. Very Billy Collins-ish.
Posted by: annika | July 22, 2004 at 08:07 PM
Yay! You like Billy Collins too! Annie, he will be a future Thursday poem, I promise...
Posted by: Hugo | July 22, 2004 at 10:30 PM