Lord, I envy the men of the Old Books
who You graced with clear tasks. I see
them in my mind. Bearded nomads and
warriors and agrarians—hard men given
completely to the movements needed for
life to continue under Your hand.
Build an ark.
Follow the pillar of fire.
Kill the Philistine with a stone.
March around the city seven times.
Lay with your wife and produce offspring.
My own times are far less definite. My land
is one of padded fingers clicking buttons. Unseen
figures turning unseen gears. I live among curls
of highway. Constant motion. I breathe a haze
of endless digital signals. Abstractions.
My ears are starved of silence, my eyes so
enlightened that all vision has grown dim.
Good and Evil, Virtue and Sin, Truth and Untruth—
they are only the dross, bubbling atop a few
centuries of rational thinking. And Lord,
obedience? A laugh and wave of the hand.
Ha! The absolute rulers are shut away in
history books, along with the miserable
crowds who endured their tyranny!
But late in the night I sit beneath a circle of
lamplight, fingering the fragile pages of the
old stories. It is here where I learn, as a man,
that greatness rests in those who believe
Your call still pierces with love and fury.
It is clear as the saving path through the Red Sea,
deafening as the blow of trumpets,
and deadly as the glinting swords
that cut down pagan armies.
