Author? And can this author really mean what this poem effectively means? The the concept of an omniscient omnipotent benevolent God is either a cruel joke or an absurd impossibility?
Hi Bobby. You've translated it into a different register, but I was trying to express something like that with this poem. The psalm our Lord quoted from the cross expresses something similar. I'm fond of the perhaps heterodox idea that prayer can involve arguing with God. God will always win the argument, of course. That will sound outrageous and unfair only if you're stuck thinking of that argument as a contest for mastery, and the content of the argument as a set of intellectual propositions. Something quite different is at stake when you're struggling to honour a sense of overwhelming gratitude for your life, for your loved ones, for the world.
Author? And can this author really mean what this poem effectively means? The the concept of an omniscient omnipotent benevolent God is either a cruel joke or an absurd impossibility?
Hi Bobby. You've translated it into a different register, but I was trying to express something like that with this poem. The psalm our Lord quoted from the cross expresses something similar. I'm fond of the perhaps heterodox idea that prayer can involve arguing with God. God will always win the argument, of course. That will sound outrageous and unfair only if you're stuck thinking of that argument as a contest for mastery, and the content of the argument as a set of intellectual propositions. Something quite different is at stake when you're struggling to honour a sense of overwhelming gratitude for your life, for your loved ones, for the world.
God bless.