Awesome Wonder: a poem

On a sun dappled summer day
surrounded by green and trees
and wings and blooms, it is easy
to find a higher power, to seek
and feel God brush the wind
against our fingers and cheeks.
But in the gutters and concrete,
among disease and dirt, pain
and loss, God seems as useful
as a vampire with cavities.
Where is the awesome wonder
of a God in torture and pandemic,
in war and hunger? We want
to believe every moment unfolds
because of God’s will; no one
wants to admit this world is
random, that we fight chaos
daily. We want to be chosen
for something, to be the savior
because God has willed us to be
one of the higher elite. We all
want to be Someone with a
capital S, to leave our mark on
this floating, evolving, changing
world where we only get a few moments
to breathe before we become
part of the cycle once again.
But perhaps to find God is
to become the healing in the
pandemic, the peace in the
war, the green growing in
the concrete, the food feeding
the famine. Perhaps God is not
a great giant being bellowing down
from above the clouds, but
a tiny spark of humility and generosity
within each of us. Perhaps in order to
become that important Someone,
we have to let go of our ego,
and serve.

1–29–23
Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold