565-567: To the Agnostic

An honest man said: “God, I do not see

thy fingerprint on anything of mine.

But open I will be to what thou be–

whatever I can know of what is thine.”

And he was true always to this, his prayer,

and sued all men for answers to his quest.

From those who said God was not anywhere,

to those that claimed God was all and the rest.

But finally this man had reached his end,

his lifetime up, agnostic through and through.

Less trusting than at first he did intend,

for 50/50 odds should be quite few.

And truly he had longed to know where joy

and music came from since he’d been a boy. ~

~

At last, his patient rope grown too threadbare

to bear it longer, the old man now cried:

“God who I have no evidence is there,

against whom evidence has been supplied,

who, if is, gives what I cannot explain,

but for whom–god of gaps–I cannot laud,

who gives joy but not answers for the pain

that rips that very joy from its own sod,

what more could you have wanted from a soul

that sought you? I tried every test there was

to see if I could feel any more whole

by being yours and trying out your cause.

I was the fairest sophist of them all,

for yours and every side that men can fall.” ~

~

And at that moment when all moments end,

when all men find out what their moments meant,

the God he’d searched for, searching for a friend

in vain, met him, and said not to repent.

“Yours was a task that few are made to bear:

to sharpen my own saints against their pride.

I must have tares to make disciples care

enough to grow. And you were a great guide.

How many who believe too quickly rose

to greater efforts for the rigor which

you brought to faith that you had not? How sows

the seed if not in furrows you made rich?

Agnostic: you have lived my gospel well.

No soul that seeks will ever dwell in hell.”