Prayer and Agoniste

It derived from the blown and cratered
gristle of Sinai, oral lore codified
by relentless centuries of infant skin
scraps, torn hair, and bloody stones
yet, now, once, we upon a

time saw a singular sheep, fresh
sheared, in-penned, dulled by
childish pats, ever beshepherded.
once seen, but not since.
and, told we are sheep for 

shepherds, sinly conscience
obstinate, abstinent, stolen from
Eden, so its use must be wrong, right
from preying judas goats.

O my God, 
to be a farmer like Cain, the sacrifice
accepted as rot rather than holocaust,
a season, then renewal, time more your style.
O my God,

I know you through my salt crusted 
forehead and dirty fingers, I know you
through scum and dung and
desperation. O my God, I
feel you in gripped fists and blazing eyes.

A thousand years of humble homilies
a desert kindred upthrust and by
now - forgotten the forked tongue.
why should we be sheep when you made
us men?

we used to speak with the jawbones of
the wild ass, long-haired
nomads, singing in 
roughspun wool. 

I’m basi­cal­ly using my rusty anthro­po­log­i­cal edu­ca­tion and sundry oth­er learn­ing to express exas­per­a­tion regard­ing the Chris­t­ian empha­sis that we are sheep and God shep­herds us. That’s an easy metaphor used by a nomadic tribe of herders to explain their the­ol­o­gy in terms they could under­stand. Since sheep are con­sid­ered remark­ably dumb and meek, it’s also a use­ful way for, say, a priest­ly hier­ar­chy to enforce con­trol and adher­ence for a few thou­sand years.

We can be God’s and be men as well. He’s not the God of sheep.

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