Ingrates Anonymous
http://janotec.typepad.com/terrace/
Hello, my name is Jonathan, and I’m an ingrate. Here’s why.
He opened my eyes, and I said the light made me squint.
He blew breath in my lungs, and I reflected, authentically, on the anxiety of existence.
He molded me from the elements, and I disagreed with His atomic model.
He set me in a singular situation, with the Sun and the Moon the same apparent size,
The right temperature, atmosphere, abundance of water and trace minerals,
And I said that life was inevitable, automatic, on a predictably large number of planets,
Opting for Star Trek over the Gospel, of course.
He fashioned me in His Image, and set me onward to His Likeness,
And I believed, rather, that I emerged inexorably from apehood.
He surrounded me with food, clothing and shelter,
Richer that ninety percent of the population,
And I turned up my nose at Brussels sprouts.
He painted my horizon with attraction,
Verdant hills, mountains of porphyry, cumulus comical and majestical
And sun, rising and setting, the beginning of beauty,
But I preferred TV and deconstruction.
He produced my play, and staged me with a cast of better actors
Whose words were symbols, and blocking was a poem,
Love stood at the center of their choreography, piping and lamenting,
But I refused to dance, I chose not to mourn.
There is one He sculpted in loveliness,
A friend best and the image of charity, fellow heart,
And I would not get her a glass of water,
I would not take out the trash.
I had one chance with the family of dreams,
A woman of splendor and daughters of loveliness:
But I fear I will regret my present,
Looking at what was, but what is not,
What might be, but not what is.
Rebuffed and unrequited,
He still sent His Son to the Vineyard where I was,
Unrepentantly holding on to the wine
Of ingratitude.
Surely, he will listen to My Son, He said:
But I said, This is the Heir.
He walked, despite, from Bethlehem
A few days away on the Road of dust and thorns
To the brow of the Skull.
There, the Infant took my Ingratitude
And transmuted it into proper, natural thanks.
Thank God
For the Resurrection,
That I may make amends.
Amen.