And God said let there be…

Let it all be

And so God let it go

Let it live

Let it alone

Let it move on

Let it take its place

Let it find itself

God gave it up

Gave it over

Gave it space

Gave it to itself

Though God stayed rooted to the spot

Planted in the desert and the deep

Fingers brushing over the wind-bent tares

Brow sweating, lungs heaving, shoulders trembling

As it went where it listed

Did as it willed

Loved or hated

Hurt or healed

Let it go

Let it fall

Let it be

There is God–a Sisyphus of stillness?

An Atlas of forbearance?

A Prometheus of self-restraint?

No.

God could not direct its hunger

Nor forge its path

Nor carve its fate into tablets of stone

God is not muscle

God is no army

God is no hero

God knows that if God could have God would have

But leave it, clinging to itself?

Hollowed out by ravenous emptiness?

Abandoned it to its self-devouring?

A gift disavowed and discarded?

So God let herself be

And so loved the world

That God let himself go

A presence in every unspeakable moment

For Love is nothing but presence

If, then, God is love–

A terrifying “if” in any given moment on this love-blasted rock–

Then if God is not here God is not anywhere

And here is to be rooted in the soil-less soil

A tree in the desert

An island in the deep

In every terrible moment, deciding anew, again and again —

Let it be

Let it go

Let there be light.

Jacob is in a doctoral program in Philosophy of Religion and Theology at Claremont Graduate University.

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