Last Writes
Story in Poetry
In the Beginning…
“Let There Be” a Bang
Our universe had a bang of a beginning
And laws of nature know – our world will end.
Our great world is finite, from beginning to end!
What Source to Create and Sustain our World?
As an atheist, I had a big faith crisis,
I could not reconcile theory with laws,
The big bang and thermodynamics were at odds.
How could our world be created out of nothing,
When energy can’t be created nor destroyed?
Since energy can only be transferred in form,
I needed either a multiverse eternal,
Or, before the beginning, an energy source,
Like God. Otherwise, entropy was gonna kill this world.
I started to see my logic was ill-logic,
My world and universe in danger of being destroyed.
The Physicist Priest Believes
All the while, the physicist priest had no crisis,
For him, science and religion had alignment.
Lemaître – Catholic priest and Belgian physicist
Proved through science the words of Moses he believed,
Words aged thousands of years about the beginning.
His logic was both consistent and amazing,
And I thought it odd – it was ‘cause he believed God!
Abstract Ideas
What is Existence?
Reflections soon began to consume my small mind,
The contrast between finite and the infinite
Went way beyond meager thoughts on space and time.
I pondered in my heart, what is it to have existence?
Can something be real and not physically manifest?
That is, can I think it, and it’s real for having thought it?
Or does it have to take on a physical presence,
Flesh and blood or some other material semblance,
To be real? Can an idea be real for only being a concept?
If not, an idea is only real when it physically manifests.
And, therefore, unicorns and zeros are not yet real.
So, until ideas physically manifest, they cannot be said
To truly exist nor have existence?
So, I wondered, words must become physical or living images
And until then have no reality or existence?
But surely, there must be more to the universe
Than can be strictly measured or easily believed;
Otherwise we’d limit existence to things
That have had a human mind to understand and name it.
But our world doesn’t depend on us, we on it.
So again, I ask, what does it mean to exist?
Limits of Science
Can science describe all reality?
Are invisible things yet to be seen?
Even old laws on energy and gravity,
Existing since the beginning of time,
Recently discovered and named,
Describe what exists from ages ago.
How could science be so slow
To speak of words that go back far in time,
Beyond ancient scribes to Ancient Days?
The Unseen
See the Unseen
1. Grasp the facts to make sense of reality and understand the evidence
2. Apply knowledge of “the unseen” to predict and verify future results.
Cycle of Life: A Fruitful Earth
The cycle of life is astounding when one considers it.
How the earth is fruitful and provides our needs.
Food to eat, water to drink, and air to breathe,
But mortal life thirsts for immortal signs,
Searching heaven and earth, the stars and skies
For hints of why generations cycle through this life.
Life and Death
The charm of this world
Is that death is overcome.
I am with new life.
The harm of this world
Is that all things do die.
I will lose my life.
Life Cycle: Born to Die
One thing is clear in life: The Law of Death.
All who are born, all who are born, one day die.
From the first breath of life: Born to Die!
So, our solution isn’t to delay death,
Our solution is to defeat death!
There is little need for a fountain of youth,
That slows or reverses the aging process,
For there are oh so many other ways to die,
A spear to the side will release our breath of life.
Better to find a tree of life, whose fruit and leaves
Bear the seed that kills our disease and leads to life.
We need healing and eternity.
We need to overcome the grave.
Give me death destroyed, not death delayed.
Somehow abolish the law of death in exchange
For a tree of life from which all can be saved.
Annul the agreement that leads us to die
and enact a new covenant that leads to new life.
Otherwise, the shadow of death looms over all life.
And the life cycle is simply this: Born to Die.
But I desire this: Eternal life.
Born Again (Every Year?)
Is our existence physical or spiritual?
Year after year at an atomic level
98 percent of our atoms are replaced
From all that we eat, drink, and breathe.
Yet we’re not new people after 365 days.
By reason of strength, our lifespan sees
80 times beyond one cycle of atoms.
But what makes you “you” and me “me”?
Could it be, there is a soul in every man
Allowing the race of Adam
To see so many changing atoms?
This one thing we do know,
New atoms make not new people.
Nature of Freedom
Life of the Liberator
In a time when Hebrew boys were condemned to die,
Moses is drawn out of water and given new life.
A humble slave is the son of the king,
Pharaoh’s court the place of his new beginning.
But the riches of earth have zero worth
While his family are slaves and he is free.
His conscience is key: His roots buried deep;
Underneath he’s constrained to walk among slaves,
He’ll never truly breathe till his people are free.
“Kill! Kill! Kill! Let the revolution begin!”
But as Moses later writes, to take a life is sin.
In this way, God’s revolution could never begin.
God alone has the right to take another’s life.
It is his breath in man that resides deep inside.
So, the next day Moses is cast far from Pharaoh’s sight,
Flee into exile ‘cause it’s life for life. “Go! Moses, Go!”
The true movement of God’s people cannot begin
With murder, hatred, or any other act of evil.
What’s done is done. For now, Moses must flee.
Scared to death, scared to death, the day is not yet.
Many years in His sight are merely days gone by
’Til one day Moses says to Pharaoh, “Let my people go!”
“I Am Who I Am”
Not just a scientist, though his words
Were proved true by last century’s physicists.
Among the major proofs of the 20th century
Include the Big Bang and general relativity,
Both planted as seeds in his old and ancient stories.
Not just a storyteller, though his stories
Still pack movie theaters and religious services.
Not just a religious man, though he is prophet
To the many scattered sons of Abraham.
Not just Abraham’s descendent, he prepared priests
To justly shepherd Jews and Christians.
Not just a shepherd, though he tended to
Many a free people and many a lost sheep
Not just a liberator, though he freed millions
Bound by the guile and decrees of a harsh tyrant.
Not just a rebel slave or a tyrant’s son,
He grew to be a servant leader and law-giver
Not just a law-giver, he gave Ten Everlasting
Commands to forever guide the house of God.
More than a servant to the people of God,
He’s a humble friend who tabernacled with Him.
For all these things and more, Moses is known
Throughout the world. Amazingly, it all starts
Because he took time to investigate
A simple scientific phenomenon.
A burning bush that wouldn’t burn up,
And Moses meets the great “I Am who Am.”
The great name gives Moses’ life meaning,
And he finds his true purpose and even a calling
For he found He who's existence isn’t dependent
On what he does but in his own very essence.
Who's being is so complete,
He has no name but simply is who he is.
So, he can just say, “YHWH”
In other words, “I am who I am.”
The Seen
See
What is it to see?
Is that what it takes to believe?
That unless we see with our own eyes
All else is not yet truth but all lies?
But that can’t be the way to live.
For humanity lives by tradition,
That’s the greatest gift
Our ancestors could ever give.
And good traditions live not by sight,
But on every word that comes from above
Raining down truth in showers of love.
Tell Stories
The Great Story
In the beginning was the word,
And the word was with God
And the word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him,
And without him was not anything
Made that was made.
In him was life.
And the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness,
And the darkness has not overcome it.
“Word Made Flesh”
“And dwelt among us”
In many and varied ways God spoke
Of old to our fathers by the prophets;
But in these last days he has spoken to us
By a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things,
Through whom also he created the ages.
He reflects the glory of God
And bears the very stamp of his nature,
Upholding the universe by the word of his power.
“…God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them…
God looked at everything he had made,
and found it very good…”
– Moses, Book of Genesis
“…For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil…”
– Shakespeare, Hamlet