Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Belief

The first time I heard my father pronounce,
"When we die, we're meat for the worms,"
I was about ten. He repeated the wisdom
occasionally. He thought "preachers"
were hustlers. Ma ran away from her 

evangelical minister father when she 
was 18. He was a bigot and a creep. 
She never worshipped publicly again,
thought of Heaven, I think, 
as an earned vacation. She gave me
her leather-bound Bible, Oxford U.
Press, all of Jesus's words in red. 

I joined the Catholic Church
at age 45, but my "worship" consists
of giving food to the parish's
food bank and trying to be kind. My
wife's the real Catholic and prays for me,
in both senses of "for." As to God,

who knows? Believing isn't knowing.
Nor is atheism. I'm too busy fearing
humans--of every belief, including
atheism, to fear God.  It never surprises
me to see that another American 
Christian has turned out to be evil.
Sometimes evil and popular.

After my college
History of Philosophy class, taken
at age 17, I never stopped thinking
Spinoza had it right: God equals
everything there is, but probably
no more. A cold view, true. 
Of course, the Jews expelled him,
the Christians condemned him,
and Leibniz envied him. 
Spinoza made a living grinding lenses. 

It's a true fact, as we say
in the American West, 
that the body disintegrates.
Aging gives it a head start. 
The universe is too big, 
dynamic, and complicated
for us to understand
all the way, but I say to science:
keep trying.

We should concentrate on peace, 
equity, and care of Earth. Make these
our primary worship. Keep it
simple-like, you know?


hans ostrom 2022

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Thumpers

Hail Grace, full of Merry, how
does your garden grow? And another
thing: why are people
who are full of hate and empty
of sense in charge of things?
Is it just tradition?

Blessed art art, at least
it's a vector in which to stuff
the rage of futility, the roar
of despair. Jesus, Christians

have made up a bunch of crap
about you, turning you into
a white supremacist policer of sex
& gender and a lobbyist for guns and greed.
They preach the "gospel of wealth."
No, really. Thugs, they really
thump the love out of the Bible.


hans ostrom 2018

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Unsalted

Lot's wife, unnamed in the Bible,
at long last unsalted, has her say:

"I looked back. It's a human
response, a habit not without
practical merit. I got salted
because of some arbitrary,
impractical order, and
without naming me they
named a stone pillar after me.

I'm a mother. You don't think
I knew we had to leave the city?
Who do you think got the kids
ready and packed? Not Lot.

For Christ's sake (thinking
prospectively), let's have less
drama, catastrophe, and
excessive, gratuitous extortion
and a lot more common sense.

You need to salt a fleeing woman
to get your goddamned point
across.  What was your point?
Yeah, I know what the write-up
says. I'm talking about for real.
Admit it. You over-reacted."



hans ostrom 2016

Monday, March 7, 2016

Bible and Rifle

I saw a man
wrestling his Bible.
I saw a man
clutching his rifle.

It was one man.
One and the same.
And all confused
by hate and shame.


hans ostrom 2016

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Voting Biblical Principles

Someone encouraged me
to vote for Biblical principles
in a recent election. I didn't
see any on the ballot.

Well, now, there was
this one thing about supporting
a bond to maintain bus-routes
in this city. I know how
working people have the Devil's
own time getting to and from
work, shops, family, and clinics.

Although Jesus Christ
never rode a bus, only
a donkey, I still figured
voting to pay to keep up
the bus-routes wasn't
anti-Biblical.  Right?

The measure failed.


Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom