{"sf1_id":1739353,"sf2_id":"YnLNMReL","title":"Either Your God Hates Me Or Your Religion Doesn't Work","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":763,"posted_at":"2021-07-11T20:30:00.000Z","tags":["Gay","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1739353-either-your-god-hates-me-or-your-religion-doesn-t-work","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/YnLNMReL","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/d8/75/d8759be8-2658-4988-9ded-bee2f0178b83","description":"#41 of poetry\n\nCW: Religion, Hostility to a category of religions in particular\nI think I'm getting the hang of confessional essays in blank verse. I like the way it forces me to be concise.","content":"If you are queer, and still hold to some faith\n\nOf whatsoever christian sect, then I\n\nHave no desire to undermine with doubt\n\nWhat must remain a precious source of strength,\n\nAnd must have been most difficult to keep.\n\nSo please do not regard what I must say\n\nAs aimed at you in any sense or way.\n\n  \n\nIf you are straight and christian, then the work\n\nOf grappling with this doubt is all on you.\n\nI do not care what soul-dark nights you search.\n\nI will not lift the first finger thereto.\n\n  \n\nI was taught, all my life, that God was love,\n\nSo loved the world He gave His Only Son,\n\nInfinite, Inexhaustible, and pure.\n\nI was told, also, that He hates me: not\n\nMe in particular, for those who taught\n\nThis catechism knew not I was gay,\n\nBut that He hated those I could not help\n\nBut one day come to count myself among.\n\nOf course there were a thousand actuallys.\n\nI haven't searched them all, but I have searched\n\nEnough of them to call them all dead ends.\n\nThey all boil down to: \"God does not hate you\n\nHe only hates the part of you we hate!  \nHe only hates whatever part of you\n\nWithout which you are not yourself! If you\n\nWould only not be you, but someone else\n\nWho we imagine that you should have been,\n\nWhy then, you would receive the love of God!\"\n\n  \n\nBut rationalizations are worth naught.\n\nThere's not a one of us who does not know\n\nThe contradiction cannot be sidestepped.\n\nThey claim God does not hate us. And they act\n\nAs if God hates us. What to do with that?\n\n  \n\nPerhaps God hates us. Very well, what then?\n\nWhy, very little. If God's as they say:\n\nOmnipotent, Eternal, in control\n\nOf all there is to all the universe\n\nThe same way that a writer weaves the ways\n\nOf fate and freedom for his characters\n\nThen what is there for us to do? We are\n\nAs fully foredoomed as would satisfy\n\nThe loftiest of Calvin's self-regards.\n\nWhat purpose, then, to worship such a god?\n\nNo prayers will change that I am gay. I tried\n\nFor score and sixfold years. Nor no more will\n\nThe finite prayers of finite mortals weigh\n\nFor anything against infinite hate.\n\nIf I were God, and there were some I loathed\n\nWhy, prayers from them would likewise loathsome be.\n\nA word of dear affection that from one\n\nYou love is sweet and precious, does turn rank\n\nAnd vile when it is sent by one you hate.\n\nSo in this case, it would be for the best\n\nTo live as do the beasts that perish. Love\n\nAs long as I am able. And at last\n\nFace God and walk me backward into hell.\n\n  \n\nPerhaps the contrary is true, and God\n\nDoes not hate us. What happens to the claim\n\nThat those who us have persecuted sore--\n\nFor there is no one point of christian thought\n\nMore durable, more unanimous than\n\nTheir phobia, it is the legacy\n\nTheir faith has left on world history--\n\nDo love Him, that they His commandments keep?\n\nIs not the point of christianity\n\nThat those who live it faithfully become\n\nLike God? Like sons of God? What sons are these\n\nWho hate what God their Father hateth not?\n\nFor if God does not hate us, then the faith\n\nThat follows Him seems plainly not to work.\n\nWhat purpose, then, to keep to such a faith?\n\nTo congregate with those who, if they saw\n\nMy true face, would it excommunicate?\n\nFar better, then, to strike out to the wilds\n\nThat they call 'hell,' by which they mean 'the place\n\nThat lies outside our walls, and must therefore\n\nBe all the same, and nothing but torment'\n\nAnd go whatever way I find me there.\n\n  \n\nSo. On the one hand, deity quite deaf\n\nTo pleas for mercy that I shall not send.\n\nAnd on the other, faith incompetant\n\nTo know the first thing of its deity.\n\nPerhaps Divine Omniscience sees a way\n\nOut of this contradiction. It may be.\n\nIf so, I beg He keep it to Himself.\n\nIt is long decades past the time when it\n\nOught to have been presented, when it could\n\nHave still preserved efficacy of grace,\n\nHave done my achilean soul some good.\n\nI have my pagan gods. I have my place\n\nBeside them in some afterworldly wood.\n\nI have the faith I built me to embrace\n\nMy soul as is, not as it ought to be.\n\nGo you your made-straight way. For I am free.\n\n  \n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1729339-i-ve-lost-count-of-the-homes-that-i-have-lost.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1743272-portrait-of-a-lonely-wolf.json"}}