The Ghost Called God

What if,

This apparition we used to name God

This ghost of certainties past

That haunts our deepest wells of conviction

That moves around our subterranean cerebral caverns

And pricks our nocturnal obsessions,

What if,

The ghost moves around us despite ourselves

Despite our conscious efforts to resist

Despite the rational mind

The knowledge and Kultur,

The sophistication and refinement of theology,

What if,

She leaves us not alone

In the face of our desire to be rid of Her

Like an old girlfriend who keeps stalking you

As your original feelings have been drowned out

by her persistent need to control you,

Forcing you to flee like a bird

From her suffocating grasp.

What if,

All your careful maps of history and theology

Of science and thought,

Of certainty of the randomness of reality, and the singularity of the

Mistake we call human life on earth,

Of the absent “intelligent design” as just another modern day theology,

Are challenged by this ghost of childhood fantasy.

(Remember those heady days when you really felt Her

On the Finchley Brook bench at night under the star filled sky

Overwhelmed at 15 by the sheer majesty of the universe)

And the certainty of the sky-god’s “manifold manifestations”.[1]

What if,

Despite all this,

Despite the acceptance of my own limits

And mediocrity,

And other limits of my own understanding

(of quantum physics, deeper philosophical discourse

Academic acrobatics, even talmudic dialectics needed for the worst sugyas)

And moral failures, betrayals and deceits,

Despite my intuitive knowing of what is real and true,

She keeps surfacing…

A haunting in the Stanley Kubrick sense

A presence that will not leave even as I rage against any authority

Any intelligence with a claim to moral conscience,

That allowed or stood by while so many went up in smoke

in the ovens of Europe.

What if,

I have no choice,

Like my failing body,

Slowly allowing decay to move in

Both in the brain and pancreas

The loss of energy earlier in the day

The sleep-lesser nights

The skin discolorations

The ever greater need for daily routine

And lowered levels of tolerance for others.

No choice to Her haunting presence.

What if,

My loss of choice to refuse Her

Leaks into my awareness of decline

And acceptance of earthly finitude

And sense of tragedy

About life, love, and connectedness

About my own moral integrity

And theological indignation

What if,

This ghostly apparition

Is a mirror image of my-self?

[1] The name of my beloved grandfather’s unpublished book “God and His Manifold Manifestations” circa 1930