...and THEN GOD MADE MAN
written by Trena McClemons
There are not many things in life that one can laugh at. If one cannot find humor in their own reflection then we have lost all hope. Over-sized noses and teeth hang precariously over tiny lips that appear pinched and almost non-existent. Freckles landscape some with ungodly golden color, splotching their skin as if a tiny landmine had exploded on the surface of otherwise perfectly pearl white skin.
Was this God's humor and his longing to laugh at the one creature on Earth that was made in his reflection? Which of us truly represents God the closest? Is it the morbidly fat woman that waddles stoutly, sweat stains between the folds of skin on her thighs? Is it the old man that sits in his car, holding the top of his steering wheel as he attempts to peer over a massive hood that extends far beyond his field of vision, snot dangling precariously from his left nostril, the only nostril that you are able to view from your passenger seat window? Ha! Perhaps God created the lanky selfish teen in his image, hair tussled and often matted where it lay on his pillow until well past the noon hour. It would not strike me as surprising that all those that hold themselves as such godly creatures are so far from his image.
Molesting priests and aborting nuns were never even a considered mold but more of an afterthought to balance his creative set of humanity. Perhaps it is you. Maybe it is the man in you that seeks to know why captors find pleasure in poking the sleeping lion within the confines of the zoo walls. Or the man in you that reaches for the buttercup on bitter mornings, then holds it under the chin of a child, laughing as her chin glows a soft reflective yellow, symbolizing someone not too far off loves her from the shadows of anonymity. Ah my love, perhaps God found favor to create the womb and it itself is fashioned after God for it is the bearer of life.
Could all this rambling have no bearing on reality? Just the jabbering of a mind that struggles to wrap itself around the inhumanity that man does to his brother, seeking relief from a species that does unspeakable, cruel things to those that are helpless? Notice there is no mention of innocence here, my breath held tight, for innocence is found in none, except the unborn child and the suckling babe. No more does humanity learn to speak his first word, it comes to his mother's disappointment, that it pierces the air with defiance! "No!" so perfectly formed with knowing and reason. Thus, defiance is the first verbal undertaking of the human species. If I thought carefully, before I spoke, and pondered if I must choose one, and one that God had fashioned after his reflection, I think I would be woefully correct to say it is you.
Patience is one of God's greatest traits, not mercy, for far too much have I seen his wrath upon this wicked thing he calls mankind. I would have to say patience, and I find that in you, a great man hidden deep behind the eyes of a boy, now grown, the woman he once was, long since buried in the depths of his mother's womb. You are the most godly of them all. If your eyes have graced this page and you cannot find it in yourself to address yourself in a godly manner, how could you expect so much from another?
Do not be in such a hurry to leave behind everything that has come to pass, or reach past your brother in search of fine wine when tea is set at your right hand and its herbs were carefully chosen for the drinking of Gods and kings.
I can love you no more than I could undo the fibers of my spine and braid them into my hair. I could see you no lesser than myself, no more than I could look down upon the soils of the earth in search of the moon.
And,
if you too search for God in every man you meet, then it is God that
you will find. Seek his face behind the cloth of those that find
pleasure in your pain. He is in there somewhere, hidden, forgotten,
caged away like the boy taken away to serve time for his crimes as his
mother wept of her inadequacies. Yet in that moment, in a very fleeting
second of time, she saw God. She saw in the faces of everyone that
sneered and pointed, everyone that held no compassion, everyone that
held her up to judgment. She saw him. He was there.
It's just a shame that when God looked in the mirror his reflection held another brutal truth. His intentions were bridled by the flesh of the harlot that walks to pay her way, the kid that taunts the homely, buck-toothed, red haired girl that sits in front of him in class, putting gum into her hair, the black girl whose hair was carefully crafted into tiny braids by her grandmother's arthritic hands.
God is in them all... you cannot escape him and everything that he stand for:
Patience,
Vengeance,
Justice,
Love,
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