The Baby Lottery

#24

When it comes to passing out babies,

God has a strange way of picking

winning lottery numbers. It would appear that

The chances of a woman getting pregnant are

Calculated not by how many tickets she plays

But, rather, in direct proportion to how badly

She wants a baby: If she wants a child so much

That she’s already picked out a name and staged

The nursery for its arrival a woman is fifty percent

Less likely to produce that baby. If she is a teenager

Living in foster care and headed toward a life of

Poverty it is two hundred percent more likely that

Biology will work as it should and she will

Have twins. If she is a single, career-driven woman,

She is at high risk for being left with a convoy of

3 children after her sister dies and leaves them to her

In her will. God does not listen to pleas.

If God controls this lottery he does not seem to care

Who wins the prize. He does not seem to be bothered

By single mothers, gay mothers, or no mothers;

So why should we? If there is an open womb available;

A sheltered and provisional place to stay; if there is a home offered

A safe and nourishing place to live; let us employ them.

A fetus can grow in a womb that wasn’t ready for it;

A child can flourish in a non-traditional family.

The last straw

Discouraged minds want to know: after all these years, what made you leave?

As if there were one moment that changed my opinion, one thing that

Might bring me back. But I have a list that is years long and it goes like this:

It’s the existence of other cultures outside of white picket fence suburbia

That aren’t suffering for lack of steeples and Sunday school,

The recognition of beauty and goodness in the differences I used to fear.

The survival of other religions who preach the same love and peace

Without the violence, guilt and shame.

It’s the appreciation of joy in non-believers’ eyes,

The families in South Africa who shut their doors before we reached them.

The children who continued to starve after hearing the word of God.

The fifth rape of the same loyal follower and the blame

Of the victim and the sins we all commit without even knowing.

It’s the boiling down of my faith into bullet points and digestible phrases;

The incongruity of the classroom and the material world at Christian college;

The sensation of weightlessness when I unlocked the fence holding back my intellect.

It’s rebirth and finally finding joy that used to be slightly out of reach

Outside of the church, on a self-sufficient, sacred journey in the desert;

The discovery of life before death, in everyday existence,

The freedom and healing in acknowledging my struggle with abject depression

And decisively proclaiming the things it makes me feel.

It’s the joy of sex outside of marriage, with both genders, without shame,

The patterns that have repeated all my life that demonstrate I was born this way;

The unadulterated joy of accepting myself without need for outside approval.

It’s acknowledgment of my own weaknesses and the way they prevent me

From being able to speak intelligently on behalf of the supernatural,

Empathy for alternate circumstances; sympathy for the routine mistakes of humanity;

Rejection of judgment and recognition of the common ways in which we all struggle.

It’s intolerance, fear of the unknown, clouded explanations and contradictions ignored:

All of these things were the last straw.

Nesting Poem

#11/30

I opened Sinner and saw a circle:

God made man perfectly and wonderfully;

Man sins immediately upon being made;

God made a need for himself.

I opened the image of your lip curled in disgust

And saw a man in need of Sinners,

A priest without Sinners lacks purpose

So you built them with weekly rebukes.

I opened my chest and found the creativity of man

The way we carve puzzle pieces to fit empty spaces.

The way we shape God to cover our anxieties

And people to fit under the minute umbrella of this God.

I opened my core and found the clear contour of birth;

The shape of Me before I was filled with Ss and Is and Ns.

I found genuine rebirth and there was no blood involved

Just a gentle belief in my own innate virtue.