Why, God?
Reaching Out To My Higher Power
Dear God in heaven, how I want to hate that man.
He stole so much from so many and has no regrets.
Stop it! Don't give me that crap about turning the other cheek.
I want to plunge his buzz-cut head under water until the bubbles cease.
My rage has no outlet---self-abuse proves so incredibly futile.
Perhaps if I write him a lengthy diatribe of hatred and ill will,
That despicable man will somehow dissolve into the enshrouding dusk.
Why can't you justify this unbridled anger, dear God?
Six months have passed---my feelings of incense are dribbling onto the ground.
Now what I see before me is a solemn little boy, a child losing his soul.
Someone whose inner core has been hulled like an apple.
Had I but been there when he craved a warm and human touch.
So, God, I cannot hate the man he became.
Though his unspeakable crimes disintegrated so many lives.
Is it that You have shown me a way to move past my righteous indignation?
Perhaps I have simply gone soft, like mohair, or worse, one of him.
But now please tell me, God, why my disdain has metamorphosized into compassion?
Where's that Purgatory between hatred and love? Can you tell me?
Or will I wander forever in the stark, sweltering desert alone with my perversion?
I stare at his expressionless face and read no faint signs of remorse.
Now it's been five months since his untimely death.
I now find that I'm overcome with the kind of great sorrow
That only comes with the death of a beloved relative, or a dear friend.
I guess that, dear God, you have shown me a way out of my rage.
You've let me see, in Your patient, quiet and dear way,
That harbouring revulsion for anyone, even Timothy McVeigh,BR>
Will not only damage my soul, but will steal something precious from me.
Was that your blessed message to me after all?
