Religion is mostly too small a thing
to grasp the faith, hope, and love
of the Creator, Universal Christ

Too often human’s futile attempt
at earning grace and personal salvation
ending in personal hubris and clannishness

We piously pray and wait
for that which has already come three times
in the creation, Jesus, and the beloved community

God is both personal and universal
the eternal Christ mystery from the beginning
permeating everyone and everything

Getting beyond the merely
personal, human, and parochial
to include the universal, divine, and cosmic

God loves things by becoming them
making them visible, united, and shareable
thus the cosmology of the Universal Christ

Belonging in this flow, all in One
self-emptying and infilling
death and resurrection

O my soul. let me be in you now
looking out at the things you made
all things shining **

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
June 2019

* Inspired from my reading of ‘The Universal Christ’ by Richard Rohr

** paraphrase of a quote from the screenplay of the  ‘The Thin Red Line’ by Terrance Malick from the novel by James Jones