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The Loaves and the Fishes
This story has always bothered me
and now I’m a reluctant Sunday School
leader, unwittingly scheduled on this of all days.
Their big Pre-K eyes watch me, well, the ones
not squirming or pinching or wiggling,
and after I read from the Bible Stories
For Young People, a book with illustrations where Jesus
is still too caucasian for my historical tastes,
too apt to have blue eyes and a neatly trimmed
beard, one smart boy says, “It’s not enough, two loaves
and five fish” and damn straight he’s right, it’s not enough,
even with the twelve baskets of leftovers. But Jesus did it,
the Bible tells us so, but here’s the hitch.
If He could do that once, one afternoon two
thousand years ago, why not all the time?
No one would starve, no one languish underfed
or malnourished. I want to scribble WTF?
in black Sharpie in the margins for the next teacher
to ponder on some future Sunday, but I resist.
“It’s a miracle,” I have to say, “God answers our prayers.”
What sort of psychotic deity flashes that power
and then withholds it? How many people
have needlessly starved since that show-stopper?
And so I choose to let Him off the hook
and refuse to believe He did it in the first
place. There must be some bad math. There was confusion
about the extra deliveries and bounteous harvest.
It’s certainly not an instance where He wielded an ability
He’s had all along and now chooses to withhold it, even
while He watches so many of His children wither and die.
No, it couldn’t be that.
John McDermott teaches Creative Writing at Stephen F. Austin State University.
This one cuts me to the bone.
This posting is curious on a couple of levels:
1) An angry rant, based on someone’s lack of experience in the Gospel, ranks as poetry of sufficient quality to be published?
2) Bro. McDermott’s lack of experience with miracles is his problem to solve, not so much others. The experience of miracles tends to be personal.
We all have our bad days, but the content of our bad days — is it something that needs so often to be shared? I would posit that these kinds of doubts are the kind Pres. Uchtdorf was asking us to doubt. While I grant that Bro. McDermott may have certainly felt there was a psychotic god somewhere, my experience around psychotics is that they lack the wherewithal to hold even there own lives together, much less a universe of the quality and extent of ours.
His comments about providing food all the time — there’s spiritual food, and physical food. We need both, but which is the greater lack, the spiritual food that’s available from the Lord, or food we’re supposed to try to provide for ourselves, and to assist others. If Bro. McDermott thinks it’s so easy to provide food, a few days working on a farm is extremely enlightening.
Sheesh, Observer.
“Brother” McDermott is not and has never been Mormon, so I’m quite sure he has no earthly idea who President Uchtdorf is or what kinds of doubts he was referring to in his conference address to Mormons.
Interesting slew. I’m not sure how I would’ve know whether or not this guy was LDS or not. The Uchtdorf reference wasn’t so much about him, but a general comment (addressed to all).
Beautiful poem, glad I clicked the link.
In response to Observer’s points, my thoughts:
1) Yes, it is true that what sounds like an angry rant to you, resounds in my heart as poetry!
2) It is both interesting and telling that you consider McDermott’s anger a “problem to solve.” It is further interesting that you consider the solving of problems an individual matter.
And in answer to your final question: I believe it can be very, very important to share the content of our bad days. It is a way to invite empathic connection. Of course, *giving* empathic connection is not so easy. It requires at least a few days of working to understand where another person is coming from.
Regarding anger: It is a wine, one that many enjoy, of varied vintage and vineyards. One chooses to drink, or not to drink, so that’s certainly an individual process.
I am familiar with “process”.
Observer: “If Bro. McDermott thinks it’s so easy to provide food…”
It is you, Observer, who must think it is so easy to provide food. I suggest you take a moment and Google image search “starving children”. It seems to me THIS is what Bro. McDermott is talking about. I doubt Brother Uchtdorf would even doubt that!