It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
but when she came home
with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art
was up, what ancient craft.
She liked her little friends. She liked the songs
they sang when they weren't
twisting and folding paper into dolls.
What could be so bad?
Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith
in good men was what
we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,
that other sadness.
OK, we said, One week. But when she came home
singing "Jesus loves me,
the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.
Could we say Jesus
doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible
is a great book certain people use
to make you feel bad? We sent her back
without a word.
It had been so long since we believed, so long
since we needed Jesus
as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was
sufficiently dead,
that our children would think of him like Lincoln
or Thomas Jefferson.
Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief
to a child,
only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story
nearly as good.
On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts
all spread out
like appetizers. Then we took our seats
in the church
and the children sang a song about the Ark,
and Hallelujah
and one in which they had to jump up and down
for Jesus.
I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain
about what's comic, what's serious.
Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
You can't say to your child
"Evolution loves you." The story stinks
of extinction and nothing
exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have
a wonderful story for my child
and she was beaming. All the way home in the car
she sang the songs,
occasionally standing up for Jesus.
There was nothing to do
but drive, ride it out, sing along
in silence.
Stephen Dunn (born 1939) USA
See McPherson, Sandra. "Gospel Disinclined." The Kenyon Review, vol. 26, no. 3, 2004, p. 133. Academic OneFile, Accessed 8 July 2018. And as it appears in my book Expectation Days: https://books.google.com/books?id=OxiVVzBzv2EC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=Gospel+Disinclined+Sandra+McPherson&source=bl&ots=pPWSWFTdpx&sig=4Toi89UASeIFImOR-8fUTSwnapg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm_-CUuJDcAhVKPN8KHRfmDjkQ6AEITTAE#v=onepage&q=Gospel%20Disinclined%20Sandra%20McPherson&f=false
ReplyDeleteThanks for that, Sandra
DeleteHere's my typed version:
ReplyDeleteGospel Disinclined
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The baritones and tenors simply will not sing.
My Wurlitzer’s mistakes of hand sound very loud.
Their heads lean either down (but are not bowed)
or back (but not in ecstasy of gaze upon the Lord).
The sky’s rise wavers dusk before the evening food.
(Something about that semi-light distracts:
Is it rays off lemons blunted, mulled? Ascent
of walnut smoke? Dried duffels of purple grapes?
Seedpods rattling on a catalpa tree? Sky candlelight?)
Now won’t their senses sing to them? The mission
heavens lighten one degree with corner lamps.
Someplace — a ceilinged sermon — to faint into, to live
cut out for. Is each man a solo, solitary? Or surrounded
by a season’s end of the sloppiest best-of-friends?
Who’ll dare to mouth a hymn? Forgive --
my favorite key’s D ♭flat. By devotion
of a sexton the garden sleeping grounds
pacify, embraced by vines and trees.
Earth, our deluxe van, keeps its route around the sun.
Urine runs. One brother dawns or pales. I play
by ear for all the stumbling voices still to hear.