A Natural View

Awake each day with hope and joy,
Thankful the world’s in our employ.
Our precious time we don’t waste,
As with delight its mysteries taste.
Enthralled, its beauty we embrace,
Challenges, with calm try to face,
Strive each turn of happenstance,
Ethics and knowledge to advance.

We’re not gods — goofy thought —
But seek wisdom as humans ought.
Finding our way in the world as man,
Accepting what fate has dealt our hand.

We’re naturalists in every respect,
But add to the label, a new aspect:
Study life, nature as the mother,
And eschew all supernatural “other,”
Except as entertainment, its forte,
For diversion is requisite mainstay.

Anchor our mind in logic and reason,
And never against it commit treason,
By accepting some dogmatic creed,
Or bending our knee in word or deed.
Spend no time in sermon’s grip,
Hollow promise of heavenly trip.
Enjoy our allotted time on earth,
Care not a whit for eternity berth.

Yet, a joy as through life we go,
Are dear friends we’ve come to know,
Whose beliefs across spectrum fly,
From hard skeptics to “never ask why.”
Tell them what we think, perhaps in verse,
But accept each of them, better or worse,
And hope they enjoy this earthly stay,
By reveling in life — charted their way.