As we’ve become educated more

About the universe’s complexity and size,

Its knowns and unknowns grip us at core –

It’s awe-inspiring to gaze at the ultimate prize.     

To do so without feeling overwhelming emotion

Is to squelch part of what we’re about.

So we respond with something akin to devotion.

But what we need is a universal name to shout!

So we tear the air for the right word.

Our subject must have the grandest name!

We’ll call the universe “GOD” –– and be heard!

For this name has universal acclaim!

God IS, irrespective of the human race,

WAS before right and wrong,

Before galaxies, or life built a human face,

Will BE, after the fat lady’s song.

He can’t be limited by a book of deed,

Conjured by hunger for a storied dream,

By eagerness for power and greed,

Or search for people-unifying theme.

God cares not if humans survive a day,

Whether we bake in pollution or forever evolve,

Make too many babies or find a better way,

God’s physics always will resolve.

His unbreakable laws ARE the Universe,

Can’t be bent to accommodate prayer,

Though beseecher stand and shout a curse,

Or love the people and truly care.

Where in the past I have fearfully trod,   

And hidden my insight, like a thief on the run,

Now I can, with integrity, claim faith in God,

A name assigned to the Universe –– the ONE.

R. Leland Waldrip