Necessary Evil

Why doesn’t God nip all evil in the bud, so as to eradicate suffering?

Our business is to learn that death is sin’s most necessary recompense;

and so to choose what’s right, not wrong, without a hint of diffidence.

This we can only do if every choice has its sure consequence.

There must be moral hazard, founded on unswerving law;

or else between wisdom and folly there would be no difference,

there would be no divide between what’s reckless and prudence.

If on jumping from a precipice I did not fall to stony floor,

always being rescued by an angel’s hand; presumption hyperbolic

(that’s filled with risk and self-despond) would be remade as merry frolic!

– which would, after not long, become most tedious, and nothing more.

An uncomfortable truth

Why is there any such thing as evil at all?

Why does suffering arise as a possibility in the first place?

For life to exist, there has to be

of life’s compromise the possibility.

Flux can only produce stability

in the presence of non-linearity

and this necessitates catastrophe –

that’s a mathematical certainty.

Hence life implies calamity.

Answering Epicurus

Doesn’t the existence of suffering in the world make it irrational to believe in God?

“If God is just and of great might then why does pain abound?

It seems that either God does nothing care, and so cannot be kind;

or else that God cannot save us, and so cannot be powerful.

So if you insist that God is good and omnipotent, if God be real at all;

then God cannot be real: for suffering is certain sure enough!

Nature’s red in tooth and claw, and merely to survive is tough!

Unanswered, Abel’s blood to heaven does clearly call!”

The Hindu says that suffering is always well deserved.

Those who seem innocent are guilty nonetheless.

Karma’s been accrued by them in a life previous.

The evil they did do before has been conserved

and justice now its sure revenge is taking

Each victim is their own atonement making,

for sins committed in the past they’re paying.

The Buddha tells us suffering’s not real, but a delusion:

attachment to the things of matter causes us confusion.

The soul must be freed from physical encumbrance,

and rise above the realm of pain and find its peace

in merging selflessly and wholly with the One

by meditation, and ceaselessly repeating “Om”.

The Deist tells us that God’s justice is remote.

For after all, we’re tiny things, of little note.

God observes the world from a great distance,

caring nothing for our plight.

For though God’s great, He looks at us askance.

He has no empathy with our life’s fight

’gainst suffering, decay and faction:

our pain is not a worthy motive for God’s action.

The Gnostic claims the Cosmos is imperfect.

The World was neither God’s intent nor act.

God is omnipotent, and just and whole;

but the Creator was incompetent in craft.

The Universe is flawed, but this is not God’s fault.

It never was God’s business, its making not His goal.

The Cosmos cannot be redeemed. Matter is sick at heart;

but freedom can be won, by means occult,

for spirits in it trapped, who thence for Heaven depart.

Calvin says that our idea of good is not correct.

God rightly gives us pain: for we deserve no better!

If God elects to help, His power can this effect:

for nothing may God’s sovereign will impede or fetter;

but being ill, we have no right this to expect,

and if God damns us, we may not object. 

Satan says that God’s not just, but is a monster.

His entertainment lies in causing us to suffer.

There is no good or ill; but only power,

and those who are afraid to exercise their share.

In order to survive, you have to fight and strive.

Don’t look for any help. You’re on your own.

Learn that you can only live and thrive

at the expense of those you’ve battered down.

The wise believe that suff’ring has a purpose.

Our business in this world is for ourselves to learn

the difference between what’s wrong and right:

to ready ourselves for being with each other

and with the tri-une living God for ever.

As yet, we are from God’s great flaming disk,

remote: and may awhile prepare ourselves to bask

in God’s most searing, bright and fearsome light.

The Madness of Frederick

As a boy

I was taught

right from wrong

by parents

and by clerks

dressed down in fulgin cloaks.

I was told “thou shalt not”

by belligerent busibodies

who owned the divine rules

as their own shackles

and urgently pressed

those moral chains

on my full-virile frame:

seeking to hold me down,

so they might rape my mind.

The tirade of their words made no sense to me.

Obedience and observance are no virtues

they merit nothing

for they comprehend nothing.

They are empty of soul and spirit

and dark as the deepest abyss.

To conform to imperial diktat

is to abdicate one's own crown,

to resign one's own humanity

and forswear one's own existence:

aping some abstract essence

foreign to one's own truth

which must be found and forged

in the coil of life.

Their God is dead for me.

He serves no use,

has no crevice in my life.

What need have I of any tyrant governor,

who seeks only to carp

and criticise my acts,

curtail my will

and circumscribe my manhood.

And yet, if God is dead,

and rule of good and ill is passed away,

than how can I survive?

What sets my way,

directs my path?

What aim or end

can hold my heart's intent

and give me hope?

Without an ethic, how can I live:

or even set life apart from death?

It seems I must make up my own

and pass beyond the fancy-land

of good and evil

to the unknown country

of want and will

from make-believe

to made-belief!

I must impose my will

on an empty world,

project my private rational account

on a futile public pageant,

bereft of sense.

But if this lore

is nothing other

than want and will,

how can it bind

or help or guide?

How can it be more

than wanton urge

of lowly brute,

not the noble aspirations

and lofty ambitions

of superior man?

Pursuit of pleasure does not suffice,

no lasting satisfaction provide;

but only fleeting respite

before the dismal dawning

of the next drear day.

If will to power is all;

then what is that power for?

What motivates its exercise,

directs its choice of act?

There is no point in ability to do

if there's no point in doing anything!

It seems my mind must know

(or at least glimpse)

what is desirable and what desire is for

before my will can reasonably desire at all.

I am confused and stare into the abyss

of my whirling thoughts

which will not rest and

where there is no peace

nor hope nor joy.

From out that chasm

of woe

my gaze is turned back

onto me.

At first I fear

and then I find a clue:

to know myself, that is my task:

and in that knowledge

disclose what's good for me

by virtue of mine own constituent form

and so unearth,

by delvings of my reasoned mind,

what I most need,

what I may do,

and what I must forego.

I have to mine within myself

a precious ore: the lode-stone

to direct my own way by.

Departures

First to go was David,

hostage to father’s work.

No adult cared ’bout what they did

the precious bond they broke.

I stood and cried outside

the house where I had played,

but which to me was now denied.

He was gone, I know not where;

but always for him I shall care.

My bedmate’s end was then decreed:

“That duck must be undone!”

I do not know who did the deed;

but his frail fabric off was flayed:

soap and flannel of him was made.

Of resurrection hope there’s none.

Karl was dear, we hugged and held;

but off to Oz he went.

Long years until again we spoke

were separately spent.

Then tears of joy did whelm my eyes:

till he did vanish into cyberspace,

with no clue of why;

or what then I could do:

or even of an act or unkind word

which I should sorely rue.

Next my mother went to heaven,

slaughtered by a stroke.

To hold me fast God promised then,

but my heart almost broke.

David danced into my life,

then danced again away:

except one latter day,

when he remembered naught

of that strange play

when I did nearly go awry.

Deepest loved was Adrian.

He better far than I my love did ken;

but Pete then Julie had his heart,

and so from me he did depart.

I’ll not see him again!

Nick and Philip, Tom and John,

shared faith and college years;

but seasons came and now are gone

and they did me forsake;

save John, who kept troth ’gainst my fears,

until that bond I’d sadly brake

for fear of hurt I could not take.

An elven flautist ’tranced my soul.

With questing mind and hopeful heart,

striding into my life he came.

He glimpsed the part and saw the whole;

but even his name does now my mem’ry flee.

Derek was dear,

he taught me much,

I slighted him, I fear.

To southern land he went

and we lost touch;

but grace was sent:

so rather than my sin full drear

should bind me in the grave,

he lately me forgave.

My heart, Keith warmed,

but Wales his formed:

the rock from which his being was wrent,

so he took off with glee for Gwent.

Of Pauls let less be said

than floods right through my head.

One despoiled my soul,

one despised me whole

one pursued his goal

to teach the poor

of Africa;

then follow the spoor

of feminine lure

to America.

All are for me no more.

Henry burst into my world,

as poet’s muse and mad daemon;

he gave me life, but now he’s gone

and I am dead within.

Last, Philip loved and learned:

the son I never had;

but off he flew, to Orient far,

in search of wife,

renouncing faith, he left my life

and made me sad.

And so it goes: the eternal train

of broken faith and forgèd chain;

of given love and taken pain.

My only hope for my own gain:

of this frail life I’ll soon be free,

for all of these are lost to me.

Resurrection

Today my Love has returned to me.

The Love that is Life

and can know no death, yet died

for love of those who know not love.

Today my Love has returned to me.

My heart now bursts with life and joy:

the hope which had fled

is born anew and will not fade again.

Today my Love has returned to me.

He holds me in His arms and will not let me go.

God, who bled

and died for me heals my hurting heart.

The Harrowing of Hell

Today Light invades the darkness.

The darkness has no power

it can not understand the Lightⁱ

it has no substance nor form.

Today the gates of Hell are broken.

Today Satan’s conceit is shown.

Today his petty power is overthrown.

The souls of the just cry out with joy:

“Welcome to Thee, Oh Christ our God!

Holy Divine One,

Holy Strong One,

Holy Immortal One:

Thou art come to deliver us

from out the grave

and to have mercy on us!”

Their trials are over. 

Their hope is fulfilled.

Their joy is complete. 

The new bearer of Light,

the True Day-Star, the Faithful One

the Lord of Life is come to them.

i“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” [Jn 1:3 KJV]