Or Else

Sometimes I think we are here simply for someone’s amusement.

Ants under the glass, birds in a cage, mice in a maze.

It feels like we’re being tested, constantly tested.

How will I respond to this pressure or that problem?

Will I throw in the towel, give in to depression?

Will I grow bitter and bent like a dying tree?

Or rise from the ashes to conquer life again?

 

When we zoom out and see our world as the blue marble it is

It offers a different perspective.

We’re small, so very tiny and unimportant, or so it seems.

Life, grass, fish, animals, sky, oceans, all connected

Yet we are the species that kills and not for food or survival

But out of some twisted brokenness, some irreparable damage?

Who are we and why are we here?

 

Religions, churches, built to house the seeking and the faithful

And yes, the broken, for we are all this… broken;

Part of a species striving for survival, trying to comprehend human-ness,

Unknowable, unlivable life

Just too difficult for many to live.

Yet hope remains, enough to keep at least most of us from

Taking our own life, taking matters into our own hands.

 

Nations and rulers continue to threaten and boast

Attempting to force the other to conform or else.

Be our religion, worship our god, or else.

Leave us alone or else,

Stop enslaving and destroying the innocent or else,

Do what I say or else.

Someone always waiting to bring the hammer down.

 

We watch way too much, know way too much in the information age.

I now know more than I ever truly wanted to know about the nature of man,

The all-consuming self-destructive nature of man;

Always judging, fault-finding, accusing, trying to change the other guy

In our homes as well as in our world.

Whoever you are, you’re wrong; be more like me, like us,

Or Else.

 

What if we stopped doing that and evolved?

What if we started every conversation from a stand point

Of wonder and awe and love and acceptance?

What if we saw ourselves as the blue marble miraculously

Balanced in the skies?

What if we acknowledged the miracle of our existence;

The wonder and beauty of existing at all?

 

I’m the first to say I don’t understand.

I don’t know what God is up to,

Why all this happened, what it’s all about.

And yes, I’ve heard hundreds of people tell me

Their version of belief, their reality, their belief system.

The scriptures as explained by many millions and no two

Even agree on what they say and why, not really,

Not in the end.

 

So, it’s up to me to figure it out, for me.

What do I believe? What’s it all about?

I’ve got to learn to live with unanswered questions,

Because I believe nobody here can truly tell me, not really,

And I’ve got to figure out how to live on this rock

Not knowing, not fully understanding, I’ve got to be okay with that;

I’ve got to, or else.

 

Or else all hope is gone and I won’t live like that.

I won’t live a hopeless life.

Hope in my Creator not to abandon us entirely,

Hope for change, for life, for love.

I have to hope that things can get better

Because why else would we be here

If not to try to bring about positive change?

 

And change never comes unless one person says;

It starts with me, right here, right now.

I’ll change me with divine help, I’ll determine to love more,

Hate less, judge less, reach people more…

 

Love More.

We have to, we really do, or else.