PoetryTheology & Spirituality

Truly, You are a God Who Hides Yourself

Truly, you are a God who hides yourself                           1
You create the heavens and earth as wholly other
Raised above all with arms outstretched
You only come down to the face of the waters
When all is black and chaotic and empty                          5
And when you do show yourself, we hide
 
Truly, you are a God who hides yourself
You are in a bush, in a cloud, in a fire
In a tent, in a box, in a broken law
You cover our faces with your hand                                  10
And when you shine through men’s faces
We cannot look, but fall down on our own
 
Truly, you are a God who hides yourself
You speak through mad prophets and asses
You sing through murderers and kings                              15
You write on rocks and walls and hearts
And when you finally send the Word to us
You send it as a bastard babbling baby
 
Truly, you are a God who hides yourself
Recognized only by those about to die                                20
Even your own parents cannot find you
And your camping cousin is not quite sure
But the doves and pigs are quite convinced
And so we ask you to depart with haste
 
Truly, you are a God who hides yourself                              25
You walk the earth with no form or comeliness
You receive no honor in your own country
You eat and party with sinners and drunks
And when you are finally lifted into plain sight
You die like a criminal and blasphemer                               30
 
Truly, you are a God who hides yourself
But who would double-check a sealed tomb
Why question a gardener in a garden
Why ask a fellow traveler on the road
And when you break your own body for us                         35
You disappear leaving only the living word

Truly, you are a God who hides yourself
Seen by well over five-hundred souls
As you hide yourself away in the clouds
Blinding those who see and so believe                                 40
Then taking them to see you again
And forbidding them to speak a word
 
Truly you are a God who hides yourself
Dwelling behind smoke and curtains
Living in wine and rising in bread                                          45
Making of many one whole body
And just as we see you in the sanctuary
Suddenly you are only our neighbor
 
Truly, you are a God who hides yourself
Blessed those who believe without seeing                           50
Blessed those who see you in everything
Blessed those in whom I always see you
Bless those who somehow see you in me
Truly, you are a God who hides yourself

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Kenneth O'Shaughnessy

Kenneth O'Shaughnessy

A Northerner by upbringing, Kenneth has lived in the South since his (first) college days. After returning to college, he began to do more than just dabble with writing, and has self-published a children's picture book, a middle-reader's book, and several collections of poetry. Baptized in the Roman Catholic church, raised in the fundamentalist Baptist church, and having spent time in the Reformed Baptist church, Kenneth settled down in the Eastern Orthodox church in 2006.

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