A Theologian Considers the Consequence REV 11-25-12

[billy]

A Theologian Considers the Consequence of Relativity on a God Who Is Light

Revision

You flung the stars like fireflies is 'the' needed?
to burn holes into night’s hunger,

to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.

 this stanza works well on its own
great opening line. the simile works really well and creates a solid image as well as a feeling of something great

You, the cloudless day— again, is 'the' needed?
clouds now forgotten, a judgment should it be judgement, or is that the usa version?
beyond remembrance, as the water
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit
the shell, but each one still speaks
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping
toward that final day

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.


i think this stanza feels alone, you say that tree, what tree, the tree of knowledge, the capped 'Your' cries out god yet the title cries out a different kind of god than the one we have come to know. the tree takes away from the making of the universe and back into the same old, same old metaphorical garden of adam and eve.

Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.

 now this one works well. it commingles light and god and science.

The days become millennia.

Still You retreat

trapped between

our seconds.

 this is short and yet i think it embodies the whole idea of god as light.

We long to resynchronize

with the limitless.

The sheen on our eyes shifts

to speed past the horn’s crystal

blast for sound only came first, once.



Our mistake was to believe

that eternity is endless

days, rather than

immutable velocity.



~~~




(Not that I expect anyone to read all the footnotes but I'll leave them there if anyone is interested how this came together)

Footnotes:

Gen. 1:1-3, 14, 26; 1 Jn. 1:5; Gen. 2:2; Heb. 4:1-3a; Gen. 3:6-8; 2 Pet. 3:8-9a; 1 Cor. 15:50-52; Rev. 21:23; Rev. 22:5

The speed of light is the same for all observers.
The laws of physics are the same for all uniformly moving observers.
"Uniformly" = "with a constant velocity"
Any uniformly moving observer can consider themselves to be "at rest".
The speed of light is a Universal Constant.
Observers moving relative to each other:
--Do not measure the same times.
--Disagree on what events occur simultaneously.
Space and Time are relative.
United by light into Spacetime.
Only spacetime has an absolute reality independent of the observer.

this is a very well crafted poem. on reading the footnotes. i'm now of a mind they detract from the poem. i just read them and forgot about the poem, i want to walk away pondering the poem, pondering god as light.

all the neg thought i have still don't make this any less of a really good poem (apart from the footnotes.) it's a poem that really does need more than a couple of reads. it's a poem that allows the reader to get as involved in it as much as they wish. a true theologian's poem

good edit. sorry i did feedback i never did before. i sort of seen it in a different light this time

thanks for the edit