We Are Not Alone

Give me that Olde Tyme religion
You know the kind
Orthodox, fundamental, unyielding, extreme
The stuff countries are made of
Wars too
Sometimes

I have been pondering lately
Our need for religion
So I decided to ask god

This was not unusual
I ask god many things
Sometimes I try to think
What god would say
In answer

Once in a while though
I don’t have to…

The answer came
Before I could even finish the question

Free Will

Everything humanity does
It does with free
will

You are all
One
one family

One people

Humanity

All your history
Is but a brief moment
In time
And already you have forgotten this

You look for ways to make
yourselves different
For reasons to disagree
And religion has been no exception.

You look to me
Call upon me
Pray to me

But it is not mine to say
What shall or shall not be
For
my gift to you has been
And will always be

Free Will

And in giving you this
I myself am diminished
And you
are empowered

For you cannot have both

Do not ask me
to explain man
Why does man need religion so?
Why this need
To worship me?

My own answer surprised me
With it’s brevity, depth, and quickness

I think it is because we are lonely

So do I, said god
And it saddens me
For you have not only myself
But also
Each other

Rather than embrace humanity
You embrace
such things as
Nationality
Ethnicity
Religion…

You don’t need me
You have each other

My response was immediate

I have long understood this
But I feel it runs deeper

As we learn to see
With your eyes
Hear
With your ears
Touch
With your hand

We find the universe to be
A vast unimaginable place
And we are so very
Very
Small

We are lonely
As a species

Besides your wisdom
There is no sounding board
No mirror
For us to hold discourse
To put our intellect
To the test

Not so
I marvel at man
Scanning the heavens
Searching the
universe
For intelligent life
While there are so many species
Right
here on Earth
As intelligent as you
Some perhaps
More
so

And you have scarcely acknowledged them
Other to enslave them
Or to hunt them

Some discourse indeed

Have you
even bothered
To learn how to communicate with them?

As you scan
the heavens for intelligent life
You are exterminating all traces of it
Right here on Earth

So you see
You are not
alone

But you will be

You will be