The Word of God

From desert cliff and mountaintop, we trace the wide design,

Strike-slip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline. . .

We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,

And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.

Odd, long-vanished creatures and their tracks & shells are found;

Where truth has left its sketches on the slate beneath the ground.

The patient stone can speak, if we will listen when it talks.

Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.

There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night,

Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.

Long ago, when torture broke the remnant of his will,

Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still.

High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,

The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the stars.

We may watch and study or may shudder and deny,

Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the sky.

By stem and root and branch we trace, by feather, fang, and fur,

How the living things that are descend from things that were.

The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and flies,

These tiny, humble, wordless things - how shall they tell us lies?

We are kin to beasts; no other answer can we bring.

The truth has left its fingerprints on every living thing.

Remember, when you have to choose between them in the strife,

Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote life.

And we who listen to the sky, or walk the dusty grade,

Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,

Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.

The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.

Deep in flower and in flesh, in sky and soil and seed,

The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.

So turn and look where e'er you think the truth will be unfurled.

Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.