Here's what happens when a preacher's kid goes to college and realizes there's more to the story than what he learned in Sunday Schools (or Sabbath Schools):
Hurricane prayer
When God planned the universes,
he said I’ll make this one big
and put tiny things in it.
They’ll feel lost, and worship me.
But someone pointed out
they might just as easily resent
being made so much smaller than the universe
and thus worship it instead.
So then he put tiny little universes
in all the black holes to see
who they would worship. But since
the black holes were singularities,
nothing went as planned in any of them,
not even responses to commandments
and threats. Then God had to pin
all his hopes on the big one
where butterflies and dark matter were
in equilibrium with chaos and hurricanes.
Everything was still and quiet in the eyes
of the hurricanes, which fascinated him so.
He sent them again and again, skipping
them like stones against the continents
where they always sputtered and died.
While they lasted they reminded him
of the black holes, spinning, glittering,
so strange and calm inside. Then, too,
there was the tinny sound of little voices
praying hardest when the hurricanes struck–
they were not worshiping, exactly,
but it was the closest thing to worship
he had heard, and
it would have to do for now.
