4 Themes: Section 2: Religion

4 Themes: Section 2: Religion

I believe in God,

Because I was told to.

A religion I did not understand;

A faith I did not profess.

But I had to fit in,

I had to please the crowd.

And so, I continued to ‘believe’,

While questioning the existence of a God;

While facing a world full of hypocrites.

Out loud I asked,

‘Who is God?

Is he the Judge?

Or, is he the Executioner?’

Everyday I wondered,

Who determines the sinners and the blessed?

How do we measure a person’s worth?

Why are the sinners kinder than the preachers?

Is hypocrisy the religion?

Nay, I am who I am.

Neither a sinner nor an angel,

Just a mere human.

And if there is a God,

Then He shall judge me for who I truly am,

Not who I profess to be.

We believe in _ _ _
Because we were told to.
But two millenniums of stony silence
Have forced us to get up and seek out
The steep path to the mountain top.
Like the children of Israel before us
We endure the cutting elements to arrive
At the origin of our kind.
He is under the yellowing yew tree.
(We know it is He despite
The troubling gauntness of His face.)
'We have come for some answers,' we say.
'So many questions we know not where to start...'
He blinks quizzical. Oh incomprehension.
'Who are you and why do you want answers from me?'
'We are all your children, Father!
How could you have forgotten us?'
His eyes withdraw into his shrunken skull.
'Forgetting is the nature of all things.
If I made you in my image long ago,
It is because I feared I would lose myself.
Time is the sole possessor of memories,
Of extinct civilisations and dead stars,
While I, waiting for complete amnesia,
Am only a servant of the soundless universe.'

Tasha Lim & Edward Ong
13.3.16 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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