The Grand Design

from Walled Gardens

This is how you are to bless....
-  Numbers 6:23 (NIV)


The grand design of the universe proceeds
regardless of apologies and creeds,
no matter what’s believed or not believed:
that God exists precedes how God’s perceived
and all the universe thus far perfected
is God’s reality on us reflected.
What good, then, if we separate the light
into a thousand rays of wrong and right
when there is truth in each ray we receive?
I may not always know what to believe,
but I believe that God’s expecting me
to keep reflecting everything I see
without distortion, judgment or rejection
and faithful to the source of my reflection.

God bless thee, wolf or Joseph, small or great,
and keep thee all the same by wrath or mercy
unbiased by thy aid or opposition,
no matter what thy rank or reputation;
God shine His face upon thee for thy favor
and turn His face toward thee for thy peace
regardless of thy service or rebellion,
uncolored by thy honor or thy shame.
By grace thy soul is given understanding
just as by God the sky is given lightning
and as the force that first did cause the heavens
is still creating every force within:
so bless thee, as the miller turns the millstone,
and keep thee, as the tender feeds the flame.

The grand design of the universe is carved
and I am but a sliver in the carving:
all I know is shaped by the designer
and all I am, a part of the design.
I am an ant with perpetual movement
around me, earth and heaven ever moving
like a mindless dragon: I am but a mote
within its mouth, and yet for all the motion
I am never swallowed as the dragon
sleeps and stirs. And even this great dragon
is given its own task upon the millwheel,
unmindful of the fires and misfortunes
of time, and I’m an atom on this millwheel,
holding to my place in the design.