A Slave Ship Named Jesus

A Slave Ship
Named Jesus*

Have you heard the joke
about the Holocaust Survivor,
who died of old age and
came upon God in Heaven?

He decided to tell God
a joke about the Holocaust.
God replied, "That isn't funny."
To which the survivor responded,
"I guess you had to be there."
...

Those cynical jokes,
at which I laugh the most,
reveal something about me,
something I'd rather not see,
or haven't been able to see.

My beef with God
was always paper thin,
never carrying the weight
of existential betrayal,
like the kind wrought
by holocaust, slavery,
or nightmarish trauma.

For me God was irreconcilable
with the rational world I knew,
until I encountered a darkness
for which there was no answer.

Only then,
I realized how limited
was the God I understood,
and how unlimited divine love is,
in creating a world far beyond
my limited comprehension.

*Jesus of Lübeck

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Si comprehendis, non est Deus.
If you comprehend, it is not God.
~ Augustine of Hippo