The illusion of God's absence

The illusion of God’s absence                                                       
 
The rich have their diamonds and pearls;
the poor – the moon and stars;
 
the pauper emerges from a cramped hovel,
peers upward into a starry night
 
going on forever.  Upon every doorstep –
the infinite sky, the eternal now,
 
filling us up everywhere we turn
upon the spectrum of agony to ecstasy.
 
The Lord is our shepherd – we shall not want.
Every brimful moment – we shall not want.
 
No one is slighted; no one goes without.
Our inheritance – our just and proper due –
 
life in minutia, in all extremes,
the essence and price of being human. 
 
Preference creates the illusion of want.  Judgment
and desire create the illusion of God’s absence. 
 
O child of God, cultivate indiscriminate gratitude;
purchase Oneness with the jewel of desirelessness.
 
O child of God, in the stone’s crevice
shall bloom the perfect rose.