☀️ The Daily Boost #1138: Forget about theology

Let's play in the sandbox!

The Daily Boost (published weekdays) is one of the newsletters of The Raft, the online community of author Phyllis Cole-Dai. We Rafters ride the river of life buoyed by music, poetry, and other arts, plus water-drops of wisdom. Most everything here is free, but patrons (paid subscribers) get some special perks as a gesture of gratitude.

Photo by Anatol Rurac on Unsplash

HOW TO HELP YOUR GOD MAKE FRIENDS
John Backman

Seat your god gently in a sandbox
with her favorite toys. Step back.
Let her look around, get acclimated.

When you know she’s ready, ask your friend
to place his god several feet away
and see what happens next. Don’t fuss

or intervene; just observe for now.
They’ll settle into parallel play 
for starters. Soon you’ll see that furtive 

exchange of glances, the hesitant
offering of a shovel, a stegosaurus. 
Before long, they’re playing together:

minarets may appear, shrines and stupas, 
mangers for baby gods—invisible 
to you but not to them. Suddenly 

look: like magic, with no warning, 
your gods begin to look like each other. 
Savor their softer edges, their babble, 

the worlds they create together, how 
each evolves in the other’s presence. 
Forget about theology: 

No one makes this happen. It just does. 
Simply watch in awe or, even better,
do what your gods are doing: enjoy.

(My thanks to the poet, via Braided Way.)

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