By Danielle Kemp Nelson
Danielle is a Utah-based wedding photographer and lifelong member of the church, who is constantly finding ways to use her Sociology degree in the pursuit of elucidating the nuances of the communities she finds herself in, and finding creative ways to amplify the voices and stories of those who need to be heard. She is currently working on a book of poems exploring her relationship with the members of the Godhead (Heavenly Mother included;).
My God
Maybe I get to choose
The god I worship
Maybe I don’t have to accept
All the things I was told
Maybe my god gets to be kind,
And merciful,
Playful, and understanding.
Maybe my God wants me to explore,
to be curious,
To learn, and to grow.
Maybe my god isn’t so scary
But rather prefers to wrap me up
In great big arms of love
Maybe my god understood the journey
I needed to take –
Maybe my god wrote it in the stars
Maybe my god’s love and mercy is
Bigger
Than all the questions
Maybe my god exists
In a liminal space,
And laughs at the silliness
Of the black and white boxes, and lines that we create for Them
Maybe my god is good
Maybe my god is a god worth worshipping, after all
3 Responses
Simply beautiful.
For me this poem beautifully captures an experience I had while reading “For the Least of These.” I thought wow, maybe God actually is perfectly loving, impartial, always good, never harmful. Without any cruelty, finnickiness, favorites, harsh rigidity, or inconsistency. I realized I had been taught to believe in a God that was inconsistent and dissonant for me, and that I had other options. I realized God likely so much better and worth loving than the god in my past conceptions
Thank you for this.