In The God Kitchen - bruce silverman

[Lawrence Robinson]

In The God Kitchen
( It’s not the economy, it’s the theology, stupid! )

Out of the Arabian Desert four thousand years ago came an 
unknown, monolithic, jealous, and all-powerful male deity. 
We embraced him, grouchy moods and violent temper and
all, for thirty centuries till Joseph Campbell and Starhawk
 informed us that he had really been a ‘she,’ for the previous
 six thousand years.

Today’s door knocking evangelists however, never got the 
message. They are still selling that Sistine Patriarch with a 
theology as black and white as the suits they wear but far 
more threadbare.

More recently some of us sought the gentler version of divinity, 
the trusty old middle eastern goddesses to temper his distemper. 
We experimented with varieties of that all-nurturing earth mother, 
soup ladle in hand, until we read the fine print: “Warning: 
this product contains no M.S.G. but it is made in kitchens
 run by Kali and Pele and has traces of fire, skulls and dragons,
 that may cause severe spiritual dyspepsia.”

What we longed to stuff into a grocery bag of religious certainty  
and monotheism has more recently spilled all over the God Kitchen
 into finger-lickin’ splats of neo-paganism, steadfast drips of
 Kosher-style Buddhism, frozen chunks of scientific agnosticism, 
and other concoctions, both yummy and distasteful.

But there is no cookbook that captures the savory taste of the divine. 
Words make tired recipes and cannot describe this sumptuous feast. 
words may even cause fermented dangling participles.

My advice, my friends, is to abandon the crusty old word 
pantry all together and head for the nearest desert 
wilderness where you will be seized by a presence
 that is eternally becoming.

There you will encounter glorious displays of deep
purple dreams and revelations, for as earth is now
Gaia, and sky is now Cosmos, we can’t keep
flexing those bronze age brain muscles by
giving you know who a gender, a proper 
name and a Facebook profile.

It’s time to drink the potion that will rid us
 of the notion of trying to define what sparks
 the fires of creation and the swells of the ocean.

	- bruce silverman