Monday Prayer: God is Not A Problem

God Is Not A Problem

       Kilian McDonnell

("A problem is something which I meet, which I find complete before me." Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being)

God is not a problem

I need to solve, not an

algebraic polynomial equation

I find complete before me, 

with positive and negative numbers

I can add, subtract, multiply. 

God is not a fortress

I can lay siege to and reduce. 

God is not a confusion

I can place in order by my logic. 

God's boundaries cannot be set, 

like marking trees to fell. 

God is the presence in which, 

I live , where the line between

what is in me and what 

before me is real, but only God

can draw it. God is the mystery

I meet on the street, but cannot

lay ahold of from the outside, 

for God is my situation, 

the condition I cannot stand

beyond, cannot view from a distance, 

the presence I cannot make an object, 

only enter on my knees.

McDonnell, Kilian. Swift, Lord, You Are Not. Saint John's University Press, Collegeville, MN. 2003. p. 92-93.