To the Unknown God
of Radical Love
by R.E. Slater
"What therefore you worship as unknown
this I now proclaim to you." Acts 17.23
Yes, I said to my Christian friend,
I will fellowship with you, and
with the Church, and in the church
even when away or absent it's pews
in heart and body but not in soul
where God lives in me and I in Love.
But I also thought to myself,
No, I can no longer find sympathy
nor fellowship with my faith,
for I seek another God...
a God not of the church...
a God unlike the church....
A God where the church may
find itself at times, but not where
God might find himself oftentimes
when worshipped as unloving
judgmental, wrathful; an absent
Divine unattached to humanity.
This God I seek is a God of Love,
who offers service to the other,
who is against self-serving empires,
and against empire-like religions
holding human worth as a crime
when unlike its own rules.
There is a kind of fellowship I seek
where I might find God's people,
but another kind of fellowship
another kind of space whereby
I might find all of God's people
linked in love and loving fellowship.
The God I seek is the unknown God,
Unknown to us in so many ways,
but not in the ways of presence,
ministry, advocacy, caregiving,
promise, nor love; this God is the
God I yearn to know, to be one.
R.E. Slater
May 21, 2023
Ref: RCPT2
* * * * * *
To the Unknown God
of Radically Lived Theology
by R.E. Slater
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and whoever loves
is born of God, and knoweth God. Dear friends, let us continue to love
one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of
of God and knows God. - 1 John 4.7-8
I am no longer embraced by
what I once was embracing,
The dismay too great,
the hurt too much.
God's church lost in empire,
lost in translation, in mission
and ministry, abandoning
what once I needed, I craved.
Not in what it was, but
by what it once promised,
Once my finis coronat opus, like
Christ's, declaring God's finished work.
Ever unfinished it's continuing work
but completed God's work of Love,
His lovingcare and mercy, mended
forgiveness in Loving relationship.
Till at last there is no longer
work to be done, but joy and
peace ever present sealing
heaven's loving presence.
Sealed it's founding promises
released to its gapping potentials,
Become what it was becoming,
Embracing the God indwelling.
R.E. Slater
value to the labor; the end crowns
the work that produced it.
