Laud O' God

By Fr. Paul Mooradd

In these pages the meaning and purpose of your life is revealed in the sacred mystery of God's love. Here is a collection of poems, which when thoughtfully prayed, conveys the intimacy of His heart welcoming you into its gentle embrace. For each poem unfolds the fabric of creation, in which each life is the very breath of God, an expression of his love in the world, giving life. This collection was inspired by my mother's humble life of love, reflecting a deep faith in God's grace. Hers is not the stern God of punishment and rebuke nor is He the miracle-worker who has to be pampered and pleaded with to please. Rather her faith is in a loving God, deep within her soul, that touches others with his comfort through her charity. This is the God of these poems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644929308

Book preview

Sin from Within

Sin devolves both in murder and revenge.

For they will corrupt in equal measure,

Since reaction will its action avenge,

With same darkness to painfully insure…

Sin lives not in reality of deed;

But is a cancer, spread by truth it skews.

Confused chaos will false alarm heed,

Until alone, its vanity it rues.

Clarity by perspective humbles all,

Through truth of place, which giving one meaning,

Does prevent by lowliness any fall.

Divine light becomes by seeing, freeing.

Human corruption is obscure darkness within,

Which casting shadows across truth, becomes one’s sin.

Atheism, a Faith in Fiction

Atheism is but a faith in fiction.

Absent anything that’s scientific,

Disguises itself as evolution,

While its true origin comes by magic.

Dark mass that just appears, and explodes,

By wonder that needs imagination.

All moral rationality unloads;

Man, now free to live by inclination.

No Creator to soothe, control or command,

Rivals all truth, by effects without cause;

Which would accountability demand,

Till by reasoned thought, one takes moral pause.

Atheist act in a kabuki² history,

Grasping for meaning without immortality.

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² Traditional Japanese theater characterized by highly stylized costumes and ritualistic movements as mime and dance originating in the 17th century.

Grace

Grace, most intimately integrated,

Is thus, essential to human nature.

Whence it is not God impersonated,

Rather more, our sharing in His spirit, pure.

Grace to each, and all of our humble birth,

Through individual experience,

May by will, separate heaven from earth,

Each human’s original contredanse.

Within self, truth of being is God’s grace,

Our gift of life by holy communion.

His love’s sacrifice, redeeming our race,

Creating, ever, all in Christ as one.

With gift of self to other, life is lived love,

God manifest in us, and grace derived thereof.

Choice, Not Judgement

Why did you go to college, or even high school?

Grade school is good enough, as a general rule.

But, then again, good enough does not satisfy,

As the human spirit must soar, or at least, try.

What we first learn is simplified, and thus half true.

Only by challenging can we find something new.

Yet, we are taught, our faith must be beyond reproach,

‘Cause all must play as a team, drills every coach.

By this oppression will all our leaders succeed,

But not the personal achievement we all need.

Conformity will always the truth compromise,

Where all our real sin originates and lies.

In truth, I never saw God as judge and jury,

And know only His love, not anger, or fury.

So, let us now break the two-thousand-year-old mold,

Rising above the redemptive story all told.

If grace were the natural condition of all,

There never could have been an over-arching fall.

Hence, sinfulness would be the province of each soul,

Which by choice, not command, would render less than whole.

Wholeness, which is true holiness, is of our God,

Whose love binds, fulfills, and to communion will prod.

That through self-sacrifice in love and charity,

We will live beyond ourselves, infinitely free.

The selfish life, closed, finite, and very small,

Is insignificant, when compared to all…

Only by giving away your life, to give life,

Does it extend, as children from husband and wife.

This communion of shared life is much greater,

Than solitary concern – the isolator.

Thus, in this communal sharing is life’s wholeness,

Creation’s gift from God, to be our holiness.

Why then, should anyone choose, or prefer to sin,

If by charity, true fulfillment lies within?

Ah, but true charity comes through self-sacrifice,

And this gift of self does not the ego entice.

It is counter-logic that, less of self is more,

Which by inclination our ego does abhor.

We will then, define our person against it all,

Whence from natural grace in communion we fall;

And hence, always be incited to selfishness,

Comforted by what we possess, and its caress.

This our sin, in all sins, is a construct of lies,

That truth, the unity of communion, defies.

Human sins, as morally wrong, objective acts,

Just are subjective thoughts, which upon truth attacks.

Having no affect upon it, outside the mind,

It cannot God’s love through communion e’er unwind.

As such, the sinner lives in their own fantasy,

Untouching truth – universal reality.

Therefore, God need not punish, or even reward,

For each, is of His infinite goodness, steward.

We each choose, in response to His love, our own fate,

Which will our love’s charity or selfishness sate.

Those finding their fulfillment in self, not other,

Will hell’s loneliness, by isolation, incur.

God’s love becoming for them a furnace of fire,

Entrapped in self by their internal desire.

While all open to love, through their self-sacrifice,

Shall live unrestrained – His infinite paradise.

Hence, giving-up one’s life through love, they truly live,

Entering Holy Communion, by what they give.

Less of self in God’s love becomes life evermore,

That offered up in truth, allows one’s soul to soar.

Opinion of God

Medical truth as spoken by doctor,

Differs much from talk of those who are not.

All are rich with experience galore,

And in such plethora, gravely besot.

Only fools forsake a physician’s care,

For treatment by the gossip or shaman.

So, of armchair theologians beware,

Since theirs also is an empty brainpan.

Experience is not knowledge or faith.

These are proved true external to one’s will.

Else whole notes be devalued to an eighth,

Which in quickened pace, may the dancers thrill.

All persons may speak of God, though few ever should;

As only in self-denial comes any good.

Ungracious Grace

For two millennia grace was earned,

Even for the lazy, by faith alone.

Created in Eden, man’s sin turned

It to suffering, as a godless zone.

Thus, it became God’s choice, at His pleasure,

Those to