Creed

by John Butterfield






I believe in God
the father almighty
most of the time
but sometimes
I wonder
what life would be like
if I didn't.

If there was no moral origin to the universe.
If there were no origin in love
and no destination in love
just a rabid struggle for supremacy
without rules
in the short years of life.

If we lived and accumulated
and bonked and fought
and hid and cried
knowing that nothing meant anything
and all was ephemeral floss.

If the big brother house
were the model for life
and the animal instincts
we have mostly civilised
became rampart serpents
in the evolutionary struggle
of not so sociable
social Darwinianism.

As we trudge onward
on our return journey
to the primal slime....

I'd prefer to believe in God!


(The image accompanying this entry is one of the series of engravings by William Blake illustrating the story of Job)

Peter's wife

by John Butterfield



Simon Peter, first apostle, rock

foundation of the church

was a man with a mother in law

(so it says in the bible)

Who then was Peter's wife

who washed his clothes after he sank

trying to walk on water?

She who was left at home with the kids

while he went trailing around the countryside

following the dreamer of dreams

She whose mother was ill

and who persuaded Peter

if he needed any persuasion

to bring his healer friend

and heal her

If he was not fishing

where did she get money to

feed her inevitable brood of infants?

It is somewhat ironic

that the men who has since that time

claimed to sit in Peter's chair

have never had a wife!

Is that why she was erased from history!