Did Jonah write his name on the wall
of the belly of the whale,
leave his mark,
press his flesh into the immutable
will of God
in this time the Bible says
he was shut up—
to become who he really was?
Is there somewhere I need to do that: embrace
the will of God in a deeper, more inside-out
way along the path?
We can risk mistaking ourselves for limited human beings. But because we are created in the image of God and because He is the creator of all, including these truly beautiful, mystifying creatures called whales; and because the Bible is full of stories that stretch our limited understanding past marked political or philosophical boundaries, we can rejoice. We can relax. We can take pleasure knowing there is much more going on than we can possibly see, tell or explain. And so, we make our mark. We live our lives. And we don’t really know how big a splash that will make, do we? Until someone reads our story, and asks – what about that? This poem appears in my book, Quiet Waters.