God in a Box

Jack Tootell

 
Each parishioner, emerging
decently in Sunday suit,
carries home with him a box,
a little box to put God in.
 
If Holy Spirit can adapt
to circumvention thus,
then all is well, all’s very well.
But if He escape
 
He enters in the head with words,
invades the heart compellingly,
pries underneath our patterned days
to wreck all regularities,
 
And then Society must box
with institution care
an overwhelmed parishioner
who talks all day to God.

 

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Jack Tootell teaches at Orange, California, and is the hard-working father of a numerous family. Two of his poems appeared in Number 50 of Inward Light. He and his wife have been either committee members or sponsors of the Guild for Psychological Studies for several years.