17 2017 Creation Mythology

Creation Mythology
by Paul Robert Sanford

Long time past,
before the Big Bang myth scattered the stars
and send cooling balls of matter to become
planets and moons
and the myth of evolution populated
the water planet named dirt upon which we live.

Long time past
Before Galileo set the Earth dirt spinning around our Sun,
before Arab and Egyptian scholars mapped the distant stars.

That time,
Everybody lived on a flat dirt planet surrounded by water on every side.
Some water fell out of the sky, some was down below.
The Sun and Moon behaved themselves and flowed across the sky
each day and night.

That time,
there were many stories to explain Everything.
Our planet was a bid of bird poop on a tortoise shell.
The Sun a ball the trickster Raven stole from Bear
and threw up high in the sky to keep from being caught.

Mountain tops had names and histories,
Rivers flowed from the homes of powerful beings known as gods.
The stories made a kind of sensible nonsense that taught us
not to ask too many questions lest we anger spirits that were listening.

The problems came when Raven and Bear and the magical beings and spirits
got promoted into full fledged gods
that demanded worship, sacrifices, loyalty as a price for rain and good crops.
Pretty soon every nation, tribe and watering hole had its resident god or godling.
Some of them weren’t up to the job.
They demanded too much and gave too little.
They ruled by fear and punished with flood, famine and plague.
It was untenable.

Then some bright Charlie or Charlene came up with the bright idea
that religion and gods could be good.
Pretty soon people were meditating or telling stories about how to have a better life.

Now there were franchises in which Creation was made on purpose
out of love for all that is and kindness for people, who are special.
The earth was still flat and the sun reassuringly went around us,
and everything could be explained.
It was written down in big books.

Now great thinkers stand astride the Creator myth and the Bang,
striving to make them work as a team and lead humanity in a good direction.
But the trickster is still at work and we are still confused.

That is a sketch of the many mythical stories of creation as we know it and have known it.
May we find salvation in the truth, if we ever figure it out.

And that’s the Truth, whatever that is.