Gentleman, no

I don’t think God is a gentleman.

They said at church

He stands at the door and knocks,

would never force his way in.

I only agree in part.

He doesn’t seem to hammer through

the front door,

but he might break your walls down.

I don’t think a gentleman

lets the devil have at you

bringing sores, sickness, fire and death

of all your progeny,

leaving you with just the cracked mind

of a grief shattered wife for company

and the questioning of ‘friends’ to be your solace.

I don’t think that when you rage at his unfairness

in your attempts at understanding

a gentleman would say

“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge.

Now prepare yourself like a man;

I will question you, and you shall answer Me.”

and then literates the extensive details

of His creative force producing

the raging beauty of earth.

What is a gentleman anyway?

A privileged land-owning gentry

or a chivalrous, courteous one,

or both?

Top hat in place, gloved hand held out in deference

to you going first, manners indicative of his noble birth.

Does he sip tea with the ladies

proper and right after a gentle knock at the door and a gracious welcome?

I can’t accept this image as the depth of his gentle-man-ness

Mr. Lewis got it right when Beaver said

“Of course he isn’t safe, but he’s good. He’s the king I tell you.”

His gentleness

suffers long

as the lamb is slaughtered,

compacting the unsafe, fierceness of the lion into meek, red stained fleece,

the bleat silenced as the One who spoke the stars into being

constrains His strength

and dies, a gentle man.

Quotes:

Job 38:2-3 NKJV Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe C.S. Lewis