Philosophers have pondered the question, Can you be a saint without God? One the one side are those who say a god is necessary for there to be a saintly man, while others say a man can be saintly with or without a god. The problem comes in defining God. Was Zeus God? Yes he was, to those who believed he was. Is God therefore anyone we believe to be God? If so, then there is no God. Or there is a God, and he has many faces. There was a time, not so long ago, when men thought gods controlled the very winds of the earth, but today those winds are controlled by state bureaucrats. So are bureaucrats God? Do not bureaucrats make things work, just as God makes thing work?

 

 

The plains without the buffalo

Grand banks without the cod

Not one without the other

And not saint without a god

For god is not a wise old man

In flowing robes and beard

He lives within our hearts and minds

And nothing to be feared

Was Damien on Molokai

A bureaucrat or saint

He made the healing process work

Without a trace of taint

Did good men live in time of Zeus

Or Amon Ra or Thor

Of course they did as did good men

Of many gods before

It isn’t who is in your heart

That makes you good and true

It’s what is in your heart that makes

A saintly man of you

For every heart of darkness there’s

A man who strives with might

To tear away the darkness and

Restore the world to light