Editor’s note: New York Times #1 bestselling author, global speaker and frequent Meridian contributor Richard Eyre is very familiar to Meridian readers, but he is less well-known as a poet. We are pleased to present one of Richard’s poems each Monday for the remainder of this year, and have asked him to preface each poem with a paragraph about its context and about what motivated him to write it.
Poet’s context: over these past months I have been involved (with Maurine Proctor among others) in writing and editing a new Deseret Book called No Division Among You. This has caused me to think a lot about unity within diversity and about how destructive it is to think about salvation and exaltation in limiting, exclusive terms. This poem is an attempt to grasp how inclusive Christ is and how short and narrow-sighted it is to think of God or His Gospel in any other way.
Inclusive
another word for unity
the antonym of division
and the correct interpretation or paradigm
of restoration
the onlooking world gets it backwards
(and often so do we)
temples are exclusive
God saves the few
most are wicked and disqualified
sheep are in goats are out
some have families some don’t
all are errors of mortal shortsighted pseudo-division
prophet oaks said
our theology begins with Heavenly Parents
in that light who would interpret
gathering zion as separating the good kids from bad or
tiny celestial as walled off from everyone else or
exaltation as slipping in before the door closes
all these accuse god of being small and partial
the direct opposite of all that They are
oh God
please excuse the absurdity of our petty time-bound judgements
instead
look up and let your spirit expand beyond our simpleness
all are in
all are Theirs
all can have all
in a place and a span where there is so much time that there is none
the how has been calculated
all we must do is receive and accept and act
and we have the incalculable forever to do so
we do what we can now not for qualification but for joy
none can exclude but themselves
and that is easier to understand than we think
after all
who would you deny
among your spiritual siblings
