How to Help Your Gods Make Friends

Here, Friends, is a wonderful poem written my one of my Interfaith Spiritual Direction colleagues, 
John Janelle Backman, with who's permission I share it.  I find this poem's message to be everything from silly, sweet and uplifting, to deeply poignant and relevant to today's traumatized world.
I hope you enjoy it.

You can visit the poem where it was originally published: https://braidedway.org/how-to-help-your-god-make-friends/
And please visit the author's site here: www.backmanwriter.com/

How to Help Your Gods Make Friends
- John Janelle Backman

Seat your god gently in a sandbox
with her favorite toys. Step back.
Let her look around, get acclimated.

When you know she’s ready, ask your friend
to place his god several feet away
and see what happens next. Don’t fuss

or intervene; just observe for now.
They’ll settle into parallel play 
for starters. Soon you’ll see that furtive 

exchange of glances, the hesitant
offering of a shovel, a stegosaurus. 
Before long, they’re playing together:

minarets may appear, shrines and stupas, 
mangers for baby gods—invisible 
to you but not to them. Suddenly

look: like magic, with no warning, 
your gods begin to look like each other. 
Savor their softer edges, their babble, 

the worlds they create together, how 
each evolves in the other’s presence. 
Forget about theology: 

No one makes this happen. It just does. 
Simply watch in awe or, even better,
do what your gods are doing: enjoy.