Choose None, Choose All

“We had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or he isn’t. What’s our choice to be?” (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 53)

Yes or no, black or white,
no gray maybes. Is God
everything? That includes --
well, everything.
Is God a mosquito?
a nuclear missile? nasty Nancy?
What happened to the old bearded guy
peeking over clouds?
To Christ on the cross?
That too gets into everything.
Anything's part of everything.

Can anything be nothing?
Can a thing, no matter what,
be not a thing, not anything?
Can an object one cannot or
does not name be a not-object,
a nothing?

This idea, that notion --
not the same thing.
It's not my thing.
I'm not a thing.
All living things.
What's not a thing?
What's no thing?
What's nothing?

Psalms says God's ever-present,
we'll not fear though earth gives way
and mountains fall into the sea's heart,
when waters foam and roar
so mountains quake. That's not nothing.
We'll not fear? I fear. We'll fearlessly face?
I fear. Do I fear God's nothing?
Nothing's nothing. God's not nothing.
I'm not afraid of nothing.
I fear. Do I fear God's everything?
I'd fear more if he were not.