Dyēus stood and broke the silence, looking at the brood and spoke,
“You cannot remember primordial days and the ways I formed mortals
Of sea and land, dirt and sand; cannot remember my hand digging
In watery earth to birth you into life, no cord to cut with knife;
You cannot remember how I led you across the coastline and fed you.
You had no sense of my presence, and made no pretense to be more
Than you were, slipping in and out of brackish water, moving about
Upon the earth so timidly, no home or hearth; but then you learned
And burned with passion, moved across the land, led by my own hand,
And made your bed in valleys and mountains and plains; it was then
You learned pain ~ your dawn of awareness ~ and the yawning grave;
You became more than knaves; you saw me then for the first time
As the bells of heaven chimed. We walked and talked with one another,
Yet I was everywhere; you sensed this, praising me with incense
Even when you could not see me in one form, you knew I could be
In another one, from grass and trees to sun and moon, in biting
Of frost and in the monsoon, in the sky overhead and in the bed
Of flowers fair, in the air and water and wind that bends trees
And scatters their leaves, as the ocean heaves. Everywhere could
You see me and feel me, so when I appeared you would kneel to me.
Now look what has happened; look in polluted brook, ravished hills,
In melting ice caps and thrice cracked earth to extract its worth;
Here now you are plundering and killing my magnificent creation,
Willing me, Dyēus, to die rather than try to save your very own home!
Ah! What an horrible tome to write, no longer knowing wrong from right;
My children, my progeny in the cosmic homogeny, who no longer know. . .
I AM
Robert Lambert Jones III is a college biology professor who earned his Ph. D. in Molecular Biology from Indiana University. He is married and has three grown daughters, a granddaughter, and a dog named Buckley. He enjoys hiking, cycling, reading, watching movies, playing his electric bass, and (of course) writing. Robert Jones blogs weekly at 
It might have started with a childhood love of monsters, especially dinosaurs. I also remember my parents owning an encyclopedia called The Book of Knowledge. That little tidbit of information might date me, but in that book I read an abridged account of Beowulf’s battle with Grendel. In high school English class, we read excerpts from The Iliad and The Odyssey which also fascinated me. These were intrinsic processes, and I can’t really explain them other than to say I have been drawn to spiritual concepts since I was a boy. Ironically, this did not translate into an interest in Christianity until later.
I think my answers to your previous question would be most applicable. I must add, however, that reading the classical works takes patience and discipline for a modern reader, but the payoff is definitely worth it.
In my second post after starting my blog about a year ago, I included a quote by C. S. Lewis. If I may paraphrase, it said something about Christianity being a myth with the characteristics of all great myths but with the exception that it really happened. All of the prophetic visions written in the Old and New Testaments are mythic. The books of Isaiah and Ezekiel contain some interesting descriptions of how God appeared to men of limited sensory perception. The books of Daniel and Revelation describe visions with symbolic and monstrous images which are incorporated into predictions of future events. All of the stories which describe encounters between God, Satan, angels, demons, and humans fulfill the definition of a great myth. The Christian faith is founded on the cosmic struggle carried out through the fall of humanity, the virgin birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension, and the ultimate return of Jesus Christ. Our culture has become so familiar with these accounts on a surface level that it has lost an appreciation of their drama and their grandeur.
So silently, surreptitiously, and smoothly do you slide in with ocean tide to abide in abode of my soul, making hearth of my heart your home, again and once again, yet never to stay, to be held at bay, whatever I might say; so sing your song sung blue and true, old and ever-new. Have only some few become your lovers, who hover around your every word, hoping for your tender, titillating touch, not much but just enough.
“People dear worshipped here, once upon a time; drinking the fine wine of fellowship,” Maftet spoke softly in the haunted old courtyard of once-vaunted temple. “Women, men and children; fathers, mothers, and sisters, brothers all; simple poor and those who stood tall in unity of community.” She ran fingers over one lingering wall, browned dark and dank, yet not cast down, but no longer part of crown achievement of city dead, now raising pity rather than praise.
I jolted awake in a cold sweat, bolted upright in bed and said, “My God! Have I seen such true horror; what’s been on field of battle for Uruk?”
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