More Graves of Craving

 From Numbers 11 and Psalm 78

More!
We cry
With smugness in our eyes.

More!
How could God not hear us?
Doesn’t He care?

More! More! More!

And after complaining
To God
And neighbors
And friends
And family;

After preaching that
God’s goodness means
He does as we desire.

After looking around
And deciding 
Our daily bread (and more),
God’s daily mercies (and more),
God’s spiritual food,
God’s presence
Was not enough.

After saying,
For the millionth time…

More!

God did it.
He relented.
He gave in
To our cravings.
He heard the cries 
Of uncrucified flesh,
He heard us yell out with Adam
He heard our
More!

He was so “kind,”
So “good”
(so we thought),
To give us 
What we craved.

So for a moment
We stopped saying,
More!

Just long enough
To taste
And see
What God gave us

And as we ate,
And laughed,
And smiled,
And looked at each other…

We never thought
To look to God.

It only makes sense that
God must be smiling
Since we finally got
What our flesh wanted.

So, for a moment,
We were happy
Eating the quail
We thought we needed.

And in between bites
I think I heard
Someone dare to ask
Whether God’s desires
Actually matched
Our cravings.
And whether
God answering our prayer
Was really a sign
That He lives
To make us happy.

But to tell the truth
Our bellies were too filled
To give this strange notion
Much thought.

So we feasted,
Blissfully ignorant
That God 
Never served
Our last supper
With a smile.

By Brian Holda
10/7/19 

So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah [literally Graves of Craving], because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving.

(Numbers 11:34)