From Stone To Heart

Stone to scroll to codex to heart — 

God's law copied over, right from the start, 

with no regard for how people evolve, 

no context considered, no problems to solve.

First, stone — for a people of chaos, no smarts, 

every detail they needed chiseled in parts: 

how to eat, how to grieve, how to relate, 

how to stand before God and not meet their fate.

But time passed and people learned, so you'd think 

they'd employ their own agency, pause at the brink — 

instead rulers piled on more honey-do's, 

scroll after codex, more rules, more taboos.

We just clutched them, performed them, 

into pretzels we twisted — 

separate meats, don't walk too far, 

don't do work, but if loopholes existed,

Rest on the sabbath, slaughter the lamb, 

wash your hands, wash your hands — 

Do it because I said so, ma'am. 

The rote recompense of it, evident futility, 

everyone losing the point of utility.

But God saw

and knew what was needed 

was not another addition 

but a culling — 

a radical compression, 

a decision.

the way we reduced 

computer programming 

to zeros and ones, 

God rolled up the whole of the law. 

Distilled it, reduced it — 

no more chisels, no scroll, no more flaws — 

and wrote it not on stone nor on paper

but wrote it on the heart:

Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself.

The law didn't disappear. 

It came home to roost — 

every command ever written 

fulfilled, introduced 

into just these two rules.

So do them.

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