Tell me about The Lord

“Tell me about The Lord” was written when I sat down and thought about God -and peoples’ relationships with God. I wondered how we find religion and the role parents play in our religious views. I wondered how parents helped mold their children’s views.
After much deep thought, I realized how unhelpful my parents were in answering my questions about God. They never said much about religion or God; and when asked about whom God was and what he did, they barely answered any of my questions. Sometimes, they gave me the cynical “You ask too many questions,” as a response. Thanks to bible thumping grandmothers, my parents, siblings, and I all know who God is; but I can speak for us all when I say that we don’t really know God. I wrote the poem below to show that some adults –like my parents- can’t talk about God because they don’t really know or understand Him either.

Tell me about The Lord
By: Briana Coombs


And the little girl said,
“Mommy, what does God do?”
Her mother turned around
and smiled.
“God made everything.
You, me, the animals, the trees;
He did everything
-even this meal”
Her mother turned back to the stove
and continued to fix dinner.

But the little girl was not done.

As she set the old, battered
kitchen table
with paper plates
and plastic utensils, she kept thinking.
And once every place had been set,
the little girl started again.
“But Mommy,
what does he do now
after you and me,
after the animals and the trees,
and after dinner?”

Her mother paused,
she turned off the stove and
knelt down in front of her little girl.
Then the mother simply stated that
“God’s work was never done.”
and went back to the stove.

For awhile,
the kitchen was silent;
the child accepted defeat and
preoccupied herself with trivial things.
Coloring, blocks, imaginary friends
But then her father came home.
He entered the kitchen
Looking worked and tired.

And the little girl said
“Daddy, what does God do?”

The father made his way to the table
and plopped down in a chair
-not blankly-
he thought about the question.
No answer.
So he looked at his wife,
She looked back.

But no answer could be found between them.