What Will Happen to G!d?

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

I have often asked myself 

a seemingling unanswerable question.

Often, I have wondered,

What will happen to G!d,

in the not-so-distant future,

when all of us earthlings

will have perished,

when, as a result of our plundering

of this precious Earth,

we will have gone the way of the dodo bird

and the passenger pigeon?

What will happen to G!d?

I have wondered out loud,

and I have pondered in the quiet of my heart.

With the Torah or the Talmud open before me,

their ancient black letters

speaking to me from the past,

I have wondered.

In the woods alone,

among the trees and beside the water,

watching the sunset,

listening to geese,

I have wondered,

What will happen to G!d

when we earthlings are gone?

In the evening,

when the sun has set 

but the darkness we earthlings have banished hasn’t come,

I have wondered.

In the quiet of the night,

when many sleep

and few are listening

as a distant owl hoots,

I have wondered,

What will happen to G!d?

In the bustle of the city,

with cars and buses honking,

trains and trolleys rushing,

voices of many languages speaking,

accents expressing myriad thoughts,

people of every hue

purposefully, or aimlessly,

going about their business,

I have wondered,

What will happen to G!d

when we earthlings are gone,

our demise

the result of our plundering 

of this precious Earth?

As candles flicker before me,

welcoming a day of rest and celebration,

when my heart quiets after a week of work

and peace settles over my home,

I have wondered,

What will happen to G!d

when we earthlings are gone?

And every time, in every place,

the same answer has welled up within me,

every time

in every place

I have heard,

I have felt,

I have experienced,

the same answer.

G!d will endure.

G!d will survive.

G!d will always be.

Brokenhearted,

filled with grief,

but ever-resilent,. 

the Mystery,

the Spirit,

the Wonder

will abide,

never forgetting,

always remembering,

when we earthlings 

are gone.

Rabbi Katy Allen is the founder and rabbi of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope, which holds services outdoors all year long, and the co-founder and President pro-tem of the Boston-based Jewish Climate Action Network. She is a board certified chaplain and serves as an Eco-Chaplain and the Facilitator of One Earth Collaborative, a program of Open Spirit, and is a former hospital and hospice chaplain. She received her ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion in Yonkers, NY in 2005 and lives in Wayland, MA, with her spouse, Gabi Mezger, who leads the singing at Ma'yan Tikvah.