Let Me Not Be Proud

Here’s another hymn from Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Year of the Flood:

Oh let me not be proud, dear Lord,

Nor rank myself above

The other Primates, through whose genes

We grew into your Love.

A million million years, Your Days,

Your methods pass discerning,

Yet through your blend of DNAs

Came passion, mind, and learning.

We cannot always trace Your path

Through Monkey and Gorilla,

Yet all are sheltered underneath

Your Heavenly Umbrella.

And if we vaunt and pull ourselves

With vanity and pride,

Recall Australopithecus,

Our Animal inside.

So keep us far from worser traits,

Aggression, anger, greed;

Let us not scorn our lowly birth,

Nor yet our Primate seed.

-From the God’s Gardeners’ Oral Hymnbook (Margaret Attwood)