Why?

Why, O Lord, did You make us?

Was there an emptiness in You

that You sought to fill by creating what You lacked?

Such a thing could never be,

for how can emptiness fill itself?

Did Your Being need other beings

        to fill up the measure of Your Being?

Is it not folly to imagine that You could increase Yourself

by adding to Yourself creatures

that were nothing apart from You?

           

Omnipotent Creator of all,

did you possess such an excess of energy

that You were not able to contain it?

Were You forced by Your fullness

to overflow into some other vessel,

a vessel of your own making,

a world fashioned from Your overabundance of being?

Surely, You have power over Your power.

If any being in the universe is capable of self-control,

without a doubt, it must be You.

Why then did You make us,

if You had no emptiness that we might fill,

if You were not bursting with unstoppable energy?

If You were not forced to create, then You simply chose to do so.

What is Your choice, but the action of Your will?

What is Your will, but the expression of Your desire?

What is Your desire, but the direction of Your love?

Therefore, You made us because of love.

Love at its best may give to the needy,

but it does not spring from the need of the Giver.

Creating love is an exercise of Your will,

not an overflow of Your substance.

But who or what was loved

in that time before time began,

and why?