The Day After Sunday by Phyllis McGinley

The Day After Sunday
By Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)

"Always on Monday, God's in the morning papers,
     His Name is a headline, His Works are rumored abroad.
Having been praised by men who are movers and shapers,
     From prominent Sunday pulpits, newsworthy is God.

On page 217, just opposite the Fashion Trends,
     One read at a glance how He scolded the Baptist a little,
Was fir with the Catholics, practical with the Friends,
     To Unitarians pleasantly noncommittal.

In print are His numerous aspects, to: God smiling,
     God vexed, God thunderous, God whose mansions are pearls,
Political God, God frugal, God reconciling
     Himself with science, God guiding the Camp Fire Girl.

Always on Monday morning the press reports
     God as revealed to His vicars in various guises-
Benevolent, stormy, patient, or out of sorts.
     God knows which God is the God God recognizes.

[Published in The New Yorker in 1952.]

"What God lacks is conviction - stability of character.  He ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something - not try to be everything."
-  Mark Twain

"It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity .... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods."
-  George Santayana