Rise! Oh, Mighty Jupiter;
Our Father now forgotten.
Come claim your rightful reverence.
Your pagan pedigree misgotten.
You were once our Shining Father;
Great King of all the Sky.
But you allowed your world to set
so a new Son could arise.
Zeus once ruled before you, and
Jesus became your heir.
Today not many realize
how we got from here to there.
I have considered for some moments
how our thoughts of god do change.
Plural notions of so long ago,
today can seem so strange.
We like to think we've come so far,
since those pagan days of yore.
Have we abandoned superstition
or just embraced it even more?
It was millennia ago
that Zeus ruled Mount Olympus.
He, their leader, more than father,
often beaten by hubris.
The Greeks, they worshiped leaders,
seeking standing in this forum.
Such desires, democratic
became their gods that ruled before them.
As the centuries moved on,
your new Latin home was Roma.
Your title too, transformed
to reflect a new persona.
To Zeus we added "Father",
or in Latin, pater, we prefer.
So Zeus, becomes Zeus-pater,
Zupater, then Jupiter.
Our names for gods reveal
exactly how they fill our needs.
Over time our needs evolve
and so a new name supersedes.
As Rome aged, it developed
a need to know god as a man.
To be one of his number.
To see themselves as of his clan.
This zeus, he can be talked to,
can be greeted and be known.
They "Hail Zeus" as HeyZeus.
And now its Jesus on the Throne.
Through such inquests we can see
the needs Gods fill evolving,
from cold, covetous Kings
to a begotten Son absolving.
We imagine in the Heavens
things to help us understand,
how a universe so endless
can be the realm alone of man.