Month: May 2021

Under the Influence

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

My head moves more fluidly (inside and out) after a smattering of beer—usually about half a bottle of Moose Drool. I achieve similar results by playing with the right amount of paint, rusted metal, knotty slabs of wood, rocks, or dirt. The right amount of God is a different formula. It ranges from less than none to cosmic tons.

“What do you mean, similar results?” God asks lazily from the kitchen where he’s adding a lot of cream to his coffee.

“Hmmm. Let me think about that,” I say, as if I’m going to answer. I’m sipping my Moose Drool, adjusting my lists, and enjoying the bright yellow birds hopping around in our diversely-cultured front yard. God melts through the window and into the lawn so quietly the birds don’t even notice they are now hopping around on God’s chest. This tickles God. He tries to hold still but the earth trembles. The great heart of God is gathering force as it comes apart in the dirt.

The trick with God is to stall. He’s got the worst case of attention deficit disorder ever. Humans with attention problems face a lot of challenges, but with God, it’s just another glorious day of goldfinches flitting across the wide expanse of everywhere at once.

Ah ha! Everywhere at once. That’s it. That’s my answer. The result of just enough paint, canvas, rock, metal, or beer is the momentary assurance that I’m in the right river, and I’m not going to drown. I’m everywhere and everyone. connected but alone, safe and in mortal danger; and I accept this eternally transitory condition as my own. As God. As a bright yellow bird.

“God,” I shout. “I have it!”

God surfaces and blinks. He’d fallen asleep among the holy invisibilities of existence. “You have what?” he asks, not fully awake.

“I have your answer,” I say, disappointed at his apparent confusion.

God scratches his rangy head. “I think I forgot the question, honey. Sorry about that.”

“God,” I say. “Sometimes, it seems like you’re not paying any attention to me at all. You’re too busy enjoying the yellow birds.”

 “You’re right. You’re absolutely right,” God admits with a guilty grin. “They’re so beguiling and fragile. So perfect and temporary. But then, so are you. I’ll try harder.”

“O.K.” I agree. It’s time to get dressed. I put on my bright yellow pants and a yellow hoodie.

“Look!” I shout to God from my yellowness. “This should make it easier for you.”  I’ve also added hot pink high-tops to my outfit. We both think this is very funny.

Settling

Rita Sommers-Flanagan10 Comments

There are short-lived truths that go sour, longer truths that offer comfort but eventually wear out like a well-loved quilt, and eternal truths that hide among the bulrushes, debts, and sanctuaries. Physical punishment or harsh words will stop unwanted behavior in its tracks, but the motives will dive underground and propel from below.

“Ok,” God says, “Then grace is like a shovel.”

Your offspring don’t own you, and you don’t own your offspring, and we are all the offspring of many. Boundaries are a constant negotiation, but we trundle along, fostering and adopting, breaking and healing, astonished and befuddled; the urges and joys of reproduction writ large.

“Of course,” God says. “My image in the darkened glass.”

There are forces that undermine balance, reduce generosity, and recast restraint as shameful. The meaning of enough is flattened by trucks exceeding the speed limit. Avarice can be dressed up to look like self-care, and acquisition is a seductive master, a damsel in distress, a mirage of power.

“Yes,” God says. “And forgiveness is a home-cooked meal.”

Fear is a natural response to the threat of pain, death, or humiliation. Belligerence is also a natural response. Hatred is the venom produced by fear and belligerence. The poison flows both directions—outward and inward.

“True,” God sighs. “And the antidote…”

God’s voice fades. I lean in, hoping God just needs to clear her throat or something. God is going to say the antidote is love, right? Or maybe compassion, or courage, or sacrifice? Silence reigns. No singing river. No chattering birds. No traffic. No wind. Not even the distant opening or closing of doors.

“Is this it? The antidote is nothing?” I think to myself.

“Noooo,” my inner self protests. I realize I’m dangerously close to settling for a short truth, even if i know it will grow bitter with time, even if I know it will lose its shape like cheap underwear. As long as it disguises the taste of the poison in my mouth–I don’t care.

I look straight into the vibrant universe and hope for a reassuring word.

“Sorry,” God finally says. “I’m all out of platitudes.”

“I don’t mind,” I say, thrilled that God has spoken. “I can handle that. Have a nice day.” I chuckle.

“You crack me up,” God says, laughing. We stand face to face, our foreheads touching, eyes closed, breathing. Then we link arms and walk to the garden to plant a few more marigolds among the rows of kale.

Hair

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

Human hair is fascinating. We’re not nearly as furry as our ancestors and cousins, but we still sprout the stuff. Left alone, it signals everything from how old you are to how well you slept last night. But of course, we don’t leave it alone. We cover it, color it, play with it, yank it out, let it sluff off, implant, extend, shave, curl, straighten; We cut it, dreadlock it, donate it, and occasionally douse it to kill off the lice.

We’re sometimes born bald. We sometimes die bald. I was yanked from the womb early with forceps that left my head badly misshapen. Fine tufts gradually grew in, and my hair was unremarkable for decades. But then God let cancer have a go at me, and the chemo stripped it all back off.

“What???” God says, emphatically.

“Yes, all of it. Legs, arms, eyebrows, privates…”

“I know what you mean, but ‘God let cancer have a go?’ C’mon. Is that really how you see it?”

“What other way is there?” Me, arms crossed. God, preening in the mirror.

I don’t want platitudes for an answer. In my limited view, if God is God, then that’s that. Good and evil might seem definable in the moment, but as time in our mortal bodies passes, clarity fades and boundaries blur. Any kind of loss, torture, crucifixion, or disease takes a terrible toll. But endings, unsettlings, baldings, and pain often provide the energy necessary for rebirth, joy, peace, and health.

“True,” God says. “But even that isn’t the whole story.”

“So, then what’s the whole story?” I ask. But I have a pretty good idea what God is going to say.

“There is no such thing as a whole story,” God says, with a grin larger than necessary. “The wholeness of the story is in the process. There are no tragic or happy endings, because there are no endings.”

“I knew you were going to say something impossible like that,” I say. “And you know they feel like endings, right?” I tip my head to the side and add, “At least you didn’t blame anyone.”

God touches my face, kisses my head, and nods. “Nice chatting, but I need to go now. I’ve got a hair appointment. Just a trim, but I’m thinking of adding strands of purple here and there.”

God is beautifully grey, but purple will be a nice addition. And as for me, my hair’s been more or less back for five years now. I’m into bleach and occasional blue, but I have tubes of red, green, pink, and turquoise at the ready. I like having choices, but–here’s a small confession—if I don’t like the outcomes, it’s nice to have God around to help me reconfigure.

Nothing to be Done

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Sometimes I take God by the neck and shake him until he goes limp and falls like rain and dust and shards of stained glass at my feet—a deadly mix of elements within my power to restore but broken and unlikely. I walk away barefoot, continually astonished at the human propensity to self-destruct.

Usually, the high wind warnings are accurate. Anything of value or consequence must be weighted down or be lost. But somehow the birds stay light and navigate the currents of air with enviable grace. It’s easy to resort to anger. It’s tempting to bow down to lesser gods and find temporary nourishment by eating the tender parts of your own soul. Tempting, but not wise. This morning, I pause and chew my thumb nail instead. Penitent. Pensive. Wishing I had the patience of Job or the dark wings of Kali.

God assembles himself. I keep my hands in my lap. God swivels his hips. I nod noncommittally. God leans in and whispers, “I can tell you where the chickens are hiding their eggs.” He’s flirting. I resist.

“I can predict the next storm,” he says. I shrug.

“Hell, I can control the next storm,” he adds, trying to get a rise out of me. It works.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” I ask, exasperated. “Do you not understand how hard that is to hear? You can control a storm but not an army? You can make it rain, but things die of drought and starvation?”

When I’m like this, sometimes God gets irritable and defends himself, claiming to suffer along with everyone else. Sometimes, God gets all loving and huge and tries to instill hope. And sometimes, God just takes a single sip of my dark morning beer and waits.

And I wait. And the silence reminds me of wonder. And the slow-moving clouds remind me of water. And I remember the unusually fat worm I dug up yesterday. Of their own volition, my calloused hands come together in a kind of praise—a grudging acceptance of very thin skin.

There’s nothing to be done about God. Ground cover only lasts so long. Light breaks through. Dirt blows in. Rain eventually falls and the magical seeds sprout; rhizomes shoot along in the dark until they surface uninvited. The tenacity is a splendor and a curse.

“You remind me of quackgrass,” I tell God, breaking our shared revery.

“Funny,” God says. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

Goodwill

Rita Sommers-Flanagan8 Comments

Today, I am wearing polka dot pants and a striped shirt. My hair is bedheaded in an unattractive way and my black and green socks feature a famous golfer. Yes, I’ve been to the church of Goodwill again, and as usual, God was present in abundance. I had to leave, but it was clear that God planned to stay until closing. While I was there, he managed to load five carts full of treasures as he chatted up the Russians and a shy woman who looked Asian. He commiserated with the disabled man and paid for three people’s purchases.

I don’t know what he did when the store closed for the night, but I came back to this borrowed house in this borrowed town and did laundry. We’re here because my friend Max is clinging, perhaps unwillingly, to the last strands of a well-lived life. At present, I’ve hidden myself upstairs to write and think. I hope God doesn’t come by. I’m preoccupied and sad, and it would be tedious to review all his finds.

“Tedious?” God says, incredulous. “You might be the slowest learner ever. How long have we been acquainted?”

“Depends,” I sigh. “At least half-a-century. But if we go with Psalms 139, then longer.”

For some reason, God thinks this is funny. Maybe I do too. Or maybe not. Who wants to count up every second they’ve breathed the rarefied air of this good earth? Music from downstairs drifts up. “I love it when you sing to me,” croons David Gabriel, singing Steven Merritt’s song, The Book of Love. It’s part of the Zoom pub quiz process that ends this semester’s happiness class. My job is to stay offline and out of sight. I’m fairly good at both, but I’m worried about God. He’s in a mood.

“Should I sneak down and wink at everyone on the screen?” God asks. “Or just check my Facebook page and download megabytes of things?”

“No,” I say firmly. “You’d bump him offline, and if you show up, you’ll cause trouble.”

“Exactly,” God says. “I’d like that.”

“What makes you happy, God?” I ask, hoping to distract him.

“Money,” God says. I roll my eyes. “Doing whatever I feel like doing. Driving a fast car. Taking more than my share. Getting drunk and stoned and all messed up. Keeping my wife pregnant.”

“Stop it,” I say, plugging my ears. This is not the time for irony.

God shrugs. “You asked,” he says. “Want to see some of my stuff? I found three navy blue shirts, this hat, and…” He glances at my face and stops mid sentence. His voice cracks. “There’s nothing more either of us can do,” he says. “Death will come when it comes.”

“But you’re hanging out there, right?” I manage to say.

“I can’t believe you’re even asking,” God says. But he says it in a soft, kind voice. It’s then that I notice the logo on the shirts and the baseball hat. Mariners. Max’s favorite team.