Month: February 2022

The Spiritually Disemboweled

Rita Sommers-Flanagan7 Comments

Today, I am rightfully and terribly sad because nice white adults who would rather live in a democracy are being fired upon, herded, overtaken, terrorized, and killed by a vicious dictator. Likely by the time you read this, the death toll will have reached 1000—maybe far more. And in that same timespan, 30,000 children (mostly not white) will have died of starvation or malnutrition in so-called developing countries. And the poisoning of the planet will have accelerated. Those tanks are not powered by the sun.

My own children are grown and well-fed. At least for now, I live in a democratic republic and can freely express myself. My little corner of the globe is stunningly beautiful. On some days, I am grudgingly grateful. But often, my good fortune makes me want to spiritually disembowel myself. The dentist assures me my teeth look fine, but I think she’s lying. Deep in the night, I imagine I am gnashing my molars down to the gum.

In times like these, God often asks, “Do you want to believe in me at all anymore?” And I say, “Well, yes and no. Mostly no.” And God nods understandingly and pats my head. I yank her arthritic hand away. “Save it for someone who needs it,” I say. And she says okay and sits there on the orange couch waiting for me to realize I am among those who need it. I consider the utter impossibility of believing in anything and the emptiness of believing in nothing, and I grab the vacuum and run it around the living room like a madwoman. This is funny because I hate vacuuming. God grins and plugs her ears. I’ve always suspected she hates vacuuming, too, but with God it’s hard to say. The invention of the vacuum was supposedly a step toward liberation for enslaved womenkind.

I drive the vacuum straight toward God. She is easily pulled in, traveling down the hose in a lump. For a moment, I feel victorious but then, horrified and alone. I turn the vacuum on myself and down I go, right into the dusty arms of the ever-present, ever-waiting God. “Help!” I shout. “I can’t breathe.”

“Stay calm,” God says and hands me an N95. I mask up. Masking is an act of love. What does it mean to love my neighbor? What does it mean to love myself? What does it mean to love creation? It is a dirty, sad, imperfect process–often thwarted or violently opposed–but the alternatives are so much worse.

Naked in the End

Rita Sommers-Flanagan10 Comments

You will be happy to know the accent wall is now midnight blue, the ladder-backed chair rescued from the dump, lime green, gold, maroon, and yellow, and though my life has not gotten noticeably better, I used recycled paint, so there are five fewer dented cans awaiting resurrection in the basement. They are empty. I’m happy. I’m drinking the leftover Malbec wine for breakfast, but I would prefer dark beer. We must all make sacrifices.

Among the things set free by the storm last night are five rotten cottonwoods, one majestic willow, and twenty-six irrigation pipes rattled loose from their line of duty and sent tumbling dangerously through the darkened sky. Those of us left behind have accepted the fact that we will not be able to save the planet by ourselves. The wind has agreed to help but at great cost. Millions of unwilling children have lined up along the shoreline hoping for food. The tide will rise and take them. Their elders will follow. Millions of other species have unwittingly signed on for extinction, simply by being themselves—ugly, simple, and in the way.

For a while, we will fight to save the pandas, the owls, and the wealthy; the beautiful and those who make us laugh. I, for one, will write words infused with angry sympathy for those born into suffering, born with few options, those who then hate, radicalize, and destroy. The war games continue.

I kick at the shins of God, trying to wake them up. This cannot be the Original Intention. I am a foolish Cinderella. They are a flimsy Prince Charming. I am Jack. They are the Giant. I plant magic beans. They are the purveyors of binder weed and quack grass. I install solar panels. They are the sun and patchy morning fog. They are the good witch, the man behind the curtain, the placebo effect. They are a modest chemical reaction, and we are atoms splitting, cloaked in a thick shawl we’ve drawn over our shoulders, thinking it was pure merino wool. It is not. It is denial. I have considered freezing to death instead of protecting myself with lethal and selfish lies. When souls stand naked in the end, truth will be the only shelter. Not power. Not possessions. Not beauty. Not brilliance. Truth is always grounded in humility, compassion, and sacrifice. Sometimes, to practice, I wear clothes thinned to threads by others and endure the brutally cold light for as long as I can.

Inertia

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion. This morning, both God and I are disinclined to change momentum. My feet are warm, my coffee hot, the view familiar. God is hurtling comfortably through space in his version of a Lazy Boy recliner, planets and stars aligned just so. I have no need to bother him. He sighs and settles deeper, ready for a nap. We are both at a loss to explain this uneasy contentedness. It’s not like we’ve achieved perfection. In fact, most efforts toward perfection backfire; thus, by being at rest, maybe we are making progress. And besides, stillness is a mirage. Even if God nods off, digestion continues. Neurons fire. The heart beats. The cosmic clock ticks, and the train leaves the station for parts unknown.

Two years ago, we bought 16 fluffy chicks. There are nine hens left. We gave away the five whites. A racoon got one of the reds, and I killed the rooster. It was self-defense. I was scattering food, unarmed and inattentive. I turned, and there he was, talons bared, eyes sparking with deadly malice. He flew at me. I beat him back and yelled, thinking that would take care of it. He regrouped and attacked with even greater resolve. My benign superiority was replaced with rage. How dare he come after me again? I put my hood up to protect my head, grabbed both of his stringy legs, and whirled his body in the air, using his weight as momentum to smash his head into a nearby cement block. It took three full circles to finish the job. I have few regrets.

My plans for the future include working hard to leave behind sustainable shelter and healthy garden soil. I’ve taken to writing notes to the children of the future, hiding these missives in places they might be found a hundred years from now. A hundred years. A very long time from the perspective of my fingers on the keyboard. Barely a passing twinkle in the eye of God. Barely a twinkle. But for now, God dozes open-mouthed and innocent, and I hold myself faithfully quiet. God needs the rest, and I need the façade of stillness to welcome the coming day and accept the overwhelming complexities of being momentarily assembled in the form I know of as myself.

Preparing for Guests

Rita Sommers-Flanagan8 Comments

Not long ago, God and I were kneading dough, trying to time things so the smell of fresh bread would greet our guests at the door. Homemade sourdough is one of my staples, and I wanted to impress these acquaintances with my earthiness. I had a hunch they were our kind of people.

Most of us need a few homies; a posse, an inner circle of those who know us well enough to hold our fears and failures–and reveal their own. Recently a chunk of our inner circle fell to the forces of mortality, and the wound is still tender, keeping me acutely aware that anyone can fall at any moment and no longer be. God puts the dough in a cool place to slow the rise. She gives me a knowing glance. “You’re ambivalent, aren’t you?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “There are days I think it’s best to be disconnected. Less risk. Less pain.”

“Slight correction, if I may?” God says. “What you mean is that the illusion of being disconnected offers a bit of respite, but…”

I hold my hand up. Mercifully, the Center of All that Is and Isn’t, the Author, the Plot, the Weaver of the Tapestry, the Queen of Connection stops talking. I know where this is headed. I know about Oneness, and I know about loss. Many’s the time I’ve tried to make God understand how it feels to be on my side of the perpetual falling away, but God only sees it as falling into, not away. I think that’s callous and naïve. God thinks I’m tiresome and unsympathetic. So, once in a while, to show God how hard it can be, I sing to her–usually James Taylor’s Fire and Rain–and she cries a little for our sakes. But being the thing we fall into is also hard. She borrows Paul Simon (himself, a borrower of ancient hymns) and sings to me.

“…I’ve often felt forsaken, and certainly misused. But I’m all right, I’m all right. I’m just weary to my bones. Still, you don’t expect to be bright and bon vivant so far away from home, so far away from home.”

And I cry a little for her sake. The best homies remind us we aren’t home, and the wisest among us realize there is no home, only the lonely journey and the shared and cherished resting places. Most dreams have been driven to their knees, but it’s all right. It’s all right. Even when exhausted, God kneels alongside the dream. And shatters with the dream. And sings.

The oven is ready, the table set. We will break bread together, drink leftover wine, and in those rare moments, we will bravely partake of a singular and temporary joy.