Month: June 2023

Time is Money and Money is Everything

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

“You’re pretty thick-skinned,” I tell God as we sip our morning beers. “I’m jealous.”

God sighs. “Don’t be ridiculous. My skin is so thin it’s translucent. You can see my veins pulsing.”

“Ugh!” I exclaim. “I don’t like talking about veins.”

“I know,” God says. “So let’s talk about that man on the news that got you all riled up.”

“The one who said time is money and money is everything?” I ask. “Because yeah, I hated that. For your sake.”

God laughs. We clink bottles and watch as the river rises and the earth gasps for breath. How much money would it take to clean up our mess? To feed a billion children? What does it cost to build tanks, drones, and bombs? How much, God? How much money to defeat evil or save a single soul?

God raises an eyebrow. “Money does not buy redemption or defeat evil.”

“I know,” I snap. “But it buys food. And weapons. Like Mark Twain said, I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.”

“So you’re saying money is everything?” God asks.

“I don’t know what I’m saying,” I admit.

God’s cadence slows. “Money and time are seductive, addictive distractions, but time is not money, and of course, money is not everything. Money might buy you votes or a short journey through the house of distorted mirrors, but life eventually comes down to focus and flow. Acceptance and gratitude. Servanthood and humility. Depending on motive, a vow of poverty can be as pointless as vaults full of gold.”

I gaze at the Servant on my sofa who repeatedly urges me to choose generosity and compassion. She’s a willow with rotting roots, a hatched egg in a dislodged nest, erosion, eruption, and an ever-expanding circularity.

“Are you on my side?” I ask.

“No,” the Servant says, laughing again. “Are you on mine?”

“I would be if I knew what your side was,” I say.

“Well-said,” the Servant nods. “But I need no one on my side. I’m God. You need to be on your own side. The side that might save this little planet you call home and this funky species you call human.”

“But we need help!” I say, anger rising in my throat.

“Yes, you do,” God agrees. “That’s why I’ve sent the drag queens, the nonbinary, the folk of color, the truth-speakers, the scientists, the artists, the poor, the meek, and the gentle.”

“But they aren’t enough,” I say, despairing.

“So it appears,” God agrees sadly. “So it appears.”

Would You Like Me Better as a Bird?

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

Photo Credit: Scott Wolff

Sometimes God could try to be a little nicer. More fully present. Sure, there are days when we get along fine, but other days God goes silent, and I feel like the world is all my fault. For-profit prisons. Liars worshipped. Migrants capsized. Socialism demonized. Women as chattel and baby machines. The earth abused for our comfort.

On these days, I stomp, kick, and scream. I don my self-righteous armor, mount my trusty steed, and aim my lance at the nearest dark-web, conspiracy-theory, Fox-watching neighbor. This only happens in my head, but even so, I’m surly and unpleasant. Which is ironic since it likely reduces God’s motivation to stop by.

Then I notice the birds. The spectacular seed-eating bug-eating preening singing chirping flocking soaring birds. They are so present, so varied, so temporary. I see God letting them hop on her chest, giggling because it tickles. I see God lining their nests with sacred down. I see God in the lift of their wings. I see God dangling from their beaks. Their blithe innocence is sleek and beautiful.

Even in my ragged unbelief, in my sad and porous bones, I know that no sparrow falls alone. The hairs on my head, the lilies and dandelions, the war-ravaged children, the unsheltered, unloved, unknown. The conscripted. The billions unwillingly born. We’ve all been absorbed in the ocean of Knownness. Swelling buds, the receding tide: illusions of the highest order. We are figments of God’s imagination, players in a dream dreamed by God. I often think I want to free myself, but it seems I have no wings.

Is this my fatal flaw? Is this why I get mired in unlove?

Would you love me more if I could fly? I fling the question into the void, expecting only an echo back, but the Void quickens, and laughter cascades down like lava, vivid orange and dangerous.

“Oh, little fool,” the Void says. “You know I love you as much as you’ll allow.”

I tear up. There is a long, pregnant pause. Then the Void whispers, “And baby, you may not remember, but you have always known how to fly.”

This should be good news, but it frightens me.

I consider the wings of the morning and the skeletal lightness of being while young robins jump around under the lilacs to gain the strength they need to fly. Malignant tendrils of greed give way to the released and rising outbreath of the dead. The Void is right. I have always known how to fly.

Weeding

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

God and I are in jovial moods today, philosophizing aimlessly as we work in the garden. My new thrift-store pants are perfect for pulling weeds on my knees, and the weeds are loose because it’s muddy.

I don’t love weeding, no matter how easily the weeds pull. I wonder if there are robots programmed to pull weeds yet. I bet they won’t like it either. Or will they?

“Will robots eventually have souls?” I ask God. “Or do they already?”

“Depends on what you mean by soul,” God says. “Do you think soul is a limited commodity? Soul flows into whatever you touch, play with, or program. It isn’t confined. It isn’t zero-sum.”

This does not surprise me. I talk to rocks, and sometimes in their own ways, they mirror back an answer. I pat the dashboard of my vehicle. I thank my eyes, ears, and knees for hanging in there, and I swear at the Internet, mildew, and uneven surfaces as if they are choosing to cause harm or hurt me. I speak politely to Alexa.

Notions of soul, volition, culpability, choice, and human cruelty roll around in my head. There are people far worse than invasive weeds. I think of them as soulless.

“Is it possible to spring a soul leak and dry up?” I ask.

“Yes, unfortunately, soul hemorrhaging happens,” God says. “It’s usually caused by fear or the lust for power. But unlike O-negative blood, there’s an endless supply of soul, available for the asking.”

The image of God at a soul-donation center, sleeve rolled up, needle forever embedded in the rich vein, liters of soul being rushed out the door…this makes me laugh. And cry. And even though I often donate my O-negative blood, I’m needle-phobic, so this imagery is making me a little woozy.

God notices me fading and embodies the mountains to distract me. Warms into sunlight to comfort me. Uses the iris to top off my soul with a generous splash of purple. This steadies me. I rise to the occasion of the unfolding day, knowing it will require kindness when I don’t feel kind. Patience. Generosity.

“Hey, God,” I say. “Could you make sure whoever is programming whatever is coming next values compassion over profit, mercy over revenge, humility over victory, and collaboration over hierarchy?”

“It can’t be absolute, sweetheart,” the Programmer says. “But these will always be options. Always have been. Always will be.”

Audacity

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

The first day of another week arrived and God declared it good. The chickens have learned to use their new ramp and now vie with the pigs for attention and treats. The pigs are smarter; the chickens are faster and more easily airborne. Relationships always require compromise and tradeoffs. Even God’s and mine.

God is smarter, faster, and more easily airborne. But I’m tenacious.

“So am I,” God declared. “Let’s just enjoy these old lilacs for a bit, shall we? They’re as tenacious as we are.”

We sat on displaced cement steps going nowhere and marveled at the prolific purple blooms, blue sky, apple blossoms, and the speed of dandelion growth. Because I associate lilacs with Memorial Day, I brought to mind dead friends and wondered when I would be joining them. God brought to mind babies and urged me to consider their fat little legs kicking, their loose, drooly mouths smiling.

Thanks to the expansive air and insistent green of spring, I found I could hold the babies and my dead loved ones in the same space, and a profound sense of gratitude arose that surprised God as much as it surprised me.

“Nice,” God said. “That’s some impressive space you’re holding there.”

“I know. Some days, I’m so damn impressive I can hardly stand it.”

“But other days…” God gave me a look. Was it shaming? Understanding? Predictive?

I shot God an equally quizzical look. “What are you getting at?” (If you want to maintain healthy relationships, it’s better to ask than assume. But with God, there will often be too many answers or none at all.

Our newest apple tree has not recovered from the wind-whipped trip home. We should have protected it better. The hours remaining in my life will bring opportunities for despair, kindness, contemplation, meanness, largeness, smallness, giving, and withholding. The pigs will demand more food than is good for them. They’ll squeal and squabble. The chickens will scratch for worms. There will be blooming and going to seed.

God is the pollinator, the fertile idea, the distorted reflection, the broken door. How could I possibly expect a coherent answer?“

“Ah, but you keep asking, and I adore you for that,” God said. “You’re not just tenacious. You’re audacious.”

God’s right. How dare I break my realities into so many pieces, or twist verbatims into poems? But with such a photosynthetic God, how dare I not?

The lilac branches swayed as God summoned a flock of goldfinches, and together they flew toward the glaring, generative sun, leaving me and my audacious tenacity sitting content in a fragrant lavender haze of seedlings and ancestors.