Author: Rita Sommers-Flanagan

I'm a relative newcomer to blogging, but have 3 sites, each representing a distinct aspect of what matters to me. One is more or less professional, with large doses of personal thrown in. As Dr. Bossypants, I am dedicated to nonjudgmental authenticity. Dr. Bossypants values honest interactions aimed at positive growth and well-being. The truth is an evolving concept, but that is no excuse for not seeking close approximations! The Short Visits with God site is dedicated to a wild kind of honesty and connection with the Divine. It's my poems, prayers, and parables site.... It's wrestling, like Jacob, with Someone/Something so Holy, so enormous, so loving that sometimes, She lets me win. And someday, soon, I'll allow you to meet 8 articulate Baby Boomers just dying to give you pieces of their minds! Ah...the blogosphere...

Where Things Break Down

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“Do you mind if I call you Allah for a while?” I asked my old friend often referred to as God.

“Of course not,” she said. “I’ve been called worse.”

I was hoping Allah might ask me why so I could explain my longing for humans to be more forgiving and inclusive, but she just sat at the edge of my peripheral vision grooming and preening, completely self-absorbed. This irritated me, but then I thought, why not be self-absorbed if the Self you are absorbed in is the energy behind DNA, the Big Bang, dark matter, the molecular miracles of sperm, egg, tastebuds, vision, synapses, light, friendship, sacrifice, and transformation. Why not?

“I’ll tell you why not,” Allah interjected. “Absorbed is the wrong verb. I’m self-expulsive. I have self beyond self. I wear more hats, circle more stars, shape myself into more curvilinear spaces than you can possibly imagine. But I like it when you open your mind and try. Keep up the imagining. Climb high.

“When I was younger, I had no fear of heights,” I said. “But now I get vertigo.”

“I know,” Allah said. “And it’s wise to be cautious. I can’t promise to catch you when you fall.”

“I’m already falling,” I said.

“Me, too,” Allah said.

“Why?” I asked. “You’re falling voluntarily, aren’t you?

“Of course. But I’m lonely. Misunderstood. And…”

I held up my hand, signaling Allah to stop talking. I was feeling sick. Vertigo does that to me.

“Do you mind if I call you duckling for a while?” Allah asked, kindly changing the subject. “Or maybe cuddle-buddy?

“Do you mind if I call you Absurd instead of Allah?” I responded, smiling a little through the haze of my human frailties and foibles. The vertigo settled.

Then without warning, Absurd grabbed my arm and pulled me into a headfirst dive. The speed of our descent peeled back the skin on our faces.

“See?” she shouted.

“See what?” I shouted back.

“Falling together isn’t that bad,” she answered with a thin-lipped grin.

“Stop this nonsense,” I pleaded.

“Can’t,” Absurd said. “It is what it is.”

She pulled the cord, the chute opened, and the moments of the coming day rolled out beneath us. We landed on a spongy, rotting heap of bad intentions, false hopes and broken promises.

“What’s this?” I asked, trying to scrape the sticky substance off my shoes.

“Compost,” she said. “Where things break down and get another chance.”

Oil and Gas: Nectar of the Gods

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Millions of years ago, on this evolving planet, tiny animals and plants died, sank to the bottom of the swampy waters, and were gradually pressurized into coal, oil, and other nasty-seeming substances.

Quite recently (in geologic time) humans began to play with fire and found it helped to stay warm and cook food. Not long after that, we discovered that digging, drilling, refining, and combusting those nasty substances provided astonishing amounts of energy.

Soon, basketballs, varnish, nylon tents, plastic bottles, airplanes, asphalt, and cozy homes began to seem a birthright for many of us. Even though it’s now obvious that extracting, refining, and burning these nonrenewable deposits of ancient life is dangerous, destructive, and ultimately deadly, we can’t seem to stop.

“Nice summary,” God says. “Though a tad simplified.”

“Fine,” I say. “Go ahead and complexify, God. You always do.”

God offers me an apple and leans back into the gathering clouds.

“I got my first doctorate in chemistry,” he says. “Technically, you should call me Dr. God. But I’m not hung up on titles.”

“Right. Or maybe I should call you Dr. Denial,” I say. “I got my first doctorate in psychology, and you are diagnosable.”

“That’s rich!” God chuckles. “Isn’t your diagnostic system just a primitive description of being alive? Coping?”

“Maybe,” I admit. “But there are better or worse ways to cope. You seem to cope by rolling the dice a lot. And we’re the dice.”

“Vegas, baby,” God jokes, rubbing his hands. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

“Ah, c’mon,” I say. “Not funny.”

God grins. “Fine. Actually, nothing that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. You probably don’t know this about me, but I bathe in untouched oil reserves. I rub Myself with chunks of coal and float in pockets of natural gas. They let me be. I let them be. I love what they were and where they are, but you should leave them alone. They’re not worth the gamble.”

“That horse has left the barn,” I say.

“Oh, I know,” God says. “I got my second doctorate in statistics with a dissertation on probability.”

“So, with our selfish, exploitive, nature, we’re screwed, aren’t we?”

“Likely,” God nods, then adds, “I often root for the underdog, but it doesn’t look promising. I’m working on my third doctorate. It’s in theology. I’m exploring the concept of black holes and infinity, and I’m totally transfixed. Want to be on my examining committee?”

“I think I already am,” I say.

“I knew that,” God says with a big grin. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

Time is Money and Money is Everything

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“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?

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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

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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

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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.

I Eat Your Joy for Breakfast

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God is indulging in a morning nap, sound asleep on a weathered recliner near the garden shed. I’ve noticed that God can sleep pretty much anywhere. But I’m awake and agitated, stewing about climate change, greed, cruelty, and the limited hours at the landfill.

I clear my throat and speak loudly enough to wake anyone within ear shot. “Someone took a huge gamble when they introduced creativity and choice into their evolutionary efforts.”

God startles and sits up. “What now?” he says, rubbing his eyes, raking his fingers through his holy bedhead hair.

“Creativity,” I say. “The bored human is often a deadly human. We need to create and change things up. But then we compare. We get insecure and try to make ourselves more beautiful and have too many children and accumulate vastly more than we need. This leads to overpopulation, scarcity, and war.”

God swings his legs to the side of the recliner, stretches, and groans. “You’re so right. It’s a huge gamble. And yeah, it hasn’t gone that well so far. But it isn’t over.” He sees my scowl and adds, “I mean it’s always over, and it always isn’t.”

He lays back down, situates his hat over his eyes, and pats the space beside him. I perch on the edge. I do not know how to relate to this complacent, laissez-faire God.

“Blur,” he says in a languid voice. “Blur, mingle, melt.”

He means let go. He means he’ll carry me for a while. He intends to be a source of comfort.

“I can’t blur,” I whisper. “I know you have your ways, but I want to do something on my own. I want to make my mark.”

God sits back up. “And there you have it,” he declares.

The profound irony of what I just said hangs in the air between us.

God sighs. “You are still adolescent apes; you need to play. But your marks will all wash away. Remember, the lasting measure of worth is compassion.”

I look down at my hands. God continues. “And the nature of mercy is upside down. The gluttonous will eventually fast. The lips of liars will be purified. It’s all about balance.” He winks and adds, “When you get it right, I eat your joy for breakfast. It’s delicious.”

I stare across the expanse of my life. Finally, I say, “And when you speak, I stir-fry your words for dinner. They’re tasty.” “Fair enough,” God smiles. “That makes me happy.” But as he drifts back to oblivion, I hear him mutter, “Or at least I think it does.”

Missive from the Beautiful, Horrible Moment

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Every morning I sit in the warm, chunky soup of God, my attention split between robins in the garden, clouds on the move, and my fingers poised above the keyboard. God appreciates the opportunity to clown around, but sometimes they take it too far, and I feel left out.

I want God to notice me. I eat dandelions. I pull clumps of quack grass, pretending there’s a chance to eradicate this long-rooted invader. Quack grass is also known as twitch, quick grass, quitch grass, scutch, dog grass and witchgrass. My own pet name for it is Satan. On more generous mornings, I allow for the possibility that it has redemptive features. Not today.

“How about we all float on our backs?” God suggests, flailing happily in the womblike liquid of themselves, ignoring boundaries such as time and space.

I shake my head. The steady pressure of God is eroding my body. The Ever-Presence is a weighted blanket, a hazmat suit, an open invitation to find peace in what is true. I am not a maker of stars, but I am my own tornado. While I’m still able, I will continue spinning through the garden, yanking quack grass to kingdom come.

All the faces of God smile. “Look!” they say. The arms of God bend, fingers pointing every possible direction. I have no idea where to look.

“You’re too inclusive. Too amped. Could we bring it down a notch?” I ask petulantly.

The many fists of God punch the air, and their faces melt like candles into a singular pool where I see my singular reflection and consider my singular fate. The robins appear to be flirting, ready to mate. The aroma of God is intoxicating, but even so, my stiff hands won’t curl around the quack grass anymore.

My friends and family are floating on nearby rivers, hiking their own circuitous trails, and I wish them well. I wish myself well. I wish God well—the Unitary, the Complex, the Galactic–all of them.

“Thank you,” they say harmonically.

“You’re welcome,” I say automatically.

“That’s unlikely,” they laugh. “Our welcome is usually, um, shall we say overstated?”

I nod. “Well, you’re more welcome than quack grass.”

They grin, poking each other in the side. “Score! We’re more welcome than quack grass.”

I realize God is making fun of me, so I issue a slight retraction. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. Depends on the day.”

Short Podcast With You-Know-Who

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Podcaster: Thanks for agreeing to be on my podcast.

God: Glad to be here, but why now?

Podcaster: Well, after spending some years as an atheist, Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) has declared he believes you exist. That’s big. So I thought I’d get you on. Boost my ratings. Go viral.

God: Ah, now I get it. Rainn wrote a nice book, and he’s got a million followers.

Podcaster: Yeah, and his God hasn’t endorsed any massacres or sacrifices. Can you say the same for yourself?

God: Of course.

Podcaster: What’s your name again? I may have you mixed up with a more violent, judgmental God.

God: Understandable. My real name is not something you could understand or even pronounce. You people use a lot of nicknames. Approximations.

Podcaster: Are you the one who guarantees an afterlife but only under certain conditions?

God: Nope.

Podcaster: Are you the one in favor of people killing other people, like in self-defense, or war?

God: Nope.

Podcaster: Are you the one who devalues women? Hates gays? Insists on pregnancies brought to term?

God: Nope.

Podcaster: Are you the one who wants to be praised all the time? Elevated? Worshipped?

God: Nope.

Podcaster: I’m not sure you’re really God. Do you have some commandments or something to prove it?

God: Yep.

Podcaster: Well, that’s a relief. Are there ten of them?

God: Nope. Only two. And they’re for your own good, not mine.

Podcaster: And these are?

God: Love me and love your neighbor as yourself.

Podcaster: That’s a problem right there. You won’t even say who you are. How can I love you?

God: Well, let’s assume I created you and basically everything seen and unseen, and I infused it all with love. Kind of like a perfect mother, if there was such a thing.

Podcaster: Big assumption.

God: Yeah. Well, how about that neighbor thing?

Podcaster: Um, let’s drill down on that. I think I could love a few, select neighbors. Is that enough?

God: Nope.

Podcaster: Do you have any suggestions for how to do that comprehensive love thing?

God: (sighing) Crack open your puny chest, pry open your stubborn mind. Die instead of kill. Lay down your weapons. Cheerfully give all you can give. Find joy instead of fault. Be still. Tender. Humble. Awake.

Podcaster: (snapping God’s microphone off) And that’s it for today, folks. Tune in tomorrow for a rebuttal, led by a panel of experts: The Rich, Lucifer, Judas, Adam, Eve, Kali, Coyote, and others who’ve let their lower natures run amok.

God: (gently touching the cheek of the Podcaster) Got a minute?

Podcaster: (recoiling) Nope.

Monovision

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Due to my astigmatism, I wore hard contact lenses early in life, and those darn little things were easy to lose. It took a long time to get a replacement, so I’d wear the remaining lens and become a one-eyed wonder until the new one arrived. This practice trained my brain to be tolerant of monovision—one eye feeds tolerably clear visual information into the brain while the other contributes only fuzzy approximations.

Decades later I had laser surgery and made this arrangement permanent. One eye tells me about things further away. The other allows me to read without glasses. I suspect my brain works overtime to sort this out, but I’m not conscious of that effort.

Monovision is cool. By simply closing one eye, I can remind myself nothing is ever exactly as it seems. My take on reality is based on the way I see things, but it’s not the whole picture. It’s just one view.

“Right on!” God chimed in as I was mulling this recently. “You would not believe how I look to a housefly.”

“True,” I said. “I don’t even believe how you look to me.”

“Is that so?” God asked. “I thought we were on better terms.”

I closed my left eye. Then the right. I tipped my head and considered looking at God upside down, but the thought made me queasy.

“What are you seeing?” God asked.

“Oh, the usual. Needs, vacancies, denial, anger, fear.”

“No, I mean what do I look like?”

“Old. Improbable. Vast. I wish you looked softer and safer, but you’re too vague.”

“Are all your eyes open?”

“I think so.”

“You’re wrong,” the Ultimate Optometrist said. “But I know you’re trying. Let me adjust these lenses for you.”

“No!” I yelled and backed away. Who wants God adjusting the way they see things? In my haste, I failed to glance behind, so I tripped and fell.

God rushed to my side and helped me up. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure how to answer. My pride was bruised, my fears, fully activated, my body felt fragile and clumsy, but was I hurt?

“That depends on what you mean by hurt,” I said finally. Then with my two eyes open, I looked straight at what I see to be God and added, “Are you real?”            

“Oh, I love how you set me up,” God chuckled affectionately. “That depends on what you mean by God.”