Category: Visits with God

Attacking the morning

Rita Sommers-Flanagan5 Comments

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I’ve attacked the morning, vacillating between quiet desperation and grim  determination. God stopped by numerous times yesterday, causing internal turmoil and external chaos. Things went wrong. The septic system backed up, the radios all stopped broadcasting, the window coverings failed, the befuddlement of age scrambled my thoughts. I said sarcastic things, and was almost mean—okay, maybe full-on mean–thus failing the most elementary of God’s little exams. Oh feeble creature that I am. Yes, I can hear the fundamentalist among us quoting Romans to me. Fine. But are you aware that God is both the heckler and the heckled? The wound and the balm? God’s the hot dogs and beer–and God’s the hangover. God’s the 1992 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon with a side of caviar, and the species endangered by such excess. God is the manna, and the little organism that made the manna rot.

Here’s what I say to myself: Get real. Get humble. Get over yourself. Get going.

And God, what do you say?

The alfalfa is vibrant; the sky, hazy. The river runs clear, the turkey vultures eat carrion. All the while, the sun grows more brutal and insistent. God is late. She has that prerogative, but I find it nearly intolerable. In my impatience, I run my hand over my face and half of it falls off. Then the other half. My worst fears explode. I am faceless. Nameless. Alone. An old fool, thinking that I matter in some unique way. Thinking I’m something other than ordinary.

My grandmother once told me I was plain. She met my glare directly, squared her shoulders and added, “But you have piercing eyes, and I like the way you see the world.”

My eyes are still in my head, God. But the world looks jagged. My ears hear sabers rattling. My heart is blunted, predicting disaster, doing nothing. I’m glad my face fell off. I don’t want it anymore.

But the potter has finally arrived. With strong, sure fingers, she takes thick clay soil from an undisturbed spot in the garden and recreates the face I will continue to inhabit. It has loose, permissive skin. She calms my soul and kisses the top of my head. “Take heart,” she says. And I know I will try.

We sit down together on a pallet filled with rusted metal I’ve collected. Survey the stones I’ve gathered. It is the sixth day. “It’s good,” she says, finally. “Very good.” And then she is gone.

Purple Chair

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

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Some weeks ago, I had three ugly chairs to deal with. Donate? Trash? Hide them away in the abandoned chicken house? I also happened to have three small cans of paint. Lime green, purple, and burgundy. And a paint brush, and a what-the-hell attitude. No one I know will live long enough to entirely declutter. Yanking something back from the brink of the landfill is one of my favorite things. This is why God and I relate so well.

Now, in this lonely morning space, the purple one holds my gaze, shiny and redeemed, imperfect but gracious. The worn sofa accommodates my shifting weight, and the three of us form a temporary universe.

To my left, the accusatory past, the glory days, my living children, my dead friends. The seductive urge to rewrite. Compelling grief mingled with steady resurrections made possible because I remember and remember. But I can’t stay long. The urgency of Now will overpower, as it should.

To my right, the slim future bulges with what-ifs and how-abouts. Ungainly opportunities, bloated with longing and contradictions. Oh, I know the future is not an all-you-can-eat affair, but I wish it were. This is brave of me to admit. I’m a greedy hog, wanting unlimited, tasty dishes served to me, day and night, forever.

The purple chair shimmers in light filtered by fire. Thick smoke has hidden the mountain. My lungs are burning and I’ve begun to cry for help, like a child lost. But I’m not lost. I’m centered in this precarious place between myself and a world growing dryer and more flammable in the glaring clarity of heat.

Soon, I’ll lift myself from the stillness and drive, a long solo journey. I’ll fly across expanses that reverberate with a humble God. A dying God. A green God, pregnant with an eternity no one can grasp. But I know a little about it, thanks to the purple chair, and this moment, the fire, and a slew of generous gifts from departed friends and long-forgotten enemies.

It is enough. Oh, wait. One more confession: I always want more than enough. But I’m slowly learning that more than enough can be a very toxic blessing.

Just so. Enough

Sun Stroke

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It is early afternoon. God has arrived wrapped in a comfortable silence, a silence more welcome than river or sky. Profound. Eloquent. Invisible. Soothing. I drink in big gulps, aware of how perilously close I was to sun-stroke of the soul. Here, in the shade, the sweet darkness, the shelter of the womb, I am restored. I curl fetal. Passive. Receptive.

“Hello, weakness,” I say. “Hello, futility. Hello, starkly cold breath of God.”

Silence holds me like a baby. I’m a simple puzzle, easily taken apart. The silence doesn’t mind. I’m easily put back together as well. It’s been unbearably hot lately, an unforgiving sun claiming the right of way, scorching anything exposed. Defying the clouds, reducing the breeze to an occasional sigh. The meaningless heat strips my excuses to the bone. Subtleties melt away, dreams forgotten. The God of heat is relentless, deadly. The only way to survive is to find the darkness and repent. Crawl down, dig deep, sink into a place below the surface, where shadow befriends the weary.

God politely waves from a respectful distance, leaving the holy silence unmarred. I wave back. God pulls the silence closer and shakes it a little, like someone fluffing a pillow. God likes it here in this moment. In this nothingness. I’m glad we’re both at ease. I put as much gratitude into my gaze as I possibly can. Then God and I nod off. A little siesta, a full relinquishment of our ambitions and fears. We give up together, letting the afternoon be whatever it might be. We rest.

There’s a dark night just over the horizon, and after that, more sun. I’m vaguely aware of this, but I stake no claim on what might come. God’s breathing has slowed, deepened. Like my own, it rattles a little on the exhale.

God Dead in Yemen

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

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(Photo from Reuters News)

I had an appointment with God, set up for 9:30. She no-showed. I called to remind her, but got no answer. Three times, I called. Finally, a sleepy voice explained that  appointments with God are not a sure thing. God’s calendar isn’t set in stone. The voice suggested that I could either make another appointment, or open my eyes. Neither sounded like a good solution, so I turned on the news, sat back, and drank beer. The news was a mistake. And possibly, the beer.

In Yemen, for instance, I watched as my Big God became a little bag of bones before he died into himself. Bird legs twitching in the nurse’s arms, torso etched with ribs, beyond hunger, his eyes glazed over and he was gone. Out beyond where I can reach, he walked through the thin veil, fell, and died. I know the place where they’ve taken him. And like it or not, we will meet there someday.

The Sufi poet, Rumi, wrote, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.”

But I’m not in a Rumi mood. I’m in a throw things kick things fuck it damn it shit storm fury at myself and all my fellow human-fucking-beings who cannot seem to get it together enough to make sure children are fed and safe. And yes, you too, you No-showing, Big-eyed God, Big hungry God, Big creator, Big sufferer, Big idea. How many miserable, awful, torturous deaths are you going to attend before you call this whole thing off?  Were you too busy dying of starvation to stop by? You in them, you in me, them in me. I, who have never known hunger, cannot look away.

God, wherever you are, I would like to remind you how insignificant and helpless I am. How sarcastic and selfish, how thwarted and inhibited. I’m tired, too. And disgusted. Thoroughly disgusted. Rich people make me sick. They make you sick too, don’t they? Well, not all of them. But why isn’t it enough that we’re trying? Can’t you help out a little? Or a little more? Flowers are nice. Food is better.

Finally, God seeps under the door. “About time,” I shout. But she’s wounded.

“Water,” she whispers. I run for a glass, and hold it to her lips. She drinks gratefully, and falls asleep in my arms. The wounds are superficial, but the blood is thick and red. She is so thin. So very, very thin.

Her eyes slip open. “We’re more alike than you think,” she says before drifting back to sleep. I want to protest, or deny it outright,  but I know she’s right. And this is not good news for either of us.

Stillwater Storm

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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I’ve been transfigured by the river–my limbs and roots, light as driftwood, ideas torn asunder, mind and torso smooth as glass. The little that is left of me floats aimlessly while the storm blows me up, sky slashed open, thunder sudden and conclusive.

“I don’t live in your world anymore,” the water whispers.

I nod. “I don’t either.” But I’m reluctant to admit the obvious.

“Who are you?” the water asks. I have no answer.

There’s a small, perfect stone on the bank. I feel confident I’ll remember and come back–I’ll remember and give thanks. Little else will happen in my life but this.

Rain falls carelessly, everywhere. On the just and unjust, the living and the dead. If I wanted to hide, it would be impossible, but why would I want to hide? I am falling as carelessly as the rain, falling into sky. Land recedes below me and the tallest willows wave good-bye. Then the cottonwoods. Neither can be trusted. They’re fooling me again. I know this is the dream they wanted me to have. In this temporary life, we are destined to sleep. It’s just the way we’re made. But if the cradle didn’t fall, would we even need this endless salvation?

“Who wants to sleep?” I ask the trees.

“No one!” they say, too quickly, twisting in the wind.

“And who wants to be awake?” I ask.

“Everyone!” they say. These, too, are lies. Lies told to fools eager to believe.

The wind has died. The rain has stopped. The sky has begun to heal itself. The great arms of God surround the wounded little planet. These arms–a resting place, my ride back home. Nothing has been answered, solved, or saved. But I am cleaner, stripped to the momentary essence of myself. The day will reappear, ordinary. Beautiful. My familiar body will reassemble as I eat my fill of broken, scattered bread and drink from a shallow eddy until my thirst is quenched.

A Smidgen of Atheism

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

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“Here’s something funny to think about,” God said, lounging on the motel bed in Bozeman, shedding innocent dark skin on the bleached sheets. “Short bursts of exercise are good for aging muscles, and short bursts of atheism are good for the soul.”

The previous occupants of this room had left the alarm set. It went off early, an unpleasant throbbing tone, and I was not in a good mood. I was tired. My mind didn’t want to think. My body didn’t want to move.

“Why do you come by like this?” I asked, unwilling to consider anything but my irritation.

God sat up, beautifully naked. She draped herself loosely in the manicured landscaping outside the window, and quoted Ayn Rand. “That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call “free will” is your mind’s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.”

God stressed the words “your mind’s freedom to think or not”

I put a pillow over my head and curled fetal under the covers. God must have read Martina’s blog. I’ve been worried about the state of humanity, and human consciousness for a long time. Are we more than our genes? Is anything our fault, or is it all our fault? I blame God for this confusion. Maybe we’ve evolved too fast. We seem to have stopped thinking. We seem to be arrested, elevating comfort over compassion, allowing simple confusion to muddy the clear waters of the complicated truth. Endorsing selfishness as holy.

I pulled the pillow tighter, but it disintegrated. The flimsy walls fell, and children from Venezuela, Syria, Arizona and Maine, children from concentration camps, war zones, and desperate homes, traded, displaced, abused, malnourished, and frightened–they crawled into bed with me. They should’ve at least bounced and played, but they were too hungry. Too broken. Too angry. They found my left-over Indian food in the wasteful individual refrigerator and smeared me with it. It burned my flesh. I screamed for mercy, for healing. I pleaded with the universe for food and shelter, sanity, wisdom, consciousness, humility, and an end to human greed. Or at least insight into my own.

There’s got to be something, I said to myself, frantic. Something I can do.

I felt as though I was going mad. The small gestures I imagined fell into a black pit of irrelevance. Too little, too late. The children grew quiet and sat with me.

God looked on. And on. The meticulously-planted flowers continued to bloom.

 

 

Click Bait

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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God came roaring up in his 4-wheel drive pick-up, skidded to a halt, slammed the door, and stomped up my newly-poured sidewalk. His hair was on fire. He scorched the lower branches of the chokecherry bushes before he flung open the front door. “Who d’ya think you are, you worthless pieceashit?” he shouted. “Your writing sucks. You can’t speak for me. I’m the Supreme Being. King. Ruler. God Almighty. I speak for My Self. You need to shut your damn trap.”

Something was deeply untrue. My throat tightened, but my disbelief saved me.

“Wrong turn,” I said.

“Like hell,” he yelled, coming for my throat.

I stood my ground, looked him in the eye, and said “Fake news.”

He screamed and writhed like the wicked witch, diluted to shadow.

“How’d you know? How’d you know?” He squealed a dramatic piggy squeal as he sank to the bottom of the inky nastiness at my feet.

I couldn’t explain how I knew any more than I could explain my aching stomach and pounding head. It hurt. Everything hurt. Lies and dark money. Hatred. Malignant neglect. Greed. Ignorance. Threats. Vicious attacks. Click bait. Click bait. Death bait. Hate bait. I named it. I stood with the wounded. I refused to strike back. That hurt too.

“Good work,” the real God whispered. I nodded in complete agreement. It was good work. Hard work. I could see that God had taken the brunt of the hit. She was still a little bent over.

“Why, oh why do you bother with us?” I asked, only half-sincere. “And where do you get the patience?”

“I can’t answer that, honey,” God said. “But you’ll know someday.” She was tired, but there was still a warm light in her eyes.

“Well, forgive me,” I said. “But I seriously doubt it.”

“Doubt’s good,” she said. “Compassion’s better.” Then she drifted to the porch, to my treasured collection of petrified wood. She chose one of my favorite pieces, ate it, and settled down among the beautiful fossils to rest.

“Nooooo,” I wailed. “Not that one. Not there.” But it was too late. She was gone.

Oh, I how I hate being human sometimes, swirling around in our ugly soup, hope against hope, kin against kin. We keep extracting, gorging, and making weapons. How are we going to fix this mess? Compassion hardly gets any clicks at all.

Glimpses

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

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Some people have  indicated they wouldn’t mind meeting up with my co-author, or at least, they hope my descriptions are accurate. Frankly, accuracy is a subjective term, and I wouldn’t wish this particular relationship on anyone. It has aspects that make me feel about as safe as I do when I forget to flip the breaker before installing my latest funky light fixture. Awaiting that final jolt does something to your mind. And there’s despair. Real, chest-smashing despair. Much deeper than the despair currently caused by the evening news. This God. This life. Here are a few recent observations.

God’s a dumpster diver. I don’t mind being seen with God, picking through discarded clothing, sunglasses, and broken toys. In fact, earlier today she gave me three pairs of socks and a scarf she’d fished out with a long stick. And get this—I don’t even need any socks. But she knows how happy I am to deny the landfill one single bite of something not yet entirely used up—something with potential for restoration, renovation, or renewal. I’ll use these socks when I jog, with a defiant spring in my step.

God’s a prankster. Things that look awful might be priceless. Things you think you deserve do not come your way, but things you don’t deserve do. Blessings turn rancid. Curses blossom and bear fruit. He’s very like that, and most of us don’t think it’s all that funny. I suspect God does.

God bewitches and beguiles. Creates and destroys. God answers to no one, but will wait patiently for a chick to hatch or a badly-needed idea to occur. God often walks alone in the rain. Zillions of years have gone by and will go by. Stones have worn down to heart-shaped pebbles, while molten lava shimmers and cools. God isn’t easy. Neither is love.

So, God, do you have anything to add? Um…God? GOD!!! Come back here. I’m sorry. I meant to say you’re not easy in a good way. Who’d want an easy God anyway?

God creeps back, waiting, I think, for a more complete apology. Maybe I left some things out. But it isn’t all up to me. My arms are crossed. God’s arms are loose. My vision is narrow. God’s is wide. My time is finite. God’s isn’t. I can live with that. At least for a while.

We dangle our feet in the raging snow-fed river of Now. The water is brutally cold, but it sizzles and swirls around God’s delicate ankles. She isn’t showing off. That’s just the way she is.

 

Paint

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I caught God in the basement messing around in my modest assortment of half-full cans of paint. Or at least I thought it was God. It was dark, but there was an eerie glow emanating from the far corner that both attracted and frightened me. That’s God in a nutshell.

“What do you think of my paint collection?” I asked hesitantly.

“I like it,” came the cheery response. “Color. Texture. Latex. Stains. Oil-based stuff. You’ve got it all, more or less.”

God’s approval is a boon anytime, but admiration for my near-hoarding of old paint—now that was spectacular. I was ecstatic.

“Some of it’s dried up, some’s moldy,” God added. God has X-ray vision, so I knew this was true. “And you have at least four cans of that ugly, dull orange. Looks like you tried mixing bad stuff. Never works.”

My ecstasy was waning as God’s appreciation became more selective.

“Yeah,” I said. “I was trying to get a mellow, warm orange.”

God laughed, stepped out of the shadows, and slapped me on the back.

“I like how hard you try,” God said. “But mellow orange will not happen anywhere near sage green. You know giving up can be as holy as stubbornly plowing forward, right?”

“Well.” I said. “Same to you. I’ve met some people who are way uglier than that paint. At least I can use the paint in the chicken house. What’re you going to do with those disgusting lumps of humanity? I’ve been trying to love them, somehow, a miniscule little bit, but the best I can do is pretend. They’re destructive, lazy, lying, self-righteous jerks. A serious waste of protoplasm. And because you already know this, I’ll just say it. I hate them.”

“Yup. I knew that,” God said. “Why are you trying to love them?”

I did a double-take. “Because, well. I guess because I think you want me to.”

God gave me a quizzical look, then began to fade artfully away, wavering like fumes above the seven cans of turpentine. With a soft kiss on the top of my head, God repeated “I like how hard you try.”

I felt deflated. Thwarted. I sat down on a five-gallon bucket of neutral gray to consider my next move. I didn’t want a passing grade in effort. I wanted excellent marks. Perfect 10s, 5 stars.

“You’ll take some failures with you to the grave,” God said. “I’ll meet you there.”

 

Not Fair

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

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My brother loaned me his rototiller and I haven’t returned it. He says he’ll come get it if he needs it. I say well, that’s not really fair. He says whoever said life was fair? I mutter something like well, at least I should try to make it more fair. He just smiles.

“Hey, God,” I yell, after my brother drives away. “Whoever said life was fair?”

“Not I,” says God. “I’m not in charge of that idea. In fact, it’s a childish notion I hope you’ll outgrow someday. Who gets more candy? Who sleeps on the top bunk? This is okay when you’re seven. Tiresome behavior for adults.”

It began to rain. It rained on the river and on the cracked, thirsty garden. It rained on the pavement and on a spring wedding somewhere. The wind picked up and blew so hard I gasped for breath. It blew down a tree, it blew waves in the water, it blew away the simplistic demands we make of our shrink-wrapped God. The rain came sideways and the real God shimmered, at ease in the liquid uncertainty we think of as life.

I started a fire. God shook like a dog and joined me. My fate in the hands of rain. My days in the arms of wind. This chills me to the bone. I rub my stiff hands and sip tea.

“Justice is different than fairness,” God says. “You know that eye for an eye thing?”

I nod, wary.

God continues, patient. “That’s the upward limit. No more than an eye for an eye. But less is better. In fact, I favor forgiveness and compassion. Your species is more likely to survive that way.”

“Duh,” I snap at God. “Justice. Mercy. Compassion. Humility. I get it.” I pause and calm myself. “But I don’t think it’s fair you aren’t helping us more.” I smile. God smiles. It’s good we have these little chats.

My twinkly-eyed friend with his infectious laugh will soon be dead from the cancer he’s carried for decades. I can eat a second or third salted caramel while I write this. When I turn on the news, likely I’ll see a child bloated with hunger, floating on a crowded raft. I won’t gag. Maybe I should. God, should I gag?

The rain pounds down and the river’s rising. No answer. No answer at all.