Fear of Flying

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments 
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God and I usually visit rather informally, but today, inspired by silence and a Guinness Extra Stout, I’m trying a different voice. I’m thinking God will recognize it anyway. Here goes…

YOU

 You who are beyond pronouns, do you hear me?
Energy expressed as love, do you hear me?
Creativity unbounded, horses galloping, do you hear me?
Paradoxical forces pushing outward, do you hear me?
Dialectical trickster pushing inward, do you hear me?

(I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be irrelevant. I don’t want to be nice to idiots.)

You who are able to blink away galaxies, do you hear me?
You who make the sky burst into laughter, do you hear me?
You who die every time anyone dies, do you hear me?
God of the rattlesnake, mosquito, quicksand, and lightening, do you hear me?
Silent stalker, raucous rioter, author of all disappearances, do you hear me?

(I need, I need, I need.   I want, I want, I want.   Do not give me what I deserve.)

 Embodied myth, homeless beggar, wearer of the purple robe, do you hear me?
Neighbor, knower, patient old auntie, slayer of falsehoods, do you hear me?
Pure white, thick black, coffin-builder, source of thinning bones, do you hear me?
Gravel road, narrow path, first breath, bargain basement, do you hear me?
You who write the storyline, you who refuse conclusions, do you hear me?

(I can see my way around you, through you, beside you. Let’s run away.)

 You are said to feed on worship, gorge yourself on praise. I don’t believe it.
They claim you have a magic formula for being saved. This is silliness.
We try to define the undefinable, cater to our narcissism, and say it’s you.
The great regression has begun. We are returning to our hatreds. We are coming undone.
I cannot imagine your suffering, but I am trying. Do you hear me? 

(If it fits the plan at all, I would like to die into gentleness.)

My lungs collapsed as the savage Self of God blew through the valley. It whispered:

You’ve always wanted to learn to fly.
And you will.

And I said:
Amen.

 

Public Meeting

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Last night God and I attended a public meeting. The images and verbal snippets lodged in my brain and ruined my sleep. Through the night, I wanted to check in with God, but she was slumbering soundly. I had to toss and turn, rage and grieve on my own.

Everyone I know (except God) is the product of sperm and egg, about nine month incubation, and a birthing. But these shared origins guarantee little when it comes to getting along. Are some of us programmed to be mean? Violent? Hateful? Unable or unwilling to be civil? The animosities in the room sharpened the atmosphere until it felt like I was breathing knives.

Those smirking, disrespectful, smug, lie-believing fools were so offensive I had to fight to remember that they are members of my species. Conspiracy theories were in full bloom. There were glib reassurances that the corporations in question care deeply about the earth and are managed with love for all humanity. As if. So much posturing and paranoia. No one should be able to tell anyone else what to do–especially if there’s money to be made. Facts be damned. The common good be damned. We vote and hate. Or don’t vote and hate.

And while we attack each other in our nanoscopic corners, the earth warms its hands over the fire of our denial-fueled rush to extinction, waiting to be rid of us so the healing can begin.

God continued to snooze as I seethed. I gave her a gentle shake. She’s so beautiful at rest, with her feral hair flowing every direction–and much tamer when her eyes are closed. Maybe it’s better to let sleeping Gods sleep, but I couldn’t. I needed perspective. Connection. I shook her shoulder a little harder.

Her eyes flew open. She bolted upright and shouted, “You gotta hit hard and clean. Double-fisted.” She rubbed her forehead. “Egads, what a dream! I was a boxing coach. The little people were in a fight with the Goliaths again. No sling shots in sight.”

“So you had them slugging it out?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She looked a little sheepish.

“We have guns and nuclear bombs now, you know,” I reminded God as I handed her some coffee.

“Mmmm,” God said. “Yeah. Probably not the best idea. But it was only a dream.”

“I wish,” I said, and punched the air. I double-punched a sofa pillow.

“That’s good,” God said. “But move your feet. Fancy little dance steps work the best.”

I shuffled my feet, still focused on my fists.

“No. Dance,” God said again. “I mean it. Dance.”

“I can’t,” I said, ashamed. “There’s no music.”

God gave me a look and dissolved into a chorus of insects and meadowlarks, a string quartet, a crystal-shattering soprano, three warbling old women. The heart of God pounded, waves crashed, wind screamed, billions of people sobbed and laughed. The howler monkey, the cicadas, coyotes, the bullfrogs and molecules, neutrinos and nightmares—an astounding choir.

The Maestro’s baton slashed the air, wild hair snapping in circles around her head. “There you go, love,” she yelled above the din. “I forgive you. Now dance.”

Just Get on the Bus, Gus

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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Sometimes I’m enchanted by words as I type them, or I lose myself in the beauty of an orange-tipped brush meeting untouched canvas. At these moments, I’m a believer. In the act of creating, the creature knows the Original Source. In acts of compassion, we connect with the Lover. A grateful heart knows the author of joy.

Other times, blinded by the lightness of being, I try to provide my own inspiration. I’ve never known anyone quite like me. This is exhausting. The dark side of knowing grabs me by the throat, and the day clangs and rattles with loose bolts, bad connections– bone on bone. The cartilage of interdependence wears away, and my brain takes false readings that assure me I’m alone. I endure the subdivisions of the infighting self, snarling like a caged lion. Dangerous.

All options are on the table. Fangs and claws, bitter deterioration. Acceptance. Inclusion. Rejection. Isolation. Hermitage or solitary confinement. Impotence or celibacy. Fasting or starving. Just when I think I have it all figured out, I paint something the wrong shade of red or find a dead mouse in the pantry, and I’m reduced to elemental forces, poisonous gases, rust and mold, birds who sing too early and too long.

At the crack of this kind of dawn, I believe that I’ve survived a list of daunting adversities, but by evening, it will be clear that I’ve survived nothing. Nothing is ever over; nothing lets go. It all comes along. I ride through life in a repurposed bus that boards passengers to the point of bursting, but no one gets off. We circle the city. Parts of me hang out the doors and windows, fighting for air, looking for a savior. I wave like I’m in a parade–a clever disguise. Will I be discovered in time?

If the answer was simple, I’d share it. I’d own it. But there’s no such thing. The unifying force of the Universe, the Cosmos, the Beyond, the Forever, is a Question with beautiful baby answers that sparkle in the sun as they evaporate. I’ve already been discovered, and I will never be discovered. I’m known but will never be known. The extent of my unloveliness is the extent of my belovedness. And my enemies? I see now they’ve been painted the wrong shade of red.

Jogging with God

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It makes sense to run before it gets even hotter, but I’m fighting with myself. Making excuses, scolding, cajoling, promising rewards. I notice myself talking to myself. Sheesh. Consciousness is clearly evolution’s most daring experiment. I’m often in the vicinity of my intentions but sometimes I hang myself in that self-reflective loop.

God sits back on his haunches, watching. I see his silhouette on the far horizon, warming his fat hands over the fire of a steadily rising sun. I see myself, a speck of indignation, a tiny sip of fresh water; not impressive, but tenacious. The fallen angels are composting into something wonderful. There’s been too much rain this year. It’s unnaturally green, uncomfortably humid. Twin fawns leap back and forth over windrows of molding hay as I reluctantly start jogging up the lane.

It’s slow going. I’m drenched in sweat and my Nikes are slapping the pavement ungracefully. God slips alongside. His feet would make a thunderous noise with the weight he carries, but they don’t touch the ground today. He’s helicoptering along, a corpulent, cagey companion cawing with the crows, catching clumps of drifting cotton. I’m hoping the neighbors don’t drive by, but I’m glad for God’s presence, such as it is. I sometimes fall and break bones, get pelted by hail, bitten by bugs, or startled by rattlesnakes. Having God along…hmmm…well. Actually, it might help. It might not.

“I can hear you,” God says, a little sarcastically. He’s peddling backwards, a little ways ahead.

“And I can hear you,” I say back. “Beastly hot, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, this accelerated climate change is a bitch,” God says.

“I don’t like it when you talk like that,” I say. I try to pick up the pace.

“You want platitudes?”

“No.”

“Aphorisms?”

“No.”

“Big syllable reassurances?”

“No.”

“Ah,” God says. “I know what you want. You want a song.” He belts out his own version of Taylor Swift, “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, but shake it off. Shake it off.” He jiggles his bum.

God’s right. The song helps. I dance along, doing some jiggling myself, happily distracted. Shake it off. Shake it off. Oops! We both dive for the borrow pit as a big truck rattles by.

“These country roads aren’t the best for joggers,” God says, as we climb back up the slope. He resumes the hard-driving melody, and I use the beat to motivate myself toward home.

“I saw you watching the world this morning,” I say between breaths.

“Yeah. Up early. Couldn’t sleep. I love this little planet. Still hoping you don’t wreck it for yourselves, but all bets are off.”

“BETS?” I yell. “This is not a betting matter.”

“Right,” God says. “Sorry. You’re absolutely right. It’s all about consciousness. Human choice is pivotal on so many fronts. But if you were betting, where’d you put your money?”

“Not sure,” I say.

“Me neither,” God says. We find some shade, resting in the euphoria that follows a good work-out. “But thanks for the run.”

The Great Communicator

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

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“Let’s face it, God,” I said this morning, sleep deprived and stuffy with allergies. “You’re maybe the worst communicator ever.” God said nothing. I glanced across the back of my brain where bright-eyed children met my gaze more directly than God ever does. I usually don’t like children lingering at the edge of my consciousness, but today I welcomed them.

“Hello, Green-eyed Children,” I said. “Brown-eyed, Blue-eyed, Hazel-eyed, Black-eyed Peas. Hello, hello. How are you, eh? Futureless? Naked? Afraid?” The children were watchful. “Got an uphill battle, don’t you?” I continued. “Not much food on the table. No presents under any trees. No trees, actually. No soap. Well. Why are you here? Why did your mothers have sex? Where are your fathers? This is all your fault, you know. Your own fault.” The children moved closer together, sheltering each other. They’re accustomed to blame. Deprivation. Abuse.

I glanced at my expressionless God. “Say something,” I demanded. “Anything.” I needed to break the accusatory silence, but the silence was breaking me. “Some people think we have souls,” I continued, staring into empty space. “Receptacles where you could leave a message. Minds. Free will.” No reaction. No response. My mind returned to the children. I handed them a deck of tattered cards.

“Play,” I said. “Old Maid. Go Fish. Rummy.” They touched the cards, shy and curious. I pushed a box of Milky Ways toward them. “Eat,” I said. I handed them a jug of fake juice. “Drink,” I commanded.

The twisted charity nauseated me. I whirled, trying to locate the still-silent God. “You phony bag of wind. You know about leafy greens and educational toys. Most hymnals filled with praise to you cost more than a week of healthy meals. Who are they singing to? Who am I speaking to? Say something loud and lovely, something wise. Helpful. Anything. Just communicate, dammit.”

I saw a flash and heard a distant rumble. Was it thunder? The rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air? Was it God? Or the dull roar of an artificial nation sinking in the mire of itself? Actually, it was a truck, diesel engine roaring, lights flashing. The children looked hopeful for a minute, but then mystified as the drivers swung open the back and began handing them guns. Big guns, little guns, long guns, short guns–light-weight and loaded.

“This will be your best friend,” one of the drivers said as he rubbed the head of a tiny girl. “Just aim and shoot. The bad guys will fall down and be gone.”

“What’s a bad guy?” the child asked, as she examined the weapon with wide, iridescent eyes.

“God!” I yelled in utter disbelief. The child turned to me and repeated, “What’s a bad guy?” The gun, a semi-automatic, naturally swung my direction. I flinched, lowered myself to my knees, and raised my hands above my head. Her eyes deepened to holy purple, a luminescent acceptance of my surrender. She smiled like a beatific Madonna as her weapon turned to dust, and she slowly disappeared. I laid myself prostrate on the cool cement and waited. I knew she’d be back.

HOT

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“Let’s see,” God said. “Whom shall I forgive today?” She was sitting at our dining table, running her fingers down a long scroll like Santa Claus, deciding who’d been naughty or nice, or St. Peter deciding whether to open the pearly gates. God, hard at work, discerning the hearts of…of who? Where? Why?

I sat down across from her with my nicely-whitened coffee and watched. Granting forgiveness is a big job. I wondered if I was on the list of offenders, and if so, what I’d done to get there. Almost every day, I throw a blanket “Sorry” out to the universe–sometimes for my own hateful, selfish behaviors. Sometimes, more of a mass acknowledgement that we humans have really fucked things up.

After what seemed like an eternity, God stopped mumbling to herself and looked up. Her face was glowing. “That feels so darn good,” she said. “I should do that at least a couple times a day.”

“Do what?” I asked, trying to keep the envy out of my voice. I hardly ever see God looking this serene and happy. I felt like the customer in When Harry Met Sally who said “I’ll have what she’s having” as she watched Sally fake an orgasm over a plate of food.

God smiled, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “It is kind of orgasmic,” she said. “Forgiveness is like yoga for the soul. Rest for the weary. Truth for the inquisitive. So good.” She reached over and squeezed my shoulder. A friendly gesture, I guess, but her hands were like burning coals. My shoulder fell off. The intense warmth spread rapidly. Everything fell off. I would’ve screamed for help, but my voice was gone.

Whatever I had once been was now strewn all over the dining room floor—chunks of ego and defensiveness melting like ice. The hound of heaven, lapping me up. The insults and the injuries, the malice and the madness. For a fraction of a second, I loved my enemies. I loved my liquid self. I loved the scorching hot God—the strangest friend I will ever have.

“Thanks,” I thought.

“You’re most welcome,” God said. “You look good all puddled up like that.” She extended her foot, and with one exquisitely long toe, she touched the last of me. The toe glowed, sizzling, blistering, flaming hot.

“So that’s forgiveness?” I said, refusing to completely disappear.

“Yup,” said God. “So good.”

Cardboard

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Some people choose to refashion themselves into cardboard cutouts so fragile they’re in chronic danger of ripping, dissolving, or falling completely apart. They’ve armed themselves with knives–tips dipped in venom—and weaponry of all shapes and sizes, ready to defend against the shadows flickering at their cardboard feet. They don’t seem to know that rain falls on the just and the unjust; that shadows only define the light.

Today, I have turquoise hair, ivory teeth, ruby lips, and purple nails. Bright orange ideas curl around my head like steam. I breathe in a sober version of the living, illusive God and breathe out the drunken mess of trivial, egocentric gods that power most of us along.

“Hey, Source of All That Matters,” I say to the gathering clouds. “Is this the day?”

“Of course,” Source says back. “It’s always the day.”

This brings to mind time zones and happy hours, datelines, eclipses, sun spots, and lunar new years stacked end on end like shipping crates from China. “No, Source,” I say. “I mean from my perspective. Not global. Not cosmic. And not yours. Crawl in behind my eyes for a minute. Wrap up in my skin. Flex my biceps, rub my neck, touch that worrisome mole. Try to remember what you were going to do next. Limit yourself to my synaptic firings and misguided outcomes.”

Source of All That Matters sighs. “Okay,” she says in something other than a voice. “But turnabout’s fair play.”

I’m not going to back down. “Sure, fine.” I shrug. Being God for a day sounds easy. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could do a better job.  But right now, I want God to understand how hard it is to be me.  “What are you waiting for?” I say, taunting. “Come on in. The water’s fine.”

Source of All That Matters laughs and is gone. Or I think she’s gone. I must have scared her off. Could I have scared her off? What the heck? That was stupid. Why do I always, well, who do I think… Ah, the rain. The red-winged blackbird. The golden finch. A day so finely textured it will never come again: Manna from heaven; malice from hell. Cardboard armies, nuclear bombs, wasp nests, robin eggs, duct tape, baling wire.

Just over the horizon, the shimmering mirage of another day is forming in the womb of creation while this day bursts open like a seed pod. I turn my back to the lightening. Thunder loosens my bones. Under my fingernails, the black soil of now; in my pockets, choices. Chances. Tedium and change. The underbelly of God is soft and seductive. I’m too heavy to move.

Enough?” asks Source.

“Oh, yeah.” I nod with a head barely fastened on. “Enough.”

To Those Who Carry The Weight of The Dream

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God and I cried this morning as we listened to the conditions my government has imposed on migrant children. “Yours is the only species I’ve had to make any sacrifices for,” God said, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry. You did such a great job on trees.”

“What do you think keeps going wrong?” God asked. I took a few swallows of stale beer, trying to rise from despair to contemplation. People should try this more often. It’s hard. I got caught in the downward suck of anger but kicked free and grabbed the buoyant green of early summer.

My old bike was nearby. I wanted to ride away, ride fast down a gravel hill, ride into the rising sun, buy things, crash, scare people—anything but hold steady. Somehow, I managed to keep my rear end glued to the chair and my soul open to the broken heart of this gentle God.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think about this all the time. Is it fear? Do you let some people turn out evil just for the fun of it? What’s our attraction to suffering? Why do we inflict it? It seems like we are always in a great civil war, unable to identify the enemy.”

God was listening intently. This was unnerving. I babbled on. “Okay, so clearly the enemy is not hungry children or despairing parents…” I stopped cold. How do I know they aren’t the enemy? Their needs terrify me. The solutions might involve sacrifice on my part. The unwashed masses, the ignorant hoards, the surging Other. Their demands might overwhelm our systems and end life as we’ve known it. They may yank us down into their awful misery.

“Exactly,” God said. “They have that effect on me, too.”

We started crying again. I cried for myself. My lack of wisdom. My selfishness. My inability to channel my anger constructively. The bruising pain of hitting the wall with compassion thinned down to nothing.

God cried for the children. That’s all. The children.

“They aren’t pawns,” he choked out.

“Yes. they are,” I said in a cold voice I did not want to recognize.

God laid his head on the table, wrapped his arms tight so I couldn’t see his face, and continued to grieve. I found a stack of handkerchiefs and left them beside him as I slipped out the back where my friends, all white and wealthy, were waiting with easy answers. I needed this toxic comfort. I confessed my sins all the way to the bakery where I intended to buy everyone scones and double-shot Americanos. So tasty. So good.

I rattled off the order.

“Got it,” God said. “Can I get a name on that?”

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised in the least. “Don’t you remember?” I asked. “After all, you named me. Was it that long ago?”

God leaned over the counter and whispered, “They aren’t pawns.” He shook his massive head, and small children rained down, tumbling and laughing. A storm of pure of children. “They aren’t pawns,” he repeated as he gathered them like clouds and flew away.

Be Ye Perfect

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God noticed me flipping through the book of Job in the Hebrew Bible. “What do you make of that?” he asked.

“Ah!” I said, startled. “Welcome back.” God had been hitching through Idaho the last I knew. I’d offered him a ride, but he was having too much fun. Now, here he was, dirty, tired, thin, and hungry. “Want a sandwich or something?” I said.

“Sure. Got any hot dogs? No mustard. Milk?”

He ate with gusto, swallowing enormous chunks of hot dog, chased by gulps of milk. “Why’re you reading Job?” he said, mouth full.

I didn’t want to get into it, but God can be quite insistent. “Abortion,” I said. “I’m seeing how Job expressed his wish to have never been born. You know, his longing to go where the unborn go. But it doesn’t matter. It’ll get twisted whichever way the reader wants.”

“Yeah,” God said. “But I didn’t take you for a Bible-thumper anyway.”

I grinned. Me a Bible-thumper? “As if,” I said. “But people use the scriptures with such hatred. I was trying to use them back—for freedom. Justice. Mercy. Common sense. Compassion.”

“Don’t waste your time,” God said. “Back in a few.” He went to shower. I waited, nervous. God was in one of those moods. I hoped the shower would make him sleepy. No such luck. He reappeared, hair slicked back, reeking of sweet aftershave. He stepped to the middle of the room with an air of authority and multiplied. The atmosphere shimmered with many versions of an embodied God. They all wore reading glasses.

“Oh great,” I thought. “God’s brought his own book club.”

They sat cross-legged on my concrete floor. On their laps were copies of the Qur’an, the Bible, poetry anthologies, other holy books, and an array of travel digests. All I had was the Bible I’d been paging through. But that was enough, right?

God sighed in unison. “Never, ever, think you can contain me in the thing you call scripture, or for that matter, words of any sort.” I nodded. I’d known it for a long time. God is God. Words are abstractions. All the Gods nodded.

“Nothing written is without error,” one of them said.

“Nothing can be considered in completeness,” said the next. “We are the Only Completeness.”

“Yes,” said an especially beautiful, fluid God. “You humans are simultaneously healing and dying, growing and receding. The firmament and all your infirmities are in a symbiotic relationship that define each other. There is no perfection, save Process—the pure flow of Compassion.”

“Then take me with you,” I begged. “Please, can I just go with you?” I tossed the Bible aside. God gently put it back and handed me Joy Harjo’s poem, She Had Some Horses  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/141852/she-had-some-horses-590104cf40742

“Soon enough,” she said. “You have a bit more to learn.”

“What? What do I have to learn?” I said, pretending I didn’t have a clue.

God smiled. “We’re hitching to Alabama,” she said. “Can I borrow a twenty?”

I handed her a hundred, and they were gone.

Nada

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God wasn’t present in any noticeable way this morning, but I had that spidey sense she was hovering somewhere close by. I thought maybe a little chatter would draw her out. “God,” I said. “Sometimes you and I have a communication gap. And I can see why. There’s me. An average, timeworn human–two bumpy hands, a couple of creaky knees, an increasingly unreliable memory, sporadic compassion–and then there’s you. From what we’ve observed so far, you seem to have created 10 billion galaxies, each of which averages 100 billion stars—one, (one!) of which is the fiery orb asserting itself in my own little sky right now.” I tried looking deeply impressed. No response.

“You are absurdly, incomprehensibly intangible, nonbodied, nonbound. You are without need for breath. You are breath. You are beyond time. It’s a toy of yours. You have no name and every name. You are the namer. We have little to nothing in common, but here you are, hanging around.” I thought maybe admitting I could sense her would cause a response. Nope.

“God, look,” I said. “You’ve always treated us humans with respect, even when we amputate compassion, act like idiots, and appropriate the idea of you for our own ends. I wish we didn’t do that, but you have to admit you’re difficult, you big old lunk of creativity. You tiny speck, you source of suffering and disaster, comfort and shelter. You ladybug, sea monster, apple fallen close to the tree. You infectious laugher, chill of death, you decomposer. You teller of the final truth. Most of us don’t like the real you very much.

“I know,” God said, finally speaking up. “But I’m grateful when I can absorb even a little bit of liking. I make do with very little.”

“Someday, I won’t exist,” I said. “Then what?”

“Do I exist?” God answered.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Then, darling, we have something in common after all, don’t we?” God took a long swig of an awful tasting green smoothie I’d made and spit it back in the cup.

“Good lord!” she said. “Why in the world do you drink things like this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “In fact, right now, I know nothing.”

“Excellent answer,” God said. “You’re lying, but that’s okay. It’s an aspirational nothingness. Another thing that we might have in common. Eventually.”

I thought about that for a minute. Yes, I know nothing for certain, but I speculate endlessly, grabbing what appears to be solid, holding on for dear life. We are splintered, me and God. But there’s something. Something. Or maybe I have it wrong. There’s Nothing. A deep, resonant Nothing where our trueness will finally be at peace.

“Could you give me some space?” I asked God. “Today, you’re too much.”

God gave me a regal nod and complied. In the dead silence, I was as bereft as I’ve ever been. And as loved. And as complete.