Tag: Community

Attention!!

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

“Folks, could I have your attention, please?”

This is a request you’ll never hear from The Evolutionary Force of the Universe. She won’t tap a glass or clap her hands. She won’t shout, whistle, or condescend to doing outlandish things. She won’t maneuver for clicks, and she’ll never go viral. She operates barely above discernable decibel levels.

She and I routinely argue about this damn reticence. “If you’re not going to grab the spotlight, speed things up, and save us, why don’t you just drop a cosmic bomb and get this extinction over with?” I demand.

“No can do,” she whispers from a pile of prehistoric bones. “I’m too busy.” She shakes the rug near the stove, and a cloud of cockroaches scuttle into the room.

“What the…?” I yell, jumping on the couch.

Evolution laughs. “They love an audience when they’re showing off.”

I am repulsed.

She continues to chuckle. “Paying attention is a powerful swing of energy.”

“So attention is a good thing?”

“Depends on the reasons and seeker,” she said. “That which you pay attention to grows. And most of you need attention because you’re feeling your way along. Attention is a feedback loop.”

In my mind, I climb on stage and begin to speak from the podium of my limited understandings. A curious quiet creeps over the crowd. I have their rapt attention. For one glorious moment, I feel fantastic. But then the fickle crowd begins to leave.

“Boring,” they pronounce as they take their attention elsewhere.

Give it back!  I scream. Give me your fawning attention. Or horrified attention. Any attention will do. I need it. I deserve it.

To my credit, even in my fantasy, I don’t stoop to lies or belittling anyone. I don’t threaten or seduce, but I’m sorely tempted.

I slap my face to bring myself back. It hurts. Withdrawal can be hell.

“See why I avoid the limelight?” The Evolutionary Force of the Universe asks. “Attention is addictive. It’s a false reassurance of importance. Managing attention is a huge responsibility, both seeking and giving. Cockroaches do okay with it, but they’ve had millions of years to practice. For humans, Attention-Seeking-Disorder is extremely dangerous. It can seriously damage the creative process. It mangles the conscience and kills the spirit.”

“But it’s so delicious,” I admit, still coming down from my imagined high. “Don’t you love those choirs and cathedrals? Synagogues and mosques?”

“Oh! Those aren’t mine!” Evolutionary Force says, shocked at the thought. “I don’t play to the crowd. I’m the still, small voice. The revealings of microscope and telescope. I’m the sacred welcome at the warm and modest fire.”

The Soul is a Hand Dug Well

Rita Sommers-FlanaganLeave a comment

This day begins thirsty, with snippy inner voices arguing
while I await the arrival of Some Words.

I am grateful for water.

We’re alive, but mostly liquid,
with skin so thin and porous, we’re always parched.

Clean water is rare and costly.

Some quench their thirst by lapping up the toxic surface run-off,
gamboling about as if impervious to poison.

Others sip from the bitter sponge, lifted to their lips
while they hang on self-inflicted crosses, arguing.

God arrives and sighs.

Listen, all you secret selves, all you conflicted creatures
fearfully hiding on easy street.

The soul is a hand dug well.

The way forward is always down, rocky and hot.
And at times, it will seem lonely. But you’re never digging alone.

Remember that. You’re never digging alone.

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.