Tag: Diversity

Too Many Jesuses

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

If I speak in the tongues of angels and women, of cancers, mildew, and broken teeth, but have not love, nothing much happens. Most platitudes are contradictions. Old mirrors and darkened glass neither reflect nor foretell with any degree of accuracy.

Some mornings are especially challenging. The tension created by too many Jesuses is barely offset by the comfort of familiar bedding and my jar of pencils. Sometimes, deep in the night, I try summoning one of them to ward off the neurotoxicities of unwanted wakefulness, but it never works. The Jesuses are neither respectful nor tethered to any particular reality. They argue among themselves noisily and without end. I regret inviting any of them in. I want them gone.

“I see where you’re coming from,” my Coauthor comments as she seats herself cross-legged, leaning back against the bookshelf. She shoos the contentious Jesuses away. “Go on outside. The water’s clear. The sky is lifting. The cranes could use a visit.”

I stare at my Coauthor. She stares back.

“Do you really see where I’m coming from?” I ask, hoping for sympathy and unequivocal adoration.

Her slight nod is unsympathetic. She’s sizing me up. I do not feel adored.

“And I see where you’re going,” the Voice of Creation adds.

Sunday school rears its ugly head. Dread hot-flashes through my body.

“The cross?” I squeak.

“Yes,” my Coauthor nods. “The one by the highway and the three on the hill to the south. Cut them down. The cultish homage to human brutality offends me.”

My eyes widen. “Well, that’s not very nice. What about loving thy neighbor? What about redemption?”

She laughs. The Jesuses crowd back in.

“The cranes are fine,” they report. “And the air is sweet. Everything that ever bloomed is blooming and there’s a wild greening underway.”

 I want to be the sweetness in the air. I want to be a wild greening.

“Ah-ha! You’re an anti-zealot,” one of the Jesuses points with derision.

“Am not,” I retort, uncertain of what that would even mean.

“Leave her be,” my Coauthor commands, glaring at the accusing Jesus. “I brought you into this world. I can take you out.”

The Jesuses exaggerate snapping to attention. Their eyes twinkle, their lips twitch.

Then one of them shouts, “Dogpile!” and we all jump on the Coauthor, trying to tickle her into a better mood.

“Hey, I made rhubarb banana bread yesterday,” I holler above the fracas. “Let’s have some for breakfast.”

We sort ourselves out, clamor to the heart of the kitchen, and break the moist bread together, dipping morsels in milk and drizzling stolen honey into our strong black tea.

The (Human) Race

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

My superpower is reasonable restraint when it comes to cheesecake and dark beer. I also have x-ray vision for seeing the artistic potential in sticks, stones, and rusted metal. I possess both grandiose aspirations and impressive amounts of self-induced humility. As far as I can tell, God’s superpower is stealth. And maybe patience, though I’m less sure of that.

Arguably, my superweakness is asymmetry in a world that demands alignment, hierarchy, and singular definitions. Luckily, this is one of God’s superweaknesses, too. It’s challenging to stay balanced with eyes that are not horizontally level and ears that don’t match. My right hand is overly dominant and the same can be said of my Coauthor. We dig far better holes handling the shovel from the right. But then, who’s to say what constitutes a better hole?

Someone close to me was born ambidextrous with a leaning toward the left. At the time, this was perceived as a correctable birth defect rather than a rare gift. The prescription for people born with such amorphous qualities was to crawl around on all fours, supposedly rewiring their brains. To this day, tucked deep in the psyche of my loved one, there’s confusion. What could have been a superpower was turned into self-doubt. A shameful reason to hide.

“Balderdash!!!” God yells. “I’m sick to death of simplistic dualism and brutally enforced conformity to false binaries. There are males, females, and those between. And there are exquisite crossovers and crossbacks. Right handers. Left handers. Both handers. No handers. Isn’t it glorious? I love them all just the way they are. They tickle the bejeezus out of me.”

A song from the 1930s pops into my head. “You say tomay-to, I say tomah-to,” I sing with a lopsided grin. God joins in. We bellow out the old tune. “You say ee-ther, I say eye-ther…You like potayto, I like potahto…Let’s call the whole thing off.”

We’re unhinged, offkey, and happy.

“You’re no Ginger Rogers,” I tease.

“And you’re no Fred Astaire,” God teases back. “But you’re on the right track, sweetie. Sing louder. Run harder.”

“I try, God. You know I try.”

To demonstrate, I stop cavorting around the dance floor and kneel like a sprinter, poised to run in the next heat, waiting for the crack of the starting gun. But there are handguns, rifles, and machine guns firing all over the world. It’s impossible to discern the one clarion shot that will signal when I should dash my whole nonbinary heart and soul into the next battle.

“Use your better ear, baby,” Coach God says, leaning in. “And keep in your lane. You’re perilously close to being disqualified.”

Change of View

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

I often wonder what inspired God to get into the business of creation. It’s obviously a work of love, but there are so many booby traps embedded along the way. The lack of smooth sailing for any amount of time suggests negligence. Or distractibility. Or inebriation. Literal and figurative landmines blow up innocent people, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust.

“So, Intelligence-Who-Sets-Things-in-Motion, what do you have to say for yourself?” I ask. I’m not in a good mood. We just moved ourselves from one condo to another. I’m tired.

“Good morning to you, too,” God smiles.

I sit breathing quietly, letting the smile of God wash over me, bringing both relief and the usual touch of terror. My watery eyes take in the new view through a different set of sliding glass doors. Last night, we slept in the old place, but this morning, I dragged the coffee table, frying pan, and my favorite cup to the new place, and here I am. Awake. With toast. And here’s God, smiling. And here’s the morning, arriving without apology, under the weight of so many newly dead, so many starving children, so many imprisonments, so many billionaires. I turn off the news, vaguely ashamed of myself. Angry at the capacity of humans to justify their self-serving, violent, deluded choices.

God is doing a silly dance around the boxes and displaced furniture.”Creation is my middle name,” she says. “I love trying out new ideas. I love diversity.” She pulls a bucket of sunglasses from behind her back—the lenses are densely colored–green, red, pink, orange, blue, black, green, purple—but none are clear. “Try them all,” God says.

“No thanks,” I say. “I’m retired.”

God laughs. I blow my nose. The new skyline is both urban and wild. I remember a defiant peace sign on the lowly hills. The majestic Mission Mountains are north of here, out of view, but close enough to feel their power rising. Peace signs come and go. Even mountains don’t last forever. They face erosion unafraid, taking comfort from flocks of noisy crows and the vast truth of sky.

I give God one last accusatory look and uncross my arms. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll try purple. But take the orange away. I’d rather see clearly, but if my vision is going to be tainted, I appreciate having a choice.” God hands me the purple glasses and sets the orange ones on the table beside my stack of masks.

“Thanks,” I say, halfhearted. God nods and hands me a beer and my vitamins. “Work up to it,” she says. She’s smiling again. Her cheerfulness, like the massive track lighting in this place, seems a bit much. I’d like a little less light.

Wink

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

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In the lecture hall, down near the podium, I spotted God floating among the performers. I waved, and God winked–a massive slow wink that dimmed the lights and blew my head open. Time slowed to the pace of a heartbeat and then circled like the dancers, like the globe, like the unfamiliar sun. The Maori and Lakota, the Bashada, Samurai, Brahmins, Untouchables, Princes and Queens. Unsung women and disproportionate men.

After so much travel, so many miles, I was feeling alien. Insignificant.  But the wink changed all that. I fell into the inner vision of first home, the fiery cosmos, the place where the Creator serves breakfast and wipes his hands on a dirty apron, happy to watch us eat. The place where the tables are long and the memories longer. The place where we remember that once, we were protons and neutrons, innocent waifs, glowing translucent blue and delicate ivory. We weren’t afraid, cradled in such a vast vision; there was no reason, no excuse, no boundary. Just the womb of God, waves breaking, white noise.

And even now, billions of years later, we’re sand on the shore, dust underfoot, waiting for the wind to lift us. We’re so small we can hardly even see ourselves, hard at work, stubborn and vicious, achieving little—unaware that we are irritants on the perfect surface of God’s gaze.

“Not exactly,” God interjected. “Not irritants. Just reasons to wink. So many reasons to wink.”

“I know,” I admitted. “I said that because I irritate myself. And these people irritate me to no end.”

“Jet lag?” God asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “And pavement and single-paned windows. Traffic and tariffs and men who’ve forgotten who they are.”

“I’m sure you’d be happy to remind them, heh?” God sounded Canadian. He elbowed me in the side.

“You bet I would,” I said, arms crossed, starting to see the humor. “And I’m sure that’d be well-received, don’t you think? Most men love instruction from feisty old white women.”

God and I had a good laugh, though I admit I had the thought, “But who are they going to listen to?” As far as I know, God ignored this mental query. He gradually rejoined the warriors dancing in the inferno, weapons ready, drums beating, feathers rising like sparks.

So much, I don’t know. But this, I’ve recently discovered: At the edge of the lower world, the little brown birds will eat from your hand if you hold absolutely still and you offer something they recognize as food.