Tag: Godwithin

Existential Angst

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

The explanation could be as simple as caffeine. Or scoldings by Ms. Manners. Or a niggling Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder whispering reminders of my failings and violations of the common good. I don’t know, but I can’t seem to get rid of the angst and sense of urgency that rob me of the peaceful existence I deserve. Something or someone is out to get me. I share the paranoia of my era. The exaggerated, anxiety-producing avoidance of death.

My father died nine days short of my 20th birthday. He exited life as I was exiting the teens. He was 44. Somehow, my grief-demolished mother hosted a random set of grandparents for a bleak commemoration of the day I was born. She made roast beef, potatoes, and a cake. It was a dark, dark birthday. I don’t know how we managed to swallow.

“But you did,” God says, joining me gently as I sit with memories flooding by on either side. “Your mother was as brave as anyone I’ve known, but I had to attend that party disguised and uninvited. She was done with me, and I don’t blame her.”

“I didn’t even know you were there!” I exclaim. “I brought a different god. He spewed platitudes and mumbled lies about God’s will and imminent resurrections and such. It was awful. Why didn’t you shut him up?”

“All in good time,” God says, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m not apologizing or defending myself, but there are days I just cry my eyes out.”

I put my arms around God while she sobs as if the loss were yesterday. And for God, it was. And is. And ever shall be. I cannot think of what to do. We are all baffled kings composing hallelujahs. Overthrown by instinct and libido, lust and love. Endless birthing. Endless dying.

“I never intend to fool or frighten anyone,” she says, taking deep ragged breaths to calm herself.

“I know, Sweetheart,” I say. I run my fingers through her unruly hair. “But we judge and fool and frighten ourselves. We can’t help it. The contradictions and losses are too much.” God slowly slips out of my embrace. She moves to the outer edges of the known, opens her thousand wings, and disappears. Behind her the path is littered with breadcrumbs, a trail of her broken self. As I follow, all things extraneous fall away, and I am slightly less afraid.

Year End Report

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

Early Margaret damaged picture 001 (3)

On December 18th, 2016, God and I posted our first godblog. We’ve written 170-some of these parabolic missives, and here we are, 2020–still speaking to each other, which is noteworthy for such a mismatched pair. Me, human, fallible, aging less than gracefully, root-bound, forgetful, trying hard, falling short. God, falling long. God neither human nor fallible, forgetting nothing, forgiving everything. God, erudite, defenseless, foolish. Me, wrapped in paper-thin pride with touches of temporary blue in my hair. God, humble, wearing the entire iridescent sky.

“Parabolic?” God asks.

I laugh. A chance to show off. “Well, I meant to say parable-like, but then the word parabolic got in my head. A parabola is a sort of U-shape line that’s mirror-symmetrical. It’s the path a projectile takes when it attempts to escape but instead, is subject to gravity and falls back. It’s not a circle. It’s more like a shape made in protest.”

God looks at me like “Duh” and I get defensive. “Fine. Sometimes, you just sit there and make me feel stupid.”

“True,” God says, with patient look. “I’m glad you’re so frank with me. But you could be nicer sometimes.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I’ll try.”

We sit for a while, me mulling what it means to be nice to God, and God knitting an afghan. He’s been working on it off and on for a long time. It stretches for miles–up, down, east, west, north, south, and around. And it includes every color ever seen or imagined. I suspect it’s a gift for someone in another galaxy, but I haven’t inquired, and God hasn’t said a word. For some reason, that damn afghan frightens me.

“I understand that,” God says.

“What?” I say, but in my bones, I know. He always gets in my head.

“It frightens everyone,” God says. He holds it up and blocks the sun. “It’s a shroud.”

“For someone—or something—very large,” I say, making my shaky voice as kind and approving as I can.

“Indeed,” God says. “From your perspective, very, very large.”

“And from yours?” I ask.

God smiles gently and opens the front of his jacket. Strands of yarn flow like brilliant rivers of color from the essence of his being. God is making his shroud out of himself. This realization upsets me to the point of nausea.

“Ah, sweetheart,” God says. “Don’t be sad. It is as it has been and will be. There’s no promise better than the rainbow, nothing more perfect than a circle.”

“But God,” I protest. “I’m linear. Monochromatic. Vanishing.”

God shakes his shroud like a rug. The whiplash at the end dislodges the stars, and planets roll like bowling balls, and all the music there has ever been plays at once, and I drop and curl to prevent subatomic dissipation.

“Hold that pose,” God says. He shapes himself around me and begins to snap selfies; me and God, entwined like twins, the shroud a roiling ocean behind us. A sudden wind lifts the shroud. God grabs hold, and they rise like a kite. It’s a very strong wind.

I hold myself tight with the earth, grateful for gravity. Coiled inward like that, I can see what appears to be the beginning and the end, but for the life of me, I can’t tell them apart.

Cardboard

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

IMG_5936 (2)

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.”