Tag: Hope

Gifting

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

This morning began dark, but it has lightened to a dull gray which will soon give way to darkness again. I build a reluctant fire. God joins me, and we note the importance of a good draft. The air is heavy. My beer is cold.

I hate to admit it, but the sting of rejection has caused my joints to swell, and my dexterity is significantly reduced. The typos of life are hounding me. Blurry images of what could have been hang like abstract art in my ever-thinning soul.

“We should go shopping today,” I say. “I need to find the perfect presents and mail them to my enemies and detractors.”

God does a doubletake. She knows I hate shopping and would sooner maim or kill the monsters and idiots among us than take any kind of positive action.

“And not just my detractors!” I add, thrilled with the possibility that I’ve startled God.  “Not just my personal enemies. I’ll send gifts to crazed gunmen and billionaires. Liars. Haters. The meanest, most arrogant people on earth.”

We gaze at the fire. It’s not blazing the way it does sometimes, but it’s still fire. Still hypnotizing.

“Do you have their addresses?” God asks in a helpful, quiet voice.

“No, but I’m sure you do. Could I borrow your address book?”

“Of course,” God says. “But it’s rather futuristic. You know how some address books get outdated? Mine runs the other way. It gets ahead of itself.”

I sip my beer and consider this comforting absurdity.

“I myself have had a lot of addresses already,” I mention casually, hoping for a hint of what my future addresses might be.

“Nice try,” God says. “Could I help you with the wrapping? I love how you use old scarves and newspapers.”

“Nah.” I shake my head, deflated. “I’ve changed my mind. The jerks will just pitch the gifts out anyway.”

God hands me the scotch tape. “Doesn’t matter, sweetheart. Invest in the process. Open your soul and scrape it as clean as you can. Line it with shock absorbers, feathers, and things you honestly love. It’s not how a gift is received; it’s the giving that matters.”

 “I don’t think I believe that anymore,” I admit sadly.

“I know,” God says. “But you do.”

Comfort

Rita Sommers-Flanagan8 Comments

God is thick like a down quilt this morning. Thick in the air, thick in the snow, thick in the garden dirt, thick in the fire, thick in sadness, thick in my chest.

Maybe lingering, maybe gone, is a loved one of such large heart and honest soul that the world has a hollow sound right now. An empty echo. The long vibration of the gong. The bell that tolls. I could look to the blackbirds for comfort or the white hills with their dusting of snow, but I don’t want comfort. I want wisdom. It eludes me.

Yesterday was warmer. I found evidence that the raspberry roots are taking life seriously and have begun to send up dark green signs of hope. We could have a bright red harvest next year and maybe even a few berries later this year. The long arc of transplantation requires patience and faith. I sat back on my haunches and gave thanks. But as the day ended, black doubts took hold, and I went to bed hungry.

“Good morning, little one,” God says gently as she shakes off the majesty of thickness and shrinks into human view. A gift. God’s body thrown across the railroad tracks of fear and despair. God, willing to be a slender apparition, glowing in momentary light. I’m torn. I know God is dead and alive, here and there, atomic and cosmic. But I’m no longer sure I speak the right language to be fully understood, and I have these wounds that open in the night. I use whatever pressure I can muster to close them, but they will never heal.

“Good morning, God,” I answer, staring out the one unshaded window. “I don’t feel like moving, or I’d offer you some coffee. Sorry.”

“No worries, honey,” God says. “I know where you keep the cups.”

Placebo

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God outright refused to help edit my first run of the godblog for this week. As Co-Author, that’s God’s prerogative, so I have bowed to the forces within and without and shelved the draft about death and composting until God’s in a better mood. I may have to chew my left thumb off, but I will work until at least three hundred words have coalesced into what God and I mutually agree we should say this week. I have the vague notion that God wants to focus on hope.

“Vague notion?” God says. “C’mon. Do you think the placebo effect is an accident?”

This makes me laugh out loud. God knows how much I adore the placebo effect–the authoritative administration of an inert nothingness that, by virtue of belief, triggers healing. Good medical research is designed to factor out the placebo effect. This tickles me. Faith has to be factored out because it is such a powerful force in and of itself.

Humans have evolved to believe in things. It isn’t an afterthought or a design flaw. The leaps of faith we make are sometimes comical, sometimes tragic, often pure magic. But they all point to the nature of the Grand Leaper, my friend God, whose greatest leap of faith ever was giving us some skin in the game. Giving us a say in the matter. Giving us choice. The stakes are high. Will we poison ourselves to extinction? Will we make war until there’s no one left to kill? Will greed remain ascendant and poverty continue to be viewed as deserved?

“Ah hem.” God clears his raspy old throat and hands me a cue card with the word “Hope” scrawled across the entire surface, which is sky. Which is my face reflected in all that I have. Which is you, reading. Which is a child eating a steaming bowl of sustaining gruel. That child will arise. Her name is Enough. Her name is Charity. Her name is Least Among You, and her first words are always, “Do not be afraid.” God surrounds her malnourished frame in his huge hands. The child relaxes and falls asleep, curled in the soft flesh of tomorrow. I’m surprised that such a tiny little thing can make God cry.

“It’s your move,” God whispers a little choked up. My heart skips a beat. I know it’s a trick. I take a deep breath and the right response comes to me.

“No,” I whisper back, “It’s our move. I’ll wait until she’s rested.” God grins and wipes his nose, and I add, “I know what you’re thinking. Old dog learns new trick.”  I give my own chest a congratulatory thump.

God’s grin widens until his face cracks into the full day ahead. My temporal self is sorely tempted to react and run amok, but I don’t. God will wait, and I will wait. The child will sleep.

Face Bugs

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There are creatures on our faces that feast on cells and oils and then die because they have no body part to eliminate waste. This might be among the worst design flaws ever. Why do they dwell on our faces? Why do they even exist? To the naked eye, they are invisible. Ancient wisdom teaches that what is seen is transitory, but that which is unseen is eternal. This was before microscopes.

The same ancient sources suggest that God is very particular about his face and who can see it. In fact, seeing the face of God can be dangerous. But living on it could be far worse. I wonder if these microscopic organisms feast and die on God’s face like they do on mine.

“Um, God,” I say, scratching at my scalp (thinking about these creatures makes me itch). “Do you have Demodex on your face, mating at night, laying eggs around the rim of your pores, exploding with excrement when they die?”

“Of course,” God says. “They’re fascinating. I name each of them. Gives me something to do when I can’t sleep.”

“That’s gross,” I say. “Nasty.”

God looks straight at me. “Labeling something nasty means you’re afraid. It’s a primal, irrational response. You can do better than that.”

“No,” I protest. “No, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” God says. “Fear is the root of the problem. But fear leads to grabbing at power, which leads to lying, labeling, and leading others astray. Quite vicious. Quite sad.”

I’m befuddled. There are so many things that make me squeamish, so much nastiness…even if I somehow overcame my revulsions, I can’t see how it would help.

“Take each face in your hands,” God says. “Feel the skin, see the longing in the eyes, listen to the breathing. Layers and layers of life at work in the moment. Remember, you’re a bug yourself. A bug in a jar with holes in the lid.”

My claustrophobia hits as hard as the rest of the fears God is igniting in me: Vulnerability, insignificance, death. There’s a scream rising my throat. A howl of desperation.

“Hold the face,” God says. “Hold the face and pray.”

The alternatives are worse, so I glance at God and try to comply. In my mind, I take the jowly face crawling with hatred and look into the beady, belligerent eyes. Underneath the sheen of hatred, I see fear. My hands are on fire. I cannot find words to pray, but from the bones and ligaments of my being, a prayer arises, and my hands hold until the cold and holy silence of forever takes me entirely apart, and I am free.

“Nice,” God says in an admiring voice. “I’ll take it from here.”

God the Recycler

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

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Turkeys descend on the compost pile, pecking and pooping, while the earth turns this side of herself to the light, and I sit muddled in mortality. Snow glistens with insolence but like all things seen and unseen, winter’s days are numbered. The life expectancy of a wild turkey is ten years. Of the chickadee hopping around in the chokecherry branches, it’s less than two. Fighting the false claims of linearity, I remind myself that Allah, God, Creator and Redeemer, is the ultimate recycler—a saver and transformer. But I need reassurance. “Some transformations take longer than we’ll glimpse in this life, right?” I poke an elbow into God’s ribs.

“What’d you say?” God said, startled.

“I said you’re a devoted saver. A long-haul recycler.” For once, I’d snuck up on God.

“Ah. Sorry. You’re right.” God nodded, distracted. “Say, could I ask you something?”

“Sure,” I said, glad for any diversion God might provide.

“Okay. So, I’m God. Alpha and Omega. Beyond Big. And I love every measly nano-bit of my creation. I mean beyond little. And my intention has been and will always be to provide a transformation path for everything. Everyone. Always. Forever. What do you make of that?”

“I’d say I’m glad, but you’ve got your work cut out for you.” I felt relieved that God was who I thought he was.

“It’s your work, too,” God said, taking my face in his hands. “That’s why you have consciousness. A self-reflective loop.”

“Oh.” I groaned. But I let the reassurance of those warm hands sink in. “But you’ll take care of the heavy stuff, right? I mean like Hitler and Genghis Khan and nuclear weaponry and the racist and the unrepentant greedy unsaved types, and the billionaires and liars?”

“There’s more than enough work to go around.” God sighed. “I’m always in the thick of it. And of course, there are all those ‘helpers’ who think they can decide who’s ‘saved’, and how, and when…as if it’s an end state!” God snorted and did air quotes when he said the words “helpers” and “saved.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s irritating. They have formulas.”

“I know,” God said. “Magic words. Allegiances with guarantees. And get this–you know what happens when I infiltrate and hint that maybe, everyone is already saved, will be saved, and will need saving again?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t try that anymore. You’re brave.”

“Well,” God said. “You’d think their hearts would leap for joy, but no, they aren’t the tiniest bit happy for the unwashed masses. They’re disappointed. Angry, even. They argue and quote scripture–to me! They can’t stand the possibility that no one is going to hell for very long.”

“Well, that’s…Ah, that’s…” My own revenge fantasies were threatening to surface. What do you say to God at this point? Luckily, I’ve hung out with God enough to realize that I don’t want to want anyone or anything to end up separated, destroyed, or useless. God and I argue sometimes, but I hardly ever argue that someone should be damned forever. It’d be futile anyway. God is not only the source and definition of love, God is beyond stubborn. God never gives up. Though I’m not equipped to glimpse the whole, I suspect his recycling program is massive, fascinating, and makes use of both joy and fire. God’s compost is to die for.

“You’re a little scary,” I said, finally. “But I like your style.”

“Thanks,” God said back, rubbing my blue-gray hair with real affection. “I like yours too.”

Charitable Giving

Rita Sommers-Flanagan11 Comments

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I positioned my cold feet in the warm sunlight, determined to sit until the embers in the stove or the chickadees outside the window convinced me that anything matters. So far, it hasn’t worked. I’m in a wicked post-holiday mood. I just threw out three beautifully-rising loaves of bread after discovering that flax can indeed go rancid, and this is not good for you. I’d taken a little taste of the dough. It was unusually bitter, which led to the research, which led to the painful placement of the loaves in the compost bucket. I hate that things go rancid.

I want everything to stay whole and healthy, even in large quantities. I often cloak my hoarding tendencies under colorful claims of creativity and eventuality. But I know the truth about me. I’m a mixture of pioneer ancestors and an excessive culture. Like God, I see potential redemption in even the worst of the worst, and try to make use of everything. I hate letting go.

The chickadees are gone. Wild turkeys are pacing the perimeter of the garden, calculating whether flying over the tall fence will result in enough nourishment to justify the energy expenditure. They don’t know about the rancid flax-laden dough about to appear. This may sway their decision. I trust their digestive systems can make use of rancid flax, or they’ll know enough to turn up their pointy beaks and strut away.

“And you?” God says gently, speaking from deep within the pile of nearly-rotten wood I’m trying to burn up.

I pause to think of myself as a calculating turkey, pacing the outer edge of Eden. “No idea,” I answer. That kind of wisdom is a distant memory in the oldest part of my aging brain. But what I do know is that a great, rancid toxicity is blanketing the earth from massive accumulations of wealth. And I don’t know how to shake it off. Even as I scorn the greed of those who have too much, I wonder how I can get a little more. I hate this about myself.

I try my usual cure. “Give until it hurts, you selfish hypocrite,” I say in a nearby mirror.

God rushes toward me like a grandmother saving a child from a coiled rattlesnake.

“No!” she shouts, waving her arms. “No. Stop it. That kind of talk doesn’t help anyone.”

I jump back, startled. She throws a blanket over the mirror.

“Take a beer and sit among your possessions,” she says sternly. “Be in your body. Be in my body. Open your soul. And notice where it hurts, darling. Then, gently, give. But give until it heals. That’s all. Give until it heals.”

This is a complete impossibility. But that’s one of the things I like about God. She often pairs the impossible with dark beer.

 

Hunting

Rita Sommers-Flanagan11 Comments

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God likes a big campfire when he’s out hunting in the fall, cavorting with the creative forces in the universe. “Smoke follows beauty,” he jokes, working his way to the upwind side. Back when I was innocent, I liked campfires too. Now I know too much. I want to impress upon God the need to minimize polluting recreational activities such as jet skis, snowmobiles, travel on airplanes, NASCAR, and fire, but it seems unlikely he’ll listen. I guess when you’re God, you can clean up after yourself with wind and rain, more assured of balance in the long haul than the average human.

And I’m not the average human anyway. I’m an angry worrywart. I hate the idea of the massive environmental “corrections” future generations will face, and the scarred up, battered little earth they’ll call home. I feel chronically guilty and uncertain. God has a slightly larger perspective. In fact, after toasting his third marshmallow, he asks a few of his extended selves to double-check the pressure on the subatomic particles to make sure no more big bangs occur until he’s ready.

Then he winks at me. “Guilt is a conversation, not a resting place.”

The wood he throws on the fire is from Belize—little pieces of hardwood he salvaged from decades of devastating logging practices. His cavalier attitude has me hopping mad. I grab his arm to stop him, but I’m off balance. I fall into the flames. He watches for a minute, then joins me. We disintegrate in the brilliant light, but it doesn’t hurt. God is the wood. God is the fire. God is the oxygen, depleted and rare. We burn to the ground. We burn into heaven. We’re ash, floating in the frigid air.

“Let me go,” I beg. “I don’t want to be this expansive. I can’t stand being this small.”

God ignores my pleas but his cosmic children come up from the ground, down from the clouds to repair my body. Living water flows in their veins. I drink. In silence, God offers me venison from his recent kill. It’s been seared perfectly black over his blazing holiness. With reluctant reverence, I eat.

“Go, now, sweetheart,” God says. “And take some fire. There’s plenty.”

“No,” I say, looking him straight in the eye. “I won’t.”

I plead for a different outcome. I remind him of the beauty in a single ladybug, and his regrets after the flood. He wavers. For a nanosecond, I see down into the sweet center where guilt is nothing and trying is everything. This is what I love about God. He wavers, and we have a chance to see.

Pieces

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Stirring a small white cup of thick gruel with arthritic brown hands, God glanced up at me and smiled. She was missing some teeth and her dark oily hair was mostly tucked under a tattered scarf. I knew she was going to offer me that cup, and I didn’t want to take it. Usually, God’s offers are nicer than that, and I still refuse them on a regular basis.

My eyes began to water from the strong spices in the air. I was certain whatever was in that cup would sear my throat and leave me begging for a crust of bread to calm the fire. Birds of prey circled overhead. The ominous light of pre-dawn settled on the hills as I tried to find a path that would take me safely away from this insistent old woman. I knew there was no such path, but still, I searched. What I found was a large troop of frantic fools that looked a lot like me. A pool of living mirrors, selfish and afraid.

“Well, shit,” I said. I rarely use that word, but there it was. I’d ambushed myself. With no pretense of gratitude, I took the cup from her steady hand and gulped down the terrifying liquid. It burned its way to my center, thick as blood.

Those who love me came with bread, broken and ready. I ate. Another harsh day had arrived, but I was nourished. I roared. I punched the air. I ran my hot red psyche into the nearest wall at full speed and shattered myself into jagged little pieces. Pretty little pieces. Useful little pieces. That’s the best I have to offer. Useful little pieces. And usually, by noon or so, I’m okay with that.

Infinity and beyond

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“God,” I said.  “Do you care if humans believe in you?” We were gazing out the filmy curtains in a motel in West Virginia. God was relaxed and amicable. I wasn’t. My physical being was tormented by lack of sleep, stiff joints, road food and irrefutable evidence that the world was in big, big trouble.

“What do you mean by ‘believe’?” he asked.

Oh great. God was in a rhetorical mood.

I fought the impulse to shout YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN and said instead, “I mean like feeling sure you exist.”

“Exist is an odd word,” God said, stroking his chin like a retired philosophy professor. “I actually don’t exist in any sense of the word you can grasp. I just am. And to answer your question, yes and no. I don’t care for my sake. I’m perfectly sufficient unto myself. But for your sakes…”

His voice cracked. He looked away, smoothed his robes. “For your sakes…” He shook his head and took a couple deep breaths. “I wish I could be of help.” His longing was clear.

This scared me. I said, “Well, some rather large groups down here have formulas. If we believe a certain way, you’ll save us. And forgive us, and reward us in heaven, or something like that.”

God shrugged. “I know. Humans seem to need that. It’s basically okay with me, but they waste a lot of time judging, fussing, and worrying when they could just relax and live the Truth. And there’s not a lot of time to waste.”

I did double-take. This is how I feel—apocalyptic—but I didn’t want God feeling that way.

“What?” I said. “There’s eternity, right? You’re the beginning, the end, the middle–the forever, right?”

“Sure,” God said. “I’m infinite. But you’re linear. For now, you’ve got this chance to do good things, little by little. To get better, deeper, wiser, kinder. To figure it out. I’ve mostly cleared the way. Opportunities abound.”

“Ugh,” I said. “That’s so hard. I’d rather be infinite.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” God said. Then he burst into laughter, slapping his thigh, screeching with glee. “There’s the problem, right there. What a truly bad idea. You, in your current condition, infinite.”

I laughed, too. Tentatively. God laughed harder. He could barely breathe. His eyes squeezed shut. The jagged linearity in the room softened, as infinity dribbled down God’s weathered cheeks. I touched my hand to the shimmer, hope against hope, but the seconds on my digital watch blinked relentlessly forward.

Brittle

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“God,” I said. “Blogging with you is like trying to shovel water out of a fast moving river.” God said nothing. This is one of God’s favorite responses. Even though I’m used to it, I don’t like it.

My motivation wanes and I assess the strength of my arms, the shape of the morning, the level of courage left after the terrors of the night. It isn’t easy to let go and make contact with something that vibrates like God. My brittle convictions are always in danger of breaking. My perch is precarious and I don’t look down for very long.

“Down is the wrong direction,” God says, the voice rising from the frost on the windows.

This time, I give God a taste of her own medicine. I say nothing.

“Down is the wrong direction, and anyway, the only real escape is breakage. Don’t be afraid. I work best with colorful fragments, contrite hearts, and brave, belligerent foolishness. I’m more of an abstract artist. I like mixed media. Exotic combinations.”

Even though I intended to stay silent, I couldn’t stop myself. “You are one twisted dude, God,” I said. I thought I was angry, but when God started laughing and dancing and throwing small stones in the air, I melted. I let go. I fell, and broke.

“Look what you did,” I screamed, terrified of all the jagged edges, the false starts, the weakened beliefs. Utter incoherence where once there’d been an idea. An explainable self, shattered.

“Yes,” God said. “Look what I did.”