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.”
Short visits with an honest God 