“Shhhh,” I hold my finger to my lips. God raises an eyebrow, settles into the easy chair, and waits in accommodating quietude.
I cross my legs under me. Even though my back hurts, I hold absolutely still and watch the intricate frost formations on the windows melt. Minutes pass. Centuries pass. Finally, God blinks.
“If it’s all the same to you,” she whispers, “I think I’ll move along.”
“No, wait! There’s herbal tea brewing. I just needed a few moments of…”
But she’s gone. And was never here. I’ll drink both cups of tea myself, feed the fire, and ice my back. Maybe I overdid it chopping kindling yesterday. Or it could be this lumpy sofa, my latest addition to our collection of almost perfect couches. I hate icing sore places but on occasion, it’s necessary.
Maybe I should have asked for a healing touch while she was here, I think sarcastically to myself.
And maybe someday your pigs will fly, God thinks back to me. I’m not sure whether to laugh or not.
God is an ever-present elixir, an infusion, a tincture, an essential oil. Ice and fire. She goes nowhere because she’s everywhere. But even in all her infinitude, she can be a little petty. A tad reactive. Over the eons of human consciousness, reported sightings of the holy suggest psychosis or at least terrible failures in judgment.
I imagine the pigs in flight. It’s no more outlandish than dinosaurs, evolved to birds, flying and diving and pecking at the pig food. The pigs get even. Until we moved the bird feeder to a tree, they would bump the pole to get seeds to fall so they could gobble them up. And if given the chance, any one of them would gobble a whole bird in a few quick chomps–on the run from the others if necessary. They aren’t much into sharing.
I understand that. Sharing is hard. Giving up, giving enough, giving away—all tough to do most of the time. An acute awareness of my shortcomings silences me. Evolving is a very slow process.
“It’s all about process and outcome,” God says in the audible hum of life in my head. “You are all greedy and afraid, but some mothers share. Even unto death.”
I stare at her, unsettled.
“And some eat their young,” I state flatly, almost sorry I’ve found my voice.
“Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it, sweetheart?” God says. “Is the tea still warm?”
Short visits with an honest God 