Tag: Spirituality

Sad

Rita Sommers-Flanagan16 Comments

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This morning, long before daylight, I woke to the sound of someone crying. It was God. She’d been crying quietly all night, but as the wee hours waned, her sobs grew louder. The darkness just before dawn is a tough time for a lot of us. Years ago, when I first heard God crying, I was shocked. If anyone should be able to cheer themselves up, wouldn’t it be God? Just go make another planet or something, I’d thought, wanting to get away from that oceanic, gripping sorrow.

But if you’ve ever loved anyone or anything at any time, you know that backing away from the sadness only twists and distorts—it doesn’t make it go away. So after I realized I wasn’t going to abandon God or hide from the grief, we made a little deal. God doesn’t back away when I’m sad, and I try my best to stay present when God’s heart is breaking. The roughest times are when she considers how much hatred is leveled in her name, how much suffering we inflict on each other, or how trashed this stunning little planet has become. These things catch up with her sometimes.

I often find comfort in the lap of God. It’s far more awkward when God tries to fit on mine, but that’s what needed to happen. My lap expanded to the size of a mountain range, my arms grew a million miles long, and I wrapped them around her, nice and snug. Then I swayed to the subterranean beat of the cosmos, murmuring the bits of hope I could muster, singing fragments of lullabies that came to mind.

“Sweet Lord,” I whispered. “You try so hard. You love so deeply. You’re a worthy, excellent God.”

Her head was tucked, body curled. Her vibrations were pulling me to pieces. She was in real pain.

“Gentle God,” I said. “Remember the good old days? When you were having so much fun, setting earth in motion, and sprinkling stars everywhere. Remember that? It must have been awesome.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice murky with grief. “So much I remember. So much I hoped.”

“And you can still hope, right? I mean, it isn’t over yet, is it?”

“I don’t know, my friend,” she said, with a deep, unsteady breath. “I honestly don’t know. You tell me.”

Dawn arrived. God wrapped herself in light, splashed her face in the falling snow, and thanked me as she became the song of the great horned owl, calling it a night. Heading for bed. This was good. We both desperately needed some rest. And then, it’s clear, I have work to do. We all have work to do.

Longevity

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

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Out the southern window, eleven Canadian Geese sliced silently through the sky in a straight dark line. But it only looks straight. It’s curved like the earth, curved like all who dwell herein. An orange school bus glides along the distant road, carrying tired values and outdated ideas back and forth while unruly children bounce on the cracked leather seats. I’ve ridden that bus all my life. The back window rattles loose and I occasionally escape, but I don’t get far.

To mark the path home, I’ve rolled large stones into a curved line, and stacked smaller ones on the rounded tops, held in place by gravity, spit, and Zen. When the wind howls through the valley, some of them tumble off. These are local river rocks, but I drag stones home from wherever I go. Alleys, beaches, roadways, mountains, even other continents.

Decades ago, I rescued a collection of agates that had been buried by debris in the back yard of an old Forest Service office. I imagined the collector, likely now dead, watching from beyond. I wash them occasionally, and put them in new buckets, but at some point, I’ll do something more fitting, more spectacular with them. They seem content to wait. If anything can grasp the term geologic time, it would be rocks. When I was a child, I thought trees lived forever. Now I know they don’t, and I’m glad. I’m warmed by their cast-off bodies, sheltered by their harvested limbs.

And rocks don’t last forever either. But their comparative longevity is comforting.

And what’s forever, anyway? The little God on my shoulder—the one that ordained this moment–whispers something in my ear. “It’s music. Or another name for winter.”

Ah. I see. Listen to me all you fireflies and buffalo, nymphs and gnomes, wind and sun, seeds and stones. This is the gospel for today: Trees don’t live forever. Rocks don’t last forever. Bus rides eventually end. The earth is a circle moving in circles, creating the cradle, smoothing the grave. And that is how it should be. Amen.

At the Hyatt, hiding out

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

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I’m hiding inside the jagged womb of the Hyatt along the Riverwalk in San Antonio and I happen to be in a very bad mood. Not one to leave me alone for long, God casually dropped a Wall Street Journal on the badly-veneered coffee table and took flight. I peruse the unsettling headlines. A choir of angels wait in line for Starbucks, their badges hanging proudly from their elegant necks. The cacophony of praise frightens me. I wish God had stuck around for a few minutes. And the Wall Street Journal? C’mon God. I toss it aside.

People, so thin, so fat, so empty, so full, so pregnant, so barren, so tattered, so fancy. Bearded, buttoned, long and short. A stooped woman in turquoise joins a youngster in yellow slacks; they dance their way to the river and disappear. I search myself, inside and out, for some indication that I care about any of these people. Most likely, I do not. As a whole, they are mildly revolting, strolling by in their vast imperfections and badly-chosen coverings. They are orbs of self-absorption, sipping and snarking, limping and lying. Filling their mouths, licking their fingers, while I sit and watch from this sagging orange couch, isolated from the masses by my computer screen and the glare on my face.

A man named Mo sits himself down across from me. Clean-cut. Gray. Do I love Mo? No. Emmett? The thin Japanese woman named Janice? Stacey with the suitcase? No. No. No. But what if they were hungry? Would I feed them? What if they were bleeding? Would I dress their wounds? What would I risk to ease their pain? Would I die for them? Each of them? All of them?

God has come back without warning and all the people have now become trees. Willows. Cottonwoods. Oak, maple, poplar. Their limbs, filled with birds and grace, roots exposed, beautiful. As they walk slowly around the lobby, a holy breeze rustles their leaves, subduing the harsh light. The gnarly truth is no longer so repulsive. A merciful perfection has settled over us, and I realize all I have to lose are these few coins in my pocket that were never mine to begin with. I borrowed this life, these coins, this rarified air, and I have mostly forgotten why. William Butler Yeats wrote:

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun,
Now may I wither into the truth.

Yes, there is a chance I would willingly die for them. In fact, I might’ve already done so. I’m unbearably connected. Suspended in the clarity of oblivion, I realize the choices I can still make.

Everything depends on the fleeting moment and the unguarded soul. Everything.

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Where things are written

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

imported-from-the-camera-april-2014-412-2“Hey, God,” I yelled, angrily turning off the radio. “Are you aware there’s a large, huge, ginormous number of people down here using the Bible to control and hurt people? They’re yanking it around. They’re managing to make it say hateful things.”

“Yeah,” God said.

“Well,” I said, after waiting to see if God might want to elaborate. “Well. Could you step in here? I mean, they’re doing some real damage. You would not believe it.”

“Yes, I would,” God said.

“So, what gives? How can they do that? How can you let them? Somehow, they’re ignoring the basics, drilling down on obscure things, acting like know-it-alls. They’ve gone after gay people, and women, and brown skins, and they adore rich people, excusing all sorts of crap that you wouldn’t like. And acting like they don’t have to love anyone but themselves, and like it is okay to hate.

“Are you jealous?”

“What? No. Are you nuts? Fuck no. Hell no. I’m like that Psalmist. I only hate those who hate you. I want to chop off the heads of their babies…” I was being as sarcastic as I could possibly be.

God began to materialize, and she wasn’t in the best mood. She shook her head, and removed her hairpins, so her long thick mane fell to her waist. Her black eyes blazed. “Don’t do that,” she said, her voice stern. “You know better.”

“How?” I snapped back. “How do I know better, huh? There’s ugliness everywhere, and contradictions, and things that don’t make sense, and impossible commandments that no one even attempts, but then they try to defend things like capital punishment, and war, and they lord it over others. And forgiveness? Ha! And humility? Give me a break. And Mercy? Justice? Truth? Not a chance. It’s just greed and fear, greed and fear. We’re humans. By definition, we kill each other.”

God could see I was pretty wound up, so she waited and let me spew it all out. I ranted a bit more, but gradually grew calmer. She motioned for me to sit down, which I did, reluctantly.

“Honey, you’ve been reading with your eyes again, trying to fight judgement with judgement, fire with fire. Hunting for convincing words—written words—strokes of ink on paper. Screaming for answers in an answerless world.”

Oh, this made me crazy. I leaped up and grabbed for her hair. It turned to water. I drank. Her beautiful body turned to rain. I bathed. Through the clear water, I could see my heart, beating. I could see what was written there. In the profound silence of her absence, I could hear the tender whisper of this one small life I am trying to live.

 

A random text from God

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

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God texted to see if I’d be available for a get-together one Tuesday shortly after I’d finished the chemo. I clenched my jaw as I acknowledged I was free, but pointed out other options in case I could throw him off. He’s crazy, and difficult to talk to sometimes. Slow to speak, unassuming, but simultaneously requiring too much unearned adoration. Seriously. He’s almost condescending. And often he sets up these meetings and then no-shows. He runs out of money and his phone shuts down.

I called his mother later in the week, just to see if anything God said was true. “Yes,” the mother of God said. “He’s honest. Just unfiltered. He’s got a lot on his mind, you know.” She paused and said, “Say, you don’t happen to have any contact information, do you? He’s been out of touch with the family for a while.”

This set me back on my heels. Where was God? Last I knew, he was eating at the homeless shelter, picking up odd jobs and repairing bicycles. He likes to camp along the river if it isn’t too cold. How could I tell his mother this? How could his mother not know?

As Tuesday approached, I grew more and more anxious. I wished I could cancel, but with God, this is difficult. He arrived early, agitated. “Did you call my mother?” he asked, slapping his fist into his hand. He was clearly angry.

“No,” I lied. God knew. We locked eyes for a brief moment. Then he looked out the window at the apricot tree. “Looks like rain,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, sobbing. Why did everything have to be this hard? I’d lost my last apricot tree to aphids, and two sweet cherry trees to moles. I’d lost my uterus to cancer and my idealism to the nightly news. And now, God was angry just because I called his mother.

“Look,” God said, the anger abated. “Just as you are. And just as I AM.”

Then he put his long thin arms around me and bent his wild head down so it touched the top of my partially-regrown hair. “So it is, and so it will be.” His voice was as soft and dense as sleep. I climbed in, and was welcomed into the folds of that voice.

I still find rest in that thick, palpable space. There are so few places that offer any kind of shelter these days. I’m thankful, but sometimes, lately, it’s too crowded and noisy to really relax. And who knows which of these refugees might be carrying a bomb? I’ve been asked to carry one myself, but so far, I’ve refused.

 

 

Choice

Rita Sommers-Flanagan7 Comments

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God left in the evening again. He’s doing some shift work and right now, he’s on nights. I watched him pull out, his hands gripping the wheel, his ragged head tipped forward, determined. Frustration burned in my soul and I wanted to scream. Night shifts are not good for anyone, especially when the company flips people back and forth every five days or so. In the next life, I hope God’s experience with this kind of work insures that no one has to give up their pleasant, warm, cozy bed and venture into the cruel, cold darkness to earn their way along. But the next life, who knows? God plays that one close to the vest.

It’s been hard to resist talking politics with God lately, but he’s too tired. Luckily, we’ve covered a lot of this ground at other points in our relationship. One time, when I was honestly considering whether abortion was wrong, and if so, whether society should take the choice away, God grabbed my attention. We were standing under an apple tree (true story) in early fall, and of course, apples are a result of a fertilized seed, and they were lovely. But each apple also contained a lot of fertilized seeds. And the weeds I hadn’t quite gotten pulled had an astounding number of fertilized seeds in fragile snowy circles, and the juicy tomatoes, and the tender corn. Fertilized seeds everywhere.

There are millions more fertilized seeds than could or should be brought to fruition in both the plant and animal worlds. This fact slammed me alongside the head. “Hey God,” I said. “They wouldn’t all fit, would they?”

All things fertilized are not meant for fruition. And bean sprouts are sprouts, not beans.

And humans have frontal lobes and consciousness. We anticipate the future, analyze the past, and make choices that greatly affect those around us. Some of our current choices might determine if human life can continue on this generous, bodacious earth. That’s how much choice God gives us. If there was ever a god who endorsed choice, it’s you, isn’t it God?

I said all this to God. I was not struck by lightning. Instead, the enormous responsibility of love descended on my shoulders. Mercy, not judgement. Justice, not expediency. Humility, not insistence. Wisdom, not rigidity. There are times when a pregnancy should not continue. This is a private matter. Usually painful and difficult. God’s warm lap and huge comforting arms are available, but not required.

In the soft humus of rotting leaves, I sat under the tree and ate my way around the worm holes in a crisp, tart apple. I raked up the bruised windfalls and gently put them in the compost where they’ll decompose—their essence a sweet scent, rising off the altar of endlessness, where Alpha and Omega play fearless, holy, circle games, propelled by joy.

This apple seed revelation was decades ago. I’ve still not been struck by lightning. I still wear the mantel of love, wrapped tight. God still turns to me, and me to God. In fact, I have some warm bread ready for when he stumbles home, and a darkened room where he can rest, undisturbed.

 

Mistaken Identity at City Brew

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

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There’s one vacant seat, and I ease into it without spilling. Two women to the right share a long forced laugh that ends in an awkward sob. One of them is trying to absorb what it means to have a dead husband. The other one is helping, such as she can. Not long ago, her husband died too.

The man directly in front of me is typing, fast and loud. A swarm of words hovers above his keyboard, landing occasionally on his glasses. He has to wipe the lenses. I’m not sure if it’s words or tears and I don’t want to look too closely.

Sticky muffins punctuate the shiny table, and an older woman, her skin, deep purple, is texting and sipping from a tall black cup while a younger woman sighs, making her way through a stack of bills, paying with her phone. The devil is in the details. But if that’s where the devil is, where’s God? Where are you? Do you hang out in the details too?

Yeah, yeah, I know. You’ve dropped a lot of hints about this over the eons, but remember how dense we are, how sheltered, avoidant, afraid. Have mercy, Royal Master of the Known and Unknown. Peek out at me. Wave or wink so I can get my bearings. Who should get the lion’s share of my love and attention? Is there anyone here I could scorn, just a little? I need to scorn someone right now. Oh, how I need to scorn.

A train rolls by. The conductor waves, the whistle blows, I stare out the icy window and then refocus back in the cozy room. Halleluia! There you are! I jump up to offer you the last muffin. I’m a dog, licking your wounds. I’m a bird, nesting in your hair, I’m an apple, a warm coat, a shiny red car. God, do you want a ride? Can I give you a lift? Where shall we go? C’mon God. I need outta here, outta here, outta here.

Oh, no! Not God? Oh my. Excuse me. I mistook you for an old friend of mine. Very sorry.

I’ve caused a ruckus. I’ve been asked to leave. God is laughing from the belly of a very pregnant woman. She shouldn’t be drinking coffee anyway. How could I have known? I cross the street, dazed. I hear the caw of a crow. The twisted feet of a hundred homeless people have frozen to the sidewalk. They can’t move. I can’t move. We will wait for the sun together. I am at peace.

 

Quantum God

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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God and I woke rather early this morning. We like the dark warm half-consciousness where remnant of dream shapes the arrival of day. Our conversations are sometimes sleepy and subdued. Sometimes, playful or philosophical. The wee hours are long on magic and short on inhibition.

“Quantum God,” I said, feeling poetic. “I’ve been thinking. The sky goes on forever. Stars shed light with an intensity I cannot understand. Planets and planets and planets have moons. There are comets, galaxies. Everything is traveling but there’s no destiny. No location. It all goes on forever.”

God’s old bathrobe was some kind of polyester blend. Even the slightest movement caused sparkles of static electricity in the shadowy room. I paused, temporarily daunted by the sheer magnitude of all that I cannot understand.

I felt a wave of affection as God’s restlessness caused little snapping sounds in the room. “This isn’t news to you, is it?” I said. “The whole university is just an old robe draped on your massive shoulders. You could take it off any time you want. You could hang it up, or toss it on this overstuffed chair.”

God smiled patiently in the shadows, nodding like Carl Rogers, letting me find my way along this narrow path. I rolled over and started thinking about getting up. How would I start the day after my toast and coffee? What jobs would I tackle? What challenges would I face? How would I offer some love to this grasping, frightening world? How would I fill my soul?

“Quantum God,” I said. “Where do you go for your morning constitutional?  Where do you walk for delight?  For wonder?”

God looked quizzically at me, like I should already know this.“Why, wherever you go, sweetheart,” God said, arms folded, eyes warm.

“Wherever I go?” I repeated.

“Wherever you go.”  A firm answer this time. I think God wanted this to sink in. And it did. This was way too much responsibility.

“But I don’t always, I mean, the news lately sucks so much, some days I just. . .um, kind of lay around.”

Quantum God touched my arm. “I know.” The tone was gentle, but a little resigned. “I know.”

Garden Mud

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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I’m a well-fed, reasonably educated entity with permeable but definitive boundaries that temporarily separate me from the mud in the garden. I am one with the Universe, one of billions, yet I must be unique. I’ve been assured that the hairs on my head are numbered. This is a particularly odd assurance, since I’m thinking the numbers change daily, hourly, with every bath, brush, or injection of chemicals meant to wipe out fast-growing cells in the body. And even if my hairs are numbered, I’d rather be known by other measures. Say, for instance, how many bags of leaves I’ve rerouted from the landfill, or the number of houses I’ve recycled. Or the number of BTUs I’ve saved by washing said hair in cold water.

I’m veering dangerously close to an appearance by God. No. No, I am not of more value than a whole flock of sparrows. I remember flocks of sparrows undulating in the summer sky. As if a giant housekeeper was standing a thousand feet high in the afternoon sun, shaking out a sparrow rug, the flick of her wrist sending the birds gliding in perfectly coordinated waves. And the lilies of the field? Give me a break. Alicia Keys and I have both stopped wearing make-up, but I’m not giving up my pajamas or down jackets any time soon.

Okay, God. Fine. Have a seat. Would you like the last of the coffee? A cookie? Do you realize when you stop by like this, I feel more alone than ever? Why, you wonder? Well, here’s why.

I live in here. In this particular body, fraught with imperfection and vulnerability. In this particular brain, with its wonderments, endless questions, faulty connections and short circuits, in this particular soul, with forces of compassion endlessly squaring off with forces of selfishness. I don’t know how long this will last, or what matters. To be honest, I’d like to think I matter, but I’m not convinced.

I watch God out of the corner of my eye, sipping lukewarm coffee, nodding. I watch God go molecular and melt into the atmosphere. I watch the atmosphere, thick with God, shimmering. I touch my own thin skin.

Last night, I fried up the last of the paltry potato crop, grown in the dark womb of the garden. I threw in onions and kale, from the same dirt, and I ate. Today, I am nourished, ready for action. From a certain distance, this all makes sense. Close up, I’m tentative, solitary. But if God is to be believed, hair or no hair, I am as dazzling as the nearest star.

Defiance

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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“Look, God.” I shouted, earlier this morning. “I’m still standing,” which wasn’t quite true. More like leaning. But upright, both feet planted firmly on the imperfect kitchen floor. I gazed hungrily out the north window. Not much had changed since yesterday. River steady. Nothing of substance, nothing ethereal suggesting itself.

At eye level, the horizon is deceptively close and the terrain between here and there seems…ah seems….oh fuck, what’s the word I’m looking for? Passable, hikeable, doable? My vocabulary shrinks and coarsens as my synapses thicken and collapse under the weight of age. I’m becoming simple—far less complex than dirt.

I have a plan. It involves five larges stones placed so that rainfall will drain to the pond instead of the basement. God has more or less approved this plan. “Yes,” God said, looking things over. “It’s best to make gravity your friend. Defiance rarely works in the long run.”

But this is hard for me. I love the tingle of perennial youth. My inner vision suits up, ready to have a go at the burly outer images I see in the mirror, so tangible and sure of themselves. Inner youth against Outer reality. Game on.

Game over. The lights go out, the teams pack up their gear, and stunned, I run to the parking lot. “No,” I yell at the top of my lungs. “Come back. This isn’t over.” My inner vision limps as it boards the bus for home. Life is too damn short for all this Outer reality.

I glimpse my image in the calmer part of the river, my bones giving way to water. It’s clear I’ll be gone someday. I wonder how to break this news to God. I know God will miss me terribly, and I’m sad about that. It occurs to me that I will miss myself as well.