Tag: Suffering

It’s Everything but God

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

It’s everything but God this morning. My eyes are looking straight ahead, my ears tuned to my own frequency. My logical mind is busy with the mundanity and indignities of life.

If God were a little more forceful, a tad more insistent, I might be more respectful and self-disciplined, but she’s soft as down plucked without permission. Conforming and accommodating. Groveling like a beaten dog.

 I’d like to see some bared fangs. Some absolutes. I’d like to see the enemies of God cut down and the friends of God elevated to their rightful places.

 “Excuse me,” Meek God says. “But if you don’t mind my saying so, you’re a fool to think that’s what you’d like.”

In my miniscule corner of this nondescript town in this big state tucked into a greedy, powerful nation flattened on the face of this round little planet floating along in an increasingly cluttered stratosphere, the lights are on, the refrigerator is humming, and God has slipped in. But I am not reassured. I am not settled.

“Good,” Soft God says. “You should be neither.”

Unlove is flooding the lower elevations of what was once called civil society. I would like the steel-toed boots of an angry God to stomp out the wildfires of hate and wipe the sneer off the cocky faces of the very, very rich.

“Do you have a cold washrag I could put over my eyes?” God asks in a weak voice. “I’m feeling a migraine coming on.”

I help her lie down on the long orange couch. We both know it isn’t a migraine.

My children have futures. I have a past. We still have choices. This pale, eternal God has nothing. The patience required of omnipotence is infinite and painful.

I know this because God recuperates at my place sometimes. Even if all I do is sit or distract myself with idle bemoanings, I manage to offer a modicum of shelter and some nourishment.

For instance, I won a huckleberry pie at a political gathering last night. When God’s feeling a little better, I’ll share it. And then we’ll move into this day. Me, living as deliberately as possible. God, well. God. Elusive. Loving. An ever-mutating virus, a long-suffering containment, the final cure.

“Sounds like a plan,” God says from deep within my history and my compelling but scattered intentions. She pats my cheek as if I were a caring child or a faithful nurse. And for that brief moment, I am both.

The Dance

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Even though Google responds with greater enthusiasm and speed than God, I still badger God with questions, which is surprising because God’s answers are slow, few, and redundant. In contrast, Google is generous–instantly spewing out answers that sometimes number into the millions. Google requires internet access. God does not. God requires honesty. Google does not.

“You sound pretty sure of yourself there, cowgirl,” God says. “But I don’t require honesty. I’m foolproof. And if you were being honest, you’d admit that.”

I smile. This will be a good day. It rained in the night, but now a stiff breeze is taking back the precious moisture. God is clowning around in ways only a real creator can. There’s a certain music in the wind. Even though it’s unsettling, I usually like the slippery slopes and exhilarating spins around the dance floor with this intimate, unknowable God.

Daylight arrives without permission, but the comfort of night will be back. Darkness brings both rest and terror, but the clarity of day will return. The one-armed woman and the one-eyed man make fun of my shallow notions of beauty and perfection. I don’t want to love them or the image in the mirror. In fact, I don’t want to love anything.

“Now you’re being honest,” God says, panting. He’s taken a turn with every single possible partner. The music is relentless and has grown frenetic. I’m trying to enjoy the show, but multitudes are amassing, and I’m a little bit afraid.

“One more for the road?” God asks as he offers me his elbow. I consider Googling some excuses. How does one refuse God? Right now, I want to be a wallflower, one-dimensional and oblivious. How can I gracefully decline to dance? But this time, God is faster than Google. In the voices of all who’ve suffered, past and present, in the voices of those soon to suffer in this vast imperfect world, God answers gently, without malice. “You cannot.”

So, I accept the offer and do my best, but I tromp on God’s toes a couple times. He laughs and tosses me into high the air, and everything I’ve never needed blows away. I land lightly. I was right. This is going to be a good day.

Wildfires

Rita Sommers-Flanagan13 Comments

We evacuated a few days ago. God refused to help sort what to take but rode along in the tiny spaces available in the car and winked at me as the fire officials at the station explained that the wind had shifted. The fight was going another direction. If we took the back roads, we could go home. As we turned around, God disappeared and I was glad to see him go, even though his absence is as much of an illusion as his presence. At least with him ostensibly gone, I could avoid thorny conversations for a while.

Who wants to talk with the God of fire during an evacuation? The God of suffering, loss, and apparently random events? It never goes well. The book of Job for example; an elongated poem, a chorus of voices and views, Yahweh and Satan in a cosmic pissing match, Yahweh’s praise of evolution, and a lesson in pointlessness. Sure, there’s the veneer of a happy ending, but not if you realize it will all end again. Who wants to lose everything twice? Thrice? Forever?

“Do you think the key is to have nothing to lose?” God asked as I sat by the window, breathing smoky air, waiting for another evacuation notice. I didn’t mind that God had swung back around. He was better than the meager offerings on Roku.

“I don’t know about that,” I said, scanning my accumulations; books, art, a sheepskin rug, my yoga mats, special rocks, blue glass, a cedar jewelry box filled with trinkets, a stack of incomplete gardening journals (we start a new one every spring). Of what consequence would their loss be? Little to none. Of what consequence has my life been? Or anyone’s?

God nodded, noncommittal. Listening. I grieved and tried to be brave about it all. I wanted to imagine I was of great consequence; something other than one of the trillion dominoes God has gleefully lined up, waiting and watching to see what might set off the next run, gently drumming his fingers, offering substantial odds to anyone willing to bet against him. I wondered if I could step out of line. Redirect the future of my particular genetic strain, remain standing, and win.

“Of course,” God said. “Be my guest. I like winners.”

“But I thought you liked losers,” I said. Conversations like this give me vertigo of the soul. Winning isn’t definable, and I don’t actually know what kind of consequence I want to be. It’s risky business to have God along in an evacuation because no matter what you take along, God knows what you’ve left behind and will circle back. God always circles back. This may be a good thing, but I’d rather have the promise of perpetuity or at least a direct way home.

Change of View

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

I often wonder what inspired God to get into the business of creation. It’s obviously a work of love, but there are so many booby traps embedded along the way. The lack of smooth sailing for any amount of time suggests negligence. Or distractibility. Or inebriation. Literal and figurative landmines blow up innocent people, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust.

“So, Intelligence-Who-Sets-Things-in-Motion, what do you have to say for yourself?” I ask. I’m not in a good mood. We just moved ourselves from one condo to another. I’m tired.

“Good morning to you, too,” God smiles.

I sit breathing quietly, letting the smile of God wash over me, bringing both relief and the usual touch of terror. My watery eyes take in the new view through a different set of sliding glass doors. Last night, we slept in the old place, but this morning, I dragged the coffee table, frying pan, and my favorite cup to the new place, and here I am. Awake. With toast. And here’s God, smiling. And here’s the morning, arriving without apology, under the weight of so many newly dead, so many starving children, so many imprisonments, so many billionaires. I turn off the news, vaguely ashamed of myself. Angry at the capacity of humans to justify their self-serving, violent, deluded choices.

God is doing a silly dance around the boxes and displaced furniture.”Creation is my middle name,” she says. “I love trying out new ideas. I love diversity.” She pulls a bucket of sunglasses from behind her back—the lenses are densely colored–green, red, pink, orange, blue, black, green, purple—but none are clear. “Try them all,” God says.

“No thanks,” I say. “I’m retired.”

God laughs. I blow my nose. The new skyline is both urban and wild. I remember a defiant peace sign on the lowly hills. The majestic Mission Mountains are north of here, out of view, but close enough to feel their power rising. Peace signs come and go. Even mountains don’t last forever. They face erosion unafraid, taking comfort from flocks of noisy crows and the vast truth of sky.

I give God one last accusatory look and uncross my arms. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll try purple. But take the orange away. I’d rather see clearly, but if my vision is going to be tainted, I appreciate having a choice.” God hands me the purple glasses and sets the orange ones on the table beside my stack of masks.

“Thanks,” I say, halfhearted. God nods and hands me a beer and my vitamins. “Work up to it,” she says. She’s smiling again. Her cheerfulness, like the massive track lighting in this place, seems a bit much. I’d like a little less light.

Plagues, Pestilence, Fire, and Greed

Rita Sommers-Flanagan5 Comments
Image credit: Aljazeera

It is terribly tempting to detach from the news. But I can’t. Protests, fires, floods, torture, gun accumulations, fascists, pandemics, stupidity, war, rape, riots, starvation—these are where the weakest live and die, where misery is chronic, where God makes her home—on the precipice of annihilation.

“I have to let them suffer,” God says as she darkens the room. “There is no other way to show you your failings. No other way to challenge you forward. But I die with them. Every single mangled body. Every single last breath. Each rotten, contorted act of injustice. I’m right there.”

“Yeah?” I say, feeling nauseated and furious. “Yeah? And are you there with the bomber? The shooter? The choke-holder? The fire-starter? The pompous politicians? The filthy rich?”

“Honey, you know I am,” God says in an imploring voice. “I know you’re angry, but you know I am.” And God’s right. I do know. That’s why I pray and swear my way through the sickening news. But it makes me crazy.

If God fully materialized, I’d punch her lights out. I’d go down swinging. If her ears were visible, I’d give her an earful. I’d look her straight in the eye and tell her she’s a failure. I might even reach for her heart, intending to pull it out and examine it with my angular fingers and ever-diminishing vision. But luckily for both of us, she’s staying safely out of reach.

“Honey, I’ve forgiven you,” she says. “And the polite thing to do would be to forgive me back.”

Forgive God for this lousy short existence? For the nightly exposure to the sufferings she could end? Forgive God for what’s happened to people enslaved, burned alive? Women abused? Children starved or beaten to death? Forgive God for the explosive human ego and the fanatical fears that are wiping us out?

“Forgiveness is an act of faith,” God says.

“Stop it,” I say to God. “You’re God. You can do whatever you damn well want.”

“I know that,” God says. “I’m fire and water. I’m beauty, compassion, blood, and guts. I’m beyond and under, alongside and within. And you need to try a little harder. You have to forgive yourself. And me. And carry on. You need to believe against the odds it will come out okay.”

“I can’t,” I say. “It won’t.

“You can,” God says. “It will.”

“I won’t,” I say.

“You will,” God says. “Like I said, forgiveness is an act of faith. And I believe in you.”

In Praise of the Human Way

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

Stubbed my toe this morning because I left the light off thinking I’d reduce my carbon footprint by groping my way through a dark place. If I’d been more mindful the plan might’ve worked. My toe paid the price. The capacity to learn from our mistakes is a human phenomenon that squares off with denial–a constant horse race; the outcome undecided.

“Why?” I ask God as I run my fingers over the rough surface of a threatening sky and remember my overfilled barns. I have long splinters festering with resentment. The rain advances and recedes. I live in the eye of my own perfect storm, held together with frayed orange twine.

“Pain is not the best instructor, ” God says, looking slightly impatient. “You don’t have to hurt yourself to get things done.”

“Oh, but I do,” I counter with righteous indignation. “Isn’t that what suffering is all about?”

A flash of anger crosses God’s face, and the earth shudders. Angels with enormous teeth bite their own fingers, knuckles crunching like popcorn. Birds feathered in brilliant blue dip and glide as if they owned the air and then crash into the window. I bow my head and wait, penitent but unwilling to cede my point. Never back down in a fight with God. She’ll spit you out like bad water. Her respect for you will fade like the waning moon and rebuilding things will be costly. Better to ask forgiveness but hang on to what you think you know. You’ll be proven wrong, or you won’t.

God reaches toward me. I flinch but stand my ground. She runs her fingers over the deep contours of my misshapen ideas so tenderly I barely feel the touch. It’s the warm, moist exhale of creation, the murmurings of the Mother.

She moves me to disturbed terrain and directs my gaze to the dandelion– vixen and vagabonds, mavens and madrigals–all things brilliantly defiant. Flattened and subdued, shy strands of spring bend toward me, and I almost understand. In the place where I can still expand, I do, and there’s God bustling around, her apron filled with eggs, rhubarb in her fists. She is going to bake something nice for dessert, and I will help. I am setting this intention: I will help. This is what humans can do. And, yes, perhaps sometimes, it doesn’t have to hurt.

The Will of God

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

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At 3:00 AM I was unwillingly awake with an old church song stuck in my head. I tried to breathe it away. I tried to layer another song on top to cancel out the insistent tune. I finally fell asleep, but now, with the dawn, the song is back. Coffee, Paul Simon, a nice Vimeo poetry reading—nothing has obliterated this song. So, like any sensible, mystically-oriented writer, I Google the lines to see from whence they come. Alas. It was an easy Google. New Testament. Writings of a fellow mystically-oriented writer called Paul in the book called Romans. Here are the words of the song:

We are heirs of the Father, we are joint heirs with the Son.
We are children of the Kingdom. We are family. We are one.

But guess what? The song is a bit selective. The whole verse has a disturbing caveat. We are one, alright…IF we share in the suffering. But isn’t God’s love supposed to free us from suffering? Sometimes, I like a good paradox. An enlightening dialectic. But this morning, I don’t like the song, I don’t like the verse, I don’t like suffering, and I hate my internal judge who says maybe I haven’t suffered enough, so I can look forward to more or die a total slacker.

God arrives gently. “How’s the book coming along?” he asks. He’s talking about a book I’m writing on suicide.

“What’s the point of anything?” I answer. “The book is freaking me out, and I doubt anyone will publish it anyway. And why is suffering even a thing?”

“Bones break,” God says. He sighs. “Fire burns. Hunger happens. I don’t like it any better than you do.”

I believe this is true even though I’m talking to the Biggest God. The One who could fix it all. The One with perfect pitch who plucks the strings of the cello, paints the sky, births the morning, ties the knots, upends the endings, buries the dead, begins with no beginning, ends the day with no end.

“I’ve been working on my will,” God says. “What would you like to inherit?”

My insides drop. “You can’t die,” I say from a very cold place.

“Of course I can,” God says. “I do it millions of times a day. It’s a job requirement.”

“That’s stupid,” I say. “You’re God. You wrote the job description.”

“Yes, I did,” God says. “Now, what would you like to inherit?”

I look at God, utterly astonished at the ridiculous question and impossible answer.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

“What’s that?” God says, leaning dramatically across the couch.

“NOTHING,” I shout. And I mean it.

But God snaps open his briefcase, and a fully formed day leaps out, intensely pigmented, filled with the aroma of baked goods and lilacs, songs in my head, words at my fingertips, and a horizon barely out of reach. Just the way I like it.

“Okay,” I say. “For now.”

“Yes,” God says. “For now.”

 

 

Morning Report

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

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Yesterday, I washed a week’s worth of dishes, sorted emails, moved the compost bucket to the door, raised the blinds, took a swipe at my hair, put my morning half-beer within arm’s reach, and decided to stay in my pajamas a while longer. It appeared I’d survived another night and still inhabited my corporeal body. Perhaps this was cause for rejoicing. Perhaps this was ordinary. Banal, even. As that thought crossed my mind, I glanced over my spiritual shoulder, waiting for a rebuff or reassurance. Nothing. Then some random curiosity prompted me to google daily global death rates from various causes. It was a terrible mistake. Of course, I myself might get Covid, but the rates are comparatively low. Cancer is pretty high, but I’ve already had cancer. Heart disease takes a lot of people out, and it does run in my family. But here’s what got me by the throat: every single day, 25,000 human beings die of causes related to malnutrition and hunger. Given my hearty breakfast and plans for a snack midmorning, I did not believe I was in imminent danger of this particular fate. But my morning had been trashed.

I stopped glancing over my shoulder and sat very still. I did not want God stopping by. I wanted to sit there by myself, imagining what I would do if I were God instead of the human-inspired insipid bastard who flits around the universe enjoying fame and good fortune. All manner of religious expression seemed as vapid as the press conferences we’re currently being subjected to. God made in the image of humans; human longings pinned as promises to the robes of this almighty manmade tongue-twisted idol. Born out of wedlock, born out of nothing, elevated, emaciated, eternal; God stands accused and convicted. But really does God stand at all? I sipped my beer and waited to be struck dead by lightening.

Instead, I heard a meadowlark. The tom turkeys strutted by, hoping to impress the ladies. The sun had raised itself and was hard at work greening up the earth. I could hardly stand how small I was. Across the valley, my eye caught a movement: It was my archenemy waving a white flag. I swore under my breath and sighed. Then, reluctantly, I raised the arm still attached to my limited body, waved the hand attached to the arm, and warmed a cup of sweet tea. It’s a favorite of his. No words were exchanged. A long day of tiny miracles and cleansing fires ensued, and then I slept.

This morning, before I was fully awake, a dense, resonant essence laid down beside me, enveloped me, and wrapped me in unearned perfection. The holy phantom was tattered and torn, hopeful and helpless, blameless and fully alive. I was defenseless and unafraid. “Good morning, God,” I said. “Happy Easter.’

DNA

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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In many ways God and I have very little in common. The narrow gateway of our commonality is not the DNA I share with other humans, fruit flies, bananas, trees, or goats; not my uncertainties or my short journey in this limited body. And absolutely not my tendency to bite my thumb when I sense God is close. God doesn’t have thumbs. But sometimes, she borrows one and bites it while I write, just to demonstrate her solidarity. It’s a transparent solidarity. I slip my hand through and watch the world turn to fire. I am intrigued by the godness of fire as mass gives way to energy.

Often the godness around me is so dense I can hardly breathe. Billions of people seething and searching for the right ways to live their lives, afraid of all the wrong things. Even the stars are born and die, so what do we have to fear? One form godness takes is joy, a flower with roots that run deep in dark places. Another form of godness is suffering, and it will be with us until the end.

“Yes,” God says, affirming my pondering. “Maybe not DNA, but joy and suffering. Yes, these we have in common.”

“God,” I say. “I don’t always love it when you show up and agree with me.” I turn my gaze inward, where of course, I find God smiling between the strands that define who I think I am. I slide my consciousness back out, trying to think of other things. Deadlines. Vitamins. Bad travel conditions. Entropy. Anything but You-Know-Who.

“Okay,” God says. “Let’s play hide-and-seek. Shall I find you, or do you want to find me?”

“What does it matter?” I say. “It’s one and the same.”

God pretends to ring a bell. “Ding, ding, ding,” she says. “Folks, we have a winner.”

I can’t help but laugh. What a chump. I shrug. “Fine. So you’re here. What’ll it be today? Compassion? Sacrifice? Slippage? The mundane grip of reality? Painting sticks? Rearranging my rock collection? Maybe a small skirmish with the dark forces of hell and selfishness?”

God mimics my shrug. Then she leans over, examines my thumb, and kisses the bite marks away.

“All better,” she says, her voice tender and soothing. I stare at my thumb.

“Maybe,” I say, tears welling up. “But I don’t see the point. You know I’ll bite it again.”

“Exactly,” God says. “Exactly. Maybe that’s why I love you so much.”