Lately, I’ve been fixated on guttering. We have a lot of unguttered or badly guttered buildings. When rain falls on impervious surfaces and is not guttered or sloped away, it pools up and erodes old foundations.
Water may seem innocuous. Innocent. But it is the (almost) universal solvent. According to the Khan Academy, “Water is key to the vast majority of cellular chemical reactions essential to life. Water molecules are polar, with partial positive charges on the hydrogens, a partial negative charge on the oxygen, and a bent overall structure.”
A bent structure may sound unattractive or dangerous, but in fact, it’s the magic that allows the embodiment of both the negative and the positive to coexist and dissolve nearly anything.
But even with the threat of dissolution, rain is not the essential problem. Too many impenetrable surfaces are.
Thus: guttering. The precious rainwater is renamed runoff and routed to centralized locations such as sewers or storage tanks. This creates the potential for stagnation or downstream flooding.
As humans, we long for shelter from the storm. Impenetrability is tempting. It’s hard to be vulnerable, receptive, and thankful; harder still to lovingly accept rejection and scorn.
But we live in a world where the Coauthors and the Dancers cause the rain to fall on the just and unjust. The sun shines on the kindly folk as well as the cruel, selfish fools.
Many of us feel quite indignant about this. We seek justice but often end up plotting revenge. This storyline has no happy ending. In fact, it has no ending at all. Revenge is self-perpetuating.
Bullies, tyrants, and other impervious souls have developed gutters that shunt kindness and forgiveness off as if they were wastewater. The resulting pools putrefy due to the contaminants they’ve picked up, testifying to the toxicity of fear.
Watching sacrifices go down the drain or get routed to a holding tank where good intentions become sludge is painful.
Even so, the stubbornly resilient make plans (that will no doubt go awry) and dig deep into linty pockets to offer the widow’s mite.
The Holy Role-Models of Resilience are chaotic, redundant, and flighty. They live in the gutters and fix broken toys. And while wildfires rage, they shelter frightened families under scorched wings.
It sometimes seems that Creation has grown weary of us, and the exhausted Dancers have lost the beat. I honestly don’t know.
But in this briefest of moments, some of us have the great good fortune of being lilies of the field, hoping no one sprays us with a broad leaf herbicide as we turn our open faces to the cleansing rain and rejoice when sunlight breaks through.
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. –Albert Einstein
Little Ralphie slugged Little Lana in the stomach, and she fell. He punched her in the face and broke her nose. Blood spurted. She curled inward. He kicked and stomped on her leg. She screamed.
Adult responses:
Yank Little Ralphie up and commence beating him.
Drag Little Ralphie to the edge of town and stone him.
Castrate Little Ralphie so he cannot reproduce his own kind.
Let Little Lana do to Ralphie what was done unto her.
Lock Little Ralphie up and while starving him to death, fine his parents, and give the money to Little Lana.
But wait. Little Ralphie had found Little Lana using a cattle prod on his beloved grandfather. Little Lana was howling with laughter as the grandfather twitched in his wheelchair and cried out for help. While torturing him, Little Lana taunted the grandfather. “You’re a worthless, helpless pile of shit. Pathetic. I hate you.”
Adult responses:
Grab the cattle prod and begin shocking Little Lana.
Cage Little Lana up.
Sterilize Little Lana so she cannot produce children like herself.
Roll the grandfather to a safe place and then shake Little Lana to death.
Rape Little Lana to put her in her place.
But wait. Little Lana has already been raped. Repeatedly. By the grandfather, of course. And he’d just tried to pull her onto his lap, calling her his favorite slut, whispering that he was going to sell her to his neighbor. He said he had pictures of her woo-woo and she’d bring a decent price.
Adult responses:
Make a violent, erotic movie about the whole sequence. Wring hands. Donate to a charity. Introduce tariffs on pornography, fentanyl, and wheelchairs. Sell more guns. Fantasize living on another planet. Rape the grandfather.
Bam
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this whacked out,” my Coauthor observes.
“Is extermination the correct adult response to our species?” I snarl.
“Maybe yes. Maybe no. Remember, you’re just illusions of organized molecules,” Coauthor smiles.
“And sometimes, you’re just a Bad Idea.” I turn away. “This illusion of molecules is going to distract herself with something beautiful.”
“Excellent!” Bad Idea exclaims. “I’ll come with you.”
We kneel in the garden where a tulip has bloomed blood red and watch molecules shaped like Little Ralphie and Little Lana care for their offspring. I scream the names of the Baby Gods dead in Gaza and dread the adulthood of those who survive.
Methane continues to escape from the warming permafrost. Bullets fly. Bombs drop. Idiots rule. I dissipate into a momentary dream of justice. My Coauthor dissipates with me. Therein lies my only hope.
In the bioluminescence of adoration, God stroked my bedhead hair, and I felt powerful. From the safe distance of her corpulent lap, I glimpsd the dark tentacles of fear wrapped tightly around the human heart. I saw the malevolent vine choking off compassion, strangling kindness, and feeding the voracious twins: greed and envy. I imagined taking an axe to the roots of fear and chopping us free. God laughed. Me and Paul Bunyan to the rescue. I laughed too and snuggled in, dreamy and half-conscious.
“What are humans so afraid of?” I asked my big-breasted comforter.
“The truth, honey,” God said. “You’re all deathly afraid of the truth.”
The innocent fun was over. I had to ask.
“What is the truth?” I whispered, hoping God would just gaze off toward the horizon and keep cuddling. But I knew she would not. Nor would she tell me fairy tales. Nor would she sugar-coat whatever I needed to face.
Her voice was even. Steady. Not cold, but compelling. “Honey, the truth is this: You are not perfect. You are mortal, restless, uncertain, and terrified of rejection. You are a member of a species that rapes, maims, tortures, enslaves, starves, and kills its own—a species frightened of all the wrong things.”
She paused and sighed. “Pain, loss, and death are immutable realities. They are part of the definition of life. Any number of accomplishments, offspring, accolades, facelifts, personal trainers, holy wars, conquests, or bank accounts will not take these realities away.”
“Stop,” I said and covered my ears. “I hate where you’re going with this.”
“You have no idea where I’m going with this,” God said. She pulled my hands away from my ears and crossed them over my heart. “In here,” she whispered. “Look in here.”
I felt waves of resistance but tried to hold still and listen. God continued. “Where I’m going is where you’ll go. But don’t worry. I’ve been there forever, and I’ve hidden some surprises.” She chucked me under the chin.
I stared at her, indignant. Defiant. What did God think I was? A child? Surprises? “C’mon, God,” I said. “Give me a break.”
“I already have,” God says, laughing again. “You have no idea.”
I gave up my pride and we settled back in. God, big and soft. Me, small and limited. Imperfect and afraid. God is wrong. I have lots of ideas. But God is also right. I do like surprises.
A confused Canadian Muslim wants to go home after veering into a nightmare that hasn’t ended yet. He wandered off to Syria to fight his version of the enemy. We’ve got him now, somewhere off some coast, in solitary confinement. He admitted to having thoughts of suicide.
Soon, if certain people have their way, there will be women in Alabama with unwanted pregnancies. These women, too, will be having thoughts of suicide. And when God was living in our basement, after he started using meth again—I’d be willing to bet suicide occurred to him as well.
Our house is made mostly of trees that died in a forest fire but were not consumed. We peeled the scorched bark and ran them through a sawmill, creating slabs and beams, trim and studs, enormous posts, and artistic pieces good only for admiring. Our house makes a lot of noise. It cracks and pops like an arthritic skeleton. It scares me. Impermanence. Sounds from the dead as they twist, protesting their static existence. Once they were proud Douglas fir trees, drinking rain, basking in sun, rooted. Now, they hold the frame. They are flammable shelter. They are already dead, but even so, I wonder if they wish for transformation into smoke and ash.
“They do,” God said, confirming what I already knew. “I assure you, they do.”
“Some days, I don’t think I can stand the guilty anymore,” I said, touching one of the larger, smoother posts. God nodded, but said nothing. I blathered on. “Some days, I am afraid of fire. Other days, dry rot. Other days, mold. And I tell myself I deserve whatever happens to this house. This land. This earth.” God listened, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. This is always unnerving.
“But no one deserves anything, right God?” I thought of men and women deprived of basic freedom. Their bodies legislated, their mangled souls desperate. Penitent. Defiant. We are all once-burned trees. Waiting. Uncertain of how to go on.
“Walk with me,” God said. “Let’s go to the river.”
We sat on a fallen cottonwood, watching the muddy water. God was quiet for a while, but then said, “You know what you need? You need mercy.” I teared up. God went on. “Mercy is beyond forgiveness. Beyond fairness. Beyond sympathy. Entwined with justice. This is what you need. Mercy.” God paused to make sure I was listening. “And you know I’m willing. I’m always willing.”
I felt a rush of relief, but it was quickly followed by indignation. I have a house and a truck and a savings account. Mercy? Who wants to be in need of mercy? “You do,” the cottonwood said as it continued its descent. “You do.”
Short visits with an honest God 