My beliefs are like any
other’s beliefs, flawed
and filtered as through
sunglasses so everything
looks a certain color. I
know this, but still must
wear the glasses, or I
cannot see at all.
“Humility is essential,” I
say with utter confidence,
and so, betray my own
statement.
For the last month I’ve been engaging in the various phases of a collosal flail. I didn’t even know before that there were stages to flailing, but it was initiated by grief and there are stages to that, so maybe that’s why.
When my beloved seagulls were displaced so casually from the roof across from ours, it triggered me in emotional ways I still don’t fully comprehend. I do know that watching their annual cycles had become a major way by which I measured the progression of my life. Their schedule was dependable in a chaotic world. I’d also come to think of them as a connection between God and myself. Their welfare had been previously threatened and I’d cursed and prayed helplessly from my window. Time and again they were spared and I began to think that perhaps God actually cared about things that I care about.
When they were ousted my entire confidence in that single, seemingly tangible connection was lost. I know it sounds silly. I guess it is, really, but it was my experience, just the same. I became uncertain of anything I’d been certain of, which wasn’t very much in the first place. I’d already been questioning many of my prior beliefs and reforming my thoughts on life and reality.
I was reminded this week, however, that I’m still certain of a handful of things that hold great significance to me. I’m still certain of the central importance of love, mercy, justice, and humility. I’ve also been reminded of the presence in my life of a couple relationships through which I’ve been given comfort and wisdom in quite fatherly ways. They are healthy relationships with caring men who actually want me to talk with them. I choose to believe that this is God reaching out to me in a healing way.
I think I’ve often measured my own relationship with God by comparing it with what I’ve seen of God’s interactions with other people. Their communication has seemed so intimate that at times I’ve been jealous, feeling shut out once again from having an emotional bond with any kind of father. I’ve prayed, begged, repented, waited, gotten prayer, tried not to try so hard, and continued to worship God even though he’s seemed far away and inaccessible. I’ve chosen to believe even against my own sense of judgment and good sense, because despite myself I cannot escape the desire for connection with him.
A few comforting thoughts have slowly risen to the top this week as I’ve continued to flail. I already mentioned some helpful relationships. Every time I lie down on the chiropractor’s table I feel the gift of comfort and am reminded to open my heart and receive it. When I am able to talk through my quandaries with my therapist I’m reminded that I’m not alone in my journey to figure out how to live. When I teach I’m reminded that there is no one perfect way to think. There is no perfect perspective of God because the best of us see through the filters of our own knowledge and experience. Each of us is allowed and even expected to have our own thoughts or we’d not have been made with free will. I’ve even considered that the mixture of love and grief with which I view the world in its brokenness may be something I have in common with God, which would mean that he and I really may care about some of the same things. If he is kind in the all-encompassing, galaxy-rocking way that I hope he is, then he cares about every single creature with more clarity and insight than I will ever have.
I’m still a big jumbled mess when it comes to my thoughts about the Bible and how much God is really involved in our daily lives. At least, however, I haven’t been left alone to both figure it out and let it go. A certain amount of mystery is to be expected and even embraced in life, and at times my need to understand has undermined my emotional health by rejecting this reality.
Eventually we’ll move to another condo and I won’t have to look at the empty roof across the street, and maybe in the meantime I’ll have learned just a bit more how to embrace uncertainty, love, and my own unique experience with an invisible God who may well choose to speak to me in ways that are different than those he uses with other people. I’d love to think that along with the painful, protracted wrestling that is life can come the reward of becoming more fully oneself, connected, free, and fully loved.
I used to wish he’d lay
a hand on me, to
hold or even thrust me
down into the ground
as though I were a
shovel with a sharp
edge splitting the earth
to make room for some-
thing to grow
up
in a tortuous glory
of green and
amber light.
He never did, of
course. No bruises
we could see, but
a waifish vine
ascending by
itself.
Childhood clings to
us all our lives if
it was hard, as
though she follows us
invisibly begging
comfort and a fix
for that deep,
raking ache that is
all we’ll ever
remember. It’s too
late for her. Once
time has passed we
can only ever
turn, smile kindly,
and promise to
find a different path.
I watch murder mysteries on
t.v. There are so many to
choose from. Some are even
sweet, in their way. Many
require subtitles due to the
accents.
I save bugs from my class-
room, and here I am looking
at corpses. We all die, though.
We’re all part of a storyline, full
of characters of sorts, picking
up mysteries here and there
as though they were chestnuts
ready for baking or words to
a Christmas song.
All our questions hide
themselves in the sock
drawer and make
themselves invisible in our
daily lives, looking ordinary
while whispering secrets just
out of reach of our ears. We
like it that way.
Mortality, our
insignificance, our importance,
diseases, hunger, poverty,
the sound of rain in the dining
room, all dress themselves in
everyday clothes so we pass
them by on the sidewalk, but
we watch the actors on t.v.
because we know we’re
missing something.
Somehow being with someone
else makes it better, all the
major and minor tragedies
of every day. She knew this
was true as a human, because
even though her dad would’ve
been no good in a fight, she’d
felt safer at night when he was
home. Anyone who’d intended
to kill them would’ve succeeded.
No matter. Being alone is
worse. Unless it is better.
Unless the other person is
the person breaking in, with a
knife, and a mouthful of
slicing in it. Except for
that. But mostly, a connection,
an exchanged smile, a kind
eye, someone who doesn’t mind
the idea of saving just about
anything from pain, makes
the world better and
inexplicably safer, even when
nothing has changed.
He came onto the bus like
a flurry of bees, energy
shivering off him in jagged
rings radiating out in ripples
with the scent of turpentine.
I’d been reading. I put down
my book. His life was too
loud for me to concentrate.
Sometimes there
is a hair trigger
split running right through
a moment when all was
fine and breezy,
the kind
of time when a luxurious
complaint about
someone else’s driving, or
bird shit on the car, seems
reasonable.
Then an unexpected
rift occurs,
and the earth becomes
flat like a
tree that’s been
beaten into
paper, or
a heart that
has lost its
beating.
When comfort comes it’s best
to accept it, even if you haven’t
met since college, changed your
your religion and like to value your
pride. If it comes often, remember
it’s birthday. Send a card and
make a cake. When that moment
arrives and your muscles release
and the whirring of knives fades
into the sound of a soft breeze in
a large grove of maples breathe deep. Cry. It’s okay to cry when the damp
leaves behind a scent of fresh
earth and oranges.
Well, in the middle of my time of existential angst, some of my dearest friends had a baby. So like life to send such a jumbled mix of light and dark all at once. He’s perfect, a little angel boy with long fingers and dark hair. His cooing sounds could break your heart. A gift, a new life full of possibilities, laughter and tears, he’s a treasure.
And here I am trying to figure out the meaning of life, and the character of God. I know my friends think God is present, reliable, personal, generous and kind. And yet, when I read the Bible he seems unpredictable, occasionally brutal, and available to only a few. Yes, there are promises of good things, but there are promises of “trials and tribulations” as well. This world has fallen from perfection and there’s no changing that until such time as God decides to really intervene. I do not know how to reconcile the appealing idea that God is a perfect father who wants to have a personal relationship with me, with the picture of this unpredictable, far away God whose ways and thoughts are so far beyond my own that he is completely inscrutable. Of course he’s inscrutable. He’s an omniscient diety powerful enough to create the fracking universe. I feel like I’ve been sold a bill of goods, that he cares about the things that matter to my heart. It’s easier to relegate him to some distant position of indifference than to try to overlay a Daddy God with one who commands the slaughtering of thousands. I’m irretrievably confused and feel destined to remain so because I cannot simply agree with one camp and ignore the other. It seems as though both are true, if I take scriptures into account, which leaves me either doubting the scriptures or accepting the paradox in such a way that I distance myself from him to some degree. I had one unpredictable father. I don’t particularly want another. I don’t especially expect capital G God to take an interest in my personal affairs, but then I have to admit that at times providence has at least appeared to do so.
Again, I find myself returning to fundamentals. What do I believe in? Love, mercy, justice, humility, and more love. These are aligned with the words of Christ, who I do believe was the only perfect man who ever lived. Is this enough? Even if I’m relegated to “fallen away” status by those more zealous and sure of themselves, can I live a full life in service to Love? The fact is, I’d really like a perfect Dad. I’m disappointed that I don’t think I can trust him, and that the fact that he’ll suffer beside me isn’t enough for me to feel safe. We are not safe. That I know.
Then I remember the baby. I think of his parents. I think of all the perils in life alongside all the wonders. It occurs to me that baby’s world is small and immediate. It consists of one moment followed by the next, eating, crying, sleeping, being loved. I’m no more important than he is. Maybe it could be enough to live now, loving and being merciful as much as I’m able and not trying to reconcile inscrutable mysteries of an enormous God. Maybe.
Not Quiet Any More 