We decided to initially leave the church because of the children, well, it was a catalyst, little did I know that that big, scary decision would stumble me out of that stone building and land me in the big, wide world, the whole symphony a church, the whole landscape full of incantations and prayers and devotions. I touched it and drank it like a child, for I was hungry and thirsty and I laid down in the softness and I was held.
The first time someone said I had divinity in me, that the light I saw reflected off christ was my own light, beaming, booming, filtering and stumbling from my chest. I swear I hissed, the punishment and the scorn went deep, took root, started to line and encircle my innards.
Now wait a minute, said a whisper, sit in this for a moment, ask yourself, why, why does that sound so scary?
It’s unsafe, I bluttered, it will mean a lot more of me and I’m afraid.
It will mean me. It will mean me and me alone and I don’t want to face her.
I don’t want to reach into that core and find a crying child because it hurts me, and then I have to see all the crying children and that hurts me and I feel skinless and breathless and beaten and
oh god, oh god, oh god, are you there and where am I going and how will I get there.
Sssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Shush, shush, shush, shush, shush,
You are not as dramatic and theatrical as you were hoping you’d would be.
The bush is not burning, the waters are not parted as you imagined, the cross is not as looming.
Faith is a Wednesday morning, right smack in the middle with your coffee and your peanut butter toast. Faith is that bubble of a desire to get up at 5am every morning and start writing, start telling my feelings even though it makes me feel like I want to run into any other direction, children, duties, laundry, social work. It turns me around, back to myself and places hands over the keys and says with all its might, create. Write. Move your body. I sent you here to live. I didn’t send you here to punish and scrimp and cut off and sneer ugly lies that you always need someone else, be it man, god, or item.
People do not live by bread alone, and the rules left me starving. When I had to say sorry for the millionth time and dedicate myself right back to the source of punishment I think it started to crack for me, little bits flaking off the ceiling, I looked up and saw light behind power, it all seemed a bit silly, my chest thumping, my pores oozing and secreting, how human I thought, how very, very mammal of me.
She’s not pretty or neat, and she’s not sorry. Well she is, I got a whole life time of work ahead of me, and I’m exhausted of penance, she’s not sorry to you. And if she needs to be, she will be shown, my eyes and my ears, and my skin and my tongue and my fingertips will lead me there, and the most dangerous of all, my spirit, my essence of my soul, bright clear morning star, she’ll direct me, she’s teaching me to play nice with the other parts of me, she’s teaching me to recognize, to be curious, to be known by me.
And the scales are falling off in droves. I kick them with my feet, I brush them off with my hands, I spit them out. I fall on my knees in benevolence, I was always called to believe, I was always, always, always, while knitted in my mothers womb, while floating in that deep space, I was called to divinity. I was called to greatness, I was called to myself and yourself and ourselves. I was called and I’m scared, not as much this morning, not as much as I wring it out, I was called and I’m answering. Sometimes strongly, sometimes with weak protests, I’m allowed to change my mind, for I was given a mind in this whole mess of existence, a mind to work alongside and get familiar with, I was given much and much I shall give of myself.
Guide me this day my well ancestors, guide me and love me and let me love. I’m humbled that I don’t know all the words and the phrases, I’m sheepish that I’m lowly, I want it to be right, and yet I get this deep knowing that this is not what you will have for me, you would have me as present and the rest will come as it comes. With gratitude and with love, your child.