Mary, I can’t ‘like’ your poignant memory, that would somehow seem crass - it’s poignant and so real. I hope this is a blessing, remembering the tenderness of your beautiful family.
One of my favorite modern mystics, Jim Finley, says God is the presence that protects us from nothing yet inexplicably sustains us in our darkest hours. Another, Howard Thurman, taught me to find comfort in the solitary embrace of the pine trees and salt air surrounding my home in coastal Maine.
So yes, with absolute certainty and absolute uncertainty, I find solace and wonder all around. I believe in poetry, which is to say, I believe in God.
Jeffrey, your quote from Jim F struck me in that wonderful way of hearing something altogether new to incorporate into one's creed or at least explore further. I read a bit of Jim Finley, just a bit, and stumbled across a post about the name Emmanuel (literally "God is with us"), which then led me to wonder what word might mean "God is withIN us," something more akin to my belief -- the interconnectedness and divinity within all of us (and by that I mean all humans, plus foxes and pines trees and salt air).
So anyway, I chatted with a bot and it gave me some interesting possibilities for what I might name God. Here are a few that resonated.
"Elohinu" (אֱלֹהֵינוּ) – "Our God within" (suggests intimacy and personal connection).
"Neshama-El" (נְשָׁמָה-אֵל) – "God in the soul" (from neshama, meaning soul or breath).
"Emmanush" – A lyrical blend of "Emmanuel" with "nush," derived from the root for "breath" or "spirit."
"Olam-Tov" (עוֹלָם-טוֹב) – "Good world within" (symbolizing the divine presence as an inner universe of goodness).
Thank you for the little rabbit hole you sent me on.
I too follow Jim Finley-yes he is a modern mystic and I wish others are able to connect with him. During cancer treatment, that line you quoted has 'carried' me throughout.
Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote Lament for a Son (1987) after his son Eric died at 25 in a mountain climbing accident. The phrase he used about God's involvement was "minimum intervention, maximum support." This comports with Finley--and with my experience. Thank you for your comment.
"So yes, with absolute certainty and absolute uncertainty, I find solace and wonder all around. I believe in poetry, which is to say, I believe in God." I feel this deeply. Thank you, Jeffrey.
God is the presence that protects us from nothing yet inexplicably sustains us in our darkest hours. So many are calling on that sustenance during these very dark days in California.
I don't believe in God. This leaves me with the enormous responsibility of being kind to others. And it leaves me to marvel at the universe, from black holes to the human mind, not forgetting turnip and sunflowers. On the other hand I believe in the faith of others, manifested in such people as Desmond Tutu and J.S. Bach whose faith shines out from his passions and cantatas.
Life, meaning people and opportunities, has been very very kind to me. If I believed in God I’d say I had a guardian angel. I’ve enjoyed poring over your substack, the comments, the poems, your life. I’ll be back!
ahh thanks Andrew. I love writing and drawing and as the only adult in my house, I get a lot from being able to share on substack and have others read and respond. I write because it feels satisfying and helps me process my thoughts, but to be witnessed feels special in its own way.
I strongly relate to 'if I believed in God, I'd say I had a guardian angel'. For many reasons, the God narrative doesn't work for me, but I can see a thread of wonder throughout my life, and I too feel like life/the universe/whatever has been very kind.
I have chosen to believe in guardian angels. I believe I have two, located on either side of me and they are huge,mighty and powerful. Sometimes I request that they go to the aid of someone I know who could use some help. They have never failed me.
I appreciate what you express here. My feeling of God has become more wholistic and is gender less. Relationship, awe, humanity, the turnip and the sunflower and this great world of wonder. Maybe we don’t need a concrete anything as to who god might be.
Love this, Emily! Many years in Catholic school brought me many years of barely stifled laughter at inappropriate times. The holding in was exhausting but delicious work.
Thanks for this Emily - it brought back a memory of my high school friends and I at Saturday night mass at our local Catholic teen time services. We sat in the back pew. When the priest said something that we could turn into an innuendo - we would pass it from ear to ear like the telephone game. Shoulders and the pew shook with stifled laughter. The harder we tried to contain it - the harder we shook. So much fun. Such a great memory.
Beautiful. What a lovely read on a cold, rainy morning. I've just booked my ticket for OutSpoken and look forward to reading your new book Padraig.
In answer to the question, I have many stories I could tell, but for today my answer shall be, Hannah.
A born again evangelical Christian of 15yrs, I first began to gently pick and pull on some loose threads of my belief system in 2017, not anticipating that my faith would swiftly unravel after that. Immersed in a Christian world and feeling the need to keep my changing worldview a secret, I felt frightened and desperately alone. Rudderless, adrift at sea, I journeyed with new friends I found online who listened alongside me to The Liturgists podcast, which explored faith and questioned the worldview that had been my own since becoming 'born again' at 17.
Our worldviews were shattered and we clung to one another to keep our heads above the water.
The Liturgists podcast had a community page on Patreon, featuring a map where you could drop a pin to show the city you lived in, with the hope of making friends who understood the pain of losing religion. Every pin bar one was in the States. I live in London and was desperate to find others who were on a similar journey. I dropped a pin and emailed the other single UK Liturgist who had done the same, a girl called Hannah from Oxford. I didn't hear back.
Months later, I changed jobs, and, still hiding my dissipated faith, I joined a Christian charitable organisation whose work supported young people who faced challenges in education. I thought my new workplace would be nominally faith based, but Christian belief was woven into every aspect of the work, with daily prayer meetings, weekly worship and monthly prophetic visioning as much a part of the rhythm as checking emails. During these regular prayer meetings, my discomfort was palpable. I felt like a fraud. I felt angry and alone, rebellious and needy and my heart was heavy.
And then there was Hannah. She was EA to the big boss. Something about her drew me into her presence. She spoke up in prayer meetings, questioning why we can't call on God as Mother. Pushing back on ideas. Offering mystery and curiosity in response to black and white assumptions. Hannah and I became great friends. We lunched together each week at The Lyric in Hammersmith, and shared about our lives, our failing marriages, our subsequent divorces. For a long time, we both avoided the topic of faith. It was unusual that we did so, with our work place being so religious.
One day, something Hannah said reminded me of an episode of The Liturgists and I felt a spark whizz around within me. A mad thought crossed my mind and although the chances were ridiculous, I felt I needed to ask.
"I going to ask you a question" I remember saying, "and it will likely make no sense whatsoever. But, are you A Liturgist?"
I wish I could describe the look we shared in this moment. The energy crackling between us. The wonder and relief and excitement and absurdity of it all. Hannah was the other UK Liturgist on the map. We had found each other, just at the time when our faith was seeping away. We were both hiding our experiences and our grief from everyone else in our lives, for fear of losing everything and everyone we loved. And somehow, we were sat opposite each other, in a theatre café in west London. A secret revealed and a friendship formed. A divine encounter, just when our understanding of divinity had died.
Thank you for this story - told by a natural storyteller - it fills me with wonder. When the idea of god pops, the word/form like a balloon dies but the magic it brought to our lives seems to look for a new place to ‘“incarnate” - your story gives me such a sense of how that longing - or presence? Or connection? - is constantly transforming. But how brave you both were. To question, to explore, to risk meeting each other. You inspire me.
River, thank you. What a kind and generous comment in response to my story. And it feels so true to me that the god magic seeks a new place to incarnate.
I can so relate to the fear of revealing lost faith to friends and family. I have included my own story in the comments, and these days constantly run into God's sense of humour, or "Here, check this out!" when I am least expecting it.
This xmas day, I stood at the rim of an extinct, hopefully, probably, volcano, in fog so dense that I could just make out the next step but certainly not the inside of the vast crater, and all I could do was shout out, is there anybody who will catch me from falling? (There was, behind me.) Your poem sends me the same feelings of being held inside a cold loneliness surrounded by deep silent fog. Maybe God is the fog.
I really like your last line. It makes me think. I do believe in God but find myself continually looking for more expansive images and understandings than one often hears. Your comment also reminded me of Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, Learning to Walk in the Dark. I read it when it came out, but it might be time for me to reread it.
How to answer a simple 5 word question? I walked this morning at sunrise. The marsh is now frozen over in southern Ontario, a silent, cracked mirror. With the heron long gone, and now the ducks and geese silently abandoning the ice, I felt alone. The only sound the fierce wind, whom I couldn't understand. Alone is not a new feeling for me.
Then coyote crossed my path, out to run across the ice cracks--all animals know the ice is hardest where it has cracked and reformed. Shortly after, a red shouldered hawk flew down the path towards my face, pulling up and landing upon a fence next to me. She stared over her shoulder at me for a long minute before leaving. Walking home the snow began again, each swirling flake shining in the brief appearance of morning sun. Each flake an essence, an identity; each brief life bringing greetings before falling to the ground and disappearing.
Do I believe in god? I believe in a source of light and life that never abandons me to be alone. I just forget sometimes how I am held in love.
I am grateful for the tangibles you name and note: the fierce wind, whose meaning is inscrutable; the cracked and reformed ice; the presence of the coyote and hawk, the absences.
Such an honest story. What you've given me is the hope that many others who write mean things in chalk or on Facebook also wake in the morning with regret, praying for rain.
Your poem took my breath away. And transported me to a former version of myself. Chasing the sublime -- that's my life's work. Thanks for the taste this dreary morning.
I don’t know if I believe in any ‘God’ but I do believe that nothing this beautiful, this connected, this starkly devastating, can be left to chance. I suppose it is in the not-knowing that I find the crack where the light gets in. Huge congratulations on your book. I can’t wait to read it.
You're talking about synchronicity. I don't believe in coincidence, but I do believe in synchronicity. If it is pointing you in a direction, then follow it! I am sure you won't be disappointed. XO
Two days before she died, my Mom, in her unconscious state, reached her frail arms up toward the ceiling and cried out her dead sister’s name. The next day, in a rare awake moment, she pointed at the pond outside her hospice room window and exclaimed about the only lights she could see. She smiled on her deathbed and asked, “do you see the lights too?”
My grand auntie on the bed she'd never again get up from, took my arm and said"WE are only walking around, but the SOULS are DANCING! Then squeezing my arm she asked"Did you CATCH THAT?"!! I said that I did.
Sarah, I like the way that you got me thinking about God’s perspective and how yearning flows in both directions. God for us and us for God. I guess that’s one of the ways that I have come to believe in God…by believing that my seeking must be rooted in some reality…we wouldn’t have thirst if there weren’t water in the world…or hunger if there were no food…
My mother summoned him up from his lair, "Suppertime, mole."
Covered in wood shavings, he smelled of fresh sawdust, and his fingers stained with nicotine, I couldn't tell if he was striving for salvation, or destroying himself. Either way, would he take me with him? It wasn't until after his Memorial Service a lifetime later, at his internment when I saw him scurry from his grave a mole again that I understood there is a God.
I love these examples you provide to evidence God's existence, including the broccoli humor. Followed by "kindness on a platter" and "opportunities for love." Beautiful stretch from inaccessability one moment to everyday occurrences the next. You show us the gamut of emotions faith can inspire. Thank you for this poem.
Good Friday 2011. My mother was dying. Hard lines were drawn. I flew home from my little bungalow by the sea in Florida to New Jersey. My flight was delayed - I arrived at the hospital around 8pm and spent 2 hours with her - she was intubated and couldn't speak. I ran my hands through her hair and stroked her face. When I went to her home I arrived to chaos. She had 4 cats who hadn't been properly looked after since she entered the hospital 2 days before. Do I have to tell you? And it was clear that she had been suffering for a few days before she got herself the hospital. I spent the next 4 hours cleaning and making the house livable for me and then showering. I finally got into bed in the guestroom at around 2:30am. As I lay back, I noticed something on the floor of the guestroom. It was the gold cross my grandmother Sally gave me for my confirmation. I got out of bed and picked it up, holding in my hand as I fell into sleep. And I fell deeply because I knew then that my grandmother had come to take my mother home with her and that she would also be by my side as my mother and I made this journey. There were 3 of us (at least.) If you're me, you'll say that the ancestors had come to do their only work. You might also say God. All I know is that I wasn't alone at 2:30am in the guestroom of my mother's house on Holy Saturday 2011.
This is so lovely, Sarah. Thank you for sharing your story <3 My grandma visited me in a lucid dream(? - half dream-state, half-awake) when I was terrified to go outside of my room due to PTSD. I was afraid of people, and I remember her cackling, "Oooh! People!!!" and both of us laughing. What magic work the ancestors do.
When my lonely 20 year-old son raised his hand at a college orientation to the question, "Who wants to make friends?", my mother's heart leaked through my eyes as I realized my years of tearful prayers has been heard & were being answered.
My brother Jimmy passed away, age 10, after months of illness.
I was nearly 7, a quiet, shy girl who attended a Catholic school. The morning he died I was awakened by a neighbor.
It was early, dark and cold, the heart of winter, the ground covered in a deep snow.
I found my mother, sitting on the steps, quiet, weary, yet composed.
I sat next to her. From there, through the kitchen, I could see my brother in a hospital bed in the dining room.
I looked at my mother and asked "why is Jimmy there? I thought he went to heaven."
She replied, gently, with emotional strength in the moment, "his spirit only goes to heaven".
Oh! I pondered.
We were very quiet, I felt safe, at peace.
My father just then entered a room and cried.
God was there, in our quiet, my father's tears.
Such tenderness, Mary. And such a gift to have felt so safe, and to experience peace in that moment. I'm moved by your account, thank you for sharing.
Mary, I can’t ‘like’ your poignant memory, that would somehow seem crass - it’s poignant and so real. I hope this is a blessing, remembering the tenderness of your beautiful family.
It sounds like heaven came down and filled your house the morning your brother Jimmy died. Thank you so much for sharing this memory with us.
The safety of that moment with your parents. So profound. Thank you for sharing with us.
One of my favorite modern mystics, Jim Finley, says God is the presence that protects us from nothing yet inexplicably sustains us in our darkest hours. Another, Howard Thurman, taught me to find comfort in the solitary embrace of the pine trees and salt air surrounding my home in coastal Maine.
So yes, with absolute certainty and absolute uncertainty, I find solace and wonder all around. I believe in poetry, which is to say, I believe in God.
Jeffrey, your quote from Jim F struck me in that wonderful way of hearing something altogether new to incorporate into one's creed or at least explore further. I read a bit of Jim Finley, just a bit, and stumbled across a post about the name Emmanuel (literally "God is with us"), which then led me to wonder what word might mean "God is withIN us," something more akin to my belief -- the interconnectedness and divinity within all of us (and by that I mean all humans, plus foxes and pines trees and salt air).
So anyway, I chatted with a bot and it gave me some interesting possibilities for what I might name God. Here are a few that resonated.
"Elohinu" (אֱלֹהֵינוּ) – "Our God within" (suggests intimacy and personal connection).
"Neshama-El" (נְשָׁמָה-אֵל) – "God in the soul" (from neshama, meaning soul or breath).
"Emmanush" – A lyrical blend of "Emmanuel" with "nush," derived from the root for "breath" or "spirit."
"Olam-Tov" (עוֹלָם-טוֹב) – "Good world within" (symbolizing the divine presence as an inner universe of goodness).
Thank you for the little rabbit hole you sent me on.
I too follow Jim Finley-yes he is a modern mystic and I wish others are able to connect with him. During cancer treatment, that line you quoted has 'carried' me throughout.
Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote Lament for a Son (1987) after his son Eric died at 25 in a mountain climbing accident. The phrase he used about God's involvement was "minimum intervention, maximum support." This comports with Finley--and with my experience. Thank you for your comment.
"So yes, with absolute certainty and absolute uncertainty, I find solace and wonder all around. I believe in poetry, which is to say, I believe in God." I feel this deeply. Thank you, Jeffrey.
God is the presence that protects us from nothing yet inexplicably sustains us in our darkest hours. So many are calling on that sustenance during these very dark days in California.
Thanks for the quote from Jim Finley.
I did not know that Finley reference. It resonates with me. And Thurman is always a voice I find helpful. Thank you.
thank you, Jeffrey . . . this rings so true !
Beautifully expressed Jeffrey! Like you, living in Maine near the coast, the connection with its raw beauty stirs all the senses.
Thank you for a thought-provoking response.
I don't believe in God. This leaves me with the enormous responsibility of being kind to others. And it leaves me to marvel at the universe, from black holes to the human mind, not forgetting turnip and sunflowers. On the other hand I believe in the faith of others, manifested in such people as Desmond Tutu and J.S. Bach whose faith shines out from his passions and cantatas.
What a beautiful worldview, to own the responsibility of being kind to others.
Life, meaning people and opportunities, has been very very kind to me. If I believed in God I’d say I had a guardian angel. I’ve enjoyed poring over your substack, the comments, the poems, your life. I’ll be back!
ahh thanks Andrew. I love writing and drawing and as the only adult in my house, I get a lot from being able to share on substack and have others read and respond. I write because it feels satisfying and helps me process my thoughts, but to be witnessed feels special in its own way.
I strongly relate to 'if I believed in God, I'd say I had a guardian angel'. For many reasons, the God narrative doesn't work for me, but I can see a thread of wonder throughout my life, and I too feel like life/the universe/whatever has been very kind.
I know how vital it is to realise someone is listening to you. Be sure I shall continue listening to you!
I have chosen to believe in guardian angels. I believe I have two, located on either side of me and they are huge,mighty and powerful. Sometimes I request that they go to the aid of someone I know who could use some help. They have never failed me.
I believe in the faith of others. Absolutely love this
Yes! To your opening sentences, to pointing to our responsibility to one another.
I appreciate what you express here. My feeling of God has become more wholistic and is gender less. Relationship, awe, humanity, the turnip and the sunflower and this great world of wonder. Maybe we don’t need a concrete anything as to who god might be.
This story was immediately what came to my mind for the prompt, so here we go - do you believe in God?
Back home, I watch my candle
extinguish itself in its own wax.
My brother offers the flame
from his properly functioning candle,
but the wax from mine drips
and snuffs out his, too.
The lights dim, the organ drones,
Oh God, they’re starting to sing.
And nothing has ever been
funnier than this—such sorry slapstick.
We can’t stop laughing
during Silent Night.
Love this, Emily! Many years in Catholic school brought me many years of barely stifled laughter at inappropriate times. The holding in was exhausting but delicious work.
Yes, exhausting- painful even! And also one of the warmest memories I have in a church. Thank you!
Thanks for this Emily - it brought back a memory of my high school friends and I at Saturday night mass at our local Catholic teen time services. We sat in the back pew. When the priest said something that we could turn into an innuendo - we would pass it from ear to ear like the telephone game. Shoulders and the pew shook with stifled laughter. The harder we tried to contain it - the harder we shook. So much fun. Such a great memory.
Beautiful. What a lovely read on a cold, rainy morning. I've just booked my ticket for OutSpoken and look forward to reading your new book Padraig.
In answer to the question, I have many stories I could tell, but for today my answer shall be, Hannah.
A born again evangelical Christian of 15yrs, I first began to gently pick and pull on some loose threads of my belief system in 2017, not anticipating that my faith would swiftly unravel after that. Immersed in a Christian world and feeling the need to keep my changing worldview a secret, I felt frightened and desperately alone. Rudderless, adrift at sea, I journeyed with new friends I found online who listened alongside me to The Liturgists podcast, which explored faith and questioned the worldview that had been my own since becoming 'born again' at 17.
Our worldviews were shattered and we clung to one another to keep our heads above the water.
The Liturgists podcast had a community page on Patreon, featuring a map where you could drop a pin to show the city you lived in, with the hope of making friends who understood the pain of losing religion. Every pin bar one was in the States. I live in London and was desperate to find others who were on a similar journey. I dropped a pin and emailed the other single UK Liturgist who had done the same, a girl called Hannah from Oxford. I didn't hear back.
Months later, I changed jobs, and, still hiding my dissipated faith, I joined a Christian charitable organisation whose work supported young people who faced challenges in education. I thought my new workplace would be nominally faith based, but Christian belief was woven into every aspect of the work, with daily prayer meetings, weekly worship and monthly prophetic visioning as much a part of the rhythm as checking emails. During these regular prayer meetings, my discomfort was palpable. I felt like a fraud. I felt angry and alone, rebellious and needy and my heart was heavy.
And then there was Hannah. She was EA to the big boss. Something about her drew me into her presence. She spoke up in prayer meetings, questioning why we can't call on God as Mother. Pushing back on ideas. Offering mystery and curiosity in response to black and white assumptions. Hannah and I became great friends. We lunched together each week at The Lyric in Hammersmith, and shared about our lives, our failing marriages, our subsequent divorces. For a long time, we both avoided the topic of faith. It was unusual that we did so, with our work place being so religious.
One day, something Hannah said reminded me of an episode of The Liturgists and I felt a spark whizz around within me. A mad thought crossed my mind and although the chances were ridiculous, I felt I needed to ask.
"I going to ask you a question" I remember saying, "and it will likely make no sense whatsoever. But, are you A Liturgist?"
I wish I could describe the look we shared in this moment. The energy crackling between us. The wonder and relief and excitement and absurdity of it all. Hannah was the other UK Liturgist on the map. We had found each other, just at the time when our faith was seeping away. We were both hiding our experiences and our grief from everyone else in our lives, for fear of losing everything and everyone we loved. And somehow, we were sat opposite each other, in a theatre café in west London. A secret revealed and a friendship formed. A divine encounter, just when our understanding of divinity had died.
Thank you for this story - told by a natural storyteller - it fills me with wonder. When the idea of god pops, the word/form like a balloon dies but the magic it brought to our lives seems to look for a new place to ‘“incarnate” - your story gives me such a sense of how that longing - or presence? Or connection? - is constantly transforming. But how brave you both were. To question, to explore, to risk meeting each other. You inspire me.
River, thank you. What a kind and generous comment in response to my story. And it feels so true to me that the god magic seeks a new place to incarnate.
I can so relate to the fear of revealing lost faith to friends and family. I have included my own story in the comments, and these days constantly run into God's sense of humour, or "Here, check this out!" when I am least expecting it.
Lovely! I adore Hannah :-) Divinity is not dead, you are looking in the right places, you and Hannah, keep searching!! XO
Thank you Danielle! I love Hannah too, so much! xx
Amazing that you found each other Lucy. Love your story - thank you!
Thank you Andrea! It amazes us both, years on! x
This xmas day, I stood at the rim of an extinct, hopefully, probably, volcano, in fog so dense that I could just make out the next step but certainly not the inside of the vast crater, and all I could do was shout out, is there anybody who will catch me from falling? (There was, behind me.) Your poem sends me the same feelings of being held inside a cold loneliness surrounded by deep silent fog. Maybe God is the fog.
Love your last line.
I really like your last line. It makes me think. I do believe in God but find myself continually looking for more expansive images and understandings than one often hears. Your comment also reminded me of Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, Learning to Walk in the Dark. I read it when it came out, but it might be time for me to reread it.
Beautiful, Sabine. You've reminded me also of a book that's on my to be read pile, Chasing Fog by Laura Pashby
How to answer a simple 5 word question? I walked this morning at sunrise. The marsh is now frozen over in southern Ontario, a silent, cracked mirror. With the heron long gone, and now the ducks and geese silently abandoning the ice, I felt alone. The only sound the fierce wind, whom I couldn't understand. Alone is not a new feeling for me.
Then coyote crossed my path, out to run across the ice cracks--all animals know the ice is hardest where it has cracked and reformed. Shortly after, a red shouldered hawk flew down the path towards my face, pulling up and landing upon a fence next to me. She stared over her shoulder at me for a long minute before leaving. Walking home the snow began again, each swirling flake shining in the brief appearance of morning sun. Each flake an essence, an identity; each brief life bringing greetings before falling to the ground and disappearing.
Do I believe in god? I believe in a source of light and life that never abandons me to be alone. I just forget sometimes how I am held in love.
I can see them all. And praise the earth and air and water that sustains them (and us). Thanks Lee.
My goodness. Your description of your sunrise walk moved me.
I am grateful for the tangibles you name and note: the fierce wind, whose meaning is inscrutable; the cracked and reformed ice; the presence of the coyote and hawk, the absences.
One night after supper
we walked the neighborhood with
colored chalk in hand
writing what we thought were clever digs.
But our middle school shenanigans turned mean.
Just to belong and pretend we were big,
we three became bullies to one who was odd.
Clever turned into Ugly.
Waking up the next morning to the weight of guilt,
I prayed hard for forgiveness and rain.
I had just ten minutes to
wash away my sins and some colored chalk.
PLEASE!
It rained hard for five minutes then stopped.
Yes. I believe “God” heard my pleas.
It rained more than water that morning.
A poignant poem. Thanks for sharing it.
Such an honest story. What you've given me is the hope that many others who write mean things in chalk or on Facebook also wake in the morning with regret, praying for rain.
I was thirteen and I lay on my back
In the darkness of my bedroom.
My hands rested over my heart
I was alone and still.
I swear I disappeared
Deep into the earth.
But I didn't swear
—it was silent, and light.
I fell out of my body
And I was there
But not the 'I' that was
There a minute ago.
I was everything and nothing.
I spent many years looking,
hoping to relive that moment
Only to find it right here.
And here.
And here.
And here...
Your poem took my breath away. And transported me to a former version of myself. Chasing the sublime -- that's my life's work. Thanks for the taste this dreary morning.
Yess!!
splendid! thank you
I don’t know if I believe in any ‘God’ but I do believe that nothing this beautiful, this connected, this starkly devastating, can be left to chance. I suppose it is in the not-knowing that I find the crack where the light gets in. Huge congratulations on your book. I can’t wait to read it.
You're talking about synchronicity. I don't believe in coincidence, but I do believe in synchronicity. If it is pointing you in a direction, then follow it! I am sure you won't be disappointed. XO
Two days before she died, my Mom, in her unconscious state, reached her frail arms up toward the ceiling and cried out her dead sister’s name. The next day, in a rare awake moment, she pointed at the pond outside her hospice room window and exclaimed about the only lights she could see. She smiled on her deathbed and asked, “do you see the lights too?”
My grand auntie on the bed she'd never again get up from, took my arm and said"WE are only walking around, but the SOULS are DANCING! Then squeezing my arm she asked"Did you CATCH THAT?"!! I said that I did.
Somehow when we see that Light or hear ‘that’ voice it is unforgettable.
To this day, I cannot fathom
A world without God
Whose tears fall as the rain
While humans destroy creation
The raindrops fall and kiss
The cheeks of those who are
Unhoused, hungry, cold and unclothed
Human and divine tears intermingle
There is no magic peace accord
But for a moment a rainbow emerges
As tears and hearts entwined
Create Hope for a new world order
To this day God cannot fathom
A world without humanity
And the warmth of a hearth
To heal the aches of the hurting soul
Sarah, I like the way that you got me thinking about God’s perspective and how yearning flows in both directions. God for us and us for God. I guess that’s one of the ways that I have come to believe in God…by believing that my seeking must be rooted in some reality…we wouldn’t have thirst if there weren’t water in the world…or hunger if there were no food…
Through quick movements of starlings grazing over grass
Through seeking brown eyes of collie dog
Through wrap of long arms of life partner
Through notes hanging suspended between sacred walls
Through mourning morning after departure from earth of the one through whom it was entered
Through gnawing emptiness of guts in war zones
Through haze of skies turned red from fire
We are all connected
My father taught himself carpentry
To build dinghys in the basement.
My mother summoned him up from his lair, "Suppertime, mole."
Covered in wood shavings, he smelled of fresh sawdust, and his fingers stained with nicotine, I couldn't tell if he was striving for salvation, or destroying himself. Either way, would he take me with him? It wasn't until after his Memorial Service a lifetime later, at his internment when I saw him scurry from his grave a mole again that I understood there is a God.
Do you believe in God?
My brother was 29 when he died of cancer.
He was movie-star handsome and
fun and kind and he sang off key, just like me.
I could not understand how he could be present
one moment,
MOMENT,
and inaccessible the next.
Gone.
Gone? I was told he was with God.
Where is God? I was taught
and believe
that God is everywhere.
I see his smile at a restaurant in Italy,
he appears in flashes, snippets
at the beach,
in the living room, laughing.
Sometimes,
in his sadness.
I have a friend whose elderly father
had meals delivered to his home.
Every day, the vegetable was broccoli.
"They sure believe in broccoli," he said.
Every day, God delivers,
stunning weather, scent-laden air,
kindness on a platter,
opportunities for love.
I love these examples you provide to evidence God's existence, including the broccoli humor. Followed by "kindness on a platter" and "opportunities for love." Beautiful stretch from inaccessability one moment to everyday occurrences the next. You show us the gamut of emotions faith can inspire. Thank you for this poem.
Amazing story of a mole resurrection. Thank you.
Good Friday 2011. My mother was dying. Hard lines were drawn. I flew home from my little bungalow by the sea in Florida to New Jersey. My flight was delayed - I arrived at the hospital around 8pm and spent 2 hours with her - she was intubated and couldn't speak. I ran my hands through her hair and stroked her face. When I went to her home I arrived to chaos. She had 4 cats who hadn't been properly looked after since she entered the hospital 2 days before. Do I have to tell you? And it was clear that she had been suffering for a few days before she got herself the hospital. I spent the next 4 hours cleaning and making the house livable for me and then showering. I finally got into bed in the guestroom at around 2:30am. As I lay back, I noticed something on the floor of the guestroom. It was the gold cross my grandmother Sally gave me for my confirmation. I got out of bed and picked it up, holding in my hand as I fell into sleep. And I fell deeply because I knew then that my grandmother had come to take my mother home with her and that she would also be by my side as my mother and I made this journey. There were 3 of us (at least.) If you're me, you'll say that the ancestors had come to do their only work. You might also say God. All I know is that I wasn't alone at 2:30am in the guestroom of my mother's house on Holy Saturday 2011.
This is so lovely, Sarah. Thank you for sharing your story <3 My grandma visited me in a lucid dream(? - half dream-state, half-awake) when I was terrified to go outside of my room due to PTSD. I was afraid of people, and I remember her cackling, "Oooh! People!!!" and both of us laughing. What magic work the ancestors do.
I love this Sam. We are lucky to have grandmas who continue to take care of us from beyond the veil
When my lonely 20 year-old son raised his hand at a college orientation to the question, "Who wants to make friends?", my mother's heart leaked through my eyes as I realized my years of tearful prayers has been heard & were being answered.