Hi again! Shea here. *Waving.*
There’s other posts coming but this week you’re stuck with me. And because you’re stuck with me you’re stuck with my current thought process.
I have been thinking about the universe, and about the divine, a whole lot this week.
When I was a young teenager Joan of Arcadia was my favorite television show. I was captivated by the idea that God could be anywhere, at any time, and present as anybody. I was never concerned by God’s willingness to present as different sexes, social classes, genders, ability levels, religious backgrounds, and dressed in different clothing styles. Of course God would do this. Of course S/he would present as an innocent, book-savvy girl. A goth teenage boy. A scowl-y old lady. This made perfect sense to me.
I’m a decade older now. I have learned many things in these ten years, but one of the most startling was that some folks believe God would not, under any circumstances, present as a teenage goth boy, a book-savvy girl, and a scowl-y old lady, especially not in one day, because these folks believe (or, I am under the impression they believe) God is a conservtive man.
This is a valid belief system. I am not saying this is not a valid belief system. I am saying it shocked me. I am saying that when I learned this, I began thinking what I had before called God could not be called this because my God, S/he was all of these thing and atleast 10,000,000 more. I began wondering the word for what I believe, and wondering how to serinade the devine. How to ode the creator the mountainsides, exploded and non-exploded. I wondered how to ode the God of giggling children and lost socks and burnt soup and the corner behind my bed where I inevitably find all of my lost pony tail holders. The God that sent me so many people to love, so many people to love me.
Joan Osborne asks a question I have been asking the Universe a lot lately. If God had a name, what would it be?
Sometimes I feel God like I feel the light, like I feel the beauty, like I feel the poetry. There are days when I feel that the earth is based in goodness, that people are based in goodness, that despite my flaws and shortcomings even I am based in goodness. On these days I write poems. I write poems on Microsoft Word and napkins and on the palm of my hand and in my Black Writing Notebook. On these days I pick flowers to wear in my hair and I tell people that what is coming is better than what has come before, because I believe this to be true the way I believe chocolate makes even flunked tests better or that hugs could bring world peace. Most days are like this, but some are not. Sometimes I do not feel the light. Sometimes I know God is there because I believe in the steady and unchanging, but sometimes what I feel is not light but that I am too young to have the answers my peers want when they call me at 1AM. Sometimes I feel like my heart is not big enough pr wizened enough to understand how so many people can feel so much fear and pain.
The light, it comes and it goes, but this Being I believe in, S/he stays the same, and when I look up I know I am saying thank-you to the sky and the Sky Creator and I do not hesitate to burn sage and step inside churches and string prayer beads and tell Holy Stories that perhaps are not really mine. Every day, every time I walk, I imagine my feet saying thank you for this somewhat-splintered but still-sacred ground because every single day I know a Holy Being needs thanked.
If God had a name, what would it be? I do not know. But I know I want to continue looking this world in the face and seeing Him or Her, even means I have to reconcile this belief with a world that is not always beautiful, or even perfect.
