Writing

April 2010
god happens. god is no singular omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient character from a holy book some slightly insane, attention craving author wrote one day in a fit of vanity. god is no 3-in-1 magic healer of all ailments and insecurities, eraser of all childhood traumatizations and fears, or comforter during periods of mourning and despair. god is no judge of one’s holiness. god is no short white man in a tall white hat, and long white regalia, with a gaudy golden ring on his finger he demands people to kiss. god is no pope. god is no priest. god is no communion taker. god is no forest wandering, orange robe wearing, mango eater, noiseless and absent. god is no buddha. god is no monk. god is no ascetic.

when I was little, I hid in my closet on sundays in hopes that my father wouldn’t find me and bring me to church. do you remember?

do you remember falling asleep before finishing your prayers? do you remember night dreaming of all the things god wouldn’t give you? do you remember day dreaming of all the things you wish you had? god does not give, nor does god take away.
god is what happens when daylight breaks over lake michigan and a sandpiper skitters across your path, bores with his beak a hole into fresh mud: a devout search for his breakfast. god is what happens when you and your lover climax at the same time, a collision like wind chimes wild with music in the hot winds of a summer squall, during witching hour, when the air glows orange. god is what happens when “i love you” and “i don’t love you” mean the same thing; you cry and cry, and god happens because you feel. god happens because instinct shoulders emotion, and emotion shoulders instinct.

god does not threaten hellfire, damnation, or a splitting of the earth’s crust when descending again to this plane of existence. we dance and sing and play games. we have sex, take drugs, and make a mockery of the way our parents raised us. god does not smite us upon hearing of our blatant disobedience. god does not bestow upon us grace, mercy, or charity. god does not mend, patch, or piece back together our living, breathing minds after long stretches of mental dehydration and malnourishment. god happens when mirages of a future you crystallize into reality. god happens when you see your spirit rise from your body and nestle itself in the sweet, soft air above you, delighting in stillness, silently illuminating the truths inside of you. god happens because you realize.






you realize guilt.
you realize fear.





you realize apathy.
you realize your vices.

you realize that your self and your life are precious, soft, and malleable as gold. all that is you is under your control. your mind is capable of quenching your thirst for divinity, your hunger for consecration. your mind is a cookbook for your being. add the right amount of the right ingredients into the mixing bowl that is your brain, and watch the dough rise.
just the other day a gust of wind whipped around the corner of a nearby alley lifting a stray piece of newspaper from the ground and sent it tossing and tumbling up into the air. i watched the paper dance and flutter outside of the fourth story window i sat by. i think it was in the simplicity of that moment that happiness happened.
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may 2010

yesterday, god said let there be light. yesterday, god said it is good. yesterday, I told god that my father had seen himself work too hard to reach the heavens, and he let go, and i let go.
this was unexpected: his dimness of vision, his labored breaths, his yellow eyes and yellow skin, his liver was infected with tumor.
do you remember convincing my father to be cremated, half joking and half hoping to god it wouldn’t come to that? do you remember holding his hand, watching while the nurse pushed down on his stomach, and pus and blood drained from the open wound that was at one time a bulging set of stitches, until my vision blurred and blacked out? do you remember finding comfort in the idea of heaven? do you remember?
==> ==> ==>

toward the end, he lived in a skeleton. he inhabited a body that was no longer his, but was taken and swallowed by the cancer

he was a soul with a body, not a body with a soul.

in a hospital bed, in the living room of my old house, swarmed by family and friends, my father listened to me play guitar for the last time. he listened to my voice sing for the last time. kneeling at his bedside, he felt my hand on his for the last time. he closed his eyes for the last time. he smiled, brilliant release for last time.

porque jesus?! porque jesus?!
my aunt screamed, running into my house through the open front door. she was too late. she collapsed to her knees, crying and yelling and could be solaced by no one. the nurse instructed us to go into the backyard until the body was removed from the house. i imagine two burly men wielding a gurney. i imagine them hoisting my father’s expired body up onto the gurney, and enveloping the body in a black, plastic bag,
my god, i said, why have you forsaken me?
==> ==> ==>
i am remembering my dad. imagining what his voice must sound like now. trying really really hard to remember what his voice sounded like when he sang to me sweet baby james every night before bed.



the voice of a younger him
sang me to sleep.
and i got older and
he got older.
and the voice of a younger him sang.
==> ==> ==>

do you remember going into you? do you remember choosing, out of millions, which body you would live in? you tried to pick the most permanent one. you tried to pick the body you thought could withstand natural and social darwinism. you tried really really hard, but your effort unfolded and impermanence was there; fear of death materialized, fear of life materialized.
==> ==> ==>





for the last thing which i greatly feared
is come upon me, and that which i was afraid of
is come unto me. i was not in safety,
neither had i rest,
neither was i quiet;
yet trouble came.
job 3:25-26

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