You know, on second thought – and since nobody has asked – I don’t know if I am available for coffee in a public place, after all. I don’t really want friends anymore. Really. I have found remarkable peace and clarity without the breaks and surges of people falling in and out of my life. Besides, I was socially awkward before – now, with this whole proving God issue that has come up…well, that definitely strains the small talk a little.
Anyway, I’m sure there are plenty of people that I’d be completely at ease with. I just haven’t met most of them yet.
It was a pleasant enough day here. A little full-moon-restless. The house was cold because I never fixed the stove yesterday. I wanted to stay in blankets, but felt too nervous – just all bundled up in all ball.
This was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes this morning.
I got up and the day went on like it usually does lately – the feeding of animals, the sweeping of floors, the smoking of cigarettes on the front steps, some thinking, that quick pen sketch, the writing, the old photos from July…the nagging juxtaposition between possibility and reality.
I talked to my brother today and he laughed a little when I told him I was still, “to Mom and Dad’s dismay,” trying to prove God based on cloud forms. I guess I did belittle it a little. It’s something I do when I am unsure about how someone feels about something.
I am, in my heart, absolutely certain of the proposition I am making. That somehow something bigger has shown itself, and it has shown itself to me…and, for some reason, I absolutely have to show it to you – because that is, apparently, part of the deal. But I understood that the world is full of skeptics and so I try to accommodate them.
I was bummed after I got off the phone with my brother, bummed and hungry…suddenly shaky and sweaty with low blood sugar. As I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I thought to myself, “God, what is wrong with these people? Don’t they get it? What I am doing is the attempt of something wonderful, something that could actually save the world from itself? Do they even look at the pictures?”
And then, sitting on the front porch couch, jamming sandwich into my mouth, I thought about the very real possibility that people think, in spite of the 1,000s of pictures and the extensive background information I have given, that I am a fake and a liar.
That really bothered me.
So I got up and I fixed the stove and it was easy and then I went outside and I stood there and I thought to myself, “Whatever. Unless someone proves me wrong, I already proved God. Now I am just waiting for people to believe it.”
I realize that it is all part of the process, but someone needs to acknowledge me.
Things shift with the seasons, don’t they?
It has all been different names for the same thing. The sad thing is that our ways of connecting to it are completely diminished, purposely in a lot of cases – because peace is empowering to people.
Every time folks got close to rediscovering the best of the old ways of knowing the absolute joy and clarity of feeling how small you are…
Well, people were destroyed by violence or culture or choking on their own vomit or completely selling their souls so they could drive fancy cars…well, hopefully, we have more sense than that now, don’t we?
It is for everyone…and everything that is actually dying and alive.
I hope everyone has a good night. I am going to go sit out on the steps and then I guess I’ll play banjo or something. Maybe read. This afternoon, the big orange cat was curious about something under the washer this afternoon, as it entered the spin cycle. I thought maybe the pet hedgehog had miraculously reappeared along the baseboard, perhaps in the corner. There was nothing there, but I figured I’d look under the oven since I was already down on my knees. About four inches under it, square in the center was a book that I knew I owned, from an African Literature class or the goodwill or somewhere – but, I hadn’t ever read much of it that I could recall. I had no idea why it was under the oven. Nothing else was, just an old paperback version of Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka – on the very second page, Mofolo spoke about the old belief that one’s ancestors could deliver messages from ‘the gods’ – – – people have made up so many stories to try to explain all the magic that this old world holds…and then it seems, being human, they fight over them or simply learn to ignore them.
Sad.
Oh yeah – I don’t want any sort of band of brothers, either. That was sort of a self-entertaining, who-gives-a-sh*t? experiment, sort of a wishing-someone-would-stand-up-for-me moment.
Nonetheless, feel free to email with any questions or concerns. faithrhyne@gmail.com
PROOF OF GOD! ...and other tragedies. 