behindtheax

Who is my God?

Most people have so much conviction in theirs but I always had trouble being faithful to the God I grew up with. The one I had apparently married when I was six during first communion. Six is pretty young to marry anyone, let alone someone you never laid eyes on. My mom was as catholic as they came so my ten siblings and I spent a great deal of our childhood inside of a church, learning prayers, attending catechism classes and going to confession. We were one of only a few families in our parish that had to go to church the first Friday of each month and every morning before school during Lent. It all became quite mechanical for me. The only time I loved participating in one of these rituals was when, one year, my catechism class was held in the convent behind the church. The nuns had this room that they had made into a small classroom where the tables and chairs were set up in a square, facing each other. We had to take off our boots at the door so we attended these classes in our sock feet. I never really paid attention to the lessons but I loved being there. It was such a quiet place and smelled wonderful and was always so warm. You could often hear the other nuns moving about mouse-like in the other rooms and when the forced air heating came up with a gush through the floor grates, it would send these wonderful shivers through me. It was one of my favourite of all hiding places. I would sit there for that hour each week and pretend I was a nun and that this was my home.

When Mom and Dad started going to Saturday evening mass, my sisters and brothers and I would still opt for Sunday morning mass. They were fine with this but since they no longer accompanied us we usually only made it as far as the school playground which was located on the other side of the street from the church. We would swing and talk and fret about getting caught and toss cards against the side of the school. When it was almost time for church to let up, one of us had to race across the road, through the parking lot full of cars and up the steps, and into the church to grab a weekly bulletin. This was our proof we were at mass.

The older I got, the more I questioned and the more I rebelled from a lot of the church’s strict way of thinking. I wanted to believe in God. More so I wanted that feeling of community organized religion can give a person but I could not just give myself, absolutely over to it. So, I started looking elsewhere for that convent in winter kind of feeling. And then for the last several years I stopped looking all together but I feel I am missing that aspect in my life. And I apologize if this offends anyone but regardless what the church may think about us wayward Catholics, Mad Max is not leading me back into the fold. On principle alone I won’t let that happen.

So why am I talking religion? I guess it is because I am almost finished the book Soul Mountain and there is a couplet in it that I believe is an expression of Daoism and it says Man follows earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the way, the way follows nature.

And that made me think back at a bit of writing I did when I was home on the river, sitting at my rented cabin’s picnic table in my lone little field that was completely surrounded by trees. And I remember the sun coming up over the tree line to shine on my red covered journal and I wrote.

I want this to be my God. This moment. I don’t want it to be about me, or one all-powerful, nor one thing alone. What I want my God to be is the things on this earth that are beautiful. That existed before me and will hopefully exist long after I fade. I want my God to be that strip of light across still water, swallows swooping low, the quietness that is grass, a young fox showing curiosity, mornings, one flittering white moth. God (the one I want) can be found right here and everywhere that nature is left to be nature. I don’t expect forgiveness and entrance into heaven and I don’t even know what enlightenment means, what I want is this moment and the peace that it brings me. This wonderful calm that this river is always whispering about.

posted by mary j. @ 1:04 PM