Letters

A Lot of Letters to God are at this link.

I don't believe in God, but I know God is there.  I don't know what the hell he or she is, I don't understand the language that he she or it speaks in, but I am assured, when I take the time to look and listen, that God is there.
I don't know whether God listens, but I know that God hears.
Just as we remember everything our senses take in, God remembers everything too.
And this makes every thing we do, every page we write, every fact we uncover, every dream we fall through, every passion we indulge, every picture we paint, every photo we take is in essence a letter to God.
Belief not required when existence is directly observable.
When I draw or write I am responding to this direct observation.  Since the languages are not ones I understand I can only hope to learn by context.  What never wavers is the existence.  It is like a murmur in the background even when all else is silent.  A dim light that is all but invisible, but fills up every space, like air only more so.
On days when I think like this, all I can say by way of prayer is a simple greeting - or a nod of "I see you".  This is not a God to whom you can pray - this God wants no prayer, only to coexist and to know that we coexist.
Its like standing next to somebody without talking. You are aware of each other, but neither one speaks.  Or perhaps one, or the other sings to themselves gently, but not in a way the other can comprehend.
Its like a song in a foreign language, a problem in a strange and unknowable math.
The way we know each other is not so different from the way that we know God.
Sometimes if I listen hard enough, I think I can understand, but then every time I come close, another veil falls into place, or another layer of smoke.

Angels and Devils

I borrowed the figures from the Marriage of Randolf Arnolfini - everything else is home made.

If God is the word, then angels must be thoughts in the same language.  In the world of the word, Angels are everywhere, as are devils.  Words composed in a certain sequence to present a thought which, in turn, becomes an action.  And once the action is done, there is an expression of the word in the physical realm.
When we read words on a page, on a screen, on a wall, it is a form of communion with whomever wrote the words.
When we read those words, which are dry and lifeless on the page, they enter through our eyes and are reconstituted, like instant coffee.  But its not enough just to add water.  We also have to drink.
There are then two steps to the communion of the word.  First to see and allow it to enter and rehydrate.  Second to consume it and internalize its meanings.  That is where choice comes in to play.  You have a moment when such things arrive at your eyes to determine whether the thoughts that will arise from the words will be helpful or hurtful.  It is our task to learn which ideas are angels and which are devils.  It is important that we know where the devils are.
We can know this and not allow them in.  Sometimes, if they are only small devils, we may miss the clear deviltry expressed and they get passed our defense.  When that happens, we must create angels of our own in order to cleanse them.  We can look to other angels for assistance, and once we have created our own angels, we can write them down and others can benefit from their defense.

The Presence of Two Equally Balanced Things

The interplay of light and darkness is the interplay of active presences, not of presence and absence.

It is important to remember that a true vacuum cannot exist.  Keeping this in mind, we begin to understand that darkness is not the absence of light, but rather the presence of darkness.  Nature does not permit absences.  When we look at the world around us and it seems empty, it is important to remember that what appears to be void and empty is full of air.  Beyond that, there is space, and space is not an absence, but a substance.  When light advances, darkness retreats.  When darkness advances, light retreats.  There are two surfaces interacting at a point of intersection.  When we move further away from the source of light, we move closer to a source of darkness.  

Evil is not the absence of good, but is the presence of evil.  When we move away from a source of good, we move closer to a source of evil.  These are not opposites.  Both things are positive presences.  

Space is not the absence of matter, but the presence of space. 

As water interacts with air, that is how space reacts with matter, and light with dark, and evil with good. 

It is not the difference of content that creates the tension between them, rather it is the similarity of density.  Light and darkness are substances of similar density, and therefore when they come in contact, their surfaces balance each other.  Likewise matter and space, good and evil, etcetera.  

When we assume warring entities, Gods and demons, perhaps the fault lies in seeing them, not as similar things, but as opposites.  God is not the opposite of Satan - they are similar entities who strive against one another. 

According to screed and scripture, Satan, as the creation of God, is the lesser of the two.  

Screed and scripture were written by humans.  It is claimed that scripture is written at the inspiration of God, and therefore it is bound to espouse God's point of view.  

If one learns that darkness is a presence and not an absence, then one can begin to work with the world in different ways.  

When one learns that darkness is merely the absence of light, one loses the sense of the reality of darkness.  In this way, we become blind to what surrounds us much of the time.  

One can find out as much through examining darkness as one can from studying light. 

Light and Darkness co-exist.

Since they are not opposites, and since one is not the absence of the other, we can also extrapolate that if we were to find the right substances, both light and darkness can be contained independent of each other.  We can have a bottle of light, we can also have a bottle of darkness.  

In denying the existence of each as an independent quantity, we deny whole realms of understanding. 

The universe does not permit absences.  There is no such thing as nothing.  Nothing cannot exist.  Everywhere within the universe there is something.  Even space is not empty.  If we learn to examine space, we will find that it is not an absence, but a substance, just as matter is a substance.  It is a failing of our senses, or perhaps more precisely, it is a failing of our education, that we are unable to see this.  

If god is good and satan evil, then we are beset not by one force and its absence, but by two forces, each striving for the vanquishment of the other (if we take scripture at its face value)

I suspect that there is something different going on there which our limited knowledge has hidden from us.  

If we learn to read the absences as presences, whole vistas of understanding will open up to us, and the world we have come to know will be revealed for what it is, an illusion based on incomplete understanding.

In actuality, because we spend so much thought on the notion of opposites and polarities, that we fail to see the precise fact that all things are a part of one single thing.  The universe is singular.  Time is not a sequence of moments, but is a single and eternal moment. 

When I draw in black and white, the surface of the paper is a positive presence.  When I intersect this presence with a different presence, i.e. the addition of a black mark (line, dot, blob, etcetera) the energy of the paper changes.  In this instance, as, I suspect, in reality, the black mark is not an absence of white, but is a presence of black.  The white is still there under the black.  The white surface is not gone, it is merely hidden behind another surface.  At a particular level, if we look closely enough, the black will appear as it is - in front of the white. 

A multitude of black lines intersecting the white will build up into something resembling matter.  When I am working with crosshatched lines, I can create a multitude of illusions that require both black and white in order to function.  Into this, if I so desire, I can add additional presences - colors, greens blues, yellows, reds...each existing by and of itself, but also existing in layers.  If we take these things and we view them, not as patches of pigment on a page, but rather as substances existing in space, then we can understand, from a simple drawing, something of the nature of the construction of the universe. 

We must not become trapped in the way of seeing which shows the world as the interaction of opposites.  Light can exist without darkness.  But darkness, is not merely an absence of light, and so there is a way to locate darkness which exists without light entirely.  Pure darkness.  Pure light. 

Knowledge

If the logos exists, can another co-exist?graphic by Eric Talerico

"The knowledge includes the fact that there are in evidence many different facets . There is creation itself. There is the force that brings about creation. There are the wills that guide that force. Some guide one way others a different way. All things become possible when you realize that if you look from the correct point of view it is all a part of one thing. In the end we are all a facet of the logos. Alpha. Omega. Order. Chaos. Boundless. Boundless Light. From nothing comes everything. The wheel of course spins as it will. You are not as fragile as you feel. It must be love that keeps us here, loss of love that sends us away. My love is the language of the book, it's words and it's pictures. It's reflections of the world and it's creations within itself. Although there is much discord within the book, in the end the thing is resolved within itself. What appears to be contradictory is in fact definitive. A thing is only defined when it coexists beside it's opposite. "
I wrote that in our manuscript today, and thought it might go well here too.  I've been thinking about this stuff a lot as you well know.  You primed me for this inquiry before I was born, and you egg me on as I grow and change. 
I woke up this morning feeling like the world had changed around me in the night. 
Something was significantly different, something I can't quite put my finger on. 
Thank you. 
When this happens, I regain my certain footing. 
Yesterday I was beginning to slide back down the slope, but now my steps are firm and purposeful.
You have shown me once again that it is not the map that I must rely on - maps are imperfect guides at best.  There are always times when we must diverge from what is written to pursue what is yet to be written. 
In love and devotion, 
ET

Walking on a Tightrope

Digital drawing from my sketchbooks:  Adam and Eve wearing tee shirts, because fig leaves were not enough.

You are like walking on a tightrope, very high but without a net.  Why no net?  Because even a fall would be a vital part of what you are.
You are like wearing the clothes of a priest and when you go out in front of people feeling like a wolf in sheep's clothing.  Your presence gives lie to the aggrandizing robes.
You are like walking into a church and seeing that the building is nothing, that only the spirit which dwells there has value, and that the spirit can dwell everywhere, not requiring church or structure.
You are like an onion always presenting one more layer.
The more we look, the more you reveal.
They say that Isis had a thousand veils, but the truth is that we, unable to comprehend Isis, hid her behind a thousand veils.
She is not elusive.
You are not elusive.
It is not you who hide, it is we who hide you.
We tend to walk in a beautifully illuminated world, always asking:
where is illumination?
Surrounded by brilliance, we see the shadow first.
Sophia pristine.
There is the source, then there are the emanations from the source.
If you think of the world as a guitar, then we are the player.
The frets are the rules by which we live.
Above those rules are the strings, and each fret offers each string a point to divide and vibrate upon.
In that division, a myriad of possible sounds can emerge, depending on how we touch the string with our fingers.
Transformation occurs when the vibration is transmitted into the air.  And such vibrations may fade from our hearing, but they continue on infinitely in the world.  That is the spirit.
And the world within which the spirit moves - is that you?
Have I looked correctly?  Or is there more?
Of course, there is more.
Tomorrow the guitar metaphor won't mean the same thing to me,
not because the guitar has changed, but because my viewpoint  has changed. Another veil is lifted.
You made us in a way which allows us to see the world reborn from instant to instant, but we persist in maintaining that it is a solid, predictable and controllable thing.
Were we to trust intuition and inspiration remaining open to them we could grow into the world like a note played on a guitar.  Like the note, we go on forever. echoing you.
You are like a grape with the juice inside. Outside the air is hot and dry.  Bite into the grape and the cool sweet and liquid center allows us to be cooled, sweetened and refreshed in the hot dry world.
If I am a pot, you are clay, kiln, wheel, hands, glaze and purpose.
Why, when agony in process seems to last and last, do we remember it so dimly?  Why does its recollection diminish with each passing day?
Why, when pleasure is often so fleeting and furiously fast, do we remember it so fondly and in brilliance?
In the end, will we only remember the brilliance, or will the dark shadows offer their own notes of clarity to the picture?

In one of my digital sketchbooks, a face I saw in a dream.

I think you speak a language we all understand, but seldom choose to. You speak the language of color, of sound, of smell.  You speak the languages that we cannot write or even translate but that we understand implicitly and respond to instinctively.  When we feel our feet on the Earth and gravity holding us there, that is your language.  When we use our hands, so brilliantly articulated and ingenious, that is your language.  When we taste the coffee in our cups, that is your language.  When we watch the birds wheeling overhead, that is your language.  When we kiss each other either in loving or in sexual gestures, that is your language.  All of these things are language.  It is overwhelming how much you talk to us, and so, sometimes, we retreat into ourselves, forgetting the ongoing discourse which we sense but refuse to digest.  Then suddenly the world seems mysterious and fearsome.  The longer we walk alone in this way, the less we recognize the words that you speak with every moment and act of creation.  Sometimes in desperation, we start seeking you again, but we have lost our way by then, and instead of looking at the Eden that you have made for us, which surrounds and supports and engulfs us, we look into books or films or drugs or other things, hoping they will reveal you.  All around us, you shout and shout and we look into our books and our dreams and our pictures saying "where is she, where is she?"
It is important when we read a book or watch a film, or listen to a song that we understand that these are only attempts at translation.  Even the holiest of books can only go so far, because the greatest book is not one that we can put on a shelf, it is the one that surrounds us.
A book is written in a moment, but it cannot unfold as a moment does.  What we read is something brought out of a moment, and perhaps reflective of that moment, but when we read it, that moment, that thought, that inspiration has already passed because you have been creating instant to instant between the time of the writing, and the time of the reading.
We are only corpuscles, not of knowledge, but of almost knowledge, supposition, theory, opinion.  We move like blood cells in the stream, moved by brownian motion and as dashed as a wooden ship on a vast ocean.
Within that ocean, we have only limited control.
Regardless of what we choose, the movement will continue.  It cannot be frozen.  It can be described, but never perfectly.
At Babel, what we are taught is that you baffled out tongues.  That it was a curse due to our own pride and self aggrandizement.  But I look and see a gift in the baffling of tongues.  It was a way of saying "words - words may describe the world, but they are not the world."
Sometimes, not always, but sometimes; it is important to take a break from thinking, writing, reading, seeking and just be on the Earth.  Feeling that gravity.  In such moments, there is no urgency, no lack, no imbalance, no search for self.  Existence is its own answer to every question.
Looking out, the answer is everywhere in front of us.
Looking in, the important thing is to remember that everything outside is also a part of what is inside.
We are all made of the same stuff as stars and planets and novas and black holes.  Our matter is the same matter.
All matter is a part of something larger than itself and so, we are all a part of something larger than ourselves.
Our choice is a simple one:  accept that and enjoy it, or close our eyes and hide from it.
Why is it that so frequently, we choose to hide?

Mari

Even when I am walking - even then.
I wonder if you are looking at the same things that I am.  Are you my angel, out there in the void? Or are angels something elsewhere, in close proximity waiting to extinguish all doubt in the right moment.  I am walking perhaps and a small sound attracts my attention.  I look down to see what it is and am surprised to see a small snail moving along a track leaving a moist trail.  While I’m looking down I feel hands on my neck massaging.  I stand back up quickly, frightened.  But then the caress continues and I relax, allowing your hands to have their way.  After a while you pat me on the back to let me know its done.  I turn around and see your radiant face and the gold hair on your shoulders.  You smile and at first I think where did this beautiful woman come from?  And you are wearing jeans, you have a halter top on.  And your hands have just massaged my neck, and yes, you look familiar, but also I realize that I’ve never met you before.  After a moment, the illusion fades. Now its flowing robes and and gold dusted wings.  The beautiful face and the smile remain.  When I realize what you are, my heart races and I begin to sweat.  You just smile and touch my cheek and the fear retreats.  Together, we walk down the mountain.  Although no words are spoken ideas are transferred.  Its as if we were walking with an open book that you read to me, but there is no sound.  Still, the words come.  Still, my vision changes.  For a moment a door opens.  There is a world behind the world.  Or is it more precisely a world within the world?  Hard to say.  But the world I see there is clearer, more brilliant than I’m used to.  I understand what Paul meant by illumination.  I hear a sound and turn to look - and in that instant, both angel, and vision are gone.  What remains is a memory, no more or less intact than a dream.  As I walk home the vision fades, as a dream fades, filed away until another day.  Sometimes when I am dreaming they are everywhere.  While I dream, I can see that every person there has wings.  I am the only one who does not need wings to fly and they tell “You humans can do that.  It is a gift.”  But often when I try to fly with them, we are separated and I become lost.  Last night it was some kind of dark struggle.  I felt the urgent need to assist, but don’t remember what the struggle was.  When I wake from such dreams I never know whether the crisis was averted.
I like it even when the angels disappear and I only hear your voice murmuring.  It is like cool water on a hot day.  It both quenches and excites my thirst and there is both satisfaction and longing in the event.
Sometimes I have wishes.  Today I have a wish.  I wish that we could remove the baffle created at the tower, the one that bewildered us and divided us by language.  For the sin of Nimrod we are all punished.
I wonder - were the pyramids the tower?  Or was it something taller, and more elegant.  I wonder if the light was beautiful as it caressed the gold tracings at the top, champagne in the sunset.  In the book it says that he baffled their tongues.  Sometimes I think that the baffling was a horrific act.  But without it, we would not be able to experience the sublime beauty of listening to someone speak in a language we don’t understand.  As we listen, certain things sound familiar.  Even though the words seem strange, if we watch face, eyes, gesture, we can glean a measure of understanding.  The tongues were baffled, but not entirely!  You left us this glimmer of understanding.  Not precise, not as exact as talking to another in one’s own language.  But it can lead to love and understanding just the same.  I remember being in a foreign country.  I went to a cafe and had coffee. As I sat at the table, a man came over and sat across from me.  I looked up, and he smiled.  When he spoke I didn’t have a clue what he was saying.  But he smiled, and took out a pen.  He wrote an address quickly on a napkin, and said “Taxi!  Tell driver!”  Then he walked away.
That night I went back to my hotel intending to go to sleep.  I took a shower, and was going to put my trousers away when I remembered the napkin in my pocket.
I finished drying myself, but instead of going to bed, I got dressed and went to the lobby, where I asked the woman at the desk to call for a cab.  When the taxi came, I got in and gave the driver the napkin.  He looked at it for a moment and his face lit up.  “Yes I’ll take you there!” he said.  “No Charge!”
We drove around the city.  In the dark it looked very strange.  The shape of the windows was different from what I had seen before in my own home.  In the twilight it was like being in a child’s book.
We arrived in a busy part of town - the driver pulled over and got out to open the door for me. When I offered to pay him, he shook his head vigorously and said “No charge.  I tell you already!”  Then he indicated that I should go into the bar that was there.
Inside it was very comfortable.  There were big comfortable chairs arranged in groups, each one like a homey and lovely living room.  The place was full of young people.  In a corner, the man I’d met at the cafe beckoned me over, with a huge smile on his face.  When I got to the table I was introduced to his friends - there were a good number of people with him.  One of them was a lovely woman who spoke English a bit.  After he’d introduced her, she took my hand and smiled broadly, saying “We are students at the University.  Will you sit with us and converse in English?  We would like to improve our speaking!”
For the rest of the evening, we drank Sun beer, snacked on kimchi, and talked like old friends.  In this group, several spoke English at varying levels, some not at all.  And they were all full of questions, about my home, what life was like on a ship, what my favorite books and movies were.  With some I could communicate clearly - with others I needed assistance from the group.  One thing I remember thinking very clearly, as if somebody else had planted it in my mind, that it didn’t make sense that we’d been at war with these people.  After awhile I even began to understand some of the rhythms of their language.  And I’d listen to them speak to each other.  I couldn’t understand the words but I could read the expressions, the emotions behind the words.  By the time the bar closed, we were like a group of old friends.
For the rest of my stay there, one of my new friends was always there to take me out and show me the city, or to tell me which restaurants were the best, or to help me find a movie theater.
The last night of my stay, I was invited to Mari’s house for dinner.  Her father was the owner of the largest chain of grocery stores in Pusan.  The meal was served in the dining room of their house.  The table was enormous - perhaps eight feet long and four wide, but very low.  We sat on pillows on the floor and Mari and her Mother placed steaming bowls of food on the table. There was kimchi and white rice and bulgogi and octopus and pork fat and many things I didn’t recognize but tried anyway.
Mari’s brothers, both in their thirties, were full of questions about my home.  What were the supermarkets like?  What was my favorite automobile?  I had similar questions for them.  All questions were asked through Mari, who acted as translator.
That night, Mari was my angel.  Or perhaps she was the holy spirit.  Afterwards, I walked through the harbor to the ship with a different idea about the world.  I remember thinking that the tongues had been baffled so that we might understand each other better.
Sometimes the lack of a common language can bring us closer - simply because in order to communicate, we must pay such close attention.  Sharing thoughts is not as easy as it is with someone who speaks my language.  But when we share a thought despite our tongues, the thought is somehow more powerful.  And the journey to reach understanding is more profound.  Sometimes we take understanding for granted.

Opening a door

Sometimes you send a Storm. Sometimes it is a butterfly.

Logos.  The word is the beginning of everything.  They say that you have been silent for 1000 years but you and I know that isn't true.  Everyday we talk.  Not in words like most conversations, and I'm sure that I don't always understand what you say (our languages differ) but I always know you are here.  All places - one place.  All hearts - one heart.
What do I hear?  Sometimes sweet music.  Sometimes quiet tones of disapproval. Sometimes whooping cries of excitement and happiness.  All these things and yet behind them all there is a constancy - something stable and reliable like a strong undiminishable electrical current, the language that Tesla learned so well.  Sometimes there seems to be a mood, but behind the mood there is always you.
Sometimes I smile, but I'm still me.  Sometimes I cry, but I'm still me.  Sometimes I rage, but I'm still me.  Sometimes I fail, but I'm still me.  And when I succeed, I'm still me.  Like you, there is a point inside that remains constant.  When I see you burning in the night and hear your music, my own fire burns brighter and my own music tries to sing in harmony.  Sometimes I fall short and there is discord, but when I find the notes, the beauty is unbearable.
I was walking one day in the woods.  I saw sparks flying on the wind.  In my pocket I had a small metal box.  I filled the box with kindling and caught a spark in it.  From that point on, the spark has remained with me.  Sometimes I feed it new kindling to see it grow brighter.  Sometimes I add damp materials to cool it down a bit.  Sometimes I use it to spark campfires where we can all share stories.
But I wonder why it is that so many veils are there between you and I.  I can only see so far into their baffles.  I think about Isis when I consider this.  She had veil upon veil and one could never remove them all so none but the most reverent could ever hope to know what she might look like.
We may wander far from you, but the light is always there, sometimes large, sometimes small, but always constant and undiminished.
Every night when we are at sea, we look to the shore and smile to see the lighthouse.
Why, today of all days, are you speaking so vigorously using language I am senseless in?
Sometimes, often, after it rains, you become a fragrance on the wind.
Sometimes, infrequently, when I am sleeping you rouse me to hear coyotes passing.
In the envelope, all things are placid and constant.  In the envelope, the air is clean.  The flame burns brightly with no smoke, ash or residue.
Outside the envelope, all things disorderly.  Outside the envelope, only the crust of the world is seen.  There can be order within disorder, but there cannot be disorder within order.  There can be truth in untruth, but untruth is not contained by truth.
Battalions march on strange cities, sometimes warring, sometimes playing.
Squads and Patrols rush in and strike, sometimes to ruin, sometimes to raise up.
Earth remains. The voice is constant.  I listen, even when I don't understand, I listen.

Godsend

I was walking and while I was walking I was pissed off.  It was raining hard, and I was walking back to my apartment after work (playing music in the subway for twelve or thirteen hours) and I remember I'd begged you that morning, saying that I needed a really good loaves and fishes day, rent was due and the weekend yet to come, but after the first.  For some reason every song I sang that day fell flat, and flat songs don't open purses and wallets.  I came home with just enough money for dinner and maybe a cuppa on the way to work in the morning.  So I was mad and it was pouring and I thought "god must hate me" that day that was my prayer, and it continued.  "You hate me!  I'm cursed or something.  I have a black soul.  I'm gonna lose my apartment."  I remember shaking my fist at the sky and getting a mouthful of rain (which was cold and delicious - thank you!) and my voice was getting raw from the shouting.  Right then, I felt a tug and when I looked down, realized I'd pulled the cart with my guitar and equipment over a nail, and the tire was punctured.  Again I raised my voice and my fists, feeling damned.  Just then, a car pulled up beside me.  The window rolled down, and a young couple looked out at me.  "Do you need a ride?" asked the man in the passenger's seat.  I stood there stunned for a second or two, looked at the iron gray sky, and sheepishly said under my breath "thanks", then to the guy in the car "you are a Godsend!" And I meant it.  Later that evening, I walked down the stairs with the intention of giving what I had of the rent to the landlord and asking if Tuesday would be okay for the rest.  But when I got to the landlord's door, there was a note that read "Renters: Beth and I are out of town this weekend.  Please don't slide your rent under the door - just hold on to them please.  We'll be back on Wednesday morning."  I walked back up the steps to my apartment and suddenly found myself counting the blessings of the day rather than repeating the curses I'd uttered during the walk home.  The rest of the weekend, everything was "on" and in addition to the rent, I earned enough to take myself on a small trip to New Hampshire to visit a friend for two weeks.  The odd thing is that I really enjoyed playing that weekend too.  I felt that the spirit was in me for those days in ways that it had been missing for awhile.  Looking back, I can say with certainty that it always is, even when things seem bleakest.  Its just a matter of acknowledging and responding to it, rather than acknowledging and reacting to the seeming darkness of the moment.  A few days later, I was talking to a friend who was homeless back then.  As he smoked a cigarette and rambled his usual litany, which had something to do with the Virgin Mary, the Mafia, and his protestation that he wasn't a raper or a killer or a masturbator or a baby rapist, he suddenly looked at me with clear eyes and said "You're alive.  As long as you're alive, you have everything, I mean everything you need in that moment.  When you die, you don't need anything."  He finished his cigarette, and said "I hope I'll be okay.  Will I be okay?"  I said "Yes Mike, you'll be okay!"  which was always the answer he wanted to hear.  He just walked away shaking his head and I went back to my apartment - which was paid in full until next month - and cooked up a big pot of chili.
Thanks! I must be going,
Eric

A small prayer for people on the other side of the planet

I wanted to thank you for being with the people in Japan this morning to help them through their terrible ordeal.  I woke up here to a brilliant, warm and sunny morning and saw the news shortly thereafter.  I watched images of the wave sweeping away homes, farms, boats and airplanes and gasped to see the power of the Earth once again flexing her muscles. I felt sad, but I listened when you told me, as you often do, that you were there with the ones in distress.  The ones you did not save you have delivered.  I don't know what that means, afterall I can only eavesdrop. My hope is that you raise your voice a little today - it may be that a quiet murmur is not enough for the people there.

Loaves and fishes

Loaves and fishes.  Today is a loaves and fishes day. How many times have I thought that, on my way to work?  You were out there, I know it because every time I got exactly what I needed, if not necessarily what I wanted.  You knew, and you fed me, clothed me, put a roof over my head, gave me comfort.  Then at home when the work was done it was time to play.  The guitar came out without any frills, I'd sit on the sofa, or in my hard chair and start to play, nothing in particular.  Sometimes it was just scales, sometimes, often, those scales grew into the once-played songs, melodies and improvisations composed on the fly, without any purpose other than to play them and as music, you took me on incredible journeys.  I don't have to believe in you because I know you.  Every time I play my guitar, every time I sit at the computer to write, whenever I open my book and let the ink stretch out in miles and miles of lines, I have the affirmation.  When I'm walking you walk - not beside me, but inside me.  When I cry, you visit me in mid sob.  When I hurt, you teach me how to bear it.  When the pain passes, you show me how to exalt.  How can I not know!  

One brief encounter

I was in a parking lot the other day walking towards the grocery store.  There was a woman walking by herself with the wind tying her hair into knots.  She was grimacing and trying to hold her hair down with her hands.  As she passed me, her face looked so frustrated that I was about to avert my eyes, but just then, she smiled.  It caught me so off guard that I started to laugh - she started in too, and suddenly there we were, lost in laughing.  When my own laughing subsided, I said "hi," she giggled out a "hi" of her own and we both walked on, chuckling.  The rest of the day, the spirit of that moment filled me up.  I'd never seen her before, don't know her name or anything else about her, I'll probably never see her again, but we shared something as intimate as anything I've had with friends, relatives or lovers.  

okay I give in

I listen for you all the time and though I don't always understand what you are saying, it comforts me to know that you are there murmuring.  Whenever I talk about you to friends and relatives I always deflect.  I am ashamed I suppose at my lack of ability to understand what I am hearing.  When I can, I write it down, or draw a picture of it, or play music about it.  But I know that what I write, draw and play is only a shadow of what I'm responding to.  I wish that you would speak more in words or symbols that I can understand, but I also understand that I am made the way I am for a reason.  You have told me that I should write and draw and paint and play and you have indicated that the understanding is not for me.  Okay I give in.  From now on my driving force, entirely, will be to listen to the voice, look at the images and bring them into the world.  I'm guessing that I am a sort of midwife - present at the birth but not a part of it.  I facilitate something, and that something is known only to you and to the ones that you intend it for.  I'm not going to tap the rock with my stick and demand more water from you.  People are always looking for a blinding revelation.  Isn't that wrong?  Isn't it true that rather than blinding, the revelation illuminates? If we use the light that casts the shadow rather than focussing on the shadow, can we begin to see what surrounds the shadow?  I'm sorry.  I when  write things like that I feel some pride as if they erupted from me and not from the constant voice, the constant companion. 

When Adam walked in the garden of Eden, he walked and talked with God.  I'm beginning to think that our interpretation of that has been far from the truth.  God walked and talked with Adam.  Like me, like everyone else in the world, his voice was Adam's constant companion.  I guess that Adam could understand more, but then again he ate the fruit, and was banished from the Garden, so perhaps he allowed his own desires to cloud God's message. I don't know.  I only know that when I listen, the voice is there, and that I very rarely understand what it is or what it is saying, but I hear it and that is my comfort.  

Who is God?  Who are you?  Am I allowed to ask that?  Is part of the curse of Adam and Eve the disconnection from understanding your words?  

I think this today:  you don't want our belief.  You want us to know you, not believe in you.  What I hear is 

not something that I believe, it is a fact that I have to accept, just as the floor under my feet is a fact that I have to accept, just like the coffee I drink, and the air I breathe, and the light that shines in the window, and the keys that my fingers are tapping are facts that I have to accept.  As I accept them, I accept you.  As I touch them, I also touch you.  I do not fully understand the floor, but I know that it exists.  I do not fully understand you, but I know that you exist.  

When I watch what is happening in the world, some things I see I think are in response to you - some things are not.  The most visible ones, the ones that people fix their attention on, are not.  We hear about the horrible things that people do, even though the good things that they do far outnumber the bad.  Am I right?  

When I write I hope that some of what I write is in response to you.  I may not hear and understand, but please accept that I am listening and that I am grateful for your voice, even though I don't understand the words.  Thank you.

I think you can really be a snob - I mean, I talk to you every day, sometimes all day long and in my memory you have never once responded in a language I can understand.  I've asked for signs and guidance but when I see what I think is a sign or guidance and follow it, I am always wrong.  I've stopped asking.  I long ago abandoned the idea that you are anything or anyone that we can comprehend.   The old images of the old man walking in the garden no longer work for me. The fairy stories are just fairy stories - at best primitive attempts to describe you. Even so, I continue to talk.  Why is that?  Even as I'm telling myself that there isn't any evidence, that silence indicates non-existence, that I'm nearly an atheist as far as belief goes, I still talk to you.  When I'm walking, when I'm dreaming, when I'm staring off into space.  When I'm doing good works, even when I'm sinning, I think of you and in my mind I talk to you.  Sometimes I even voice my thoughts and because I'm outside when I do this, not in a church or in the privacy of my home, people look at me as if I'm crazy, as if I'm hearing voices but we both know that I've never heard your voice.  Why then do I continue?  They say the answer is blowing in the wind - well I guess the wind isn't blowing anywhere near me.  When I hear about somebody who does hear voices, I'm even a bit jealous.  When I see some of the people who go to churches with their simple certainties, I'm a bit jealous too.  Or people who see visions, who rise up in their minds to a higher plain to touch and be touched by you.  I remember when I was a child going to church - there was a prayer we said - I am not worthy, say but the word and my soul shall be healed, all my life I have been making that exhortation, yet I have never been touched, my soul is not healed.  Sometimes I am afraid that talking to you is a form of lunacy in and of itself. Should I continue to indulge them?  Should I stop?  So - as I said, you can really be a snob.  Only talk to a few, a chosen few?  The rest of us be damned?  If that is true then aren't you, really, an enemy, something to be overcome?  Even thinking this, I am talking to you.  Why is that?  Why do such dialogues continue?  How many others out there feel as I do?  

Voices

I know you are reputed to love voices raised in song - but I'll bet that there is another set of voices that you love even more - that is the high pitched squeals, squeaks and screams of children playing with joyful abandon.  A few times a week, I sit at a local restaurant that has a play facility - the primary reason is to hear those sounds myself.  Of course sometimes, since I'm an older gentleman, the sheer volume and exuberance can start to grate on me - mea culpa! My hope is that you in your glacial distance hear those voices and accept them as prayers.  Maybe in fact that is what redeems us as humans.  As we grow older and lose the capacity to scream like that, we also grow more cynical, and yes more devious, often evil.  But the fact that once we could shriek like that might be a reason for us to continue.  

As older people, some of us give way to other joyful noises - fans at a sporting or musical event, people having sex, or playing tennis, or even sometimes just walking down the street.  Sometimes although the joy is there, we don't let it out, there is no expression in it.  It is no less valid, and no less prayer than the joy that is vocalized.  

Why Letters to God?

I've been writing letters to God for as long as I can remember.  Some of them have found their way into the book, but most of them have been lost or discarded along the way.  What are they?  Words on a page or a computer screen.  Like the larger text of the book they are freeform, but there is a bit more direction to them. My letters to God are usually observations about the world in conflict - and the clash of ideas and faiths that is the world of religion.  Some of them are prayers, some of them are examinations of scripture or doctrine.  Like anything I write, they are spurious, dashed off, unedited.  When I write letters to people, I address them to the intended victim.  When I write letters to God, I address them to God in the best way I know how, and that is by keeping the intention for God to hear these thoughts in my mind as I type them. In and of themselves they have no importance.  To me their importance is paramount because I hope someday to find the gift of faith.  So far it eludes me, and I am confused by what I see people of faith doing in the world.  Hopefully someday I will be granted understanding.  Until then I can only guess, theorize, plead, beg, hope, play and love what I am doing enough to keep doing it.  At the very least they entertain my mind as I write them.  At best I can hope that someone else may find enjoyment here and that maybe in sharing some of my questions and observations perhaps assist me in getting some answers of my own.