Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 February 2017

Another week, another Sunday of looking back. The second line of this week’s Shi Sai was troubling to me when I read it back for the first time. “God is not there to listen”. What does that mean? Why am I troubled by this?

True enough, the world is a noisy, obnoxious place. I am guilty myself of zoning out; muting the cacophony that grumbles for my attention day after day, endlessly, mercilessly, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. I do it to maintain my sanity. Does god worry about maintaining sanity? I wouldn’t blame her if she did.

Just what is it that I expect from a god, a deity or a higher power? Does god exist to make my life heaven on earth, or more specifically…

…to help me pass the exam I didn’t study for?

…to land me that promotion or raise or fortune that I didn’t work for?

…to move the traffic along; to give me green lights all the way to work because I indulged my own laziness by hitting the snooze button once too often?

…to make everyone just like me, and if they refuse to get in line, to make them go away…forever?

…add your own “please god” here…this is by no means an exhaustive litany…

We let ourselves off the hook too easily by repeating “god is in control” when the shit we’ve hurled at the fan comes back to slam us in the face. -kat 2017

We’d really like to be able to “let go and let god” and “surrender all” but those “come to Jesus” moments usually hit us when we are in the thick of chaos of our own making. It’s the ultimate “get out of jail free card”, absolution and immunity from accountability. An “in control” god gives us reason to praise and celebrate when the going is good, while taking personal credit for our own good judgement for having had the faith to believe. And when things go bad? We cry out, stomp our entitled feet and gnash our teeth toward god who we believe has “forsaken us”; who has stopped listening.

It’s complicated. What do I really expect from god? In all my wailing and pleading and groveling I think I’ve missed the point. And the point is not whether or not god is listening. 

The point is, am I?

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 19 February 2017

the dreary gloaming makes me weary
God is not there to listen
a stubborn squatter with a frosty bite
“Tomorrow,” he sighed
I don’t need chocolate or flowers
bits of bread and stale saltines
sight is relative
the deafening silence had an unintentional consequences
I just don’t want to be left behind
it has no value
frail shells of starved flesh
the sea is calling
a speaker’s nightmare
what’s most important to survive
nature secretly longs
bread, day old, crumbs to sustain
what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall

~kat – 18 February 2017