another self-indulgent, masturbatory post. i sent this e-mail to the jackal earlier this year during an e-mail exchange about god.
dear jax,
a long time ago (funny, i think i was exactly your age), there was a lot of shit going on in my home life. a lot of what i remember about it was the culmination of a whole series of events -- i wound up with a huge bruise and a sore neck from a slug i took to my face from my "stepfather person."
anyway, it was a tough time for me. dad was away at onu. i felt alone. i had a couple friends who were serious christians who told me that god would comfort me if i would only ask him. i so envied the way they saw their relationship to god, and desperately wanted what i thought they had. it really bugged me that i could not "get" it in the same way they did -- no matter how hard i tried. and i did try. hard. felt very bad that that "magic" wasn't there for me.
it took me a long, long time to feel comfortable with the god i KNEW i knew, but it was in such a different way.
you're so intimately involved with people of deep faith who know god in such a different way, jax. in a different way than you do. and you may not know you know god, are not sure about this god stuff at all, but someday you'll "get" it. god is right there with you, IN you, in us, in your brothers, in your guitar, in the snow, in the grass, in the DOGS. god is our love for you, your compassion for others, your struggles to be the best person you can be, the music you make. god is not -- for me, and i think for a lot of people, including you and dad, where others tell us to look. he's just there. we feel it, but not in the same way others do, so we wonder -- is that god? yes, it is.
you'll be just fine with that. someday. maybe today.
Posted by Stacey at November 1, 2004 09:40 AMThat's beautiful, Stacey. And exactly right.
Posted by: Jen at November 1, 2004 09:30 PMWhat a terrific post. And so true. Only at first I thought it was Jax writing it and it kinda threw me off when he was talking about being your age.
But again, wonderful.
Posted by: TW at November 1, 2004 09:35 PMYou hit it right on the spot. A friend of mine gave me a copy of a poem from her Llama (she's a Buddhist) In it he says don't go out looking for the elephant when he's been in your own garden all the time.
Posted by: Anji at November 2, 2004 04:41 AMIt's the truth, and you said it well and simply. That, in itself, is a gift.
Posted by: Philip at November 2, 2004 09:48 AMtw: you're right! it does look like jax wrote it. i must fix that.
Posted by: stacey at November 2, 2004 10:04 AMWell said!!
Will you be my mom? I would just love to hear soomething like this from either one of my parents.
Posted by: moonandsun at November 2, 2004 11:22 AMwow. thanks, dear readers!
Posted by: stacey at November 2, 2004 12:20 PMAwesome post Stacey. Being a Christian is, for me, at times very difficult. Most of my friends have the same trouble that you described here. They were unable to feel it the same way I do. I don't really think of it as a magic as much as a faith, one more powerful than any other I have ever had. I like the feeling of waking up everyday knowing that Someone loves me no matter what goes wrong in my earthly life I just know that He is there for me.
I only wish that I could describe my feelings as eloquently as you did yours!
Stacey for President!
This is another awesome post, Stace!! You ROCK!!!
Posted by: Kathy Howe at November 2, 2004 04:55 PMAnji, honey, ( A friend of mine gave me a copy of a poem from her Llama (she's a Buddhist) In it he says don't go out looking for the elephant when he's been in your own garden all the time., a llama is a South American 4-footed camelid.
I think you want lama.
Although I've met a couple of lamas who look like llamas.
But I digress.
I cannot say I "believe" in any of the manisfestations of divine being as represented in the Old Testament or the New Testament.
I can say that in every culture I have ever studied, there is an expression of the ineffable, the mysterious, the unseen, the sacred.
That's enough for me, today. I personally like the 4 Noble Truths and the 8fold path. I like that there are no Gods standing around passing judgment on me.
And when I go to meetings and somebody says,"God has a plan" I can just say, "well, OK then." Nope. No plan, not in this universe. That's ok, though, I don't have to set them right.
Posted by: Liz at November 15, 2004 03:07 PM