I Bet God
February 20, 2008
Daniel Ladinsky is an American poet who creates contemporary interpretations from the writings and poems of ancient spiritual mystics. I love his poems. They have emotion and heart, the language is wonderful, and they can be both funny and incredibly tender. And okay, they’re short in length and I’m all about the short poems. Long ones lose me. So here’s one of my favorites from “Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West.”
I BET GOD
If He
let go of my hand, I would
weep so loudly.
I would petition with all my might, I would cause
so much trouble
that I bet God would come to His senses
and never do that
again.
I love the sweet and funny idea of that but what I love even more is what I know to be more true, and that is God has never and will never let go of your hand. Even when others try to pry God’s fingers loose from your sweaty little fist, God holds on tight. Rest assured.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38, 39
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Posted in I Wish I'd Written It, Love and Grace
February 24th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I love Daniel’s sweet poem! I think it is not so much about the possibility of God letting go of her hand as it is about the onlookers who believe God will let go under certain conditions, or even our own letting go. Although, the physicallity of God in the poem reminds me of the wrestling match between Jacob and God where Jacob held the “man”, probably in a headlock, and audaciously said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”
The poem resonnates within me and I’ve copied it to my desktop. I am currently in the beginning stages of coming out. I’m 40 and in church leadership. So far only a handful of loved ones know what I am doing. Including my Pastor. He and I agreed that I will step down from my official church leadership role for reasons more complex than I have room to explain. The rubber is meeting the road, you might say, and continuing to believe I am okay doing this is more challenging. My face has been turned toward God during the last 20 years that I’ve known but not acted on my same sex attraction. As I’ve made the decision to come out, my face has been turned toward God simply out of a basic survival instinct. This is HARD!
The poem speaks to the loudness and depth of my cries to God that he would not let me go, or, that I would not let him go. To the blurting out of my immediate need for God’s help because I can’t do this alone. It’s impossible. It speaks to the moments during confession at church when all my evangelical history rears up inside of me proding me to confess that my pursuit of this life is wholly selfish. And it speaks to the calmness with which God seems to show me, in that moment, that all I need to confess is how obsessed I can get with my research, thoughts, dreams, and this weird adolescent libido coming to life inside me.
Thank God for poetry that distills and magnifies the most mysterious of human experiences so that they are visible to the naked eye.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Kimberly, I’m so glad someone else appreciates the simplistic depth of this poem. I love it more every time I read it, and how fun that you refer to Jacob wrestling with God through the night because I’m just preparing an entry on that very passage.
You said so well what others, myself included, have experienced in coming out, when you said “my face has been turned toward God simply out of a basic survival instinct.” Coming out really tested for me all the words I had spoken in the years prior about trusting God with my life and relying on God alone. Those are easy words when held up by the love and approval of a congregation and a circle of friends, but when those supports come unanchored, then we are left to find what it means to trust in God and God alone. I really hope that in midst of the difficulties of this time you’re able to sense huge moments of awareness that God really is the one on whom you can depend and trust and that through it all, God will be proven faithful.
My experience/observation is that within certain corners of the church there’s a huge commitment to avoiding any kind of self-care because it’s considered selfish. Their rhetoric is filled with phrases like put the needs of others before yourself,or follow God and deny yourself. I grew up with that mindset too and for many years fulfilled it quite well and with the best of intentions but however well-intended all that denial of self was, it nearly destroyed me. When I came out it required turning attention to myself to know what it was I even wanted and who I fully was. For a time, like you, I felt guilt over thinking so much of myself, but that time passed because it’s only a stop on the journey and not the final destination, a journey to wholeness; to worship God in wholeness to engage in the world in wholeness. In a world where people live fragmented lives and have pockets stuffed with masks, living authentically and joyfully as whole people before God is an incredible gift we can bring. That’s one of the hopes of this website, to help women isolated by their private struggle to reconcile their faith and sexuality so they can then be freed to move on in their spiritual lives and back into the world as whole people. So stop here on your own journey as long as you need Kimberly and then when you’re ready, dust yourself off and continue on, remembering that God has no time frame or agenda other than spending each day with you where you are, loving you and being loved by you.