How God Sounds

Finding God in the Elements

Water

Submerged beneath the surface, finding solace in the silence that belongs to this place uninhabited by humans yet still at their mercy, I find myself face to what I assume was face with a sea urchin. Large and black, probably the size of a volleyball before all the spikes and two white dots, I presumed were the eyes.

How did you come up with this? I wondered at God, startled at how loud my thoughts sounded beneath the sea.

I pictured God, this time as a deity in a wetsuit next to me, but no need for an oxygen tank. He swam next to me, with His dark, long, curly hair floating effortlessly in the saltwater and the same rough and calloused hands He had given to people who know the intimacy of labor and hard work. He gave me a weary smile with kindness seeping out of the crinkles in his eyes and turned His gaze with eyes full of compassion to the sea urchin. He shrugged. Although His lips did not move, I heard Him say ‘works don’t it?’

Before I was ready for it, He dissolved into a million tiny light particles of the sun reflecting down through the clear blue of the Aegean sea.

Earth

The silence that exists underwater is not unlike the silence at the top of a mountain. There is a purity to this silence.

Standing at the top of my first fourteen footer, gazing out at the mountain ranges below me and before me, the cool air filtered through my lungs. Clean, vibrant, cool, powerful. The silence resonated around me. Not even the birds sang this high.

I imagined God, my deity in a t-shirt and blue jeans, standing next to me, basking in the glory of His own creation. He said nothing. I wonder if this is what God sounds like.

Air

There is a moment, right after you’ve jumped off the cliff, before you begin the fall towards the water below you. It exists, almost like in cartoons, when the character jumps, pauses, suspended in the air as if gravity is dependent on him recognizing it and the situation he is in.

But anyone who has jumped for the sake of recreation, for the sake of the water below, for the sake of adrenaline, understands this moment. It lasts maybe a heartbeat, never two. Time slows down at that moment. You think you can stay there, suspended with enough time to grow wings.

The last time I jumped, I wanted wings. Rather than falling, I wanted to unfurl long, red and golden wings from their place along my spine, to fly close to the sun but never close enough to be called Icarus. I could see God next to me, with His own large, black wings beating steadily in the air. This was a prayer He could, but would not grant. Instead, He folded His own wings in and gave both of us over to the demands of gravity. Together we fell, feeling the air whip past our skin until the water took us over.

I stayed under, letting my body seek air that it could not take, for as long as possible. There is such clarity beneath the water. Only when my lungs began to scream and my body took over from my mind, did I begin to pull and kick my way to the surface. That first breath of air, sweet and life-affirming, flooding the body, leaves you gasping for air, for another jump, for more.

He was already at the shore by the time I got there, great black wings spread out and drying. His lips did not move but I heard ‘I have already given you wings, now you must find them.’

And with that, He flapped His own once, twice, and took off into the sky and the great, unknown mystery in which He exists.

Fire

Shadows danced across the faces of friends and lovers, playing out ballets within the flicker and reflection of the fire. A warm mug of Saint John’s Wort tea kept my hands warm in the cooling September night. My best friend sat behind me, my back pressed firmly against his chest, as we hummed and sang our way through the night.

Unwilling, unrelenting to the exhaustion in our eyes, another pile of wood was placed on the fire when it began to dim and fanned until it blossomed once again. I remember the words clearly of the man who taught me to build a fire.

A fire, he had said, must be coaxed and loved into existence. To force a fire is to ask to be burned. To love a fire into being is to be kept warm.

That is exactly what we did that night, coaxing and loving the fire into sustained existence. Looking around I saw friends and lovers, people whose pains had temporarily ceased, mouths open wide with laughter and little wrinkles appearing at the corners of eyes. I saw men who hid behind beards open their chests for an embrace, and women who hid behind convention step forward into strength and voice, as we sang into the night. Tonight we were not men and women, defined and dictated by social convention, tonight we were friends and lovers, caught in the warm embrace of fire and starlight and the gentle strum of a guitar and a chorus of voices that sang like the breath of life — a little off-rhythm and out of key.

The breath of my best friend slowed behind me as he fell into an easy sleep, his own back pressed firmly against a log. I let my fingers dance over the tattoos and scars on his hands and wrists, loving him through the night.

Standing behind each and everyone, I saw God. My deity, shirtless and in climbing pants, humming along to each song with each person, laughing and dancing with us. One of these deities stepped forward, tended to the fire, and brought the flames just a little bit higher. His lips did not move but I heard Him say, ‘Never worry, never fear. I keep all my children warm. All they have to do is accept My gifts.’

And the fire stayed steady well until dawn and all but one of us had fallen fast asleep in the warm embrace of our climbing-pants wearing God.