If there is a consistent theme running through my writing, it’s the call to pay heed to the passing moments, to pay attention when the holy arises. The sacred is all around us and we each get to decide what’s meaningful. One thing about organized religion that never resonated with me was the idea that some council of misogynist white dudes from ancient times gets to decide what is sanctified and what is profane.
I think God is everywhere. In fact, I’ve met God many times. Once dressed as a homeless woman. Twice as a drag queen. Many times as the burble of a brook or the wind through the leaves. God has come to me when making love and making music, but also when folding laundry, paying bills, and lying in the dark at 3:00 am, unable to sleep and worried about everything.
I recently met God at a bar in Belize and she was really, really drunk, having just finished a seven cocktail rum-tasting class.
“You’re the yoga teacher here from Kentucky, right?” she slurred. I agreed that I was, in fact, she. “You one of those woo woo yoga girls that thinks she has it all figured out?”
I laughed and replied that no one has anything figured out. She weaved a little on the barstool and did a slow blink while she considered this. “Actually,” she took another deep swig of her watermelon smash and leaned alarmingly toward me. “I have it figured out.”
I raised my eyebrows, encouraging her to continue. “The secret is …” she burped and then cleared her throat. “The secret is … it’s mostly bullshit. Marriage. Parenting. Careers. Doug. Having friends. Aging. Sleeping, eating, politics. Being alive, basically. Mostly bullshit.”
“But the key,” she raised her voice, yelling the word key and flinging her arms out as if preparing to take a bow. “The key,” she continued, “is to find the real in the mostly bullshit.” She tossed her cocktail straw across the bar, an affirmative mic drop.
I considered asking who Doug was, but figured he – and his story – was mostly bullshit. So I just saluted her with my own cocktail.
She’s not wrong. And if it isn’t mostly bullshit, I think we can all agree that there is at the very least more bullshit than anyone wants.
We have to expect the bullshit. Accept the bullshit. But the wisest of us continue to look for the real moments.
Life is mostly traffic jams, acne, inflation, potholes, a snoring spouse, bills, weight gain, taxes, litterbugs, junk mail, loud chewers, stinky trash, soggy fries, rashes, stubbed toes, the mundane and the inconvenient. It’s also more-serious bullshit like war, cancer, poverty, divorce, genocide, climate change, mental illness, and death. The motivational speakers, life coaches, and spiritual by-passers would tell us to just rise above it, ignore it, good vibes only. But the bullshit is part of the human experience. We’re complicated, messy, prone to hurting ourselves and those around us.
Fully living asks us to let it all come and let it all go. What remains is the real, the goodness – the realness – that makes the bullshit tolerable.
And to those readers who are certain that God wouldn’t cuss? That’s bullshit too. The holy is literally everywhere if you’ll just open your eyes and heart.
