God in Me

You can gain the whole world and lose your soul. But you can also lose the whole world and your soul with it. You grasp the last fleeting memory of what was, you forget what is, what is yet to come. Emptiness, total nothingness, you are not a you any longer.

I search so desolately for purpose and forget Amazing Grace is the only purpose. I want something tangible, something that makes me feel like I am earning, doing, reaching, achieving. But grace is the opposite of all that. A gift. Purpose without toil, love without reason, grace.

God in me. What a mucky residence, filthy with caverns of doubt and a ceaseless lapse of virtue. Dark potholes, not one beam of light. Except for the guest who should demand so much more – a key card, an extra towel. The guest who should have left long ago if he thought his accommodations would be grubby forever.

Purpose is laying aside purpose, adopting His purpose, spending time for Him, not wasting time in you, for you, you, you, you. A million things to do and not one that brings glory to the God who lives. Purpose is laying down purpose, purpose is forgetting you want one.

Monsoon Puddles

Monsoon season puddles the whole block long and the whole curb deep. Opaque ponds muddied with green and brown begging for crocodile guests. Drippings from overhangs, dark color of near-water, we dodge between them. Don’t lose the game.

Now-Eastern materialism next to maimed beggars and slanted roofs falling into the ground. Garbage alongside temples, ugliness dripping from holy golden peaks.

Moments of mango smoothie passionfruit, yellow and black, seeds stuck in your teeth, then the heavens fall on you, absolute in their wet embrace. The rain that can’t be any heavier is heavier. Your overhang cannot safeguard. Puddles up to your knees. Above your knees. Slow flooding sneaks up on you, on everyone, as gutters clog and the wall of water slithers through its maze.