Believe. In Verbs…

~ Live & Learn

sunrise

Sunday mornings evoke childhood memories. Our cousins are off fishing. We dress and are dragged by our Parents to the sobranie for the Sunday morning molenie (service). Bread, salt and water sit on a spartan wooden table separating the men on one side, the women on the other.  Prayers are read.  Psalms, are led by the Elders – their intonation climbing and falling – lyrics incomprehensible. This is followed by the chanting of Otche Nash by the entire congregation…Our Father in Heaven...I’m yanking on my turtle neck, stealing glances at the clock, and at my Brother.  When will this end?

I haven’t been back.
To our religious services.
Or to any other for that matter.
In more than thirty years.
Yet, Sunday mornings return.
With their quiet Grace and Peaceful easy feeling.

Two men, both bloggers, are workmanlike in their daily postings.
Steve Layman posts after midnight. I’m posting at dawn.
He’s a Believer.
And like Friend Brenda, Belief comes from the Center, the Core.
There is Confidence. There is Conviction. There is Peace.

And there I sit.
A Bird on the fence.
Anxious. Restless. Hurried. Searching.
Flitting on and off.
And Leaning in the wrong direction.

And I read, Steve’s post at 2:30 am this morning.

God, to me, it seems is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper.
– R. Buckminster Fuller

I smile. It’s just too fortuitous. Last night, as I was rummaging around looking for a Sunday morning post, I came across this share from Todd Lohenry back in June:

Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split. I wake in a god. I wake in arms holding my quilt, holding me as best they can inside my quilt. Someone is kissing me – already. I wake, I cry “Oh,” I rise from the pillow. Why should I open my eyes? I open my eyes. The god lifts from the water. His head fills the bay. He is Puget Sound, the Pacific; his breast rises from pastures, his fingers are firs; islands slide wet down his shoulders. Islands slip blue from his shoulders and glide over the water, the empty, lighted water like a stage. Today’s god rises, his long eyes flecked in clouds. He flings his arms, spreading colors; he arches, cupping sky in his belly. He vaults, vaulting and spread, holding all and spreading on me like skin.

– Annie Dillard

I can wrap my mind around IT being a VERB.

Image Credit: Thank you SunDog via Here comes the sun …sha la la laaa by Altamar.

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26 thoughts on “Believe. In Verbs…”

  3. at age 7, i made a decision to leave the catholic church i was being raised in and since then have never been a part of any organized religion again. god as verb is a concept i find very exciting and one that makes more sense to me.

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  4. I’m kind of like ksbeth in that I started out in the Catholic religion…but circumstances ended up removing me from it at about age 12. I never went back and I did not raise my children in any organized religion. For me, the word “God” became synonymous with the word “love”…and, yes, God is a verb.

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  9. This speaks to me in ways too numerous to write. God as a verb–yes. I’ve grappled with reconcilng my beliefs with what I was taught as a Catholic (I call myself a “recovering Catholic”). Thanks for sharing and thanks for reminding me of the Doukhobors–I remember learning about them from one of your earlier posts.

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  11. I was searching for something else…your offering on this date was before i found your blog…reading this post was a blessing…Annie Dillard has a way with words and thought…painting a picture.

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