Unspeakable

God and I are a lot alike.

Neither of us believes in a power greater than our own. Neither of us has much faith in what we create. And neither of us knows exactly where we end, and luck begins.

I stopped thinking a God was a thing sometime around second grade. The pillars of light punching through spotty clouds in the southwest lower Michigan spring were like ropes and staircases. Each column was a soul rising to Heaven, I thought. They must be. Then I noticed a pillar of sunlight was pointed at me. From etic to emic. The fourth wall broke. There was no Heaven. There was no God.

But it’s taken me thirty years to say that out loud. “There is no God.” And still I wait the lightning bolt.

See, mine is a superstition that lacks the grace and invention of balance. Prayer is useless. There is no glory to bestow, no righteousness to lift us, to save us. To rescue us. Your hope is a waste of precious and rare molecules. You could have used them to create. You could have used them to inspire. God never wrote a sonnet, or scored a film. God never did anything some guy didn’t say he did.

But speak no evil. Speak no harm. Don’t say that common word for flatus. Your mother hates that word. And if you speak it, bad things will happen to her. Don’t combine “God” and “damn.” You can say each, with a pause or a breath. But bad things happen when they’re put together, neither iambic nor trochaic.

You have all the power to destroy all that you love, child. It is your responsibility to keep them alive.

Be honest. Be true. But your honesty can annihilate everything that has ever meant anything. Be honest, but be careful.

God and I are a lot alike. We’re scared of the destruction we never meant to bring.