The Old World and Me

I felt God most here this weekend.
In the acidic smell of wet earth and the sound of bubbling water. Rebirth is a messy process that often times is uglier, muckier, taking longer than I believe it should. 
It’s a lot of mud. 
It’s a lot of rotting leaves as cover for new plant shoots. 
It’s a lot of crying, and yelling. 
It’s allowing. It’s being. It’s not comparing.
It’s a lot of one color at first: brown. 
And then two: brown and green. 
And then a third: brown, green and white. Or purple. Or pink. Or any array of glory that the spectrum can give.
Starting over is often so painful.
I think about how it felt as my adult teeth grew in. 
Achey. Startlingly never ending. Ridiculous. 
I think about how deep my grief has been in the past few years. A never ending cavern, so deep and dark no light could even penetrate. A huge burned out building. Beauty stood there once and love. But then fire. And after:char. Ashes. Ghosts.
I think about how long the road looked ahead of me as I stood with a lot of choices last year. None of them what I wanted. All of them available to me, everything at my fingertips and I didn’t want a second of it.
Time changes things. Things die, burn, sputter, extinguish. And in its place new things grow. New types of plants. Heartier and strange. Flowers. And friends. Love. Memory. 
I think about God a lot. If something is guiding me. And not just me, but all of us. 
I think about what that would look like. Probably messier than I want. Probably, divine and glorious but also icky and elemental. Not much different than spring. 
No much different than this photo right here.
But what do I know? 
I know that using my words for kindness and goodness is going to plant more seeds than hate will ever sow. 
I know that I love as a verb-in an active way. Not a perfect way but a truthful way.
I know that life doesn’t often look the way I thought; but it’s neat to be here anyway. 
Don’t believe me? Ask the primordial sludge at the bottom of creeks and the delicacy of the butterfly wing, the elaborate braid of bone, and sharp snap of laughter you didn’t expect. 
Forgiveness, rebirth, regrowth, restarting, remembering. 
Maybe that’s all God is. Maybe that’s all we all are.
Maybe it’s enough to be here and try to do good to each other. And love when it’s hard. And start over when we need too, year after year; season after season. 
This old world does it, why can’t I?