God in Small Rooms

I went looking for God in the usual places first.
Stained glass and incense.
Books with the thin pages,
reverent in their delicacy.

I sat in pews built by men who were certain of things,
The only thing I was certain about was that I wasn’t certain.
but I waited to be certain too.

Nothing.

So I decided God was a story
people told themselves
to make the dark less dark,
and I went back to my own methods
of making the dark less dark.

Distraction, destruction, addiction, and affliction
from all the things that are fleetingly bright
only to give way to more darkness.

The Wanting is a prayer.
Backwards, maybe. Aimed at the altar of desparation
But the posture is the same,
knees down,
hands open,
whole body begging
please,just make me feel different than I feel.

I was praying for years.
I just didn’t know who I was talking to.

The first room had folding chairs.
The coffee tasted like tar and cigarettes.
or maybe that was me that tasted like cigarettes.
The carpet was the sad beige color of giving up.
Fluorescent light that flatters no one,
that shows you exactly what you look like,
which it turns out
is exactly what everyone else looks like:
Tired.

And then a man read something out loud,
and a woman cried without apologizing for it,
and somebody laughed at the most horrifying part of their own true story,
and I sat there with my arms crossed,
guarding the last little kingdom of my pride,
thinking, this is not for me.

And yet.

I kept coming back.
Which is the burning bush.
I kept coming back,
and somewhere between the third small room and the thirtieth,
the room stopped closing in on me
and started opening me.

Nobody converted me.
Nobody handed me a God of their understanding
they just waited for me to find a God of my understanding.

And I kept showing up,
to see everyone broken in the same places I was broken,
but mended by the threads of each others stories.
One night I looked around at all those faces
under that unforgiving light
and I thought,

oh.

There you are. Here we are.

After all the meetings and the meditation cushions,
after the Big Book and the Buddha and my body
slowly learning it is safe to live in…

I learned that God was never hiding.

God is whatever held you
on the night you couldn’t hold yourself.
God is on the phone at 2am
saying stay on the line, I’m not going anywhere.
God is the chair that was empty until you sat in it.
God is the deep breath you took
instead of the drink you almost picked up.

The Buddhists in my Tuesday meeting don’t say God.
They say refuge.
The old-timers say Higher Power,
And my friends say Universe.
My church group says Jesus,
and my instinct says God.

But I’m not here to argue the name.

It doesn’t matter what the lifeboat calls itself.
It simply matters that it’s there; floating.

While I was searching for holiness in a building,
I happened upon it in a circle.
Of folding chairs. With shitty coffee.
With people brave enough to reveal the messiest bits
and fellows who nod and confirm and accept and encourage.

Because being seen won’t kill you,
but staying hidden might.
And finding God in these small rooms
is what will save you, even when you don’t want to save yourself.

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If you’re in a small room somewhere, in a folding chair, wondering if it’s worth the fight: it is. These rooms are our cathedral.