Out of the Closet, Walking Back Home

It is a ritual as holy and sacred to me as

raising bread and wine.

More relevant than any church service.

Dare I say this?

As a child I would rush out of church

and into the fields, away from the crowds

where God’s voice beckoned to me

Louder

Stronger

Clearer

I basked in the glory of Her creations

 I could

Hear Her

See Her

Taste Her

Touch Her

I quit speaking of this by second grade

where I sat preparing for first communion

learning the difference between us and them.

Them.

Them was everyone else but us who gathered in the pews on Sunday morning.

Them were the heretics, the pagans, those that dared to hear God

in the whispers of pines and robin song.

Whose every action was a prayer to the Divine.

Fearing rejection, I buried my passion deep inside me.

Alas, it would not be contained.

She entices me every spring

as the equinox ascends

I cannot resist the impulse to place my hands in the soil and,

 working water into dry earth, she awakens

I smell Her quickening

My heart swoons.

I pour the

Life of endless ages into my hand.

How Holy!

How Precious!

This is as natural for me

as the rising and setting of the sun.

The stark emptiness of winter

The Great Rest, has passed.

I feel the life pulsing from the seeds

through my fingertips

to my soul.

I  remember the time

when I walked among the tomatoes

that rose like trees around me.

This is my Heaven.

The winter of my life

was spent in a tiny office

working on other people’s visions, always thinking,

Do I have a respectable career?

Do I make enough?

Is my house in the right neighborhood?

Is it big enough?

Am I enough?

This was my death.

I choose Life outside of this closet,

this box of conventionality.

I dig my hands into the mud and let it ooze between my fingers.

I wear purple and orange

and socks that don’t match.

I burst into song for no reason at all

and have heartfelt conversations with the bees.

My elder years are not the winter of my days

but a returning to spring

And if I allow my passion to direct me

as it did as a child

then I enter the Eternal Wellspring

where every seedling speaks to me of the fervency of the Divine,

every morsel of food a Holy gift

every action, a sacrament

I am in the arms of my Beloved, again

I have found my way back home…

Blessed Be….