“God knew baby…” I said face buried in my hands, voice shaky and uncertain.
“He knew what David?”
“Everything…He knows everything…”I leaned back in the old wooden deck chair, the floor and chair creaked in unison, the spider webs sprawled across the beams above my head dancing in the slight breeze, “…from the most vital to the most seemingly insignificant detail…He really is everything at all times…there is nothing too small for Him or too large…”
I smiled through the fog of confusion which brilliantly turned to illumination only to quickly fade into murky water once again, as my voice trailed off into the starry night’s sky and my eyes wandered to the cobwebs above my head.
We were sitting on the deck of our private cabin; tucked into the woods just north of Canmore proper. It was late summer and though the air was pleasant, soothing, and free of any chill I knew that summer would not last as I caught the jagged mountain peaks cutting black lines across the sky… just as this recognition would soon dissipate from my mind and I would sink back into the bottom I had dug out for myself.
There would be moments when I wondered what it was that had my brain so mesmerized the day before, but it would pass, as I would fail to recollect just like the countless times before.
I drank it away, drugged it away, fucked it away, and in the process I convinced myself that was life; tiny pieces of fleeting information gathered by the subconscious, held tightly prisoner in a darkened corner of the silent brain never to be seen again.
I cringed with the thought that I could never recall with sufficient force the entire memory with which to affect any sort of lasting change from one day to the next. While at the very same instant I recognized that I should write it down, the ego convinced me I would remember so I shrugged it off…despite all evidence to the impossibility of memory…
I turned my face to her, as my eyes were like rocks in their sockets, and I stared into her for what seemed like hours as I waited for a response; we sat arm’s length apart on the dimly moonlit porch and I traced the lines of her prematurely weathered face...
The smoke curled from her lips, as she teased with the notion of exhaling fully; instead she allowed the smoke to seep slowly from her lungs, up her throat, and into the night’s sky where it separated and disappeared into nothingness.
She glanced at me through the corner of her eye and I looked down to the rotting wooden floor boards; then she smiled the same smile that turned everyone’s eyes to her in any given setting and said, “Well of course He does David…”I felt her eyes search the side of my head, “He is God.”
The words slithered into my frontal lobe and as they made their way through my brain, my face twisted and contorted, as though some demon had wrenched its way from deep within my guts in an attempt to stop the spread. Instead of letting out a cry in pain, I broke out in a slight yet somewhat disturbing maniacal laugh that caused mild alarm to ring out in every vein, artery, and vessel.
Under my breath I muttered, ‘of course He does…He is God…’ the laughing ceased immediately…the simplicity and truth of her words clipped my heart and I momentarily felt more peace and calm than I could remember previously.
It was terrifying.
I muttered again, “Of course He does…”as though I should know this by now and perhaps I should have… and then the peace slipped away and she came to me, sitting on my lap she caressed my cheeks and started to kiss me; slowly at first, which turned into hungry, deep kisses leading her hands to slide down…
That night, long ago now, seems like a different life entirely; seemingly profound thoughts came and went, fueled by drugs, insomnia, and a deeply haunting search for answers. The memories come now in sobriety and serve to remind me that God was always working in my life even though I was a distant planet orbiting just beyond the peripheral of my own soul; unable and unwilling to maintain contact.
There was momentary recognition and momentary connection, but instead of digging in with all of the energy I could muster I sucked in more smoke, drowned in more poison, and watched the connection dwindle until I was bankrupt and felt no real connection to anything…
God never left because God doesn’t leave, God loves and God remains. I ignored, turned away, made my choices and lived in the consequences of them, but God stayed, gently knocking at the door and occasionally finding that I had left it wide open for him…
God is everything or He is nothing…
What a complete mind blowing statement and question. It baffled me at first and in so many ways it continues to steer my head in strange and wonderful new directions that I rarely understand yet cling too because they make more sense than the old pathways I travelled so many times.
I do not know what it is like for others…
I have moments today when I understand completely that God is everything; I feel His presence in every step, every decision, and every moment on any given day. I can hear Him whispering in the wind through the rustling of tree branches, hear the message of love and peace in the running river at my feet, and I can see glimpses of His smile when people walk by and our eyes meet for brief seconds in time.
The days when I appear fearless, loving, confident, compassionate, certain, and free of worry and doubt are these in which I feel God close to me, within me and all around through constant prayer and work with others. When I fail to find judgment in my mind’s eye, I know without question that God is working through me and that is where I want to be.
However, I am human and sometimes, often without warning, my mind and ego get stuck on the idea that God can only handle some things while I have to control aspects of my life that I don’t believe He can take care of.
Those days when I pray and turn over half of my thoughts and worries while simultaneously thinking that I will keep this thing or that thing for myself, getting caught trying to walk with burdens that are not mine to carry.
The whisper enters my mind like a gentle kiss, “God does the miracles. You do your foot work…”
I must always put prayer into action or I feel the consequences and those consequences usually come in multiple forms of frustration, anger, bitterness, fear, doubt, mania, and depression to name a few.
There are few things (outside of alcohol and drugs) that can derail my connection to God quicker than trying to control people, places, and things that are none of my business. When my ego gets running, the frustration sets in almost immediately today, thank God, and reminds me to slow down, get back to the drawing board and pray.
The most beautiful feeling in the world to date is the sense of overwhelming peace circulating throughout my body…
The moments when peace invades and cuts to shards worry, doubt, self-loathing, and fear increase in direct proportion to how often I turn my mind to prayer and a basic understanding of the phrase, “God is everything or God is nothing…”
These moments are pure, absolute, and blinding beauty.
It is no longer the brain deciphering what the eyes see - it is the soul, the spirit doing all of the sensory collection and translating it to what it really is; beauty, light, warmth, and love. There is no frantic seeking, accumulating, fretting, or doubt. It is a feeling of complete abandon and surrender into a place of freedom and wonder.
But there is a moment of choice, at least for me there is…
During those brief seconds, just as the mind starts racing, there comes a slight pause, which is initiated somewhere deep within the processor. A moment where I feel either the ability to follow the racing bullshit to its natural end of chaos, frustration, and melancholy or to choose reaching out to God and burying the pointless worry and negative thoughts in prayer and service to my fellows.
As I type I wonder if it is that simple, but honestly, it is. Don’t get me wrong, it was not always thus and even today there are difficult moments with this, but today is today and the years of work, just as it is for others, have lead me to a life I never saw coming.
To a position in the universe I never dreamt of; it is not above anyone else or below, it is exactly where I am supposed to be amongst the ranks of my fellows in a system that makes every piece vital to the whole.
The prayers are many and sometimes appear scattered and seemingly incoherent in my own head, but I have learned because I have been and continue to be taught that the longer I practice, the more likely the mind is to slow down and make room for prayer or even just make room for the pause which initiates the choice to pray or not.
The prayers are for others, whether friend or foe, to be blessed in countless ways, just as I have been so freely in God’s grace. They are for the understanding that whatever external desire, situation, person, consequence, and the likes which are causing my mind to react in frantic negative ways are well under God’s complete control.
The silent prayer moves throughout my mind, “God’s got this man… God’s got it all under control…”
The list goes on ad infinitum because God really is everything and I firmly believe from what I have seen that God can do anything at all without limits. Any limits He has are simply extensions of my own shortcomings and a product of my very limited imagination and intellect.
Once I let God out of the box that I kept putting Him in, I was free to explore my faith and the world in the way I believe I was intended; with honesty, courage, faith, hope, forgiveness, understanding, and tolerance.
These things do not happen all at once or overnight, they are a product of a process that unfolds the longer I remain clean and sober and dedicated to making a simple choice that was not always so simple.
Choosing to pray instead of worry, praying for my enemies instead of cultivating bitterness and resentment, understanding that God has control of all of those things I do not and if I do not understand I pray for the understanding, and of course I ask for His guidance as I attempt to change the things I can because I must be an active participant in this life.
As I sit here, gazing out my window to the sinking sun behind the western range of mountains; I see a clear, crisp summer night across the valley to the Three Sister’s mountain peaks. They stand looming, but not ominously, instead they smile upon the plains as a reminder of God’s incredible design and power…and with the right set of ears a person could hear them whispering, ‘God has it all under control.’
The very thought of those words brings a soft, gentle peace over top of me; I am free, I do not have to control, and I do not have to fight. I can surrender a little more with each breath in that wonderful knowledge…
May you all be blessed,
David W. Lewry
“He knew what David?”
“Everything…He knows everything…”I leaned back in the old wooden deck chair, the floor and chair creaked in unison, the spider webs sprawled across the beams above my head dancing in the slight breeze, “…from the most vital to the most seemingly insignificant detail…He really is everything at all times…there is nothing too small for Him or too large…”
I smiled through the fog of confusion which brilliantly turned to illumination only to quickly fade into murky water once again, as my voice trailed off into the starry night’s sky and my eyes wandered to the cobwebs above my head.
We were sitting on the deck of our private cabin; tucked into the woods just north of Canmore proper. It was late summer and though the air was pleasant, soothing, and free of any chill I knew that summer would not last as I caught the jagged mountain peaks cutting black lines across the sky… just as this recognition would soon dissipate from my mind and I would sink back into the bottom I had dug out for myself.
There would be moments when I wondered what it was that had my brain so mesmerized the day before, but it would pass, as I would fail to recollect just like the countless times before.
I drank it away, drugged it away, fucked it away, and in the process I convinced myself that was life; tiny pieces of fleeting information gathered by the subconscious, held tightly prisoner in a darkened corner of the silent brain never to be seen again.
I cringed with the thought that I could never recall with sufficient force the entire memory with which to affect any sort of lasting change from one day to the next. While at the very same instant I recognized that I should write it down, the ego convinced me I would remember so I shrugged it off…despite all evidence to the impossibility of memory…
I turned my face to her, as my eyes were like rocks in their sockets, and I stared into her for what seemed like hours as I waited for a response; we sat arm’s length apart on the dimly moonlit porch and I traced the lines of her prematurely weathered face...
The smoke curled from her lips, as she teased with the notion of exhaling fully; instead she allowed the smoke to seep slowly from her lungs, up her throat, and into the night’s sky where it separated and disappeared into nothingness.
She glanced at me through the corner of her eye and I looked down to the rotting wooden floor boards; then she smiled the same smile that turned everyone’s eyes to her in any given setting and said, “Well of course He does David…”I felt her eyes search the side of my head, “He is God.”
The words slithered into my frontal lobe and as they made their way through my brain, my face twisted and contorted, as though some demon had wrenched its way from deep within my guts in an attempt to stop the spread. Instead of letting out a cry in pain, I broke out in a slight yet somewhat disturbing maniacal laugh that caused mild alarm to ring out in every vein, artery, and vessel.
Under my breath I muttered, ‘of course He does…He is God…’ the laughing ceased immediately…the simplicity and truth of her words clipped my heart and I momentarily felt more peace and calm than I could remember previously.
It was terrifying.
I muttered again, “Of course He does…”as though I should know this by now and perhaps I should have… and then the peace slipped away and she came to me, sitting on my lap she caressed my cheeks and started to kiss me; slowly at first, which turned into hungry, deep kisses leading her hands to slide down…
That night, long ago now, seems like a different life entirely; seemingly profound thoughts came and went, fueled by drugs, insomnia, and a deeply haunting search for answers. The memories come now in sobriety and serve to remind me that God was always working in my life even though I was a distant planet orbiting just beyond the peripheral of my own soul; unable and unwilling to maintain contact.
There was momentary recognition and momentary connection, but instead of digging in with all of the energy I could muster I sucked in more smoke, drowned in more poison, and watched the connection dwindle until I was bankrupt and felt no real connection to anything…
God never left because God doesn’t leave, God loves and God remains. I ignored, turned away, made my choices and lived in the consequences of them, but God stayed, gently knocking at the door and occasionally finding that I had left it wide open for him…
God is everything or He is nothing…
What a complete mind blowing statement and question. It baffled me at first and in so many ways it continues to steer my head in strange and wonderful new directions that I rarely understand yet cling too because they make more sense than the old pathways I travelled so many times.
I do not know what it is like for others…
I have moments today when I understand completely that God is everything; I feel His presence in every step, every decision, and every moment on any given day. I can hear Him whispering in the wind through the rustling of tree branches, hear the message of love and peace in the running river at my feet, and I can see glimpses of His smile when people walk by and our eyes meet for brief seconds in time.
The days when I appear fearless, loving, confident, compassionate, certain, and free of worry and doubt are these in which I feel God close to me, within me and all around through constant prayer and work with others. When I fail to find judgment in my mind’s eye, I know without question that God is working through me and that is where I want to be.
However, I am human and sometimes, often without warning, my mind and ego get stuck on the idea that God can only handle some things while I have to control aspects of my life that I don’t believe He can take care of.
Those days when I pray and turn over half of my thoughts and worries while simultaneously thinking that I will keep this thing or that thing for myself, getting caught trying to walk with burdens that are not mine to carry.
The whisper enters my mind like a gentle kiss, “God does the miracles. You do your foot work…”
I must always put prayer into action or I feel the consequences and those consequences usually come in multiple forms of frustration, anger, bitterness, fear, doubt, mania, and depression to name a few.
There are few things (outside of alcohol and drugs) that can derail my connection to God quicker than trying to control people, places, and things that are none of my business. When my ego gets running, the frustration sets in almost immediately today, thank God, and reminds me to slow down, get back to the drawing board and pray.
The most beautiful feeling in the world to date is the sense of overwhelming peace circulating throughout my body…
The moments when peace invades and cuts to shards worry, doubt, self-loathing, and fear increase in direct proportion to how often I turn my mind to prayer and a basic understanding of the phrase, “God is everything or God is nothing…”
These moments are pure, absolute, and blinding beauty.
It is no longer the brain deciphering what the eyes see - it is the soul, the spirit doing all of the sensory collection and translating it to what it really is; beauty, light, warmth, and love. There is no frantic seeking, accumulating, fretting, or doubt. It is a feeling of complete abandon and surrender into a place of freedom and wonder.
But there is a moment of choice, at least for me there is…
During those brief seconds, just as the mind starts racing, there comes a slight pause, which is initiated somewhere deep within the processor. A moment where I feel either the ability to follow the racing bullshit to its natural end of chaos, frustration, and melancholy or to choose reaching out to God and burying the pointless worry and negative thoughts in prayer and service to my fellows.
As I type I wonder if it is that simple, but honestly, it is. Don’t get me wrong, it was not always thus and even today there are difficult moments with this, but today is today and the years of work, just as it is for others, have lead me to a life I never saw coming.
To a position in the universe I never dreamt of; it is not above anyone else or below, it is exactly where I am supposed to be amongst the ranks of my fellows in a system that makes every piece vital to the whole.
The prayers are many and sometimes appear scattered and seemingly incoherent in my own head, but I have learned because I have been and continue to be taught that the longer I practice, the more likely the mind is to slow down and make room for prayer or even just make room for the pause which initiates the choice to pray or not.
The prayers are for others, whether friend or foe, to be blessed in countless ways, just as I have been so freely in God’s grace. They are for the understanding that whatever external desire, situation, person, consequence, and the likes which are causing my mind to react in frantic negative ways are well under God’s complete control.
The silent prayer moves throughout my mind, “God’s got this man… God’s got it all under control…”
The list goes on ad infinitum because God really is everything and I firmly believe from what I have seen that God can do anything at all without limits. Any limits He has are simply extensions of my own shortcomings and a product of my very limited imagination and intellect.
Once I let God out of the box that I kept putting Him in, I was free to explore my faith and the world in the way I believe I was intended; with honesty, courage, faith, hope, forgiveness, understanding, and tolerance.
These things do not happen all at once or overnight, they are a product of a process that unfolds the longer I remain clean and sober and dedicated to making a simple choice that was not always so simple.
Choosing to pray instead of worry, praying for my enemies instead of cultivating bitterness and resentment, understanding that God has control of all of those things I do not and if I do not understand I pray for the understanding, and of course I ask for His guidance as I attempt to change the things I can because I must be an active participant in this life.
As I sit here, gazing out my window to the sinking sun behind the western range of mountains; I see a clear, crisp summer night across the valley to the Three Sister’s mountain peaks. They stand looming, but not ominously, instead they smile upon the plains as a reminder of God’s incredible design and power…and with the right set of ears a person could hear them whispering, ‘God has it all under control.’
The very thought of those words brings a soft, gentle peace over top of me; I am free, I do not have to control, and I do not have to fight. I can surrender a little more with each breath in that wonderful knowledge…
May you all be blessed,
David W. Lewry