David W. Lewry
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God Is Everything or God is Nothing

6/30/2012

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“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 





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