Wetlands

I look out at the marshy wetlands of eastern Oregon. Golden colors mix with brown trees against a backdrop of various shades of green. A clear stream chases swaths of wildflowers that stretch their petals towards the blue and white sky. It’s so wild and seemingly disorganized, yet its very complexity gives it a depth that human construction can never achieve. The manicured lawns amidst sprawling homes, the predictable patterns of circles and squares and movement; nothing compares to the majesty of nature’s perfectly meshed chaos. The wild nod of the field reminds me that the escalating intricacy of my worldview is giving way to a beautiful array of life, though it is very different than the one I previously led. Perhaps the most troubling part: I don’t know where God is anymore. His presence left with the treatment of mental illness years ago, like marveling at the utter cleanliness of a glass door until one day you walk through it and realize there was no door at all. Was God ever even there? Without the comfort of my ecclesiastical structure, what remains of Him? I had based nearly my entire life on a single, overarching concept: God speaks to me through His Prophet. Now, all that remains is a voice in my head. It’s no better than another’s, but it’s mine. Somehow, I have to figure out moral authority for my own soul. I still listen to messages, but now I repeat them until they are mine. If I turn the words over until I feel they don’t fit, I discard them into my “potentially useful someday” mental barrel. If they repulse me and I feel they will do nothing but contaminate my spirit, I toss them into my mental bonfire.