There Was No Sea

There Was No Sea

(People won’t say ‘Look, here it is’, or ‘Look, over there!’ No: God’s kingdom is within your grasp.” Luke 17:21)

It was New Year’s Eve and I
was determined to meet the beginning
with knees bowed all night. I was nineteen.

I asked the pastor, “Can you lock me in the church?”
“Overnight, I mean.” Impressed with my spiritual hubris,
after our watchnight service
he turned the key to make the church safe
and showed me how to exit in the new sun morning.

I was determined to meet the beginning
with stomach rumbling. I started the fast the previous morning.
I read books, book after book, and knew that God
always
showed
up
when people were serious about skipping a meal or so.

The night started like brushes on a snare-drum playing
60s club jazz. I was glad I was going to do what no one
else wanted to do, though I was not proud about it. I
just wanted to put in the effort.

The sea was red only one night I remember when
friends pointed me past the breakers where the algae bloomed.

This night there was no sea, no mountain, no slippery waterfall
to climb and no music to pass the time. So I prayed. Then stood up.
Ten minutes in I said everything I wanted to say and wondered how
God could possibly be impressed by my short-windedness.

The Santa Monica Pier was a place where homes of embedded barnacles
embellish the pilings. Buskers played for money above,
teenage couples practiced kissing below.

This night there was only a linoleum floor, no melodies, no creatures,
no hippies and no lovers. There was only me, a teenager singly trying
to make God show up. And not for experience’s sake, I had a backpack
full
I wanted to unload. There was a library there, a turnstile of paperbacks
mostly about doctrine and victorious living. I picked one I hoped would
allow me to leave, finally, as a conqueror.

I have never possessed a string of pearls, nor discovered one in an oyster.
I knew they were made when the oyster felt itchy, and I was itchy
For an experience with God.

But not that itchy.

Hours passed, I read book after book, interspersed with repeated prayers
(though I was sure God hadn’t forgotten what I said by my third go around.)
Two hours in, two in the morning, and my faith felt as alive as shorn hair
at the feet of a barber’s chair.

I slept on a pew, though I vowed to stay awake. I read, though my eyes
began to ache. I prayed, shorter and shorter (and had visions of steak.)
I knew nothing about listening; don’t know much now. So I called my
girlfriend (quite early on that New Day). She came quickly and whisked me
away
To Winchell’s donuts where I ate chocolate greedily and with shame.

The evening began like a jazz trio and today I know better, so I let God
say whatever he will through the wandering bass, the ravenous piano
or the frugal drums merely marking time.