i am always putting myself in the way of God, always searching for a tree to climb, to find the face that holds my eyes, or the road in which to lay myself down in search of a hem, even right now, right here in my kitchen, i know that i will find God washing my dishes, or watching that the dinner doesn’t burn on the range, or counting the vials of insulin in the fridge, enough, enough, make sure there is enough of everything, the God-of-enough walks through my house on soft feet, and when i am not looking, when i am too busy scrubbing fear from my skin, and i do this in moments and days and years and i have done it since i first saw the light and found myself waiting for words and the unexpected, and i have felt a failure so often because of the way that i tangle with fear, but still, even though and in spite of what i have been told, there is God washing my feet, the varnish on my nails chipped and begging to be removed, replaced with a fresh layer of scarlet, but for the fact that time is not something i have much of, and by loving others i often don’t love myself enough, and i-will-get-to-it-later, but still, here i am going deeper into the stories that dwell inside of me, my ear held close to the rice paper wall that separates the worlds from each other, always i am pushing beyond the last amen, brazen and forward, i push towards the next beginning because i know there is more, because i know there is a ‘in-the-beginning-there-was-do-not-fear’, always throwing myself in the way of the holy, my fingers in my ears, singing yesterday-today-and-tomorrow i am still held, and blocking out the instructions and the guidelines and the rules, especially the rules, see how i am already dancing in my pale skin, my soft skin, my skin-of-many-years, the dimples and the scars, my feet bare, and God always coming to find me in all the places that i have lost myself, all the corners that i left a piece of myself behind, because i have become too heavy to carry, and so i am shedding some of my hopes, and mourning some of my dreams, and maybe all you need is to be told that you are seen, that you have not dissolved yet as you write love all over the flanks of your life, as you walk away from the things that you once held behind your eyes, will it help if i tell you that you are seen? that you matter? that every spoon you lift to a waiting mouth is sacred? that sometimes it isn’t enough to be noticed, because what you need is a circle drawn around you, and hands that don’t wait to be asked, still, i can give you this—i see you, and you are the bread, although you don’t know it, and you are the water, although you have forgotten it, and there is nothing that is more important than this, and when you are even more tired than you are right now, and i know that you dwell there, then stop and say, i-am-enough, say i-am-loved, and love does what love does, and you cannot tell me about grace, about what it isn’t, and who it isn’t for, and who it doesn’t belong to, because i am always putting myself in the way of God, even here, even right now, there is dust in my kitchen, i wish you could see it, and there is dust in my bed, and there is dust in my mouth, and there is dust in my bones, and in the late afternoon the light will slip through the window, and it is God, coming to remind me that the day is almost done, it is God coming to remind me to forget the things that i have not done, and it is God mothering me with a tender voice, reminding me to forget the things that i have done, it is God with a grandmother voice reminding me to stop, calling me to sit and to listen, to wait—fingers in my ears, blocking out the noise, listen carefully—the instructions for travelling home are written in the quiet, written in the dust on my forehead. grace.

© Liezel Graham 2023

{image by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash}

perhaps this one might be a little all over the place, but it has been a disjointed day filled with phone calls – the ones that carers are so familiar with, the ones that relay important-information-that-you-must-tell-us-about, and it has been a day of putting aside things, and picking others up, and this is my way, because words are really all i have, to tell you that if this is you too, then i see you.

you are love and what you do is enough, and you are dust, and i am dust, and we will return to dust, but in the meantime there is the afternoon light slipping through the window, and right there, where you are right now, just stop inside of yourself for a minute, and exhale, because the instructions for the journey home is found in the stillness, and you are love, and you are loved.

liezel