It was one of those late Summer mornings, the ones that start to look like Fall, but when you go outside, summer attacks your senses with heat and the sounds of bugs. I was heading to yet another doctor’s visit where I would inevitably end up naked, or partially naked in a doctors office, my third trip out of four for that week.
As I was lying on the table looking at the ceiling I thought of the Divine, I thought of how sickness (temporary or permanent) is a degrading thing, and I thought of the only thing keeping it together for me at this moment is counting the pinpricks in the ceiling tiles (doctor’s offices always have the same ceiling tiles). Right now, I percieve my life to be a wreck, and having multiple people see you naked trying to figure out what’s going on or what to do…well, that will just affirm some thoughts about the spiral that life’s taking right now.
Recently I have been craving the Divine. I want to interact with religion, spirituality, God, and nature as much as is possible….but I have felt guilty. In my faith tradition it is often looked down upon when people who are sick turn to God, it is typically looked as a former sign of arrogance that you didn’t need God until you lost control. I didn’t want to be that person, didn’t want to wear that label.
And then, as I was counting the pinpricks…42…43….44….I realized that the most peaceful I have ever been was during a time in which I craved the Divine. I spent all my time reading, thinking, and talking about it. Then, I realized that labels be damned, I want to actively pursue divinity in my life.
I haven’t felt this near to God since I lost faith a few years ago, and oddly enough it took being exposed and unguarded physically in the midst of the chaos that is life for me to realize that not only do I need the Divine, I want it as well.
Becca Kello 