Light From Light

I mostly didn't grow up Catholic, despite my mother having been a nun.

We mostly didn't go to church, but we did sometimes.

There were things there, mysteries, I knew to be complete; to contain everything. If I could grasp them, that would be enough: the folding and unfolding of our bodies, the way we passed peace like a mouse or flower from palm to palm, the incense in its chained vessel - the priest throwing its smoke on us, some words - light from light, god from god, eternally begotten.

Some things felt painfully man-made: the implication that the priest could own the smoke, own the light that made the smoke, and give it as he chose.

I much preferred not-man-made worlds - the holiness of donkeys, the holiness of leaf slime near the pond; but sliding through the cracks in this place where people meant to stand still, indoors, and look at god in human terms I could also see it - light from way before.

Light from light

God from god

Eternally begotten

I thought about those words a lot, in the stained glass glow. The drip and spill that can't be stopped, that never started, can't be made, from one through to the next.

Light eternally begetting light.

What I came to think was this: What god begets is everything and

all that god begets is god.

At that time and maybe forever I understood things in large part through my mother's body. These mysteries shone in my mother, who stood with her god for so long they slipped out of dogma, together. Sometimes they'd meet up in church, my mother and god, like a movie theater or parking lot from when they were young to each other and new, and it was almost too much for me - the gestures, the folding and unfolding, the praise and surrender lit her, and I was right there, barely emerged from her, by her side. I was too little to not trust her just because I had no explanation for what was going on.

I feel so grateful for it, now. I wish I had it more so I could give it out - I don't know how, though.

The light inside the words and rituals. How can I give that? I didn't spend a lifetime learning how to stand with it, like she did. I think, what I can do - if this is something you think might feel useful - is stand in places where its pouring down with you: there's an oak tree near my house but any tree or river, we could go to an alley or any kind of woods and feel the bright and obvious glow. We could kneel and bow and stand. You could burn wood and wrap me in the smoke from that light and I could burn wood and wrap you. Then we could press our palms together and say;

peace be with you.

-Laura