I Found God

This is very short, but it's one of my favorite bits I've ever written. It's the spark of one of the novels in my head just waiting to get out. This one is definitely a "mood" writing though--I have to be feeling rather Marilynne Robinson to write this particular story (and I'm usually not).



I found God when I was seven. I hadn't been particularly looking for him, but, after all, he came looking for me. He was perched in the branches of an oak tree, and he said he was talking with the birds. Their song had been especially loud that day, so I had no reason not to believe him.


I sat down in my usual spot and leaned against the trunk. The roots were spaced just right to nestle between, and the thick fall of leaves padded my seat, and I would much rather watch the foam at the edge of the water, stare into the murky shallows and see nothing, nothing move, than go inside and hear the roar and bore of the television. I don't know if God would rather watch television than talk to the birds, but I do know he'd rather sit with me, because that's just what he did.

I didn't hear him climb down or even jump, although I suppose he must've, but he sat silently by my side and we pondered what seven- and nine-year-olds ponder (for he told me he was nine). I wished for a breeze and it came, and my hair trickled across my face. I've always loved the feel of it, and I smiled. He smiled back.

But he wasn't God at first, because such a concept as God, the Creator and Master of all things, sitting in the dirt at my side, was beyond me then. To walk with him and sit, to listen to his words and voice, his birdsong, and to dip our toes into the gloom and muck seemed the most natural of all things. Such a concept is beyond me still, but here it is nonetheless.

My mother and father revered our good earth and it's bearings, and taught me to do much the same. Our house was surrounded in it and extended by it, trees and streams and tadpoles and decaying leaf our home too. This spot was my favorite, though, with the perfect tree to lean against, the perfect lap of water just in front of me, the perfect overhang of branches to provide shelter and shade and seclusion.

No one knew about my perfect spot, my secret, and it was only mine, so when he appeared there I took him for mine too. I guess he still is. I don't know what it is about possession, but if there was ever a place or a moment or a God I could lay claim to, surely that was it.

We sat there most of the day, and when it was almost dark I went back to the house, following its glow through the woods. He walked with me to the edge of the yard, then said he had to be going too, so he disappeared behind a tree and I went inside.

Dad was poking at the fire, even though it wasn't really cold, and Mom was setting a big bowl of potatoes, carrots, and onions on the table. I told them I had found God down by the creek. Dad said that he'd met God once, and Mom told me to be careful I didn't fall in.