It wasn’t many weeks ago,

When you asked what God meant to me.

You looked down from your throne,

And told me I knew nothing,

Before I even answered.

You tally your Sundays and pin them on your chest.

“Humble yourself” under a God that knows you best?

Please.

It’s easy to say you know God, and to preach, when you’re standing on an altar of

mahogany. Gingerly stepping so not to scuff, but

I can’t hear you from that altar.

I can’t hear you behind those beige walls, dripping with the shame and regret, of children

raised to believe a checklist determines their everlasting life.

They can’t hear you.

I can’t hear you.

Let me feel you.

Actions speak louder than words, and honey, you’re gonna need to speak up.

Stand on an altar of the pain we feel, of our faults and all the ways we’re not good enough.

Where is God? Is he in that golden cross hanging from your neck?

What about the crosses ropes make, tied around necks? In sunsets?

It’s a big jump to make, saying that your words come from the maker’s throat.

I hear his voice in other ways. I lay down at an altar much different than yours.

I learned more from my grandmother. Her hands, knotted like the trunk of an oak tree.

Humbly, she asked. “Please bring me home.“ She smelled of flowers, and folded her hands

in prayer, even when the knots on her knuckles grew too sore for her to sew quilts.

The preacher man on Sunday, he’s got nothing on her.

I guess this is a running list of things I should have said,

When you asked what God meant to me.

I’ve seen him from my praying knees.

Felt him in the embrace of crying lovers in hospital halls.

In life. In death.

In tear stained prayer rugs, weaved with much more than just yarn.

When you see the reflection of your Sunday’s best on that shiny mahogany stained altar,

don’t mistake that for God.