What if Creator finds expression for itself in its created?  What if it can see the work of its hands only through our hands?  Of all the universe’s wonders, of all the planets the Ineffable Self has forged in the furnaces of stars, the stars which it smelted in the crucible of galactic hearts, still, God cannot bake bread, cannot sing the uneven songs of children or dance the dances to the music we play.  How could the sculptor of mountains do these lesser things without our hands, our tongues, our feet?

Through us, the universe finds a way, not only to love, but to suffer and to sin.  God, the drunk who freezes to death in the snowbank, who wheezes through cancerous lungs, who composes symphonies, who paints with his toes when his hands are paralyzed.  Yes, he who paints the ceilings of chapels, she who weeps, they who fornicate, she who nurses the sick, he who becomes born.

I ran from the punishing God of my youth.  And yet perhaps God escaped with me, rushed into its own arms when instead I fled into the arms of a lover.  Seeing its own eyes when I gazed for the first time into the eyes of my child.  Aloning itself through the solitude I spend perched on the rims of vast canyons.  What is there, then, ever to fear?  And how far could I ever hope to get by running?

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within