‘God, in the Form of Lightning’

Untitled, oil on watercolor paper, 16 x 20 in. (JMN 2023).

“Calling myself religious while living a life unbeholden to Scripture doesn’t make sense, of course.”
(Temim Fruchter)

Temim Fruchter’s essay about her spiritual evolution struck me, another scriptural expat, as full of poetry. I was moved to lift statements from the essay verbatim, in their order of occurrence, and put them down versiform. I hope her essay doesn’t feel unduly interfered with. Mine is only the interference.

GOD, IN THE FORM OF LIGHTNING
We wonder whether God, in the form of lightning, will strike.
Is there space for a whole past, or several, to coexist with so divergent a present?
I, for one, am crowded. Parts of me jostle noisily around.
I resent my practice. I defend it. I love it. I am a part of it, this half-practice, and it is a part of me.
And belief in God has made me, too. God, a relationship I can’t language.
God, the extra inches a room grows when we sing together.
All of the parts that created me are still here,
Jostling around, trying to make a cacophonous kind of sense.
And on the rare occasion when all the parts of me really sing?
Without fail, the room around me grows ever so slightly bigger.

(Temim Fruchter, “I Left My Faith. God Didn’t Flinch,” New York Times, 1-3-24)

The Times carries this biographical note: Temim Fruchter is the author of the forthcoming novel “City of Laughter.”

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

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