Casey Gilfillan

I saw this quote, “I dream too much and I don’t write enough and I’m trying to find God everywhere” (Anis Mojgani). While a little corny in presentation, there was something about the sentiment that struck me. I definitely don’t devote enough of my time to writing, sure. But that last bit, that’s what really got me. Trying to find God everywhere…it’s missing the end, the closing phrase. I am trying to find God everywhere, talking about him constantly, his nature and ways and actions and viability and theory, and finding nothing. I am trying to find God and finding a gaping silence. Finding only a reassurance from the church, those self-righteous fools I knew, that I would be guaranteed salvation on account of the physical activity of prayer. But never finding God in them. Never hearing him, feeling him. Just the counting, this is my fourth “Hail Mary.” The priest sentenced me to the private oration of ten for looking at pornography online. He only gave me five “Our Father”s for lying, though.

Searching, in vain, for the meaning or the explanation or the comfort, the glory…something? One of those experiential artifacts that they tell you about when you are young, as though they are stapled accompaniments simply for your presence within the house of God, merely for the utterance of those words ascribed to him. They do not manifest, they are not present. It is only my voice; tragedy continues to ensue; the world deteriorates further; it is my voice again, begging for benevolence if any is to be had; nothing else; tragedy ensues, it is relentless; it makes no point. I keep searching and so often find myself wishing I had never looked in the first place.

When I dream, it is usually a nightmare. I don’t always remember them when I wake up, but I’m usually grateful that I am awake. I am grateful that I am not where my mind had me moments before, so relieved that such a place is not real. Where is God, in the turmoil of my mind, in the devastation of his creations? It seems odd to think that he would be there looming, a number between five and ten in his head, waiting for you to pay your dues, to recite and repeat and regurgitate those words a few times that mean nothing to you except transactional penance, payment of a price.