You Can Get The Monkey Off Your

A Priest Friend Of Mine Has Cautioned Me Away From The Standard God Of Our Childhoods, Who Loves You And Guides You And Then, If You Are Bad, Roasts You: God As A High School Principal In A Gray Suit Who Never Remembered Your Name But Is Always Leafing Unhappily Through Your Files.

I'm One Of Those Religious People Who Are Afraid Of Everything. I'm Instantly Worried About Everything That Could Go Wrong.

Now. Maybe You Think It Is Arrogant Or Self Centered, Or Ridiculous For Me To Believe That God Bothered To Wiggle A Cheap Bolt Out Of My New Used Car Because He Or She Needed To Keep Me Away For A Few Days Until Just The Moment When My Old Friend Most Needed Me To Help Her Mother Move Into Whatever Comes Next. Maybe Nothing Conscious Helped To Stall Me So That I Would Be There When I Could Be Most Useful. Or Maybe It Did. I’ll Never Know For Sure. And Anyway, It Doesn’t Really Matter.

There Is Ecstasy In Paying Attention. You Can Get Into A Kind Of Wordsworthian Openness To The World, Where You See In Everything The Essence Of Holiness.

Some People Wanted To Get Rich Or Famous, But My Friends And I Wanted To Get Real. We Wanted To Get Deep. (also, I Suppose, We Wanted To Get Laid.)