Need I the attention of man when I have the company of God – and of all creation? Oh the stupidity, the utter misapplication of my power when I seek it.

I find myself lost in explanation and justifications when catching up with friends, as if I have a performance to upkeep, misunderstandings to clear up, images of self to update in the minds of others. Damned be this small and shrinking mind of mine that demands man’s acceptance and praise to feel as if I have the right to live! May my very existence as human be reason enough to move upright and proclaim, “I am what I am, I shall be what I shall be – all impositions, conjectures, and claims on potential be as chaff in the wind!” It is enough, it must be enough that I trust the path I walk, even if others wag their tongues, shake their heads, and call down the wrath of heaven upon my unhappy soul.

Sick, unhappy, and ill-natured? Surely that is mistaken! I am such a slave to joy as to purify what I feel, clarify emotions to the nth degree, and nullify all possible reasons for why a thing may not being felt so as to absorb every last fiber of a thrill until my skin tingles and my very thoughts tremble with ecstasy. I sense the entirety of the universe within a leaf, a baby’s laugh in a tiny green shoot on an old root, and taste (as it were) a drop of pleasure as sunlight strokes my skin. I come alive, I am alive, I do not apologize for being.

There are days when my eyes are clouded and I see nothing but shadows and grayness around me. I look in the mirror and note puffed skin, sagging eyelids, tired fingers brushing through scraggly hair. I dress myself in clothes – clean and functional are all they can boast of, they are nothing special. My joints ache before their time. The lines on my face are not only from smiles. My family points out the crooked tooth, the excess fat on my frame, the scars on my arms that mar my appearance.

Money – I neither love it or hate it, can never care enough to have it mean much to me. It is more transient than the time within which I make financial transactions – cash represents things, it is not a thing in itself. Why shall I seek to exchange what I love and barely own for more of something that flies off with wings?

It brings me joy to feel His laughter, smile, and understanding. Can no one else understand or feel that? How that to understand more of numbers and their translation into experience is to touch one more thread in the mind of God – and to apply and enjoy it is to feel that thread’s vibration? How the glory of a setting sun upon fluttering leaves is more than enough beauty to dwell on for a day; and when meditated upon, fills one’s heart to overflowing with joy and gratefulness and a desire to touch another life just so? How to taste a fruit so rich it drips from the lips, or to hear the exchange of birdsong in the branches above, or witness the waves move themselves up to and over and back away from rock and sand, all of it calms the mind and brings one to that stillness which silently invites the soul into an intimate knowledge of God? Do you know of this joy, this fullness, this brilliance of existence that erases all thought of man and money and material and fills one simultaneously with an everlasting desire for and an infinite fulfilment of pleasure? Does another soul know of it? Am I alone in this vast, eternal ocean of being?

Oh, to praise and uplift and glory in the abilities and creations of mankind is one thing; but doing so is like revelling in the crude copies of a child’s drawings and structures while standing in the presence of its Father the original creator who is in the same room, beaming downwards in amusement at the antics of a baby.

Does one communicate this intense loneliness of overwhelming joy to another soul – need one, can one? The impossibility of language to express this thought frustrates me. I desire to witness another weep with joy over a knotty burl, shiver over that one red streak across the sky in a sunrise, laugh with gladness over the slightest change in pitch in a bird’s song. And yet this joy seeks not to be seen or to be understood, but only to sense and be one with the Beloved for an instant.

And that instant is enough for eternity, even if eternity be pain and gross misalignment. It is enough.