Clouds

This is my earliest memory of encountering The Holy.  I believe all children experience God, but often don*t have the words for it.  I don*t blame my mother (anymore, anyway) for not getting that this was a God experience.  Even mothers aren*t expected to be perfect... (being a mother myself has helped me understand this... and it has still taken awhile...)   I put this out there because I spent years thinking that cloud experiences don*t compare with the folk who see the Sacred Heart of Jesus and don*t just see clouds but hear God saying, from the cloud itself, You are my beloved child.  I spent years thinking that because I didn*t feel called at four to celebrate Eucharist with my assembled teddy bears, my vocation as a priest was suspect.  Now I know (capital *K* KNOW) that God calls each of us particularly.  Way back when, He showed me the clouds, and moved them for me.

When I was three, maybe four,

Pixie haircut,

Bright pink sundress my mother made,

Playing in the back yard

By myself,

I saw the clouds move.

Rather

I Saw The Clouds Move

And I Knew

(capital K)

There was so much more to things

Than me.

I ran and told my mother in the kitchen

I SAW THE CLOUDS MOVE.

Yes, dear

She said

Lunch is almost ready.

Now I know

It was God.

Moving.

Today the clouds are painted

On the sky.

How they stay in place

Is beyond me,

But so much seems

Beyond me

Right now.

The appointment I knew I had

This morning

Is next Thursday instead.

The clouds remain

In place.

Painted in place.

I know this afternoon

They will look different.

They will have moved on

When I wasn*t looking.

They may still look painted in place.

It may be a new painting

This afternoon.