God Is Not a Lonesome Experience

Sometimes I am afraid
of what I love,
to let the world at it,
Tell me,
from wherever you are,
does it feel the same?  
Do you choke on the songs
even as we sing them together?  
Do you ever
paint over the dark hounds of the open road?  
Or lie. Awake. 
in the stillness and quiet of the night,
finally inhaling the soft animal of yourself? 
I do. 
And what of us? 
What of me? 
Truthfully, when I stand there
silent
peering into the vastness of your intention,
I believe
God is not a lonesome experience,
and when I am in among them,
its also there
I feel it. 
Swallowed up, consumed, bewildered, embraced, terrified.
maybe as you do,
that the world is built for touching. 
that my body is a simple reckless thing,
and
I am not distrustful of its
rumbling earthly madness.




Andrew Tipton

Second Hand Clay

 

delicate slope of summer,

a Thursday perhaps,

fragile between the fingers, among the hands

a pottery wheel,

second hand clay,

leaving pages torn from surfing magazines, 

a trail,

a memento for the lingering night,  

the small stove,

 and brewing tea,

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew Tipton

God is Not a Lonesome Experience

 

 

Andrew Tipton

For the Horses

I wanted movement, and not a calm course of existence.  I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.  

- Tolstoy

East Boundary

There is this cliché I grew up with, that says nothing special happens where you're from..  everything of value or importance is happening somewhere else.
When I am back in rural Alabama sometimes,  I feel that cliché might be true.  Often, when I am "home",  it feels like nothing of importance (as far as I can tell)  is really happening there.   I go for a run, or take my jeep for a sunset drive to feed the horses..     It feels like the same routines, the same ideals, the same familiar faces..   I am often counting down the days till the next "trip",  or the next chance to venture elsewhere.     Talking up surf escapes to Nicaragua, or motorcycle rides to Alaska..


People (my self definitely included) go off in search of adventures, of romance, of inspiration, of purpose..   we travel to the corners of the world to sort ourselves out, and forge new ideas..  reclaim forgotten truth.   New places are sensual!  They are unpredictable, they are freckled with fascinating people and experiences!   So many unforgettable stories I have shared while on the road.     When you are traveling in an exotic destination,  its easy to find bewilderment and to feel that travelers "high" - the sensation of being intimately connected to the abundance and affection of the universe.   
Now, after much travel...    I am beginning to discover, that it is:  the sensation of being intimately connected that we are all secretly longing for as human beings!   We want to feel part of something great..  something epic and sacred.


Recently, I've begun to revisit and to challenge the cliché that I grew up with..   the cliché that encourages travel...  but leads us to believe that intimacy and muchness only exist outside of our ordinary surroundings.   The idea that I have to "go somewhere", in order to experience god's conspiracy of goodness.
      I think when we believe that nothing worth-while is nearby..  that begins to erode our perception of the magic close to us.   It diminishes what we expect from ourselves in ordinary spaces.  No matter where we come from, or where we find ourselves.


I have long adhered to the instinct that somehow the universe was hiding its best pieces from me..   that it had scattered them across the earth in mysterious and difficult places.   That love, and fulfillment, and revelation were available..  but only with extreme perseverance.
Perhaps that vision of god lacks clarity...  
I am reimagining now.. that the sensation of being intimately connected to the abundance and affection of the universe is sometimes right in front of my nose!  Perhaps "god" places us nearby to outrageous gifts..   maybe we just aren't accustomed to looking for them in ordinary places.
Perhaps what we are searching and longing for is often so close, that we overlook it entirely.      
Maybe love, and revelation come right in through our front door..  maybe she sits down on our porch, or eats dinner at our kitchen table, 
and we don't even see her because we are simply not looking there.

I believe greatness and enlightenment are sparks born from the depths of travel and from existence on the edge of our sanity and discomfort..      But also.. there are the most incredible things happening to us in very ordinary places as well. 
I wish to be aware of both. 
    




Andrew Tipton