The knowing of God, to express something in words that ultimately defies expression - is it possible? No, but one has to try.
Many mornings at the breakfast table as a child, pops would ask to hear about my previous night's dream, and I would energetically tell him my tale. He would listen, get this weird look in his eyes and shake his head. After one fantastic revelation, Poppi told me to write down my imaginings. So I started a journal. Micah's Ride is a collection from these musings.
Those early sentences never approached the vividness of my imaginal world. After a couple of entries, I learned that verse more closely matched the tenor of my dream visions, and words had nuances of meaning and colors that became the palette used to paint and capture the vibrancy of what I needed to say.
So at eight years old in the early 1960s, I started writing. Over half a century later I reread my scribbles and discerned common elements and themes with an underlying fusion binding them together. I was reminded that the deeply held beliefs I have today crystalized when I was very young. This was my real discovery: God talks to each of us individually and uniquely. Sometimes we listen and sometimes we do not, and if we fail to perceive the Divine, it is not because there is no discourse; we simply refuse to hear. This is somewhat trite, something said many times before, yet it remains true.
We should listen to our imaginings because this is how the spiritual often speaks, in the language of symbol and metaphor; but we let the mundane or our prejudices stand between us and enlightenment. It is we who loose contact with the Creator. God never loses intimacy with us. Jesus denounced the Pharisees for their loss of dialogue with the Holy. Individuals, who are so rooted in the letter of the law, often forget the compassion and love of God who is the source of divine discourse. All of creation is embedded within the Being of Christ.
The only character in the original journal was a suggestion of some fantastic Other. In my mind, however, I recognized various players and added these identities to better echo the intent of that primary school kid. This is how Mary and Enoch, Rabia and Morning Star came to exist.
A few chapters are a combination of dreams and family history, which reflects both my childhood faith and how belief intertwines with our secular selves. Thus "Oklahoma" is a story my mom told me about her father and a hail storm. Ultimately these poems show how God speaks to us every moment of every day.
Finally, I write this for me as a recollection of a childhood lived on the Texas High Plains, reliving the 1960s which was a moment in time that set in motion things that ultimately tinted the rest of my life. We all have memories and stories to tell, people whom we love or hate, tragedies and celebrations. I do not want those memories to disappear when I do. This is selfish. Forgive me, but these poems are a reminiscent, a memory, an honest recollection of a young boy trying to forge an understanding of God and life-the youthful energy that underpins my daily existence decades later.