Dennise Gackstetter

Reconsidering god

Dennise Gackstetter

I cannot believe in the god that lurks in the tall tales on the dark crowded pages shuttered between heavy covers of tarnished gilded books.

The god I could believe in would dance in the wide margins, skipping from white space to white space until the pages’ edge, and then with arms wide take an elegant leap into the unknown.

I cannot even use the word “god.” It is too small a word to contain all the possibilities of divinity. It is a stony sounding word, bounded at both ends by two hard consonants that strain to compress the small “o” that is an exhale of delight, the “ahhhh” of wonder, the first sound of joy.