Dear Church,

 

I’m leaving you.

 

I’m trading the organ and hymns for eastern bluebird’s call. She directs me to This, Here.

My head swings to meet her trill; she steals my heart every time.

 

I’m swapping the reading of scripture for the whippoorwill’s incessant midnight call.

 

I’m quitting the choir’s anthem for the rustle of creatures in the bush and the barely heard rain on fallen leaves.

 

The minister’s words I’m replacing with silence.   

 

Rather than wondering, “Why is the liturgist especially disgruntled today?” I am consumed with a wonder that sparks further investigation: “Who are you, tiny burnt brown millipede?”

 

Freckled tiger lily, messy ground cover, and pock-marked rosebush are my altars; they beam and shout, “Behold! I am doing a new thing!”

 

Instead of sitting stiffly in a pew,

 

I.Am.

 

moving with frigid air, mixing with warming sun, shifting and slanting when tall, old, bull pine’s scraggly trunk l-e-a-n-s over widespread young ‘uns seizing the field’s clearing.

 

I.Am.Here.

 

l-e-a-n-i-n-g, too, protecting.pulsing.with.blood.river.whipped-tail.amphibian.pads.watery-eyed.hot.skin.

 

Here, where wing-beating crickets lessen my loneliness more than chatter at coffee hour.

 

Here, where leaves crackling under footsteps unearth stunted confessions.

This work requires breaking down for transformation.

 

Rather than believing that Jesus saves, might we be saved by the mist shapeshifting through the valley below?

 

Rather than passing the offering plate, might we pass the ancient fragrance of pinecone?  Baptize in this dangling waterdrop shimmering on mayapple?

 

Big-rooted beings, air-swimming winged ones, scampering four-leggeds, saxiphage and wineberry, I’m leaving church for you.

 

Choose storm, snake, and spider.

Choose Great Spirit’s Sanctuary

where benedictions never stop,

where Breathing, where

Opening

is

 

Here, Here,

and Here,

 

vivifying, emanating, electrifying

 

This, This,

and This.

 

All

burning bush.