Dear God,
It's me again. Actually, I don’t know what you want me to call you. For all I know, you might prefer to be called something Hebrew, Latin, German, or Cherokee. Anyway, one thing’s for sure: you’re older than the names people call you. That much I remember from Sunday school.
My mother called you, “The Lord.” My granny called you “Heavenly Father.” My uncle used to call you the "Big Guy."
Either way, I was raised in church, and I remember hearing a lot about you in the tiny chapels of my childhood.
I love those chapels. I remember plaster ceilings which leaked, and pews that creaked when people shifted weight from cheek to cheek.
And Sunday-school teachers who made you sound like an old Western sheriff who wouldn’t take any lip. Like Wyatt Earp, or the Terminator.
But that’s not you. Not at all.
And even though I don’t know a lot about you, I know a little.
I know that you’re the sun. You’re pine trees. You’re the sky over Lake Martin. The smell of baked apples Mother used to
cook. And prettiness.
You’re the look on a kid’s face when he or she catches a fish.
You are every blessed Andy Griffith Show episode ever made. You are Aunt Bee, Opie, Barney, Otis. You had absolutely nothing to do with Matlock.
You are guitar music my uncle used to pick. You’re popping noises from hickory logs in a fireplace. You’re salted butter. Roasted pecans. Bottled Coca-Cola. And loyalty from a friend.
You’ve done things. And I’m not talking about big things—everybody knows you make the earth spin and stars twinkle.
No. I’m talking about tiny things you've done. Like how you managed to let me find a wood figurine my grandfather carved. It’s a buffalo, and it's almost a hundred years old. I found it packed in an old box.
Then there’s the time I…