Two weeks ago, I was on a walk in the mountains. Halfway to the top, on a trail beside a creek, I stopped for a moment and picked up a small rock, squeezed it between my fingers and said out loud, out of nowhere, “god is all around me.”
People, this was weird as fuck.
I’m an atheist, contentedly. I was raised Christian, there was a lot of church in my youth—plus a spell in my early twenties when I thought about going Catholic—but these days it’s not part of my life. But “god”—what a word! And what a strange word to come tumbling out of my mouth spontaneously.
I say god casually all the time, like many people; I probably say “goddamit” twenty times a day. “God” is emphasis, it’s extra, it’s emotional and somewhat un-toppable? Almost never am I invoking a divine ruler—but am I associating, if subliminally, with the word’s history of pointing at such? Even for us “nones,” the word remains charged.
Still, why in that hiking moment, god is all around me? I’ve never said or thought such a thing in my life. And now, two weeks later, why am I picking up rocks and saying it on nearly every walk, and finding it nice?
Perhaps because I’ve been drawn for a long time to the illogical, the inexpressible. And there’s a feeling, when I pronounce the word god, of being in the company of so much. That day on the hike, it was the trees and rocks and birds, it was my friends not too far behind me, it was people in my life who weren’t with me at that moment but still felt close—“god” was all of that.
I told a friend about this a few days later. She said it sounded like “god” in that moment was a synonym for “love”—and I think that’s spot on. There’s also a line from William James, the great thinker (the better James brother?): “Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.”
The syntax isn’t great, but that’s pretty good, too.
Bust the algorithms! In tomorrow’s supplement for paying subscribers, my weekly three-plus suggestions of things to love:
Some essential items for travel, one of which I forgot on a recent trip and intensely regretted not having
The gnarliest, darkest dancehall I’ve ever heard
The novelist who came out of hiding to write at length about aliens, playlists that go on forever, and more
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What the what
Meditations in an Emergency is a weekly mini-essay from writer Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with 3+ ideas of things to love, plus a monthly dispatch from the road, for some inbox wanderlust ⛰️
Rosecrans is the author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. His most recent novel, The Last Kid Left, was one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year. Titles mentioned in this newsletter are stored on a Bookshop list, which pays a small commission. For more—books, articles, etc—check out rosecransbaldwin.com