Some Things

"What are some of the things that testify to you that there is a God?"

It's the first question on the first page of the Gospel Principles Study Guide. I'm not used to those trigger questions actually triggering anything.


I cannot describe it as a flood of memory. More like suddenly looking up at the room you've been living in forever, years and years and all your life till you completely forgot that you were in a room at all, and seeing to your astonishment that there are walls and that they are green. Good grief. Have those always been there and been that color? Oh, yeah, of course. Walls make a room. Green is what I always choose.


It's an early memory. No. It's a continual memory from as long as there have been memories. Talking to someone. Talking in my inside space to someone who listens, who knows me, who is living too, and is right there, just inside and outside my mind. Someone who likes me. Not a capitalized or italicized person, or a person in a special font. That would be an adult reading of the person, a spin or a learned stance. This is just a regular unseen, inside-your-head-outside-your-head, normal person. His name is God. I can call him that, or I can call him Father or I can call him you. He knows who I mean. And he is real. I know him, so I believe in him. I believe in my little sister, too. I can't remember a sense of being loved profoundly, unconditionally or any other great big way but that might be because that wouldn't have been too important to me. Lots of people love me. This person likes me which is the most important thing I care about in this life spanning memory room. Likes me a lot, better than a very best friend or a cousin or a brother maybe though I've never had a brother so I can't speak with authority.


I remember always living in a world that was made, and obviously lots of parts were just made for fun. All the parts were alive and vibrating with their life. I knew that whoever made it was around, like gardeners in a garden are around even though you don't see them while you're playing on the grass, and that he was still messing with it. I felt the rocks and the water and the wind and the plants vibrating. And the trees. Especially the trees. That was because someone had made them and made them alive. That was God when he was making things and was a gardener. I knew someone was making the world up just like I knew the dinner on the table had been made by my mom.


And these are the ways I know there is a God. Everything else I think or believe or know about God and His economy is shaped by these walls that shape the room I have lived my life in. They are my favorite color and have always been there, for as long as I can remember.



Noah made the sculptures and took the pictures.