But I Found God In Me

Religious people think you have to sleep in the church just to find God. They think you have to perform all the rituals, confessing your sins in every few hours. Religious people think that finding God is about performance, shouting on top of their voices, condemning everyone who does not look for God the way they do. And I laugh.

I laugh because I did not find God in any church. I laugh because I found God in me. Away with your rituals and the ticking of all religious boxes. Away with your need to please your pastors and priests. God lives in me. The Divine. He domiciles right in this body. I only need to listen to him, strip myself of all worldly noises. I need to look inward. Little wonder that no religious priest could handle me, because I am a priest too, and I needed to find my God. Little wonder that the religious structures of this world are so noisy and antagonistic toward one another, one assuming that they are better than the other, one even killing the other at every slight opportunity. The men of this world have turned religion into a tool to get what they want, for what they will gain. But I have God in me.

What It Means To Write 

Does anyone have to teach anybody how to write?

How to let the words flow?

And connect to the healing forces of nature?

Maybe yes

Or maybe no.

I’m one who wasn’t taught by anyone.

I only let my stories ferment by reading other people’s stories.

Never knew that I had something to offer the world.

Until stories began to emerge,

All by themselves.

Unforced.

I thought it would be a too elaborate thing,

A thing that only special people could do.

Until I saw myself doing it,

Crafting stories,

Giving myself to the world,

Just like the Messiah telling his disciples:

This is my flesh which is given for you.

The Lost Tribes of Israel 

We share ourselves with the world when we tell our stories.

We help them to see themselves,

Discover themselves.

With our stories 

We gather the lost tribes of Israel.

We unite ourselves.

We find meaning in a world where meaning slips from the grasp of the hand.

Isaac Dominion Aju is a Nigerian writer and editor. He’s been nominated for the Best Of The Net and The Pushcart Prize. He’s currently the founding editor at Words Not Yet Spoken and the managing editor at The Tiny Dot Review.