Here is another confession.

When the day’s work is finally done–dinner, dishes, laundry, stinky cat box cleaning– and my husband is home from work, my family and I often gather on the couch and watch television. In my ideal world, this would not be such a common occurrence. We would spend most evenings in conversation or playing educational board games or cards.

I like board games and cards in theory.

In the real world? We collapse on the couch.

Thankfully, there are some good television shows out there.  Our favorite summer escape right now is America’s Got Talent (AGT).  AGT is a national talent show judged by celebrities including the grumpy Simon Cowell. There are a few terrible acts that make it onto the show, but mostly the contestants are amazing. They are singers and dancers, clowns and magicians.  At the start of the season, the judges vote after each act and send the best through to the next round.  Everyone is happy at that point, thrilled to stay in the competition.

There are a few special acts, though-  acts that are advanced through the competition and sent directly to the live shows. The only way to get there is by way of the golden buzzer. Each judge has a buzzer they can hit one time.  When this happens, confetti falls from the theater ceiling. The crowd roars.  The chosen contestant stands on the stage, looking bewildered, and cries. The celebrity judge goes to the stage and gives the contestant a hug.  Also, the contestant’s loved one who was waiting in the wings comes onto the stage and cries, as do many members of the audience.   One of the most recent contestants to get a golden buzzer was a young deaf woman who sang beautifully and performed an original song that left everyone in tears.

There is something special about that golden buzzer moment. It’s as if all the work the contestant has invested over the years is finally validated.  Maybe they knew before the show that they were talented. Or they hoped so.  But to finally get on that stage and get the golden buzzer?  It is affirmation, confirmation. It is love.

I adore those golden buzzer moments.  Maybe it’s because my centering prayer practice is helping me see something about God that the golden buzzer captures so well:  God loves us with a golden buzzer love. And God pushes that golden buzzer gleefully for each of us, everyday. The crazy thing is that it’s not just for the few of us who are talented enough to perform on the AGT stage. As soon as we wake up, no matter how we wake up, God is there for us, pressing the golden buzzer.  It doesn’t matter if we are tired, crabby, sad, depressed, regretful, hopeful, sick, or sobbing.  We wake up, and God greets us with a wild embrace.  The golden buzzer reminds me that we are accepted, seen, and cherished. Each of us is worthy of confetti and applause, tears and a hug from a celebrity. Everyday. Every moment. Every breath. Just because we are here. Just because we are.

Sometimes, I have a warped view of God.

This is not anybody’s fault. I do not blame my devoted Baptist Sunday school teachers or pastors or youth workers who taught me Bible stories and helped me memorize the books of the Bible by the end of first grade.  All of them loved me and were doing their best.

Somehow, though, an image of God snuck into my head that has been hard to shake.  First, He is a He. Definitely masculine.  Also, although this male God is good, loving and just (that’s what I was taught anyway), he also has standards and expectations that I am not living up to. He has lists of what I should and should not do.  I try, but I never measure up.

My recent most glaring, guilt-inducing failure in my relationship with this false God has been my inability to get out of bed for my daily quiet time. My morning prayer time is on my calendar from 5:15 am to 5:50 am daily. In the last few months, I have rarely been up before 6 am.  I have just been so tired lately.  When I miss that window, I feel like I have ruined any chance I might have had for spiritual connection and communion that day.  Before the day even starts, I am all wrong. False God has moved on.  I imagine him sitting at the kitchen table where I usually write and pray. He checks his watch as 6 am nears, sighs, and shakes his head sadly before leaving to meet with someone who actually gets up when the alarm goes off.

Of course, this is not true.  One of my spiritual director friends even ventured that God may be encouraging me to sleep more.  Also, here is another big truth: there is nothing I can do that would make God approve of me more. I am already loved, just as I am. Richard Rohr writes in one of his beautiful daily meditations, “God already loves you, and you cannot make God love you any more or any less by any technique whatsoever (“The Purpose of the Law,” May 22, 2017 daily meditation). I guess that means that God doesn’t love me less on the days when I stay in bed until the last possible moment.  Also, possibly God doesn’t care if I successfully cross items off my endless daily to-do lists, important things like eating green leafy vegetables, vacuuming, fixing nutritional lunches for my children, walking 10,000 steps a day, writing intelligent notes to my Republican congressman about his idiotic voting, and fixing all the broken relationships in my life and the world.

Nothing I do makes God love me.

I do my best, because those are good things. And really, I would like to be up in the morning to pray and write. But in the end?  God loves me. God will not love me any less if I never get up for another morning prayer time again. And God is not disappointed in me.  It seems a little sacrilegious to write that. I confess I doubt it a little. But it’s true. I think.

My Centering Prayer practice has helped me identify that old image of God that hangs around in my head. He seems so real, though– so aware of my faults and disapproving of them. False God is a life coach with a clipboard, constantly monitoring my successes and failures. Real God doesn’t own a clipboard, but is just there, ready to enfold me in a warm embrace. In winter, true God has a big woolen coat where I go to hide. In summer, she wears a straw hat and a wild shirt and cuts me off before I can even begin my habitual apologies. “Well, dear heart, would you look at that,” she says. “See the flowers and the birds at the feeder? See how much I love you all?”