{"id":4254,"date":"2012-05-17T13:43:31","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T13:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/?p=4254"},"modified":"2012-05-17T13:43:31","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T13:43:31","slug":"talking-to-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Talking to God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If God is beckoning from my memories, I decide to take a moment to look for Him there. My past is a series of images, a pile of disjointed scraps, not one obviously embossed with the divine. If I piece them together like some enormous quilt will they add up to the face of God?<\/p>\n

What kind of memories am I searing for? Good ones? Like the time my voraciously health-conscious mom agreed to drive through McDonald\u2019s? We pulled over and ate together in the car, the taste of salty grease melting on my tongue like pure joy.<\/p>\n

But happy memories can be so faint. I have to work to conjure an afternoon spent with a friend. The hours day dreaming alone in my room are indistinguishable from one another now. The memories I can close my eyes and still feel like yesterday are often painful ones. Like the time my mother said I had a phone call. I was only five; I\u2019d never had my own phone call. The one phone in our house sat on a desk in my parent\u2019s bedroom, a small but vital monument to the grown-up realm. Its outstretched arm welcomed me. I can still smell the earthy musk of the receiver. I recall the tight curls in the cord and the small panel of square buttons like the chest of some futuristic robot toy. Inside was my father\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n

He said he wasn\u2019t coming home, my parents\u2019 were separating. I remember hanging up and how the little plastic nubs went down as I laid the receiver in its holder. Years of reflecting would teach me to filter that memory through sadness and anger. But, honestly, at that moment I only felt a deep satisfaction at having been invited into the adult world.<\/p>\n

~ Corinna Nicolaou<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If God is beckoning from my memories, I decide to take a moment to look for Him there. My past is a series of images, a pile of disjointed scraps, not one obviously embossed with the divine. If I piece them together like some enormous quilt will they add up to the face of God?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3083,3095,3093,3092,3094],"class_list":["post-4254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational-stories","tag-corinna-nicolaou","tag-face-of-god","tag-faith-storiy","tag-family-memories","tag-memory"],"yoast_head":"\nTalking to God - Prayables<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Talking to God - Prayables\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If God is beckoning from my memories, I decide to take a moment to look for Him there. My past is a series of images, a pile of disjointed scraps, not one obviously embossed with the divine. If I piece them together like some enormous quilt will they add up to the face of God?…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayables\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-17T13:43:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/05\/talking-to-God1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Prayables\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Talking to God - Prayables","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Talking to God - Prayables","og_description":"If God is beckoning from my memories, I decide to take a moment to look for Him there. My past is a series of images, a pile of disjointed scraps, not one obviously embossed with the divine. If I piece them together like some enormous quilt will they add up to the face of God?…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html","og_site_name":"Prayables","article_published_time":"2012-05-17T13:43:31+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/05\/talking-to-God1.jpg"}],"author":"Prayables","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html","name":"Talking to God - Prayables","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/05\/talking-to-God1.jpg","datePublished":"2012-05-17T13:43:31+00:00","dateModified":"2012-05-17T13:43:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#\/schema\/person\/ec269252d24ce0bc77635e1f49f53107"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/05\/talking-to-God1.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2012\/05\/talking-to-God1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2012\/05\/talking-to-god.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Talking to God"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/","name":"Prayables","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#\/schema\/person\/ec269252d24ce0bc77635e1f49f53107","name":"Prayables","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/author\/sdiamond"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4258,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions\/4258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}