god lives in a corn field.

i had to go back to go forward.

A few weeks ago, I was back in the Midwest. It was early. I was walking alongside a field of corn and thinking about God. The two are more related than I realized.

If you, too, have ever walked beside a cornfield, you’ll know it’s a land-bound ocean, made up of waves of green and shorelines of plowed dirt. It is strangely beautiful. Despite the neatly laid-out rows and precise placement of each plant, the stalks lean towards each other, creating shadowy portals that, as a child, I imagined leading into the underworld.

It seems so stupid to write, but corn is very much a part of my identity (and yes, I identify as a corn-fed woman).

I spent summers as a child planting corn and letting the pink dye from the sweetcorn kernels staining the palm of my hands. I eat my corn terribly, biting in random places instead of marching my teeth up and down the cob like a typewriter. A cornfield feels familiar. Comforting. Seeing one tells me that I’m home, or at least, I’m very close to it.

Katie Long Legs.

On my walk, I was overwhelmed by nostalgia.

Maybe it was the beauty of the rising sun over the rolling fields. Maybe it was the fact that I was back in the Midwest after nearly a year away, spent keeping a promise to myself that I wouldn’t run back here and let myself experience a different sort of ocean. But I felt God in that moment, a version of God that felt truer and closer than the one I had been chasing and rejecting in cycles for most of my life.

I couldn’t understand it.

I had spent eleven months trying to acclimate to the island, struggling to find clarity as wave after wave churned over me. If God was there on St. Croix, it felt like he¹ was floating out in the ocean or winging over my head so quickly that I couldn’t get my arms around him. I could sense the spiritual wellspring of the island, yes, but it felt like it wasn’t mine to have.

So why here, next to the mundane corn fields I’ve always known? Why now? Why was God standing easily in the center of the waves of green, arms open wide and so, so real?

I wondered if this feeling was a sign I was supposed to come back. For good. Even as I whispered the sentiment to myself, I knew it wasn’t the truth.

The path I was walking on turned into an apple orchard. Morning dew studded the grass. Spiderwebs shone between branches of trees soon to be filled with fruit. Nature around me brimmed with life, in conversation with itself as I stood nearby, eavesdropping.

And then I heard God speak. No words were used, rejecting the notion I had as a child of hearing a booming man’s voice echoing in my mind. But God spoke to me all the same.

I was supposed to leave this place.

My relationship with the corn fields, with the Midwest, with where I’m from is like my relationship with God.

I’ve spent years running from both, trying to leave both behind and grow bigger and better than the pews of a church or the long lines of corn. Trying to figure out where they ended and I began. Trying to wipe the church kid off of my face and the Midwest out of my voice.

But next to a misty apple orchard outside of Belleville, Illinois, I realized the truth. I needed to leave both God and the Midwest completely to finally start to understand them for myself.

The path I was on bent, leading me by yet another corn field. I stopped walking and stood still for a long time, letting the weight of this moment sit heavy on my shoulders.

Around the plants nearest to the edge of the field, morning glories vined up the length of the stalks, their delicate blue-purple flowers unfolding sweetly in the strengthening light. A wild partner making herself known, a brave foil to constant sameness of the corn. The partnership was beautiful.

In that moment, I felt the wildness of the island coiling up around my steady and straight legs, around my heart, reminding me that I am both here and there. That God is here and there, ready to be discovered anew in the most unexpected ways.

All I have to do is keep looking for him.

1. I really struggle with writing about God with gendered pronouns. I don’t think God is a man or a woman; more of a concept. But ‘it’ feels wrong. I chose ‘he’ for the readability of this piece.