A strange place for a theophany

Every week, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields (thank you, Rochelle!) hosts a flash fiction challenge, to write a complete story with a beginning, middle and end in 100 words or less. Post it on your blog, and include the Photoprompt and Inlinkz (the blue frog) on your page. Link your story URL. Then the fun starts as you read other peoples’ stories and comment on them!

FF - A strange place for a theophany 170816

Photoprompt © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

She had been in her bedsit for days, reading, thinking, praying. What did it mean to live a good life? Why did she feel love? Above all, who was she?

The questions consumed her. She never noticed the gathering dust. The clothes in her wardrobe, her pretty things no longer interested her. She hardly ate, and drank only water.

Then, abruptly, she shook her matted hair, stretched, thought, ‘I must wash’.

As she moved towards the shower cubicle, she saw a great light, and felt a holy awe.

She knelt, and deep joy overwhelmed her.

“It’s true then,” she gasped.

36 thoughts on “A strange place for a theophany”

  2. This is so beautifully written ,Penny , it feels as though it were your own intimate sacred experience. I am happy , she found what she had been seeking – the light .

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    • Thank you, Moon. That’s a very perceptive comment. It does indeed draw on my experiences, but it’s not in any way a record of them. I think probably I wouldn’t write a direct account because sacred experiences are – well, sacred.

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    • Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Dahlia. The 100 word limit bites me, I think, and I’ve compressed more than I should. It’s not a lack of interest she feels, more that feeling of suddenly becoming aware of the physical world that one can experience after living in the interior world for many hours. But as you say, there is that sharp transition from the mundane to…what?

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      • Disinterest is I agree not the correct word but the word that occurred to was in another language and was too lazy to find an appropriate alternative 😛 To be honest, I still can’t get the right word…

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  15. I remember reading in Kipling’s Kim, the old Lama finds enlightenment beside a little stream when he had been seeking it beside a mighty river all along and thinks “why not a stream?” So, why not a bathroom. Loved how she shed all the hubris of the external and the physical to slowly open up to the light and was finally rewarded for her patience.

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  19. That is some meditating there–or praying–I love how you describe the contrast between caring for her outer, and her inner world. One deteriorates, the other shines. Now she needs to find the balance.

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    • Thank you for your thoughtful comment. As you say, she needs to find the balance. Personally I think it unlikely that she will abandon, or even slacken, her pursuit of truth, so her best course would probably be to find a group who could teach her to meditate in a more controlled fashion while not neglecting the needs of her body.

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