III. The Shape of God

They said “theology”

and I thought it was a kind of spell,

a word reserved for saints or scholars

who never doubted the shape of God.

I didn’t know it was a mirror,

or a furnace.

I only knew I failed it.

Failed hard.

Not because I didn’t love Him,

but because my God was too small

to survive the syllabus.

In that classroom,

the heavens didn’t open—

they cracked.

I saw my certainty fracture

beneath the weight of history,

Greek verbs,

and a Jesus who spoke

in more tongues than I’d ever heard in church.

So I changed my major.

Majored in unlearning.

Majored in asking why the robe must be white

and who decided what “holy” meant.

Still, on Wednesday nights

I shouted sermons to teenagers,

hands shaking,

voice burning like a fuse,

thinking zeal could save us all

from our questions.

I mistook passion for purity,

noise for knowing.

I believed the louder we prayed,

the quicker the doubt would flee.

But I was being remade—

the way cloth tears

before it can be fitted new.

The way faith unravels

just enough to let air in.

I stood at the pulpit

and realized the armor I’d worn

was never armor at all—

it was a cocoon.

And I was beginning

to break it open.