GOD LEFT THIS PLACE A LONG TIME AGO, BUT ART STAYED

“I used to look for God in churches. Now I find Him in distortion pedals and broken voices.”

Let’s be honest.

God clocked out years ago.
If He was ever here.
And if He was—He’s got some explaining to do.

Because we’ve been left to our own devices.
To our mass shootings and our cancer wards.
To our crumbling democracies and overpriced insulin.
To fathers who die alone.
To mothers who forget your name.
To headlines so cruel you can’t tell if it’s The Onion or the actual fucking news.

The old temples are empty.
But the new ones?

The new ones are glowing.

The stage.
The canvas.
The beat-up acoustic in the corner of your best friend’s apartment.
The reel you weren’t supposed to cry at.
The chorus that hit like a divine punch to the ribs.

That’s where God went.
Not up. Not out.
In.

Into the shaky hands of a dancer who’s still rehearsing twelve hours a day even though no one’s watching.
Into the throat of a 17-year-old screaming into GarageBand because it’s the only therapy he can afford.
Into the trembling linework of someone painting the grief they can’t speak.
Into the artist.
The freak.
The misfit with too many feelings and not enough places to put them.

God left this place a long time ago.
But art stayed.

And not the pretty kind.

The dangerous kind.
The kind that gets banned in Texas.
The kind that makes you uncomfortable.
The kind that makes you remember what it feels like to be human before the world beat it out of you.

We are so fucked—
And nobody cares enough to do something.
But the artists do.

We make meaning out of the wreckage.
We find poetry in the smoking crater.
We take the bullet, melt it down, and turn it into a necklace that says:
“Try me again, motherfucker.”

That’s the work.
That’s the church now.
That’s the gospel.

So don’t tell me art doesn’t matter.
Don’t tell me it’s a luxury.
Don’t tell me it’s self-indulgent.

Art is what’s left when everything else has abandoned you.

When the gods fall silent,
the song still plays.
And somehow, that’s enough to stay alive.