The Laughing Heart, August 16, 2026
The Laughing Heart with Errol Strider
A Palpable God: Spiritual Longing, Human Need, and the Search for a Divine Presence We Can Feel
Errol Strider presents and begins unpacking his poem “A Palpable God,” exploring the human desire for a God who feels immediate, intimate, and real amid anxiety, loneliness, financial pressure, depression, unmet desire, stale assumptions, spiritual doubt, and the search for authentic transformation.
“A Palpable God” and the Desire for Tangible Divinity
The poem opens with a request for a God who can be felt directly rather than merely understood through doctrine, ritual, or theology. Its startling language about wanting to snuggle with, tickle, or fondle God is humorous, but Strider explains that it expresses a serious longing for a divine presence that enters the body, emotions, and ordinary pressures of life. The central question is why anxiety, pain, loneliness, disappointment, and financial pressure often feel more immediate than the benevolent power people are asked to trust.
The Squeeze Between Desire and Actuality
Strider identifies “the squeeze” as the divided consciousness created by the gap between what people say they want, what they believe they have, what they actually pursue, and the life they imagine would finally fulfill them. He argues that this inner split produces anxiety and dissatisfaction by keeping people suspended between appearance and truth, gratitude and grievance, and present reality and imagined completion. In his interpretation, palpable spirituality would help heal this division rather than merely offer reassuring concepts.
“Fill Me Up, Gody” as a Human Prayer
The poem’s recurring refrain, “Fill me up, Gody,” becomes what Strider calls the prayer beneath many human pursuits. He says people seek something that will settle restlessness, fill emotional emptiness, and assure them that they are loved and that their lives matter. The rest of the poem examines the substitutes people reach for when spiritual reality does not feel present enough.
Molten Yearning and the Search for Identity
The poem then asks for a “get-down God” who enters real life rather than remaining distant from it. Strider describes “molten yearning” as the restless human desire to know who we are, where we came from, where we are going, and what might finally make us whole. He says this uncertainty often drives people toward inherited religion, political ideologies, cultural promises, and old assumptions about themselves and the world.
Stale Assumptions and Authentic Spirituality
Strider challenges listeners to examine whether the beliefs guiding their lives are alive and personally experienced or merely familiar ideas inherited from others. The poem compares those assumptions to vehicles that promise direction but leave the traveler stranded at nowhere. Authentic spirituality, in his view, begins by asking whether one’s beliefs have actually been tested through experience.
Depression, Tenderness, and “Sourdough Satisfaction”
The poem asks for a God whose hand can be held and who can transform depression into jubilance, or at least provide a little “sourdough satisfaction.” Strider interprets this as a modest and practical spiritual request rather than a demand for permanent enlightenment. He suggests that spiritual nourishment may appear through beauty, kindness, a deep breath, a listening person, or the realization that life has not finished with us.
Transformation Through the Body and Heart
The poem next asks for a no-nonsense God capable of saturating the heart, stirring the blood, and moving through the body. Strider says this section expresses the desire to escape weariness, limitation, and old patterns, but he distinguishes genuine transformation from simple escape. Authentic spirituality, he argues, helps people see through the illusions that keep an exhausted identity in place.
Seductive Illusions and False Sources of Fulfillment
The poem portrays illusions as attractive, opulent, and tempting even while they conceal quicksand and rancid water. Strider says these illusions may take the form of possessions, social status, romance, political victory, religious certainty, or the promise that one more achievement will finally create security. The danger is not that illusions are always obviously foolish, but that they can appear deeply desirable.
God in Others and the Expansion of Spiritual Awareness
Because the program is limited to a half hour, Strider stops midway through the poem and announces that the second half will be explored in a future episode. He closes with two “wisdom nuggets”: spiritual arrival is less about discovering God within oneself than recognizing God in others, and spiritual growth makes people increasingly inclusive of what appears to exist outside themselves while deepening their connection to the spirit within.
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The Laughing Heart--a podcast
Humor, story, and spoken word for insight, inspiration, and connection
Hosted by Errol Strider, poet, performer, and non-prophet.
SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION
Errol Strider - Host of The Laughing Heart and reader/commentator for the poem "A Palpable God."
Poem / Audio Performance - The recorded poem segment, featuring original music credited by the host to Charles Mazzell.
Errol Strider - Host:
Hello, my dear friend, and welcome to The Laughing Heart, where we explore what is most essential, whether it be the divine or, well, most absurd.
Thank you for joining me. This is Errol Strider, in case you were wondering.
Tonight's episode is going to feature one of my poems. In fact, it is the poem that has been most upsetting to most people. I'm not sure if I should take that as a criticism or a compliment. It is called "A Palpable God."
I'm going to go ahead and play the poem now. Original music was created for this piece by Charles Mazzell. It is an exploration and poetic articulation of how we would like to experience God, how we would prefer that God be more, well, palpable.
So here it is. After the poem, we're going to unpack it so it will make more sense and reveal more dimensions. With that being said, here is "A Palpable God."
Poem / Audio Performance:
What I need is a palpable God.
A God I can snuggle with, tickle, and fondle.
Now, how do I fondle God?
Do I fondle God when I will, perhaps?
What about a God who is as apparent as the grinding demands,
as merciful as the squeeze is merciless?
You know, the squeeze between what I say I want and what I think I have,
between what I think I want and what I say I have.
Fill me up, Gody.
Fill me up.
What I need is a get-down God who will hobnob with my tastes
and catch me as I fall into the molten yearning I reside in,
forced to wonder who I am,
wonder where I'm from,
and wonder where I'm headed,
trying to bum a ride on stale assumptions that leave me off at nowhere.
You know, a God I can hold hands with,
who will let me parlay my depression into jubilance,
or at least fill my tin cup with some sourdough satisfaction.
Fill me up, Gody.
Fill me up.
How about a no-nonsense God?
One who will saturate my pleading heart
and get me high on intoxicating blood,
fermented blessing,
capable of transporting tired old me out,
out through the breathless pores of my illusions.
Illusions.
Illusions.
Those dark imaginings painted over with opulence,
disguising the quicksand beneath,
though the beach is tempting
and the rancid water looks like it will quench my aging thirst.
Hey.
Hey.
What about a neighborly God
who will fill my empty cup with sweet granules of please,
or thank you,
or I believe in you too,
licking my lips for fresh donuts or kisses?
That's it.
That's what I want:
for God to hand out ecstasy
so I can let go of my compulsion to find effervescence
in a bottle,
a meal,
a bank account,
or a roving vagina,
or other familiar betrayals,
tarnished hopes' corpses
slithering down my insides,
leaking the smell of disappointment
like a slug crawling down my esophagus.
Fill me up, Gody.
Fill me up.
But for beginners,
a stand-up, how-do-you-do God will do,
as long as he isn't bloated and malnourished
from being fed on bleached rituals and nutritionless praise,
or one standing in the unemployment line like me
because there isn't any work for a bona fide God
in this world of market shares
and nostalgia for a second-hand God that never really was.
But I guess I'll take a make-believe God,
as long as I can get it on sale,
or even better, naked,
so I don't have to peek under the circus tent
because I ain't got a ticket.
I ain't got a friend.
Fill me up, Gody.
Fill me up.
What I need is a sleek, harmonious God.
A sleek, harmonious God
conducting a pure-tone symphony
to drown out those discordant voices
that try to scream away my presence
and shout down my joy,
who sing a beautiful melody to quiet my doubts
and, in a still small voice,
whisper away my misgivings.
Then I might be willing to trade in my sordid, sagging disbelief
for some fulsome faith,
or at least let go of all the noisy, rusty reasons why I can't believe.
Basically, I could use a friendly God
who will press the right keys in my consciousness,
as long as they aren't Alt, Control, Delete.
Fill me up, Gody.
Fill me up.
But in the meantime,
and it is a meantime,
maybe we could meet at the shopping mall, God,
or at the supermarket,
or at that junction where my longing meets your impulse to nourish and fulfill.
I'll be wearing a loose-fitting human facade.
But how will I recognize you, God?
Maybe you could be that little old lady
who hands out those free goodies or beauties,
or that good-looking Jewish fellow
who serves up some of those set-you-free truthies,
or those succulent delights made up of answered prayers.
So come on.
How about it?
How about showing up, God?
Or is it:
How about showing up, human?
Ooh.
Fill me up, Gody.
Fill me up.
Errol Strider - Host:
Okay, let's back up to the very beginning of that piece.
Poem / Audio Performance:
What I need is a palpable God.
One that I can snuggle with, tickle, or fondle.
How do I fondle God?
Do I fondle God when I will, perhaps?
How about a God who is as apparent as the grinding demands,
as merciful as the squeeze is merciless?
You know, the squeeze between what I think I have and what I say I want,
between what I say I have and what I think I want.
Errol Strider - Host:
Well, this establishes the central problem. If a benevolent power creates and supports life, why is the pressure of life so much more palpable than the power supporting it?
We can feel anxiety. We can feel loneliness, financial pressure, physical pain, disappointment, and desire. But can we feel God, or whatever name we give to the benevolent reality underlying life, with comparable immediacy?
The longing to snuggle with, tickle, or fondle God is humorous, but it is not frivolous. It rejects a remote, conceptual God. This person doesn't need another definition, doctrine, ritual, or theological argument. This God needs to be a God that we can experience, one who can enter the body, the emotions, and the grinding circumstances of ordinary life.
Then comes the squeeze. The squeeze is the divided consciousness in which many of us live: what we have versus what we believe we need, what we say we want versus what we actually pursue, what we present to the world versus what we privately experience, and the life we're living versus the life we imagine would finally fulfill us.
That internal division produces much of our anxiety and dissatisfaction. We are continually squeezed between actuality and desire, appearance and truth, gratitude and grievance. So palpable spirituality would not merely give us reassuring ideas. It would help heal that division. It would enable us to experience support, meaning, and presence as vividly as we experience the pressure.
Then the refrain arrives.
Poem / Audio Performance:
Fill me up, Gody.
Fill me up.
Errol Strider - Host:
That may be the prayer beneath nearly every human pursuit. We want something to fill the emptiness, settle the restlessness, and assure us that we are loved and that our lives matter.
The remainder of the poem begins examining all the substitutes we use when God, or the depth of life, does not feel palpable enough. The opening section therefore raises the essential question for the podcast: What good is spirituality when our fear, loneliness, and unmet needs feel far more real than the benevolent power we are being asked to trust?
That is exactly where authentic spirituality must begin: not with belief, but with our honest experience of absence, need, contradiction, and longing.
Okay, let's continue with the poem.
Poem / Audio Performance:
What I need is a get-down God,
one that hobnobs with my tastes
and catches me as I fall into the molten yearning I reside in,
forced to wonder who I am,
wonder where I'm from,
and where I'm headed,
trying to bum a ride off stale assumptions
that will leave me off at nowhere.
Errol Strider - Host:
Okay, perhaps this is what you need: not a God who remains above your life, but one who gets down into it. A God who meets you in your particular tastes, desires, questions, and contradictions.
Because you don't live in abstraction. You live inside what the poem calls molten yearning, that restless longing to know who you are, where you came from, where you're going, and what finally will make you feel whole.
When you don't know how to live with that uncertainty, you may try to bum a ride off stale assumptions: inherited religious beliefs, political ideologies, cultural promises, or conclusions you reached long ago about yourself and the world. They may give you temporary direction, but do they actually take you anywhere, or do they leave you stranded at nowhere?
Authentic spirituality asks you to examine what you have been trusting. Are your assumptions alive? Have you experienced their truth for yourself, or are they merely familiar vehicles you keep climbing into because you're afraid of having no ride at all?
The poem continues.
Poem / Audio Performance:
You know, a God I can hold hands with
who will let me parlay my depression into jubilance,
or at least fill my tin cup with sourdough satisfaction.
Errol Strider - Host:
Here the longing becomes tender and practical. Maybe you don't need a God who explains the universe. Maybe you need a God whose hand you can hold when you're frightened, depressed, lonely, or unsure of your next step.
Notice that the poem doesn't demand instant enlightenment. It asks whether depression can somehow be parlayed into jubilance, transformed into something unexpectedly alive. But then it becomes more modest. Perhaps you could at least receive a few sourdough satisfactions.
That may be how spiritual transformation actually begins: not with a permanent state of bliss, but with enough nourishment for today. A moment of beauty. An unexpected kindness. A breath that reaches deeper. A person who listens. Or a quiet realization that you are still here and that life has not finished with you.
The tin cup suggests that you may feel like a beggar before life, asking for some small indication that you have not been forgotten. Spiritual practice helps you become receptive to the nourishment that already may be offered, but that preoccupation has prevented you from noticing.
Poem / Audio Performance:
Fill me up, Gody.
Fill me up.
Errol Strider - Host:
Beneath the humor is a very intimate prayer: Don't merely tell me that life is benevolent. Let me experience it. Give me something I can actually live on.
Okay, let's continue with the poem.
Poem / Audio Performance:
How about a no-nonsense God
who will saturate my pleading heart
and get me high with intoxicating blood,
fermented blessing,
capable of transforming tired old me out
through the breathless pores of my illusions.
Errol Strider - Host:
Now the poem asks for more than reassurance. It asks for transformation, a spiritual reality powerful enough to saturate the heart, stir the blood, and move through the entire body.
You may recognize the desire to escape yourself: your weariness, your limitations, your repeated patterns, and the version of yourself you have grown tired of carrying. But authentic spirituality does not merely help you escape. It helps you see through the illusions that keep the old self in place.
The poem continues.
Poem / Audio Performance:
Illusions,
those seductive imaginings painted over with opulence,
disguising the quicksand beneath,
even though the beach is tempting
and the rancid water looks like it will quench my aging thirst.
Errol Strider - Host:
So what we have here is that your illusions are not necessarily foolish or unattractive. That is why they are seductive. They may appear as success, possessions, status, romance, political victory, religious certainty, or the promise that one more achievement will finally make you secure.
We are going to stop here. I have probably given you a lot to think about, and I hope that you can relate to it and, even better, apply it to your life.
We are going to continue with the other half of the poem and its analysis on our next program, since we only have a half hour on our podcast.
In the meantime, I invite you to check out our website, TheLaughingHeart.org, where you will find numerous modalities - entertaining, humorous, thoughtful, and provocative - to hopefully assist you on your journey as you deepen into these spiritual possibilities.
Indeed, we are provided with an invitation. As Yeshua says, "I stand at the door and knock." The character in the poem requests a spiritual reality that is accessible and identifies the various ways in which that accessibility is desired and recognized.
Before I let you go, I want to share two of what I call wisdom nuggets about spirituality.
One of them is this: When you arrive - and I put that in quotes because I don't think we ever actually arrive, but for now, when you arrive spiritually - it doesn't leave you so much with having found God in yourself, but having found God in others.
Another wisdom nugget about spirituality is this: As we grow spiritually, we become more and more inclusive of that which appears to be outside of ourselves, all while we deepen into the spirit within.
Again, I invite you to go to our website, TheLaughingHeart.org, or our YouTube channel, Strider Inner Tainment. You heard it: Inner Tainment.
If you want to send me an email, I'd love to hear from you and know how you respond to this presentation: TheLaughingHeart.org@gmail.com.
Wishing you well and reminding you to take good care of yourself.
