I think, in the end, it all comes down to this: Do you believe in the Word?
Last week, four American Bible missionaries were killed by pirates off the coast of Somali. Yes, modern-day missionaries, as well as modern-day pirates do exist. Strangely, half the people I mention this incident to at work didn't know that either one of these "archetypes" were anything more than players from history.
So let's say you read a book. It isn't perfect (and no, I'm not going to hell for saying that) but it has some action, some passion, some epic twists, and a great universe mythology. Plus, in the last third, there's this amazing hero -- strong, gentle, unwavering, so real -- that just opens everything up. You want to share that book, don't you? You want to buy fifty copies and give them as gifts to all your friends and family.
But wait! If you act now, there's more...
What if, when you were reading this book, it wound up answering a whole bunch of questions for you. Little lingering worries and concerns. What if, while reading this book, you found a kind of peace, felt a kind of connection. What if... just what if... while reading this book, and contemplating the whys and whens and whats of it all, you started to hear whispers. Whispers not in your head but directly from your heart.
You would buy fifty billion copies and give them to the whole wide world.
Some people preach to convert. They believe in the power of their own words, or at least, they believe in the skill they have in conveying the Word. Others simply smile, nod, and gently hand over a Bible. They trust, that if given the right tool, if handed the words on paper, that the Word will find its way into the reader.
Do you recruit? What risk would you take to save a life? To introduce someone to Christ? To just hand over a Bible?
I had a friend who wanted to spread the Word but not the word. Meaning, he wanted to give non-Christians a more uncensored view of the scriptures. He printed many of the "lost books" and apocrypha and other texts found at the same and in the same region as the books of the Bible that we all know. He bound it all together (at no small personal expense) and just handed them out on street corners. Then he designed grunge and tribal and abstract and even sensual covers. He bound his editions and handed more of them out. Was his work successful? He had to get a second mortgage on his house. He was twice mugged and once badly enough that he wound up in the hospital. But the email that he printed small on the back cover? More than two thousand messages. None of them were spam.
I think that missionaries have a bad rep to non-Christians. This image of Great White Man dragging his modest white wife and skinny yet devout white children traveling into the bug-invested, steamy jungles of some "third world country" and converting all the brown heathens, turning them away from their strange and furry gods, and white-washing (pun-intended) their culture and social rituals... well, I don't know any missionaries like that any more.
Today's missionaries travel everywhere -- Brazil, England, Japan -- to towns, villages, jungles, metropolis cities, and they open community centers, build houses, feed the elderly, open schools, teach English, teach kindness. As a matter of fact, of the four missionaries that I support (financially, I mean), only one of them is in a country where they can be "out." The others are risking their lives in countries that don't have freedom of religion. They're teaching English or math or science in secondary schools. They can neither say they are Christians nor hand out Bibles. Publicly, that is. Of course, as Christians, as missionaries, they do both those things... but quietly, carefully, and at great personal risk.
You all know that I am not so big on the compiled scripture that we call the Bible. I think it has been greatly edited by men (meaning humans) over the years and "modernized" and "clarified" to create something more akin to the line those in power what us to toe. But Christians (meaning followers of Christ), if following strictly in the foot steps of Christ, never toe the line. Did Christ toe the line when He stopped the stoning? Did Christ toe the line when He toppled tables of offerings?
But I am big on the Word. Those whispers that we hear when we hear Him. And I do believe that the scripture can open the door (or turn up the volume) on those whispers. Is there a risk that the reader will find only the word and not the Word?
Yes, of course. But there's risk in standing on a street corner, teaching in a classroom, or even sailing on the sea with a hold full of Bibles. Risk is part of being a Christian.
A blogger I found on Google said with some (very dark) sarcasm, "Four missionaries were killed by pirates. Distributing Bibles. See where that got them?" Yeah. Christ spoke the truth. See where that got Him?
And see where He got us?
Amen.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
I Liked You
I liked you best when you were angry. With him, with her, with them, with the world. With me. I liked watching you fight it, watching you lose, watching the mask fall away to reveal a woman not all together kind, gentle, courteous, fair. You went from a mama to a real mother and that's when I wanted you.
I liked you best when your wit and intelligence were replaced by something dangerous and primal. Caution wasn't thrown to the wind. Caution was burned down, slashed open, rent to ribbons. That easy smile cracked and showed me a sneer. I knew then I was in the wrong place at the right time.
I was convenient. I was willing. You never raised your voice to me. If anything, you only growled.
I liked you best when you were angry at yourself.
Sometimes I'm not sure you knew I was there. Or rather, long moments when your dialogue was so internal. I could have been anyone. I was glad to be me, so glad, but you weren't really standing there with me. You were only really aware of the war you waged and I was never sure whether I was the punishment or the reward. I think it depended on whether or not I could walk straight in the morning. Were you defeated or victorious when you just let go and I screamed?
Who was it that told you to bottle that up? Lord, grrl, I wish I could bottle and sell it! You mad is you hooked into the ether. The air crackled, the walls, floor, counters cracked. Your snarl against my ear always read my mind. You were three dimensions reaching into Flatland. I unspoolled, raven glossimer, just as quickly as I un- everything else.
I never knew what to say. I just stood back, stood up, offered myself into the fray of whatever force you fought. I just... I thought it was love. I knew it wasn't mutual but I thought it was love.
But it wasn't.
It was addiction. Like my penchant for speed and stunts and roof jumping. I wanted... I *needed*... to see something, someone that wasn't as shallow and banal as everyone so often seemed. I wanted to see someone, know someone, who could transform so completely. Not a chameleon, a changling. Knowable, safe... but only to a point... and then unpredictable, wild. True.
But was that truth?
Primal is foundation. But foundation is not always truth. One part of us is not the sum total of who we are. Now I know.
And I regret that I must admit that I know you not at all.
I only know, that I liked you best when you were angry.
I liked you best when your wit and intelligence were replaced by something dangerous and primal. Caution wasn't thrown to the wind. Caution was burned down, slashed open, rent to ribbons. That easy smile cracked and showed me a sneer. I knew then I was in the wrong place at the right time.
I was convenient. I was willing. You never raised your voice to me. If anything, you only growled.
I liked you best when you were angry at yourself.
Sometimes I'm not sure you knew I was there. Or rather, long moments when your dialogue was so internal. I could have been anyone. I was glad to be me, so glad, but you weren't really standing there with me. You were only really aware of the war you waged and I was never sure whether I was the punishment or the reward. I think it depended on whether or not I could walk straight in the morning. Were you defeated or victorious when you just let go and I screamed?
Who was it that told you to bottle that up? Lord, grrl, I wish I could bottle and sell it! You mad is you hooked into the ether. The air crackled, the walls, floor, counters cracked. Your snarl against my ear always read my mind. You were three dimensions reaching into Flatland. I unspoolled, raven glossimer, just as quickly as I un- everything else.
I never knew what to say. I just stood back, stood up, offered myself into the fray of whatever force you fought. I just... I thought it was love. I knew it wasn't mutual but I thought it was love.
But it wasn't.
It was addiction. Like my penchant for speed and stunts and roof jumping. I wanted... I *needed*... to see something, someone that wasn't as shallow and banal as everyone so often seemed. I wanted to see someone, know someone, who could transform so completely. Not a chameleon, a changling. Knowable, safe... but only to a point... and then unpredictable, wild. True.
But was that truth?
Primal is foundation. But foundation is not always truth. One part of us is not the sum total of who we are. Now I know.
And I regret that I must admit that I know you not at all.
I only know, that I liked you best when you were angry.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The Speed of Faith
The idea that molecules have different speeds has always fascinated me. The idea that in water, vapor, air, vacuum, we'll find not only base changes and chemical reactions but different resting states and different responses is mysterious and wondrous. Some of the unexplainable sensations that are bodies gift us must have something to do with this and I like to pause sometimes and consider myself in the world, in the universe.
A teacher asks his teen students: Of the five senses, which do you derive the most pleasure from? Write me a 500-word essay. Go!
There is tittering and shifting at desks. You would think, maybe, that everyone would now be writing about touch. Touch is often thought of to be a sense that takes two. Either two people or one person and another object. Our bodies are all chock full of nerves and receptors so touch can give us a lot of information. In addition, one could argue that touch occurs when two entities make contact and so two sets of molecules collide. Are they resonating at the same note or different notes? Are they the same speed? Maybe this reflects when we connect and we miss each other.
And though touch is vital, and often admired and adored among the senses, the other sensory inputs are just as complex, intricate and enjoyable.
Think of the taste buds of a trained and talented chef. The incredible, even miraculous way they can taste a dish and tell you twenty ingredients, subtle and hidden. Think of a perfumer. They can do the same with a scent. Imagine that! A musician can pick out not just instruments but notes and changes, variants in music. The trained eye of anyone from a birder to an art critic to a crime scene investigator or blood pattern analyzer can locate the smallest details and derive volumes of information from elements many of us would never see.
I imagine God to be a master of all the senses and I even take that next step and say (as Father as Son) that Christ on Earth was also exactly such a master. Christ walked among us but He saw, heard, tasted, smelled, and touched like a master. He worked miracles (well, because He was God, but also) because He saw the fabric of everything in perfect detail. He saw molecules.
Suddenly He seems less like a repeated myth retold in a hundred cultures and languages, sustained by ancient time and the passing of years, and more like a very possible (divine) man who could very well appear right now in the middle of any modern city and make just the same impact as He once did.
But there's that other sense that can't be ignored. And it's this sense, the sixth sense, that I believe most of our most divine inspirations and sensation originate from. Not thought, or some arcane ability, or even instinctual insight. This sixth sense is faith.
The faith moves our molecules like none other.
We see a happy baby, a beautiful bouquet, a handsome preacher, and we have a reaction. We kiss our partner, we taste rich chocolate, we hear an aria for the first time, and we have a reaction. These feelings can be deep and incredible, weaving more banal moments of life together into something we actually want to live, but moments of faith, sensations of faith almost over-shadow life in their grandeur. They are moments that catch us completely. Our molecules move as they do at no other time.
We become incandescent with Christ.
In these rare and private moments (which can indeed happen anywhere, anytime, and, I think, are best appreciated and most sincere when *not* induced by a sermon) we resonate at a speed closer to God. We thrum with a beat closer to the fine details of all the senses. A glimpse behind the curtain of everyday life into something connected, something universal, something divine.
This is the essay that came to me in the mail from a fifteen year old I have never met. Which sense, the teacher asked, do you derive the most pleasure from? The answer was: I derive the most rewarding and the deepest pleasure from my sense of faith. Though I find pleasure more often in my other senses and I value these gifts from the world, I have found that if I look past these, or something even inside these gifts, that I find something more. A gift of faith. Clues left behind, by God, to guide me, to encourage me, and to remind me that I am made of the same stuff as the universe. I am made by God, of God, with God.
Where do you derive your pleasure? Are you seeing the divinity He leaves for us like seeds?
I think the speed of faith is so fast -- light speed fast -- that to our eyes it can actually appear to be standing still. If we just stop to look, it's easy to reach out and see it, taste it, hear it, smell it, and hold it in our hands.
A teacher asks his teen students: Of the five senses, which do you derive the most pleasure from? Write me a 500-word essay. Go!
There is tittering and shifting at desks. You would think, maybe, that everyone would now be writing about touch. Touch is often thought of to be a sense that takes two. Either two people or one person and another object. Our bodies are all chock full of nerves and receptors so touch can give us a lot of information. In addition, one could argue that touch occurs when two entities make contact and so two sets of molecules collide. Are they resonating at the same note or different notes? Are they the same speed? Maybe this reflects when we connect and we miss each other.
And though touch is vital, and often admired and adored among the senses, the other sensory inputs are just as complex, intricate and enjoyable.
Think of the taste buds of a trained and talented chef. The incredible, even miraculous way they can taste a dish and tell you twenty ingredients, subtle and hidden. Think of a perfumer. They can do the same with a scent. Imagine that! A musician can pick out not just instruments but notes and changes, variants in music. The trained eye of anyone from a birder to an art critic to a crime scene investigator or blood pattern analyzer can locate the smallest details and derive volumes of information from elements many of us would never see.
I imagine God to be a master of all the senses and I even take that next step and say (as Father as Son) that Christ on Earth was also exactly such a master. Christ walked among us but He saw, heard, tasted, smelled, and touched like a master. He worked miracles (well, because He was God, but also) because He saw the fabric of everything in perfect detail. He saw molecules.
Suddenly He seems less like a repeated myth retold in a hundred cultures and languages, sustained by ancient time and the passing of years, and more like a very possible (divine) man who could very well appear right now in the middle of any modern city and make just the same impact as He once did.
But there's that other sense that can't be ignored. And it's this sense, the sixth sense, that I believe most of our most divine inspirations and sensation originate from. Not thought, or some arcane ability, or even instinctual insight. This sixth sense is faith.
The faith moves our molecules like none other.
We see a happy baby, a beautiful bouquet, a handsome preacher, and we have a reaction. We kiss our partner, we taste rich chocolate, we hear an aria for the first time, and we have a reaction. These feelings can be deep and incredible, weaving more banal moments of life together into something we actually want to live, but moments of faith, sensations of faith almost over-shadow life in their grandeur. They are moments that catch us completely. Our molecules move as they do at no other time.
We become incandescent with Christ.
In these rare and private moments (which can indeed happen anywhere, anytime, and, I think, are best appreciated and most sincere when *not* induced by a sermon) we resonate at a speed closer to God. We thrum with a beat closer to the fine details of all the senses. A glimpse behind the curtain of everyday life into something connected, something universal, something divine.
This is the essay that came to me in the mail from a fifteen year old I have never met. Which sense, the teacher asked, do you derive the most pleasure from? The answer was: I derive the most rewarding and the deepest pleasure from my sense of faith. Though I find pleasure more often in my other senses and I value these gifts from the world, I have found that if I look past these, or something even inside these gifts, that I find something more. A gift of faith. Clues left behind, by God, to guide me, to encourage me, and to remind me that I am made of the same stuff as the universe. I am made by God, of God, with God.
Where do you derive your pleasure? Are you seeing the divinity He leaves for us like seeds?
I think the speed of faith is so fast -- light speed fast -- that to our eyes it can actually appear to be standing still. If we just stop to look, it's easy to reach out and see it, taste it, hear it, smell it, and hold it in our hands.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Short & Sweet
This week Lady Gaga dropped "Born This Way" and I found myself wondering if Daniel surviving the lions was the last time that a Christian laid bare their faith and risked their life for what they believe.
Now, I'm not stupid. I know that there are, today in our modern, war-torn, corrupt world, a great many missionaries that travel to dangerous places and risk their lives (and often the lives of their children) to spread the Word. But that isn't the type of life risking I'm talking about. I mean the type of risk when we dare to actually question the word (see the little w?) we're fed opposed to the Word (great big W) we *feel.*
The Word we *know* to be truth.
The Word not found in the selective books of our modern Bible but in the darker origin places of our primeval hearts.
Contrary to what the (yes, liberal) media seems to be feeding us, there has not been a rise in gay teen suicides or bashings. There are not (suddenly!) more bigots pushing our kids over the edge. There have always been gay kids dying. It was an Epidemic even before AIDS was an Epidemic. The only thing that's changed (other than having a Black, pro-gay, pro-family, decent, truly American "all men are created equal and deserve certain rights" president for once) is that right now, in our current culture primed by Ellen and Rosie and Adam and Elton, it's actually okay to *care.*
Right now, it's okay to see a gay teen dying as a horrible, disgusting, horrendous waste of life. A needless waste of life. Does it shock you that it hasn't always been okay to see that? (I don't remember any major media talking about the *four* all-grown-up lesbians shot to death in the good ole US of A in the '80s. Do you? Guess gay wasn't okay enough in the '80s.)
It seems that every time I turn on the radio, every (woman) pop/rock/alt star is pimping that different is okay. This theme has been repackaged and coined so much in the last few months that it's practically its own genre: Anthem Rock. And don't worry if kissing a girl wasn't supportive enough, you can always set off fireworks. And if you're too cool to be too school? No prob. You're still f-ing perfect. Eventually we'll have an entire CD worth of up-beat, up-tempo anthems that some savvy entrepreneur (like Simon Cowell or NOW) will compile and fling out at Pride Marches.
Don't read me wrong. I really like a lot of these songs and I think the singers really mean what their preaching. I am actually proud that liberal, relatively far-left musicians have stepped up the visibility game and brought the message to the people. I know more folks who have made an It Gets Better video than who haven't.
My issue is this: Where is the right?
(oh, did you see that little r?)
And I don't just mean the far-right. I mean the middling-right and the gently-right, and the leaning-right. Where are the preachers and the conservatives and the pastors and the Sunday School teachers? What are they doing to make sure that those steady numbers of gay teen suicides actually drop for once? Where is *their* out-reach?
Hypocrisy is a hard thing. We all fall into its trap once or twice or fifty-seven times, but there's a certain type of hypocrisy that's special. Kind of chocolate coated and really sticky. Can a pastor reach out to a (suspected) gay youth without slipping in little bon mots about "right" and "wrong" and turning away from "sin"? Is it okay to save the kid if he still grows up to be a queer? Will you believe God made him that way, even when science proves he's gay in utero? Will you protect the rights of an unborn gay kid?
And if you've told them all that they're going to go to hell, what do you care if they're dead? It's just a great big prediction come true, right? Or was their hell actually living in a world with literal-minded zealots like you? My you enjoy the rest of your names not wearing mixed fibers and staying away from your wife on her period (or any other time you're not making babies).
I like how devout Christians love to gloss over that great little turn in the Bible that talks about how much rejoicing occurs when a lost soul finds God. While the lil patent leathers stand on their holy pedestals singing their own praise, Christ has His back turned because He's trying to wave a heavenly sign at a bunch of boys trading vogue moves. The sign reads: FACT: GOD MADE YOU. FICTION: THEY DON'T KNOW GOD.
Maybe fire and brimstone Christians are just scared that heaven will be too crowded. Personally, I think it will be a lot more fun (and fashionable) with all the gays.
Now, I'm not stupid. I know that there are, today in our modern, war-torn, corrupt world, a great many missionaries that travel to dangerous places and risk their lives (and often the lives of their children) to spread the Word. But that isn't the type of life risking I'm talking about. I mean the type of risk when we dare to actually question the word (see the little w?) we're fed opposed to the Word (great big W) we *feel.*
The Word we *know* to be truth.
The Word not found in the selective books of our modern Bible but in the darker origin places of our primeval hearts.
Contrary to what the (yes, liberal) media seems to be feeding us, there has not been a rise in gay teen suicides or bashings. There are not (suddenly!) more bigots pushing our kids over the edge. There have always been gay kids dying. It was an Epidemic even before AIDS was an Epidemic. The only thing that's changed (other than having a Black, pro-gay, pro-family, decent, truly American "all men are created equal and deserve certain rights" president for once) is that right now, in our current culture primed by Ellen and Rosie and Adam and Elton, it's actually okay to *care.*
Right now, it's okay to see a gay teen dying as a horrible, disgusting, horrendous waste of life. A needless waste of life. Does it shock you that it hasn't always been okay to see that? (I don't remember any major media talking about the *four* all-grown-up lesbians shot to death in the good ole US of A in the '80s. Do you? Guess gay wasn't okay enough in the '80s.)
It seems that every time I turn on the radio, every (woman) pop/rock/alt star is pimping that different is okay. This theme has been repackaged and coined so much in the last few months that it's practically its own genre: Anthem Rock. And don't worry if kissing a girl wasn't supportive enough, you can always set off fireworks. And if you're too cool to be too school? No prob. You're still f-ing perfect. Eventually we'll have an entire CD worth of up-beat, up-tempo anthems that some savvy entrepreneur (like Simon Cowell or NOW) will compile and fling out at Pride Marches.
Don't read me wrong. I really like a lot of these songs and I think the singers really mean what their preaching. I am actually proud that liberal, relatively far-left musicians have stepped up the visibility game and brought the message to the people. I know more folks who have made an It Gets Better video than who haven't.
My issue is this: Where is the right?
(oh, did you see that little r?)
And I don't just mean the far-right. I mean the middling-right and the gently-right, and the leaning-right. Where are the preachers and the conservatives and the pastors and the Sunday School teachers? What are they doing to make sure that those steady numbers of gay teen suicides actually drop for once? Where is *their* out-reach?
Hypocrisy is a hard thing. We all fall into its trap once or twice or fifty-seven times, but there's a certain type of hypocrisy that's special. Kind of chocolate coated and really sticky. Can a pastor reach out to a (suspected) gay youth without slipping in little bon mots about "right" and "wrong" and turning away from "sin"? Is it okay to save the kid if he still grows up to be a queer? Will you believe God made him that way, even when science proves he's gay in utero? Will you protect the rights of an unborn gay kid?
And if you've told them all that they're going to go to hell, what do you care if they're dead? It's just a great big prediction come true, right? Or was their hell actually living in a world with literal-minded zealots like you? My you enjoy the rest of your names not wearing mixed fibers and staying away from your wife on her period (or any other time you're not making babies).
I like how devout Christians love to gloss over that great little turn in the Bible that talks about how much rejoicing occurs when a lost soul finds God. While the lil patent leathers stand on their holy pedestals singing their own praise, Christ has His back turned because He's trying to wave a heavenly sign at a bunch of boys trading vogue moves. The sign reads: FACT: GOD MADE YOU. FICTION: THEY DON'T KNOW GOD.
Maybe fire and brimstone Christians are just scared that heaven will be too crowded. Personally, I think it will be a lot more fun (and fashionable) with all the gays.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Blood & Tears
A gasp and then... it was only a dream. My hands curled into each other, up over my heart, almost tucked beneath my chin. I'm five years old again in the darkness of a strange room. I am the only person I know here. I sit up.
From the balcony, the bay is a depth of night pooled and peppered with pins of white light. I wonder in this moment why I dreamt of crying. The banister is so cold it stings my palms. I lift my hands. Blood.
When I think about salvation, I don't think about His blood. I don't envision or contemplate or weep over His sacrifice, His terror, His pain. No, not because it's easier to turn away from any story that starts in betrayal and includes torture and (temporary or not) death. I don't dwell on those physical things because they don't touch me. They don't grab my heart in tight fingers. I guess I've bled on too many roads for anyone's blood to impress me.
Callus? Blasphemous? Or just truth?
Truth.
When I think of Christ on the cross, I think of tears. I think He cried, yes. I think He was devastated by the betrayal of His discipline. I think He was horrified that mankind could do this to any criminal let alone a political one. But I don't think it is humanly possible (and, in my eyes at least, He was human in those moments) for a person to cry for themselves as much as a mother cries for her child.
We have all heard the cliche. No parent is meant to outlive their children. It is a biological error. And I don't believe any time or timing can lesson that unnatural blow. We are never peers with our parents. We may come to speak with them in that comfortable way that adults have but we cannot change this fact: They made us. We may have shaped and influenced them, but they made us.
I wonder if Mary thought about that. About the unique twist of fact that she alone was experiencing. That she grew this baby, raised this little boy, loved this young man... and yet, He made her. If the Father and Son are one, than the son made the mother. Did she think about that as He hung bleeding on the cross? As the sky tore open and He screamed?
I think He was crying. I think He may even have thought once or twice, How can man do this to one another? And why must she endure this moment with me?
But Mary and Christ is far from the first or last Freudian dichotomy. The question of who is the father and who is the son, who is parent and who is child, plays out over and over again in many of life's arenas. Power dynamics are just the beginning. Behavioral mimicry, over-protective/over-possessive attitudes, passive aggressive cycles... our partners, our bosses, the manager at the QuikyMart.
Especially here in America, we seem to have very limited choices in appropriate relationships. Without a spoken class system we have, nonetheless, created a caste system as strict as India or China. In some ways, more strict because our tiers are unspoken and unclaimed. They change by region. They differ with state of the union, with the mentality of the masses, with the grand perspective of the mob mentality.
Whether or not we like it, our country, so fond of saying we do not persecute each other for religious differences, does exactly that every single day. We have created classes, hordes of second-rate citizens -- and if you think I'm *only* talking about immigration, you're not paying attention. Right now, all Americans are *not* treated equally nor do they have equal rights. You toe the Christian line or monied America is not going to stand behind you.
When was the last time, in America, that a Black man was beaten bloody and left dead just because he was Black?
When was the last time, in America, that a gay man was beaten bloody and left dead just because he was gay?
When was the last time, in American, that a Christian boy was beaten bloody and left dead just because he was a Christian?
What? You don't have a date for that third one?
Sadly, the cycle is broken. The ruling class tries to parent the rest of us, but they have forgotten who their Father is. And I don't mean the gentleman in the White House, his advisers, or our senate when I talk about ruling. I'm not that stupid. That would be like saying that the media is never sensationalist. Or that reality shows are candid. (Nowadays, I'm shocked when I'm *not* on camera, aren't you?)
The ruling, monied class -- the class that can campaign and spend millions, and organize with military precision their well-funded causes with the sweat, cash and heavily-mascaraed tears of the tithing, mandatory-Sunday-meeting seething masses who have nothing else to do to blow off steam except bludgeon us with their morals as if the Melting Pot of our ancestors exists only to boil us down and reshape us all into the puritanical separatists that (so few of them actually) came from -- is a class far from without public corruption, and as pure-intentioned as a gas-price hike when they turn off Internet in Egypt.
Why can't everyone see that we're all just crazy little heathens in the eyes of God? Even those of us actively trying to read His lips. Mary is crying for her son and Christ is crying for her. She gets pain and horror and injustice... but He gets something so much bigger, so much sadder. He has to leave her here while he returns to paradise. His own mother has to stay in a world that has no problem nailing its pundits to timbers... or telling its little boys they'll burn in hell if they think Finn Hudson is cute.
No wonder I dreamt of crying.
http://www.noh8campaign.com/
From the balcony, the bay is a depth of night pooled and peppered with pins of white light. I wonder in this moment why I dreamt of crying. The banister is so cold it stings my palms. I lift my hands. Blood.
When I think about salvation, I don't think about His blood. I don't envision or contemplate or weep over His sacrifice, His terror, His pain. No, not because it's easier to turn away from any story that starts in betrayal and includes torture and (temporary or not) death. I don't dwell on those physical things because they don't touch me. They don't grab my heart in tight fingers. I guess I've bled on too many roads for anyone's blood to impress me.
Callus? Blasphemous? Or just truth?
Truth.
When I think of Christ on the cross, I think of tears. I think He cried, yes. I think He was devastated by the betrayal of His discipline. I think He was horrified that mankind could do this to any criminal let alone a political one. But I don't think it is humanly possible (and, in my eyes at least, He was human in those moments) for a person to cry for themselves as much as a mother cries for her child.
We have all heard the cliche. No parent is meant to outlive their children. It is a biological error. And I don't believe any time or timing can lesson that unnatural blow. We are never peers with our parents. We may come to speak with them in that comfortable way that adults have but we cannot change this fact: They made us. We may have shaped and influenced them, but they made us.
I wonder if Mary thought about that. About the unique twist of fact that she alone was experiencing. That she grew this baby, raised this little boy, loved this young man... and yet, He made her. If the Father and Son are one, than the son made the mother. Did she think about that as He hung bleeding on the cross? As the sky tore open and He screamed?
I think He was crying. I think He may even have thought once or twice, How can man do this to one another? And why must she endure this moment with me?
But Mary and Christ is far from the first or last Freudian dichotomy. The question of who is the father and who is the son, who is parent and who is child, plays out over and over again in many of life's arenas. Power dynamics are just the beginning. Behavioral mimicry, over-protective/over-possessive attitudes, passive aggressive cycles... our partners, our bosses, the manager at the QuikyMart.
Especially here in America, we seem to have very limited choices in appropriate relationships. Without a spoken class system we have, nonetheless, created a caste system as strict as India or China. In some ways, more strict because our tiers are unspoken and unclaimed. They change by region. They differ with state of the union, with the mentality of the masses, with the grand perspective of the mob mentality.
Whether or not we like it, our country, so fond of saying we do not persecute each other for religious differences, does exactly that every single day. We have created classes, hordes of second-rate citizens -- and if you think I'm *only* talking about immigration, you're not paying attention. Right now, all Americans are *not* treated equally nor do they have equal rights. You toe the Christian line or monied America is not going to stand behind you.
When was the last time, in America, that a Black man was beaten bloody and left dead just because he was Black?
When was the last time, in America, that a gay man was beaten bloody and left dead just because he was gay?
When was the last time, in American, that a Christian boy was beaten bloody and left dead just because he was a Christian?
What? You don't have a date for that third one?
Sadly, the cycle is broken. The ruling class tries to parent the rest of us, but they have forgotten who their Father is. And I don't mean the gentleman in the White House, his advisers, or our senate when I talk about ruling. I'm not that stupid. That would be like saying that the media is never sensationalist. Or that reality shows are candid. (Nowadays, I'm shocked when I'm *not* on camera, aren't you?)
The ruling, monied class -- the class that can campaign and spend millions, and organize with military precision their well-funded causes with the sweat, cash and heavily-mascaraed tears of the tithing, mandatory-Sunday-meeting seething masses who have nothing else to do to blow off steam except bludgeon us with their morals as if the Melting Pot of our ancestors exists only to boil us down and reshape us all into the puritanical separatists that (so few of them actually) came from -- is a class far from without public corruption, and as pure-intentioned as a gas-price hike when they turn off Internet in Egypt.
Why can't everyone see that we're all just crazy little heathens in the eyes of God? Even those of us actively trying to read His lips. Mary is crying for her son and Christ is crying for her. She gets pain and horror and injustice... but He gets something so much bigger, so much sadder. He has to leave her here while he returns to paradise. His own mother has to stay in a world that has no problem nailing its pundits to timbers... or telling its little boys they'll burn in hell if they think Finn Hudson is cute.
No wonder I dreamt of crying.
http://www.noh8campaign.com/
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Will the Real Me Please Stand Up
I ran twelve months and four time zones. Trying to out-run the turning of the Earth, the passing of time, the number of heart beats against the shield of my breastbone. I wanted to cheat time, cheat destiny, cheat myself of everything I was owed, raised for, deserved, feared. I wanted to escape from being me, wanted to feel me falling away like clothes, like jeans and jacket slipping to the cold wood floor, until I could stand bare and alive and just be… oh.
Right.
All the roles we play for others, for ourselves. As time passes and we grow (more complicated or) older, we tend to create more and more of these personas, these suits of armor, these veneers. Finally we have a wardrobe full of shades and variants of ourselves. None of them wholly us. None of them wholly not. A button from one shirt, a zipper from a boot, a pocket from favorite jeans -- little bits and pieces from each disguise is real, selected off that creature that is true. The real you, the real me.
The only us we really are.
An old friend said to me, “I realized I was agnostic when I was play-acting for God.” Meaning: When he prayed, he put on a persona.
I looked over at him, summer grass between us doing nothing to fill the hollow in his eyes, and said, “If He doesn’t exist than why would you hide from Him?”
Who am I?
I step into my closet and slide the slender straight-edge from my left boot. I work without speaking. Just the sound of thread and cloth slicing and coming free. A button from here. A sleeve there. A leather wristlet. A skirt. A pair of gloves, a silk scarf. I am taking the real pieces off all the costumes. I am taking back the real pieces and weaving them -- with spider webs, with moonlight, with the thin breads of your golden hair -- back into me.
When I wore a disguise, there was no chance anyone could hurt all of me. Only that one tiny part that I wore that day.
No more. Enough.
I want to wear myself when you look at me.
I want you to know me.
I don’t play-act for God.
Right.
All the roles we play for others, for ourselves. As time passes and we grow (more complicated or) older, we tend to create more and more of these personas, these suits of armor, these veneers. Finally we have a wardrobe full of shades and variants of ourselves. None of them wholly us. None of them wholly not. A button from one shirt, a zipper from a boot, a pocket from favorite jeans -- little bits and pieces from each disguise is real, selected off that creature that is true. The real you, the real me.
The only us we really are.
An old friend said to me, “I realized I was agnostic when I was play-acting for God.” Meaning: When he prayed, he put on a persona.
I looked over at him, summer grass between us doing nothing to fill the hollow in his eyes, and said, “If He doesn’t exist than why would you hide from Him?”
Who am I?
I step into my closet and slide the slender straight-edge from my left boot. I work without speaking. Just the sound of thread and cloth slicing and coming free. A button from here. A sleeve there. A leather wristlet. A skirt. A pair of gloves, a silk scarf. I am taking the real pieces off all the costumes. I am taking back the real pieces and weaving them -- with spider webs, with moonlight, with the thin breads of your golden hair -- back into me.
When I wore a disguise, there was no chance anyone could hurt all of me. Only that one tiny part that I wore that day.
No more. Enough.
I want to wear myself when you look at me.
I want you to know me.
I don’t play-act for God.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Cast & Seek
How often have you asked Christ to illuminate a path or provide an answer to guide you? I've found I do this so often it becomes subconscious, a kind of quiet interior dialogue. And I don't mean the clear and panicked, "Christ, help me, guide me, walk with me." Or even the plea for help that sometimes can rise up from where we stand at rock bottom. I mean that voice in your head, in your heart, in somewhere deeper, that whispers and asks and answers, to. The small and serious, "Should I? Can I? What's the first step?" Or even sometimes, "Dear Christ, why did I?!"
I have never been a passive Christian. When I preach, I preach in the middle of the established hypocrisy, in the face of the street-corner barker, in the places where I am most likely to be ridiculed, misunderstood, and disputed. I have no interest in being a martyr; I just I want the challenge, I want the adversity, I want to feel the world pushing back; I like to move things, shake things, and yes, be shaken.
Because if you rock my world? It just proves the strength of my foundation.
And when I running away? I'm not passive there either. Not even when I'm hiding from my faith, from my spiritual responsibilities, from everything else under Christ's open sky. If I'm hiding? I hide actively. I make a real go of it. I don't just step behind a rock, I dig a hole, crawl into it, and drop the rock over my own head. I make my eyes so blind that I don't see angels even when they're trying to slap some sense into me.
And trust me, it takes one heck of a slap to get me out of my hole.
Being active, living an active life -- or maybe I should say, an Active Life -- has a feeling that lives in my bones and muscles and informs the way that interior voice speaks to me. Whether I'm running into the light, running with the light,or running away from the light, I thrum with the act of doing, choosing, being aware of and active in every choice-and-response.
So when I ask my questions, like we all ask of Christ, I'm not passive. I don't wait. I don't sit back. I don't seek-and-find. I cast.
Mark shares Christ saying, "I will make you fishers of men." Every great fisherman knows the importance of casting. Are you aggressive, are you in or against the wind, the current, the tide? Are you patient? Are you passive or are you active? I like to cast out my question with hard work as my bait. I don't want to cast an empty hook and expect Christ to flip my answer up on my deck, already cleaned, cooked, and seasoned.
I'm willing to fight for my answer even when I have to fight myself.
I cast my question and then seek to find my catch. I don't cast and sit back. Fishing for answers is not a relaxing, soothed by the waves experience for me. If I ask, if I cast, I want Christ to know I'm willing to wrestle and land any marlin He gives me.
Even if I have no idea what I'll do with an answer that big.
I only know I can't meet that type of size with passive faith. Passive faith never did anything for anyone except put butts in pews... and there are no pews in my active life.
I have never been a passive Christian. When I preach, I preach in the middle of the established hypocrisy, in the face of the street-corner barker, in the places where I am most likely to be ridiculed, misunderstood, and disputed. I have no interest in being a martyr; I just I want the challenge, I want the adversity, I want to feel the world pushing back; I like to move things, shake things, and yes, be shaken.
Because if you rock my world? It just proves the strength of my foundation.
And when I running away? I'm not passive there either. Not even when I'm hiding from my faith, from my spiritual responsibilities, from everything else under Christ's open sky. If I'm hiding? I hide actively. I make a real go of it. I don't just step behind a rock, I dig a hole, crawl into it, and drop the rock over my own head. I make my eyes so blind that I don't see angels even when they're trying to slap some sense into me.
And trust me, it takes one heck of a slap to get me out of my hole.
Being active, living an active life -- or maybe I should say, an Active Life -- has a feeling that lives in my bones and muscles and informs the way that interior voice speaks to me. Whether I'm running into the light, running with the light,or running away from the light, I thrum with the act of doing, choosing, being aware of and active in every choice-and-response.
So when I ask my questions, like we all ask of Christ, I'm not passive. I don't wait. I don't sit back. I don't seek-and-find. I cast.
Mark shares Christ saying, "I will make you fishers of men." Every great fisherman knows the importance of casting. Are you aggressive, are you in or against the wind, the current, the tide? Are you patient? Are you passive or are you active? I like to cast out my question with hard work as my bait. I don't want to cast an empty hook and expect Christ to flip my answer up on my deck, already cleaned, cooked, and seasoned.
I'm willing to fight for my answer even when I have to fight myself.
I cast my question and then seek to find my catch. I don't cast and sit back. Fishing for answers is not a relaxing, soothed by the waves experience for me. If I ask, if I cast, I want Christ to know I'm willing to wrestle and land any marlin He gives me.
Even if I have no idea what I'll do with an answer that big.
I only know I can't meet that type of size with passive faith. Passive faith never did anything for anyone except put butts in pews... and there are no pews in my active life.
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