Today I went riding. The sun heated the back of my jacket and the snaps on my shoulders straps were hot by the time I pulled over to the burm that overlooked the sea. I held my helmet and just stood there, high above where I usually rail against the universe, asking Christ not “why” but rather to stand with me and allow me to hand myself over to His hands. Asking Him to see me alone, apart from any world I live in, just to be alone with my God. From that height, the water looked like a painting I might create if I felt the word “expansive” in my chest. The sky blended into the horizon line and made the two planes one. I thought of the art of geometry. I thought of the desire of physics. I thought of how dizzy I was and how it had nothing to do with vertigo and everything to do with the seventeen stitches in the side of my head.
I probably shouldn’t be handling 128 peak hp... but it’s been three days. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty much pushing the limits of my sanity; I’m more an every-other-day grrl ;) How can I avoid a baby described as “...not an innocuous, bland two-wheeled tool, but rather a machine that exudes a distinct personality, distilled into a potent essence. Nasty but playful; elemental yet futuristic; it's bad and it's good. And there's nothing else quite like it.” And if you think I’m talking about a Harley... go shave your beard.
Bumps, bruises, stitches... a flipping ton of bricks... *nothing* can keep me away from my Kawi. Exploring torque and gradations of speed, I find my Christ.
“Take me now. Here as I am.
Hold me close. Try to understand.
Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe.
Your Word is the banquet on which I feed.
Oh, my Lord, I know you understand.
The way I feel under your command.
They can’t hurt me now....
They can’t hurt me now.”
It was Wednesday, June 11, a generic day that started bland and uneventful. The previous night had been heated... a friend being played... and me not convinced, won over or reassured by the “solution” that just seemed another polka dance spot in a cosmic game of invalidating our children. Rode to work. Liked it. Felt good. Always feels good even when I’m riding because life (oh, paint me a tear) hurts.
Walked on set to a crew member say, “!@#$%, man! When did *rock ‘n’ roll* become prayer?!”
To which I answered, “When isn’t it?”
And there was a high-five, a wink and a peck on the cheek from ahandsome boy who just had his point made (out of context) and all wrapped up in chaps.
In make up I sat patiently, tapping my foot to my mp3s, not watching in the mirror as Kat and Tara made this brown grrl pink. I’ve never been good at averting my eyes from God’s work being undone but if I want to keep this job, than I best play along and study the blue and silver specks in the lino. (Yes, you know which set now, don’t you, Felicia? Proud of yourself? You done found me out, grrl. Now whatcha gonna do? Build a website? Post a YouTube? I can spell both cease *and* desist. Gee, grrl, missed you like a plague of locust.)
There was a stunt. I can do my own riding but not stunts. Liability. But I wanted to so bad. I was sneaky. I was sweet. I was subtle. I just suited up. Speaking of... a suit came trotting over (clippety clop, clippety clop). Shook his Gen X head of artfully shaggy locks. Little hand motion above his shoulder, he calls over a double, swapping me out. I grin. I joke. I slap fists with Rick and he goes to suit up. I watch him walking away... hold it.
“The ramp won’t hold Rick,” I call to the suit and then I look for Bobbi. Where’s Bobbi?
“It’s fine, EJ,” says the suit.
“Not fine, bubba,” says me.
“Not funny any more, EJ. Rick is doing the stunt. You’re walking a line.”
“I’m...” And this gamer grrl just stands there. Just... stands there. That heat rising from my belly... filling my chest. “Where’s Bobbi?”
But Bobbi has been pulled aside to be lectured about being too permissive. Rick is walking toward me. The suit snaps, “Rick? You fine with this?”
Rick looks between us. Cocks his head at me. Then, “Fine, Peter. Fine.”
“Don’t hit the ramp, Rick,” I say.
“Enough, (my first name)!” And bubba and I have a staring contest while Rick keeps his job security and swings his leg over the bike. The stunt is: Pop the ramp, catch a bit of air, spin left, lay her low, shoot along a real brick backdrop.
Ignition.
“Christ, be here...” I know He always is. “Christ...”
Rick hits the ramp but pop does not occur. Bust comes with a crack when the back wheel summits. No turn. Dumping her is *not* the same as laying her low. Rick grinds her across the asphalt with its guide lines, and she hits both wheels at the same time into the bottom of the faux wall (real bricks but only one layer or two).
All at once:
“Fire!” But there’s no fire.
“Get Johnson!” Fire marshal.
“Get Walter!” Paramedic.
“Is he conscious?”
“Is he—”
“Angel!” Bobbi screams, not knowing about the swap.
“The tank, man! The !@#$% tank!”
And people start running
*away*
except for Bobbi, screaming; except for me, running to Rick.
...
“And this,” I say then and now, wanting so badly to hold them both, those women I keep in my heart like flames and dawn. “This is that New Testament Christian belief. To give when no one is watching. To give when it does nothing for ourselves. To speak in quiet, one on one, when there is no one else to marvel at your wit and courage and flipping *drama.* This is that love I feel for you. This is that thing I bring to your table. That I didn’t ask for this, for any of this. I didn’t set out to write, to preach, to do anything in the light. I wanted only to walk in those shadows of safety cast for me by my Lord, to walk in this belief, to give when I have nothing. To give when it risks *everything.* To be no one and nothing and do everything in honor of our Christ....
“Can’t you see how everything else baffles and infuriates me?
“Isn’t it apparent when Christ did not stand, four days before, and say, ‘Let me announce that Judas will fail us all, yes, Judas there, standing right there, he’s the one. Traitor and coward. What a failure, yet still I love him! And I, I shall perish on their cross, and the pain will be great, but I am brave, so brave and will survive to rise again.’ Isn’t it apparent that all I want is to redefine Christian into what it is meant to be? Like Christ. Uncompromising and *controlled.* Uncompromising and *unconditional.* Uncompromising and removed from man’s most destructive behaviors. “Christ” as a verb. To stand, to shut our mouths, to embrace each other in darkness and silence, in only the eyes of our God.”
To run forward when everyone else is running away.
...
Rick is dazed but unhurt. The tank is intact. The engine is still warm. We push at the bike, unthinking. Seconds, literally, have passed. I kneel to him. He is shaking his head, reaching up to remove his helmet when the wall comes down.
Walking two hours into the unknown darkness... Watching while a partner dies slowly... Opening that door, that night, to see a stranger gazing at me... Sometimes we accept faith and change effortlessly. Other times, it hits us like a ton of bricks.
I remember the sound of bricks hitting my head and my head hitting the bike as the same sound but they must have happened a second apart. But I remember the sound as instantaneous. The feeling of being crushed. Of first impact followed by weight and secondary impacts that weren’t as bad. I think being stoned would be worse because the first rocks wouldn’t create an armor against the following ones.
I think: Christ as my armor.
I think: It ripped off my ear.
I hear: Stand up!
So I stand up.
...
“Pain,” I say then and now. “Pain is always a good thing. It stops us short. It makes us remember that these bodies are on loan. When it hurts to give, I know that was the right time to give. Christ didn’t hedge His bets. Christ gave. It’s the right thing to do. I know, because sometimes, it hurts.
“Life, by default, is hard. If it’s easy, you’re not walking an impassioned path. Catch up! ‘Hard’ doesn’t mean rife with sickness or financial hardship, btw. It means *hard*... it means, falling on your knees for Him. It means tearing open your chest to allow Christ to remake your heart. You strip away the stupidity. There is no death bed conversion. There is only now. Living now.”
The first time I broke my arm (fighting) my father held me while my mother drove to the hospital. He whispered to me, “You did the right thing. You just weren't quite big enough, Angel. Some day you will be. But for now... for now the pain reminds you that you survived, that you fought hard, and that you did as asked by Christ to do.” I was nine. I was never taught to turn the other cheek if the cheek being struck wasn’t my own. And even then... “Thou shalt not suffer tyrants, liars or thieves.” I could talk for *days* (weeks!) on what man can steal from another man... and a tv or a dvd player are no where on the list. New Testament Christianity is a warrior’s Christianity. A Christianity intended for the End Times.
You said to me, “I don’t like you seeing pain as a good thing.” And, of course, I don’t. Not pain like sadomasochism or martyrdom. Not pain as in tough love, shove them out into the world. I’m talking about joy that is indistinguishable from heartbreak because it fills the chest with a pounding, roaring sensation that God enabled on the day of our creation. This love I feel for you does hurt. And no number of sweet messages or bouquets of flowers or great white canvases or midnight promises will ever change that. The pain in my shoulders, back, head, is *mortal* pain. Passing and temporary. Change is painful. Growth is painful. The greatest joy begins as an ache. The mortal body has a unlimited range of sensation that unfolds with exploration and life. But some of that sensation just *hurts.* And it is *nothing* compared to the pain of being constantly remade by our Lord in order to love you. These stitches? They remind me that I'm strong and alive. That I can survive anything because now I have you in my life.
...
Rick is standing in his undershirt, holding his t-shirt to my head, saying my name again and again. The blue shirt turns brown. I smile at him, “What after-shave do you use?” And Bobbi laughs as she wraps herself around me and starts to guide me to the waiting car. Rick is attached to my head somehow. He won’t laugh yet but he will later when he and his wife bring me flowers and little chocolates in the shape of bricks.
We pass a sign on the way to the hospital: “If God is your copilot, you need to switch seats.” And suddenly I’m railing against (blind and dis)organized religion.
“Oh, of course! Of course! Because Christ should always be driving, right? Because He really wants to control us so completely so we have no free will so we’ll just be steered right through heaven’s big pearly gates! Sweet gracious, what a truck load! ‘I spanked my kid...’ but only because Christ was driving. ‘I bashed the freaking *homosexual*...’ but only cuz my Bible told me so. Like Christ wants us on autopilot?! Christ at the wheel... oh that’s just so stupid I wanna vomit... actually... seriously... someone open a window...”
And now Rick is laughing. And then, at his baffled face, his first exposure to my faith, Bobbi hands him her business card with my blog address written on the back. Starting to feel a little light-headed, I make up my mind to visit vistaprint.com and gets me some of them there calling cards. Sometime.
...
“Bobbi contacted me. I was so scared for you! Really, Angel. Love, are you okay?!”
“Yeah, baby, yeah. Really. I'm fine. It was just an accident. I got beat up briefly by a wall, that's all."
“... You do understand that you are the only person ever who could say that and be serious?”
Yeah, baby. I understand. Completely.
EJ
