New Testament Christianity revolves around the Living Word. The word of Christ passed through direct revelation to the individual and passed down family lines and across lines. Dangerous, huh? Yep. Cuz, wow, some freakazoid could bust out with “Christ told me to.” Yeah, right. NTC folks don't have time to be sociopaths. We're supposed to be walking our impassioned path by sixteen, waking with dawn, praying twenty-four times a day, fighting the good fight, plus schooling our kids, ministering to our neighbors, defending strangers, cleaning our house, celebrating the temple of our bodies by making love with our spouse... geez! There's hardly time to *breathe,* let alone go nutty crackers and strategize some hate-mongering. Maybe the “Christian” Right (which are neither Christian nor right/correct) just need more to do.
Hey, Pastor Don up in Alberta? Your wife is hot. How about you go home and *minister* to her instead of preaching to your youth group that bashing gay boys is crazy cool fun and oh-so-freaking Christian? And when you're through? Clean your garage. Your prayers are getting stuck behind all the piles of old magazines.
Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
I decided to go to an open mike poetry slam thing because I wasn't sure what to do between 10 and midnight on a Saturday night since I get my rave on pretty much every day but Saturday. I don't watch tv. It was raining too hard to ride. And... they were giving away cash money prizes ;) NTC don't gamble and get very frowny about competition... but I'm a *practicing* NTC... not perfect yet.
The Cornerstone is a coffee shop with thirty types of coffee, a wall of exotic herbal teas and chai blends, and the smell of old books, fine leather wingbacks, ebony wood floors and hot, spicy drinks with full cream and honey. Owned by a Buddhist couple with matching stocks of white hair and always-inclusive smiles, the shop is dimly lit, blacks, browns and cherry, with small golden warm pools from stained glass lamps. I love it here. Where nobody knows my name.
The theme advertised for Saturday night is “New Christian Artists” and this is part of the Cornerstone's charm. They've had a poetry slam for pretty much every group of people imaginable from “Biker Poetry” Wednesday to “Transgender Voices” on Sunday at 9. I asked what they meant by “New” Christians when I stopped by on Thursday for a pound of decaf chai with coconut and hazelnut:
“Oh, we mean, poetry by *new* Christians. Not the *old* kind. The newer, better kind that are cropping up nowadays. ... We even have prizes!”
Oh :) Of course. And so, I decided to go.
I arrive an hour early with a good book and my printed poem. In a long, black skirt with fine gold embroidery and a creamy-gold blouse, I try not to walk like a biker chick. My engineer stompers have been traded for slim, knee-high boots with a tasteful heel and I've swapped my random wild hair and street jewelry for a loose French braid, small gold hoops, some rings (of course) and a tiny cross. There are only two other customers in the shop but the one my age smiles at me when I walk in. That performance MFA must have paid off after all.
I fill out the 3 x 5 card with my name and by-line:
Eliza Jean Angel
Painter, blogger, and game designer of “Mardi Gras 3000,” a far-future game with heavy Christian overtones. Everyone says she looks like this one actor. Her friends call her EJ.
I drop the card into the fishbowl and sink into a corner wingback with a honey latte and a cinnamon scone. I start to re-read a book about a beauty and a beast.
Christians come in all colors, shapes, sizes and styles. If you seriously don't accept this, in your heart and completely, than you haven't been reading my blog very long and you're attending church too often. Try being a missionary for one day -- say, Monday... no, Tuesday, that's more random. Try leaving the comforting homogenized politics that seep (creep?) under man's steeples, and actually speaking to people in the world. Strangers. A mom walking with her children. A young man trying to jimmy open his truck door when he's locked his keys inside. A teen in a leather jacket. A grandfather waiting alone for the bus. I speak more sentences to strangers every day than I do to people I know. Surprisingly, I've found that a good portion of them bust out with, “But didn't God give us a beautiful day today?” And when they don't... well, then I certainly do. “Gosh, Kenny, I don't think Christ wants you freakin' over your keys. How 'bout we just unscrew the back slider window and I shimmy in... if that doesn't work, we can always hit the wing window with a great big rock. Let's take a deep breath. It's all good with God.”
There's a nine foot grandfather clock in one corner of the shop that usually chimes on the quarter hour, a deep, almost mournful sound, but the chimes have been silenced for the event and so the time passes before I'm aware. But suddenly, it seems, my cup is empty, I'm on chapter eight, and the Cornerstone is *full* of people. Couples, singles, a group of eight. Maybe forty people in all. The shop is absolutely pushing fire-safety limits. There are three generations, seven nationalities and the whole range of skintones. It's as though representatives from every other poetry slam that the Cornerstone has ever hosted have shown up tonight. Yet there's a Twilight Zone quiet about the place, as though all sound exists on a different dimension. Then I become aware of a whisper... a rumor being passed between strangers and friends. I wonder.... I stand and offer my seat (even the folding chairs – which materialized at some point – are filled!) to a small woman holding a black and silver rosary. She accepts gratefully and squeezes my arm in thanks; Her hands are tiny and soft as rice paper.
I turn toward the door as Miriam walks in.
Miriam Sunchild is 6' even and whipcord thin, ropey with long, spare muscles. When I first heard her speak I was twelve and she had long black hair to her waist. Now it's just growing back – silver as sterling, just brushing her shoulders – after chemotherapy. She is Native American. In her late-forties. Some say she grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, but others say that desolate, tempering location is only a cover to protect her privacy and a truth more brutal. She and her partner – Helena Kerr, short and slender, twenty-two with short brown hair, pale skin and hyper-alert, protective eyes – are itinerant, nomadic. There are NTC families who take them in, in various locales, but mostly they are on the road, moving between college campuses, busy street corners and parks, any where, where Miriam might stop and speak. Simply stop, stand and speak. I even heard her open with that once:
“Stop. Stand. Speak. Bring them to Christ.”
Parking lots. Concert halls. The steps of cathedrals. Subway stations. Youth groups. In front of a McDonald's. Behind a baseball stadium. Never planned... and yet so many find her. Christ's Living Word but still just one woman (who insists she is no one and nothing) speaking without notes or preamble or preparation. Just a voice filling the silence.
Names are pulled from the fishbowl. A few people recite. My eyes are on Miriam. I'm glad I'm standing; NTC always stand to listen to the Word (See? We don't even get pews!). I wish I had a recorder. When I heard her speak on the UCLA campus one day, I scrawled quotes on the thighs of my jeans in black Sharpie. I wish that Helena had a camcorder and believed in YouTube.
Three poets in, the card is pulled and read:
Miriam Sunchild
Christian.
And this is it. There is no sound. Miriam never sat down but she pauses for a moment and just gazes ahead. Helena's eyes are on the audience, carefully looking at faces. I wonder what she's looking for. Miriam steps to the mic.
And the conversation continues:
“And this temple that Christ gave us? This body on loan. We are gifted this flesh and these bones by He who makes and remakes everything, everyone, every day. How do we service our temple? Do we fill it with filth – food, media, self-doubt – or do we tell ourselves that occasional abuse is fine? Occasionally it's acceptable to spit in the eye of God? To swear in the cathedral?
“I am not okay with dying tomorrow. In the halls of the hospital there are the ones that nurses call brave and calm and settled. They aren't actually going to die but they are at that place where they say, 'It's okay. I could go now.' God didn't make me this body to say, 'I'm ready to go.' God gave me this body to celebrate, to embrace, to embrace this life. He didn't put us here to let go. He put us here to fight hard and hurt and cry and scream and make love and shout His hallelujahs from every mountaintop, rooftop, at the top of our lungs. I am not okay with passing back into His arms because my work day is not yet done.
“I want to earn this gift. I am still saying 'thank you' to my Lord.
“A woman from a company saw me in the park. I stopped. I stood. I spoke. She asked me to come to the Center to speak at a celebration commemorating the legalization of gay marriage in California. Clearly she had no idea who I am, who is no one special but also no one's horse-and-pony show. She just wanted a speaker. Perhaps she thought a brown woman would be good publicity.
“I vote in the county in which I was born and in national elections for which we all owe our due. I vote for traffic lights and taxes and senators, for the men and women who should be our leaders. I do not recognize party lines. I vote along God's lines. And I could care less about man's laws.
“God made gay marriage legal when He made the universe. It is called love. God has never stopped anyone from falling in love with anyone else. God has never made it impossible for two people of any gender to raise healthy children, to support one another, to celebrate each other's bodies, to rejoice in the new dawn in your lover's eyes. To stay. With one person. Until death does not part you but only brings you forever together again.
“Marriage is a lifelong commitment and the legalizing of it for anyone is man's Earthly struggle not God's eternal struggle. I have no interest in speaking to this. What do I mind what man says about what certificates can be filed in my name? I have no interest in aping an system that creates immortality with written record. One heart. One love. Forever. Committed to one another in the eyes of God, my Lord, my Christ, my everything. Man can offer me tax breaks. God has already given us His blessing.
“Making gay marriage legal does not fix anything. It does not teach how partners should value and respect one another. It does not tell a young man to slow down for his young woman. It does not tell a masculine twenty year old woman how to respect the long hair and make up of her female lover. It does not teach that seeking drama in a partnership is a sin. That creating turmoil, having the last word, slicing at one another with glances or silences, is wrong. It does not teach us that despite what some denominations like to preach, we are owned by God and God alone, not by our partners. God shares but He does not allow His possessions to be owned by another. Marriage is in trouble. All marriage. It has become only what these organizations have fought for: Just a piece of paper.
“Man's marriage does not celebrate the body, the second greatest gift God ever gave us. Man's marriage celebrates the politics of desire. And I have no time for politics.”
There is a silence invaded only by the steady tock, tock of the grandfather clock... and... then... applause. Applause that resonants, that fills the space, that bounces off everyone there. And I see Miriam shaking her head, walking away from the mic, going to Helena's side, taking the offered glass of water. I'm not clapping. And there are others there who aren't either. Behind me someone murmurs, “Amen.”
And then my card is pulled. And read. And I can't make myself look at Miriam or Helena and I drop my printed poem into the recycle and take the hand-written poem out of the back of my book, the one I tucked there because it was secretive and secure, that poem I never shared with anyone before. I walk to the mic and somewhere between where I stood and there, I let down my hair.
“October 14, 2007. Untitled.
west of midnight
waves, wind
i'm dreaming
“Don't open it.”
“The couch? But the arms are--”
“Hard?”
“The couch? But the arms are--”
“Hard?”
your shirt, my jeans
my thighs, your hips
like soft sand
pale moonlight
you are cool to touch
even near the fire
“Did you hear...?”
“The ocean.”
“No. That.”
“My heart. Feel?”
“That's not your heart.”
“Close enough.”
“The ocean.”
“No. That.”
“My heart. Feel?”
“That's not your heart.”
“Close enough.”
i want to stay composed
my eyes betray me
“I love your eyes.”
“You make me shy.”
“Not your eyes.”
“You make me shy.”
“Not your eyes.”
i'm afraid i'll wake
my mouth along ridges of bone
your jaw, your collar
your ribs, your hip
you say my name
so steady, cool, blue
or silver
“You're unaffected?”
“I'm older than you are.”
“Not impressed?”
“Hardly.”
“Not interested?”
“I'm praying.”
“I'm older than you are.”
“Not impressed?”
“Hardly.”
“Not interested?”
“I'm praying.”
beneath me, you are bold
confident, precise
never still
your hands on my face
in my hair
across my shoulders
down my back
fingertips explore my spine
dear God...
“I can't find your wings.”
“Pretty primal right now. Not very divine.”
“I disagree.”
“Pretty primal right now. Not very divine.”
“I disagree.”
there's something about time
slowing down
please
speeding up
please no
something about the length of me
against the length of you
the way we fit
the way we don't
the way your white skin
blue eyes
burning gaze
meets my brown skin
brown eyes
open mouth
“I know what you want.”
“So do I.”
“So do I.”
a storm has blown across the sea
the heavy marine layer of clouds
dampens the cabin
encases it in sky
“Now.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
you're kissing me
your hands on my back
fingers wide
holding us together
my arms tucked beneath you
fingers tangled in thick, coarse hair
your knees come up
our bodies slide together
i try to keep my eyes open
but your mouth
unlike your cool-silver body
is hot
and i can't watch
my own control
escape as a murmur, a whisper
a breath, long held
i feel its slow rise
from my chest to your ears
but i can't stop it
“It's all right, baby.”
and i wake up
i wake up from dreaming
my whole life dreaming
i wake up and you're kissing me
i have brought you over
from the other side
from blue-shadow, quick-silver dreams
i wake up knowing
everything
“It's you.”
i press against you
you hum, a buzz
you're pleased
“There they are.”
your fingers
my back
“What?”
wind, waves
power
in your arms
“Your wings.”
And I walk away from the mic and Helena catches my hand. “Do you have a copy of that?” she asks me. Miriam touches Helena's shoulder. I meet her gaze. She smiles at me, gentle, serene. “No need,” says Miriam. She touches her head. “It's all right here.”
And I don't remember if there was applause. But I do remember that a sense of *celebration* filled the room.
E.J.
(Enjoy the chocolate cake, babygrrl. “Audience Choice” prize paid $50. I filled my bike tank then PayPal'ed $6 for Double Fudge. Monday's dessert is on me.)
