bioslexis = the living word
zoiaudien = the living voice
christos = christ
christolexis = word of Christ
christakousis = actively hearing Christ
christakouian = one who actively hears Christ
(Greek)
“And the radio up...”
I love rain. When I lived in the Pacific Northwest, hiking the Olympic National Forest every weekend, I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven. I can guarantee that my life behind the Pearly Gates will include redwoods and fat, warm raindrops drenching my hair and skin and making my leather jacket shine like armor.
... What? Of *course* there are leather jackets in heaven! Don’t be ridiculous ;)
It is always raining when I write my blog. If not from the skies than from my mp3 player. Either ambient harp with storm sounds laid not-so-gentle beneath warm strings played by a lover’s hands, or the steady tapping of rock ‘n’ roll, pure and full of itself, thrumming against my ear drums. That sound of digital, virtual, lyrical rain carries me forward, allows me to lose and find myself like when you whisper, “Touch me...”
It is in those moments that the curtains fall away and the wizard, my sweet Lord, is revealed.
Let’s go there now... shall we, Trolley?
Everywhere, everyone was talking about Madonna and Mariah Carey. Their new albums dropped in April. It was a “show down”! It was a “return to form”! It was a maelstrom of press releases, baby. It was *news.*
Actually, it was a joke. Because for all the media coverage and hype, for all the buzz and awareness, Kid Rock’s “Rock n Roll Jesus” out stripped them a gazillion units with no rumble in the aisles controversy (other than for the music itself). Maybe it’s because he’s actually not so coifed and air-brushed that he’s interesting to look at on YouTube music videos? Or perhaps because he’s actually saying something.
“Simplify, testify, identify, rectify...”
Over on the Mardi Gras 3000 forum, a member posts: “I am not a denomination. I am not a joiner. I have a system of beliefs that are very strict and very strong. I believe in them and not in what a church says. If the church I attend right now were to change it’s stand on the fundamental issues – on any of the issues! – that I believe in, I would leave. I follow God. Not man.”
I have had people ask me: “You have very conservative members on your forum. And very liberal members. How do you balance that?”
I always smile. Simplify, testify, identify. I am far more conservative than most people think I am. I am startlingly set in my ways. Unbelievably rigid in matters of the heart and body and soul. Somehow, perhaps because God speaks to them above the banter of man, the conservative members on the forum read these truths about me, finding them between the lines of diplomatic chatter and poetic license.
But I am also very aware of my limitations. I am mortal. I am not divine. I am not God. This makes me a liberal. Not following? Let me explain: I do not believe that a direct translation of ancient Hebrew texts, written by the hands of man, studied by men’s minds, and (most especially) preached from men’s pulpits, can tell me the word of God. The word – the Word – is either Living Word or man’s word. The historical context and survivalist reasoning behind much of man’s scripture is understandable. But you know what? I still wear mixed fabrics. I don’t think women shouldn’t be touched during their cycle. And I don’t believe that God only wants us to have sex to make babies. However... I do believe that sex should only occur between someone you would raise children with ;) Aren’t I complicated? *smooch*
I turn questions over to God like people turn pages in a book. I make my decisions from the voice of my Christ in my heart (which is not always what I want to hear) and not the blinders-on murmurings of undereducated, sheltered, cloistered, ignorers of science, nature and the biology of the universe.
There is a dichotomy here, of course. I was just talking with a friend about the importance of knowing when to *stop* looking for answers. When to accept on *faith* (faith being something never proven beyond a shadow of a doubt) that which we embrace in our hearts. I have to know when to close the book or the browser window, nod my head and say: I don’t need to “know” that... I already *know.*
I was raised to learn. Not for drama or proof or to satisfy my human curiosity, to deconstruct or feed my doubt, but rather to grow as a child of Christ, to find Him. Only and always, first and foremost, Him. To educate my mind. To read. To research. To take that step further. It was a natural impulse for me. Whether I was processing the connection between desire and rebirth by reading Calder, or exploring the nature of time and dimension with Pickover, it explained my world. It made it so very clear that this universe – beyond our solar system and within our own bodies – is so much more complex and mysterious than any straight-forward evolutionary track alone can ever explain. The more science I knew... the more my Lord was shown to me.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain...” But that’s the only attention I want to pay.
Faith: Where did humans come from?
Me: From single-celled itty bitties.
Faith: Where did the itty bitties come from?
Me: A great big bang in the universe.
Faith: Where did the great big bang come from?
Me: God.
Faith: Who made God?
Me: God.
Faith: He’s always been here?
Me: Yep.
Faith: And He goes on and on again?
Me: Uh-huh.
Faith: Like numbers.
Me: Yes. Forever.
What is the glue that holds our diverse forum together? God.
The more complicated answer: The human desire, across any and all walks of life, to explore the nature of morality, mortality and the face of God.
The more subtle answer: We are drawn together and stay together because we are dedicated to a singular vision that has room for us all. We are dedicated to this country of vision. The sweetest patriotism.
Now I could sit here (okay, actually, right now, I’m standing with a FlipStart, thumb typing but whatev) and say: If you believe in acceptance, in embracing all human beings – regardless of race, gender, sexuality, nationality or economics – as equal peers, than guess what? You’re a Christian. Because Christ said we are *all* His children. I could say it, but I’m really quite obsessively not interested in labels (see last week’s blog). Like, to the extreme. For instance:
I’ve always considered myself a New Testament Christian. I happened to Google it one day. It led me to an interesting place. You see (prepare for an insightful aside), Google is a wonderful tool... but also a very misleading and dangerous one because everything and anything can be made to look legitimate. I have found personal photos of myself, taken by a friend, uploaded to a Photobucket account, and then right-clicked and PhotoShop’ed by strangers to place me in Maui when I was standing in Alaska. I have read quotes I (kinda) said two years ago at a festival, printed as things I reportedly said yesterday. I have accepted awards on days I was home in bed with a cold... that I picked up at the awards ceremony two weeks prior.
Back to the label...
I found a nice community of twenty- and thirty-something NTC folks from all over the U.S. and I was lightly chatting with them about the election and some general politics. My blog URL was listed in my profile and my signature block and someone asked me about it. I drifted away from that forum (time just didn’t allow) but then, this last Thursday I got an email.
Did you know that “New Testament Christian” is a “legally recognized denomination based in Graham, Washington” and I guess they (or someone posing as representing them) are not entirely down with my blog. So... I dug more. Turns out, the trademarked, copyrighted, patent pending phrase I’ve used *all my freaking life* to describe my approach to faith, has nothing to do with me. As a matter of fact, the pastor-as-prophet methodology that I so *adamantly* stand against is rampant in NTC(C of A).
So... I’ve got my Cease & Desist from the church of man. Gee. Why am I not surprised?
But now, what am I? At our forum (the MG3K forum, I mean) we have Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Rapturists, atheists, religious cosmologists and angelogists, ... the list goes on. It seemed so easy to just use a label. But guess what? In the end, the label was as one dimensional as the word of man. And I – what I am... what *all* of us are – am as far from one dimensional as divinity can take us. Christ did not mean for us to condense ourselves into MySpace Q&As or even eHarmony personality profiles.
The meaning of the word Christian is “belonging to Christ.” It comes from the Greek word, christianos, from, of course, χριστός -- Christos. It means nothing else. And right now, for me, that seems enough. I want fewer labels and more faith. I want to be defined by my actions and my beliefs. I want to be hard to compartmentalize. I want to play hard to get.
My little island, in our country of vision, just lost all her road signs. The “You Are Here” display? Was just swallowed by the rainforest. And you know what? I like it much better here now.
Wings: I don’t want to be a label.
Me: You only have to be one.
Wings: Hm?
Me: You. You just have to be Wings.
“Open up your mind and start to live...
Give a little bit more than you got to give.”
EJ
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Dot.Line.Square.Cube.Christ
...or...
Why Life is Multidimensional and Labels Aren’t
There’s something about... being alive. Something about that realization that you’ve woken up to a new day that just isn’t the same as the old day no matter how sweet the old day was. Just when you think it can’t get any better, your fingertips turn stones into chocolates and roses into pre-dawn whispers.
An interviewer said, “Give me a fun fact.”
I shrugged: “I have four tattoos.”
“Okay.” He jots that down. He’s not impressed. Not fun enough, I guess.
I sip my Coke Zero with Cherry. “Wings, a cross, fish skeleton and a strawberry,” I add.
He says, “Cool.” but doesn’t look up. He’s twenty-two. Gamer boy with long hair and thick eyebrows over ice-blue eyes. He’s wearing a shirt that reads, “The Bronze” It makes me smile.
I squint my eyes. I lean back in my chair. “I’m a New Testament Christian. Fight-clubber. Raver. Non-smoking, non-drinking, non-swearing gamer chick. Eight piercings.”
He looks up with a snap that’s almost audible. He squints *his* eyes. Gaze darts. “Seven.” He has counted the studs and d6 earrings in my ears.
“Hm...” I grin... unbuttoning my collar, smoothing out the cotton. My hand falls to rest on my Kawasaki belt buckle. “Eight.”
And he writes a *very* good review. Starts with “There’s something about Eliza Jean...”
Yeah, *something*... who knows what it is, but there’s somethin’ ;)
I am sitting in a Starbucks in Los Angeles thinking about a nightclub in Kosovo, then wondering about the back-room deals manufactured in another club in Moscow shaped by the needs of the working man and paid for with the make-believe of five nineteen year old “dancers” who I have come to care about.
“Because the Night” shakes my eardrums, earbuds in. I rewrite some of the lyrics, as I’m apt to do, and I smirk. Christ has cast me in a shape and made me with a voice that speaks primarily to the generation just after mine (or so reviewers claim). The New Boomers, more plentiful than the first Boomers, and not so much the same as the old day, or the old boss. And yet here I am, bobbing my head to the music of their parents. Born in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, they are more eclectic than I often give them credit for but I never underestimate their influence – “prime demographic” isn’t just about marketing dollars. Prime, if one looks at the Latin root, means: Mind-blowing
“On my knees, baby, tell me what can I do?
I had a dream, for a moment I believed it was true.
I’d have given anything
just to be there with you.”
I’m studying my pumpkin scone and steaming hot cup’a when I realize that any industry that makes it smexy for adults to drink hot beverages out of cups with sippy lids is destined to succeed. There is no stopping the caffeine trade; The delivery devices are just way too back-to-the-womb, abdicate RL, might as well roll nude in mash potatoes, mac ‘n’ meatloaf, comfort-food welcoming. Every adult in this Starbucks looks stoned and really, really happy. Several look so severely buzzed that they might explode into dark roasted beans.
I have an insane desire to stand on the table and kiss you. (Don’t worry. The cup’a is decaf ;) Though my hearty laugh is absolutely infectious.)
I finish my drink, snarf my scone and grab my helmet from under the table. There’s a moment when my cheeks burn (people watching) then helmet is on and I’m out into the anonymous night.
“I think of flying down into a sea of pens and feathers
and all other instruments of faith and sex and God.
Lay me down in a field of flame and heather.
Render up my body into the burning heart of God.”
We’re talking about the rest of the world. Outside of our friendship -- which is comprised of stolen grins spread across twelve hundred miles and – shh! – secrets that only us and Christ share – the rest of the world seems slightly less satisfying than we learned about in health class. What is *with* the rest of the world? *smirk* Are they... out of synch? Bad dub? How come everything makes sense to us? Politics, love, death, faith, music, sex, resistance, revolution, sickness... and yet everyone else swallows intolerance and homogeny poppers with chasers of lazy ignorance. What is *up* wit’ that, Wings?! I mean... *geez* ... *wicked grin* ;)
“It got better,” you tell me. “It evened out.”
I raise one eyebrow. Yeah, often hell does ease up occasionally. Easy to get better when it was the worst it could be. “At least it didn’t rain toads or locust,” I laugh.
“There may have been locust...” you admit.
I chuckle but I hope you’re claiming poetic license... goodness knows, I certainly do.
I’ve come to think of reality as layers of strata. They build over time, sometimes laying down for me, allowing me easy access to run my palms over open planes, other times, folding and twisting like temptress curves, escaping easy study. I live here (You Are Here <--) and it is just one strata in the stripes of this time. My strata has everything laid bare on her surface. She’s tattooed and pierced and delightfully, wickedly donned in leather and silk or sometimes buck naked. She wears expensive wild rose perfume and calls everyone “babe” but only “baby” for one... or two ;) From this strata, I can see Christ as a ripped, handsome warrior. His handprint is here over my heart. His signature is all over the fine science of this only green world. If I open my own eyes (instead of man’s book... or Book) He shows me everything I need.
My strata is, magically, four dimensions of sparkly fun. Oh look! A liopleurodon.
“I dream of rain. I dream of God.
I dream of love as time runs through my hand.
I dream of fire. I wake in vein.
I realize that nothing is as it seems.”
You may know exactly what I’m talking about. (Or you may have moved on to Paris Hilton’s blog.) It’s the idea that what makes perfect sense to you and me, seems completely out of reach from the general smarmy masses. Why is it that logic escapes your parents? Why is it that Mr. Suit-and-Tie stares at your Star Trek shirt and scoffs? Why is it that “geek” and “nerd” and “grrl” are distasteful words in the bottom-half of our country? How come “Christian” is synonymous with “bigot”? Where is the big, juicy manifesto of preconceptions (prejudice = to pre-judge like an idiot) that got handed out but you and I didn’t get it and wouldn’t have read it even if had?
I crack open a paperback of...
Jeannette Winterson
Richard Calder
Joanna Russ
Charles Stross
Camille Paglia
Neal Stephenson
...and I wonder if I put them all into my backpack at once if they’d tear each other apart like opposing-type Digimon or perhaps spontaneously combust like when you murmured, “Guide my hands, baby,” and I fell off my motorcycle and almost hit a mailbox.
This dimension, this layer of strata that we exist on, where it’s intelligent to discuss game theory and to play games, to be a parent, to lose yourself to music, to pray on your knees, to exchange vows in private, to cruise the school librarian, to drink chai and blush... this is a dimension where divinity is living poetry and all men are not just created equally but treated equally. This is a dimension where math is sexy:
Me: See, here's the deal... math is naturally very sexy. Because math is one of the ways that God gave us to celebrate our bodies and our minds. Everything I ever needed to know about making love I learned from math: Always balance a complex, delicate equation equally on both sides before continuing; Take your time and always show your work; If things get tricky, talk yourself through it; Every theorem can be tested with enough attention to detail and gentle persistence; Time is relative to the action and reaction of forces. I think you and I may be able to skip addition and subtraction... maybe even skip multiplication and division... and jump right into algebra and geometry and physics. Something about testing equal forces, balancing equations and measuring open planes just really appeals to me.
You: If I’d had you as my math teacher I would have taken AP.
Me: If you’d had me as your math teacher this would be illegal.
And I can’t help but wonder if math is this cool on any other strata or if everyone else is just humming to “Whiskey for My Men, Beer for My Horses” and making “Yay Yay for McCain” banners from rolls of paper towels.
“This circus is falling down on its knees...”
On my strata, scripture is: "And behold, my love, my now and forever, that when I step into your embrace beneath the new dawn sky, that I am stepping into the arms of our Christ, for together our two bodies celebrate His life, His death, His resurrection and eternity. For not in creation but in passion did Christ walk this Earth and bide His time. Bide time with me, my love. Now and forever."
“May angels lead you in...”
On my strata, scripture is: "As the sun sets and rises, as the rose opens and closes by His unseen hand, so is the power of His presence in our lives. Unseen but always visible. As believers we must always remember that proof is the opposite of faith and faith is the eyes open as much as the heart open. For as in nature, so in Christ. For as moves the universe, so moves the soul. Mirrors of fractal base elements. The foundations of space, time, life, divinity. And there is nothing more natural than my love for you.”
“Poor is the man
whose pleasure depends
on the permission of another.”
And on my strata it all boils down to: Life is multidimensional, shades of fiduciary colors, and easy classification, rout definitions and simple black-and-white labels are not.
You say to me, “Am I corrupted?”
I look aghast and brush your hair off your barcode tattoo. “Corruption is the manipulation of God's desires to fit man's limited mind. Passion and defiance are pages out of Christ’s book, not man's.”
You are not a label. You are Christ’s own. Period. He doesn’t need to shove us into cubby holes because He is all knowing and all seeing and pretty much freaking awesome in every possible way and so He can grasp the big stuff and the tiny stuff. And the unknown or “nonstandard” stuff doesn’t phase Him because, you know, He’s *Christ.* But sometimes society and sometimes parents get scared and they like labels because then they can Google how to treat the label (like dry clean only) and be loving and supportive or tough lovey or just tough or whatever. They try very hard but, in the end, they are clueless. A little less clueless than their parents before them but still eons more clueless than our heavenly father. Christ knows that you, of course, are you. Just you. Specifically, contextually, you. A brilliant creature. A startling mind. A person who has claimed their sexuality as their own not to be controlled or dictated by tradition which is, by definition, a dying thing. You desire who you desire in life, from a lover, whatever. You do not say, “Oh no, no. *She* has breasts!” or “Not *him,* his butt is just too small.” You do not say, “I can’t read *that*!” or “I can’t think about *this!*” What matters to you is the honest truth that lies in your genes, the paths that time and Christ have laid for you. He made our bodies and hearts and minds very delicately. Very complex. He didn’t say: “I have made you this way... now put yourself in check!” *snap* Your only label: You. All other labels are politics.
And all those other strata? The one and two dimensional ones? The strata populated by masses of mob mentality revelers who swarm to single-minded preachers or politicos? Those strata may be out of synch with ours, but they are valid to the overall presentation of our era. Our time period, our snapshot of universal history, is made from all of these layers of contrasting, comparing, opposing stripes. And amen, PTL for that!
Winterson writes that the strata of time is like the pages of a book. The pages of all our books, written and bound and touched and read. All together they tell a story of our place in space and time. They whisper our existence.
That being the case, we must admit that even blind ignorance adds to the grander picture. Our immortal record, as captured in these layers, would not be complete without a strata or two of one dimensional idiots wearing wide ties.
Hey, isn’t diversity great?
;)
EJ
Why Life is Multidimensional and Labels Aren’t
There’s something about... being alive. Something about that realization that you’ve woken up to a new day that just isn’t the same as the old day no matter how sweet the old day was. Just when you think it can’t get any better, your fingertips turn stones into chocolates and roses into pre-dawn whispers.
An interviewer said, “Give me a fun fact.”
I shrugged: “I have four tattoos.”
“Okay.” He jots that down. He’s not impressed. Not fun enough, I guess.
I sip my Coke Zero with Cherry. “Wings, a cross, fish skeleton and a strawberry,” I add.
He says, “Cool.” but doesn’t look up. He’s twenty-two. Gamer boy with long hair and thick eyebrows over ice-blue eyes. He’s wearing a shirt that reads, “The Bronze” It makes me smile.
I squint my eyes. I lean back in my chair. “I’m a New Testament Christian. Fight-clubber. Raver. Non-smoking, non-drinking, non-swearing gamer chick. Eight piercings.”
He looks up with a snap that’s almost audible. He squints *his* eyes. Gaze darts. “Seven.” He has counted the studs and d6 earrings in my ears.
“Hm...” I grin... unbuttoning my collar, smoothing out the cotton. My hand falls to rest on my Kawasaki belt buckle. “Eight.”
And he writes a *very* good review. Starts with “There’s something about Eliza Jean...”
Yeah, *something*... who knows what it is, but there’s somethin’ ;)
I am sitting in a Starbucks in Los Angeles thinking about a nightclub in Kosovo, then wondering about the back-room deals manufactured in another club in Moscow shaped by the needs of the working man and paid for with the make-believe of five nineteen year old “dancers” who I have come to care about.
“Because the Night” shakes my eardrums, earbuds in. I rewrite some of the lyrics, as I’m apt to do, and I smirk. Christ has cast me in a shape and made me with a voice that speaks primarily to the generation just after mine (or so reviewers claim). The New Boomers, more plentiful than the first Boomers, and not so much the same as the old day, or the old boss. And yet here I am, bobbing my head to the music of their parents. Born in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, they are more eclectic than I often give them credit for but I never underestimate their influence – “prime demographic” isn’t just about marketing dollars. Prime, if one looks at the Latin root, means: Mind-blowing
“On my knees, baby, tell me what can I do?
I had a dream, for a moment I believed it was true.
I’d have given anything
just to be there with you.”
I’m studying my pumpkin scone and steaming hot cup’a when I realize that any industry that makes it smexy for adults to drink hot beverages out of cups with sippy lids is destined to succeed. There is no stopping the caffeine trade; The delivery devices are just way too back-to-the-womb, abdicate RL, might as well roll nude in mash potatoes, mac ‘n’ meatloaf, comfort-food welcoming. Every adult in this Starbucks looks stoned and really, really happy. Several look so severely buzzed that they might explode into dark roasted beans.
I have an insane desire to stand on the table and kiss you. (Don’t worry. The cup’a is decaf ;) Though my hearty laugh is absolutely infectious.)
I finish my drink, snarf my scone and grab my helmet from under the table. There’s a moment when my cheeks burn (people watching) then helmet is on and I’m out into the anonymous night.
“I think of flying down into a sea of pens and feathers
and all other instruments of faith and sex and God.
Lay me down in a field of flame and heather.
Render up my body into the burning heart of God.”
We’re talking about the rest of the world. Outside of our friendship -- which is comprised of stolen grins spread across twelve hundred miles and – shh! – secrets that only us and Christ share – the rest of the world seems slightly less satisfying than we learned about in health class. What is *with* the rest of the world? *smirk* Are they... out of synch? Bad dub? How come everything makes sense to us? Politics, love, death, faith, music, sex, resistance, revolution, sickness... and yet everyone else swallows intolerance and homogeny poppers with chasers of lazy ignorance. What is *up* wit’ that, Wings?! I mean... *geez* ... *wicked grin* ;)
“It got better,” you tell me. “It evened out.”
I raise one eyebrow. Yeah, often hell does ease up occasionally. Easy to get better when it was the worst it could be. “At least it didn’t rain toads or locust,” I laugh.
“There may have been locust...” you admit.
I chuckle but I hope you’re claiming poetic license... goodness knows, I certainly do.
I’ve come to think of reality as layers of strata. They build over time, sometimes laying down for me, allowing me easy access to run my palms over open planes, other times, folding and twisting like temptress curves, escaping easy study. I live here (You Are Here <--) and it is just one strata in the stripes of this time. My strata has everything laid bare on her surface. She’s tattooed and pierced and delightfully, wickedly donned in leather and silk or sometimes buck naked. She wears expensive wild rose perfume and calls everyone “babe” but only “baby” for one... or two ;) From this strata, I can see Christ as a ripped, handsome warrior. His handprint is here over my heart. His signature is all over the fine science of this only green world. If I open my own eyes (instead of man’s book... or Book) He shows me everything I need.
My strata is, magically, four dimensions of sparkly fun. Oh look! A liopleurodon.
“I dream of rain. I dream of God.
I dream of love as time runs through my hand.
I dream of fire. I wake in vein.
I realize that nothing is as it seems.”
You may know exactly what I’m talking about. (Or you may have moved on to Paris Hilton’s blog.) It’s the idea that what makes perfect sense to you and me, seems completely out of reach from the general smarmy masses. Why is it that logic escapes your parents? Why is it that Mr. Suit-and-Tie stares at your Star Trek shirt and scoffs? Why is it that “geek” and “nerd” and “grrl” are distasteful words in the bottom-half of our country? How come “Christian” is synonymous with “bigot”? Where is the big, juicy manifesto of preconceptions (prejudice = to pre-judge like an idiot) that got handed out but you and I didn’t get it and wouldn’t have read it even if had?
I crack open a paperback of...
Jeannette Winterson
Richard Calder
Joanna Russ
Charles Stross
Camille Paglia
Neal Stephenson
...and I wonder if I put them all into my backpack at once if they’d tear each other apart like opposing-type Digimon or perhaps spontaneously combust like when you murmured, “Guide my hands, baby,” and I fell off my motorcycle and almost hit a mailbox.
This dimension, this layer of strata that we exist on, where it’s intelligent to discuss game theory and to play games, to be a parent, to lose yourself to music, to pray on your knees, to exchange vows in private, to cruise the school librarian, to drink chai and blush... this is a dimension where divinity is living poetry and all men are not just created equally but treated equally. This is a dimension where math is sexy:
Me: See, here's the deal... math is naturally very sexy. Because math is one of the ways that God gave us to celebrate our bodies and our minds. Everything I ever needed to know about making love I learned from math: Always balance a complex, delicate equation equally on both sides before continuing; Take your time and always show your work; If things get tricky, talk yourself through it; Every theorem can be tested with enough attention to detail and gentle persistence; Time is relative to the action and reaction of forces. I think you and I may be able to skip addition and subtraction... maybe even skip multiplication and division... and jump right into algebra and geometry and physics. Something about testing equal forces, balancing equations and measuring open planes just really appeals to me.
You: If I’d had you as my math teacher I would have taken AP.
Me: If you’d had me as your math teacher this would be illegal.
And I can’t help but wonder if math is this cool on any other strata or if everyone else is just humming to “Whiskey for My Men, Beer for My Horses” and making “Yay Yay for McCain” banners from rolls of paper towels.
“This circus is falling down on its knees...”
On my strata, scripture is: "And behold, my love, my now and forever, that when I step into your embrace beneath the new dawn sky, that I am stepping into the arms of our Christ, for together our two bodies celebrate His life, His death, His resurrection and eternity. For not in creation but in passion did Christ walk this Earth and bide His time. Bide time with me, my love. Now and forever."
“May angels lead you in...”
On my strata, scripture is: "As the sun sets and rises, as the rose opens and closes by His unseen hand, so is the power of His presence in our lives. Unseen but always visible. As believers we must always remember that proof is the opposite of faith and faith is the eyes open as much as the heart open. For as in nature, so in Christ. For as moves the universe, so moves the soul. Mirrors of fractal base elements. The foundations of space, time, life, divinity. And there is nothing more natural than my love for you.”
“Poor is the man
whose pleasure depends
on the permission of another.”
And on my strata it all boils down to: Life is multidimensional, shades of fiduciary colors, and easy classification, rout definitions and simple black-and-white labels are not.
You say to me, “Am I corrupted?”
I look aghast and brush your hair off your barcode tattoo. “Corruption is the manipulation of God's desires to fit man's limited mind. Passion and defiance are pages out of Christ’s book, not man's.”
You are not a label. You are Christ’s own. Period. He doesn’t need to shove us into cubby holes because He is all knowing and all seeing and pretty much freaking awesome in every possible way and so He can grasp the big stuff and the tiny stuff. And the unknown or “nonstandard” stuff doesn’t phase Him because, you know, He’s *Christ.* But sometimes society and sometimes parents get scared and they like labels because then they can Google how to treat the label (like dry clean only) and be loving and supportive or tough lovey or just tough or whatever. They try very hard but, in the end, they are clueless. A little less clueless than their parents before them but still eons more clueless than our heavenly father. Christ knows that you, of course, are you. Just you. Specifically, contextually, you. A brilliant creature. A startling mind. A person who has claimed their sexuality as their own not to be controlled or dictated by tradition which is, by definition, a dying thing. You desire who you desire in life, from a lover, whatever. You do not say, “Oh no, no. *She* has breasts!” or “Not *him,* his butt is just too small.” You do not say, “I can’t read *that*!” or “I can’t think about *this!*” What matters to you is the honest truth that lies in your genes, the paths that time and Christ have laid for you. He made our bodies and hearts and minds very delicately. Very complex. He didn’t say: “I have made you this way... now put yourself in check!” *snap* Your only label: You. All other labels are politics.
And all those other strata? The one and two dimensional ones? The strata populated by masses of mob mentality revelers who swarm to single-minded preachers or politicos? Those strata may be out of synch with ours, but they are valid to the overall presentation of our era. Our time period, our snapshot of universal history, is made from all of these layers of contrasting, comparing, opposing stripes. And amen, PTL for that!
Winterson writes that the strata of time is like the pages of a book. The pages of all our books, written and bound and touched and read. All together they tell a story of our place in space and time. They whisper our existence.
That being the case, we must admit that even blind ignorance adds to the grander picture. Our immortal record, as captured in these layers, would not be complete without a strata or two of one dimensional idiots wearing wide ties.
Hey, isn’t diversity great?
;)
EJ
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Clubbing, Carl and Binary
The sky is velvet and dark as your eyes, pupils dilated with desire. I stop at the light, red like blood, like the “no, stop” you won’t make me hear tonight, and I stare at the expanse of my Christ above me. My helmet comes off before I can think. The night is cold. Hair tumbles out; I feel it hit the back of my jacket. I can already hear the music. Bass line. Guitar riff taking me there. Baby... take me there.
Green light.
Hm. The last few streets, one more left (always seems to be a left to reach you, lover) and I’m rocking her into her stand, checking my helmet and jacket at the door.
“Hey, Ron...”
“Hey, Angel.”
“Crowd?”
“Sweet.”
Past the tables. I’m watching the new velvet of darkness. No stars here. Oh wait. Maybe there are, but shh, baby, that’s our little secret, isn’t it? Strobes are red purple blue green, slow and languid, then spastic with synch. I think of college and NYC and the clubs where I first really danced. I think of Boston, fake IDs, wanting to move like Amalia Ramos, the older sister of my boxing buddy, with her two kids and no husband, and two jobs and no car. Watching her lose everything except the beat-beat-thump of the music shaking the speakers, vibrating through my bones. The time she caught me watching, said, “Come here, Angel...” back before it was my name, and, fingertips on the small of my back, our hips locked together like two Lego bricks (hers women’s hips, mine narrower than her Bantamweight brother’s), I was unable to look at anything other than the hollow between her collar bones where the little gold cross hung. Until the third song when I closed my eyes.
I am thinking of you now. It’s raining where you are. The sky is heavy and low. I imagine driving those backroads, laying my bike low on slick roads. Enjoying the shake of risk. That tremble of the machine I love. Or it is the trembling in my body?
Ten years later. Ten years after dancing with Amalia, watching her turn on every boy in the club and knowing she was doing it. Hey, look, two chicks... it was unexpected a decade ago in a straight club in Boston. No trouble. Not with Amalia. She’d pick one lucky, brown-eyed stallion to take her home. I’d be the one left dancing, content with my new abandon.
“That’s a good girl, Angel...” she whispered, but her eyes were on someone else which is why mine were closed.
A decade after learning to dance, to move among strangers like water, like something warm, molten. To feel muscle and bone and blood and worries and life and culture, become simple beats, no more than verses in a continuing song, unable to wear me down, unable to bend or break me. Because, baby, I can dance all night then blink up at dawn, drive home still humming with this frequency of desire.
“Hiya, Angel.”
*eyes closed*
“Can I get you a Coke’n?”
“Dancing now, Carl.”
“Right. Yeah. So—”
“Dancing, Carl. Not listening.”
And this is my Neutral Hour, ’cept I’ve scored myself some Celestial contraband biotech and slipped the timestream to stretch this hour into four, five... six and eight. Carl smells like nutmeg and coconut because his mama makes these awesome cookies that he consumes in great quantities to keep up his 6’2” ultra whipcord frame. His favorites have raisins, too. His mama is proud to have a son whose a programmer. Carl is proud that he taught himself to dance. I’m proud to call Carl my friend.
The song changes, blends into another. Hard back bone, loud drums, incoherent vocals with reverbing techno bouncing off the walls back at me. I think about binary. I think about jokes about binary. I laugh out loud to myself and then grab Carl’s arm. He leans down, his dreads falling forward as he offers me his ear. I shout to be heard, “There are only 1 0 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.”
Carl laughs. Carl always laughs at my jokes. “I have that shirt. It’s green.”
And we dance.
I don’t think Carl would understand how I think about you. I don’t think Carl has ever thought about a woman the way I think about you. To Carl, his mama is the only woman he’ll ever need. I consider, while raising my arms, rolling my hips, that if I could break you down into binary, Carl would nod sagely and we’d understand one another perfectly. If I broke it down, took you down, along graph paper lines, outlined the politics of desire, the theorems of chaos that carried me to this place... if I showed my work... if I made a pie chart or a bar graph or did an indepth contrast/compare of the sound of you losing your voice to my suggestion of hands on hips, on fly of jeans, to the whisper of prayers in the midnight hour that enfolds and embraces every heartbeat until dawn breaks over us like the rapture... then Carl might get it.
Carl said once: “I read your blog, Angel. I liked the one about God Particles. But I don’t really get the religion ones.” And beneath his Caribbean complexion, Carl blushed deep then sipped his Coke’n’Cream, confused by his own reaction.
We dance. When some *** snaps a picture, Carl growls and snatches the camera even before Ron grabs the noob by the collar and throws him out onto the street. The crunch of a $200 camera beneath Carl’s black engineer boot with the silver binary scrawl is so satisfying. Parts go skittering off the dance floor. I’d kiss him but he wouldn’t get it. Instead I laugh, free and clean and alive, and grab his hands, guiding us deeper into the mix. We dance – and Carl is a great dancer, always 1.7 inches away from every part of my body – my fingers hooked into his belt loops. Our smiles are identical. We might be twins.
A familiar song comes on, remixed on the fly with a harder bottom line. Carl cocks his head, “Blog song.” He says, perfect memory for facts and figures and what cookies taste best. I nod. “Yeah, blog song.” Because all my friends – across three continents – call them that.
We sip our Coke’ns. I sit, my Converse propped on the rung of the table, my rings clicking out rhythms on the table top. Carl stands. His head bobs. He looks at me, not quite directly. Which is cool and familiar to me.
“You chart out your blogs? Like an outline.”
I shake my head no.
“You just have a blank screen, page?”
I nod yes.
Carl makes a sound of interest, like your “hmm” but a little bit different. He looks at me, suddenly startled with his own thought. “You could just write something right now?”
I look at the table top. I think of Bri so far away. Her writing me a message just to tell me I rocked. I asked her why. She tapped out, “Cuz you write her a story every night!” I trace a circle on the condensation of my Coke’n. The deep brown mixing with the white cream isn’t the best visual for platonic thoughts. I grin.
“There is this black velvet night, buttoned up with stars. Every time I blink, I see you there. A constellation legend, a map of my journey home. The geography of moonlight casting your body like stardust and benedictions across my skin. There is a warm weight in the palm of my hands and I can’t stop shaking. I taste you sweet like wild strawberries. Salty with happy tears. Warm like new sunshine in the pit of my stomach. Hot summer blush across my chest. Your spring rain falls gentle, G-rated admissions, casual submissions to my desire, your compromise a shrug, standing on a foundation of prayer.”
I look up from my glass. Carl is smiling.
“You’re so random, Angel.”
And, laughing, we move back to the dance floor.
EJ
Green light.
Hm. The last few streets, one more left (always seems to be a left to reach you, lover) and I’m rocking her into her stand, checking my helmet and jacket at the door.
“Hey, Ron...”
“Hey, Angel.”
“Crowd?”
“Sweet.”
Past the tables. I’m watching the new velvet of darkness. No stars here. Oh wait. Maybe there are, but shh, baby, that’s our little secret, isn’t it? Strobes are red purple blue green, slow and languid, then spastic with synch. I think of college and NYC and the clubs where I first really danced. I think of Boston, fake IDs, wanting to move like Amalia Ramos, the older sister of my boxing buddy, with her two kids and no husband, and two jobs and no car. Watching her lose everything except the beat-beat-thump of the music shaking the speakers, vibrating through my bones. The time she caught me watching, said, “Come here, Angel...” back before it was my name, and, fingertips on the small of my back, our hips locked together like two Lego bricks (hers women’s hips, mine narrower than her Bantamweight brother’s), I was unable to look at anything other than the hollow between her collar bones where the little gold cross hung. Until the third song when I closed my eyes.
I am thinking of you now. It’s raining where you are. The sky is heavy and low. I imagine driving those backroads, laying my bike low on slick roads. Enjoying the shake of risk. That tremble of the machine I love. Or it is the trembling in my body?
Ten years later. Ten years after dancing with Amalia, watching her turn on every boy in the club and knowing she was doing it. Hey, look, two chicks... it was unexpected a decade ago in a straight club in Boston. No trouble. Not with Amalia. She’d pick one lucky, brown-eyed stallion to take her home. I’d be the one left dancing, content with my new abandon.
“That’s a good girl, Angel...” she whispered, but her eyes were on someone else which is why mine were closed.
A decade after learning to dance, to move among strangers like water, like something warm, molten. To feel muscle and bone and blood and worries and life and culture, become simple beats, no more than verses in a continuing song, unable to wear me down, unable to bend or break me. Because, baby, I can dance all night then blink up at dawn, drive home still humming with this frequency of desire.
“Hiya, Angel.”
*eyes closed*
“Can I get you a Coke’n?”
“Dancing now, Carl.”
“Right. Yeah. So—”
“Dancing, Carl. Not listening.”
And this is my Neutral Hour, ’cept I’ve scored myself some Celestial contraband biotech and slipped the timestream to stretch this hour into four, five... six and eight. Carl smells like nutmeg and coconut because his mama makes these awesome cookies that he consumes in great quantities to keep up his 6’2” ultra whipcord frame. His favorites have raisins, too. His mama is proud to have a son whose a programmer. Carl is proud that he taught himself to dance. I’m proud to call Carl my friend.
The song changes, blends into another. Hard back bone, loud drums, incoherent vocals with reverbing techno bouncing off the walls back at me. I think about binary. I think about jokes about binary. I laugh out loud to myself and then grab Carl’s arm. He leans down, his dreads falling forward as he offers me his ear. I shout to be heard, “There are only 1 0 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.”
Carl laughs. Carl always laughs at my jokes. “I have that shirt. It’s green.”
And we dance.
I don’t think Carl would understand how I think about you. I don’t think Carl has ever thought about a woman the way I think about you. To Carl, his mama is the only woman he’ll ever need. I consider, while raising my arms, rolling my hips, that if I could break you down into binary, Carl would nod sagely and we’d understand one another perfectly. If I broke it down, took you down, along graph paper lines, outlined the politics of desire, the theorems of chaos that carried me to this place... if I showed my work... if I made a pie chart or a bar graph or did an indepth contrast/compare of the sound of you losing your voice to my suggestion of hands on hips, on fly of jeans, to the whisper of prayers in the midnight hour that enfolds and embraces every heartbeat until dawn breaks over us like the rapture... then Carl might get it.
Carl said once: “I read your blog, Angel. I liked the one about God Particles. But I don’t really get the religion ones.” And beneath his Caribbean complexion, Carl blushed deep then sipped his Coke’n’Cream, confused by his own reaction.
We dance. When some *** snaps a picture, Carl growls and snatches the camera even before Ron grabs the noob by the collar and throws him out onto the street. The crunch of a $200 camera beneath Carl’s black engineer boot with the silver binary scrawl is so satisfying. Parts go skittering off the dance floor. I’d kiss him but he wouldn’t get it. Instead I laugh, free and clean and alive, and grab his hands, guiding us deeper into the mix. We dance – and Carl is a great dancer, always 1.7 inches away from every part of my body – my fingers hooked into his belt loops. Our smiles are identical. We might be twins.
A familiar song comes on, remixed on the fly with a harder bottom line. Carl cocks his head, “Blog song.” He says, perfect memory for facts and figures and what cookies taste best. I nod. “Yeah, blog song.” Because all my friends – across three continents – call them that.
We sip our Coke’ns. I sit, my Converse propped on the rung of the table, my rings clicking out rhythms on the table top. Carl stands. His head bobs. He looks at me, not quite directly. Which is cool and familiar to me.
“You chart out your blogs? Like an outline.”
I shake my head no.
“You just have a blank screen, page?”
I nod yes.
Carl makes a sound of interest, like your “hmm” but a little bit different. He looks at me, suddenly startled with his own thought. “You could just write something right now?”
I look at the table top. I think of Bri so far away. Her writing me a message just to tell me I rocked. I asked her why. She tapped out, “Cuz you write her a story every night!” I trace a circle on the condensation of my Coke’n. The deep brown mixing with the white cream isn’t the best visual for platonic thoughts. I grin.
“There is this black velvet night, buttoned up with stars. Every time I blink, I see you there. A constellation legend, a map of my journey home. The geography of moonlight casting your body like stardust and benedictions across my skin. There is a warm weight in the palm of my hands and I can’t stop shaking. I taste you sweet like wild strawberries. Salty with happy tears. Warm like new sunshine in the pit of my stomach. Hot summer blush across my chest. Your spring rain falls gentle, G-rated admissions, casual submissions to my desire, your compromise a shrug, standing on a foundation of prayer.”
I look up from my glass. Carl is smiling.
“You’re so random, Angel.”
And, laughing, we move back to the dance floor.
EJ
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Civilizing Force
It seems that typographical errors are very popular among my readership. They show I'm "flawed and human" even "refreshing real." I'm pleased to oblige; I haven't met a spell-check yet that I can't stump.
Today was somewhat surreal. Traveling for work, shooting new pages on location, I feel unexpectedly uprooted. This may be because last week was difficult. I learned I don't do well without my lover which is new for me. (And new for most of you as well since my hp says relationship status "single" LOL) It's new for me because I'm one of those calm, cool and collected chicks who usually can kinda take 'em or leave 'em and who understands that life is full of time apart, alone and chill with it all. I came to realize that I was never actually in love before. That the things I missed were things that have become part of who I am -- like praying, like math, like breathing -- things I can't live without. And five days? Yeah. That was four days too long.
So now I'm on the road. And I grabbed my fold up easel and a small canvas and kit on my way to the airport. I'm doing a piece for a friend, a dear friend. For her aunt actually. And I brought it with me. I'm painting in the hotel room. I have my smock. Covered in paint. Knock on the door. My director.
Him: What are you wearing?
Me: What do you want?
Him: Call at 5.
Me: Yeah.
Him: You need to look fresh.
Me: ...
Him: Not like today.
Me: *shutting door in his face*
Him: *grabbing my shirt tail* I'm talking to you.
And the event unfolds in that way that surreal events unfold. And it ends with me sitting on the foot of my hotel bed, stitching an eight inch long tear in my smock. My hands are shaking so hard. And I'm not sure if it's from anger or fear or just from the drug called surrealism that appears to be pumping through my veins.
Me: I feel like the rest is a dream.
You: I know what you mean.
Me: That this, here, now... with you... is real.
You: Hmm.
Me: The only thing that's real.
And the song plays on my mp3 player but my headphones aren't in:
now that I know what I'm without
you can't just leave me
breathe into me and make me real
bring me to life
And I watch the equalizer image on the face of the gadget rise and fall and rise again and again, and I think to myself, as I shake and prick my thigh with the hotel needle, "How freaking pathetic."
But I suppose typos aren't the only thing that keep me human. And, dear Lord, I do want to be human.
One put it on a pedestal...
and left it there.
A crew member on set handed me a calling card. It's fashioned after black leather with white bold letters. He smiled. He shrugged. He muttered, "I printed 5000." He walks away. I look down.
Gamer Grrl in Small Doses
http://ejangel.blogspot.com/
...the pastor you always wanted...
I don't even know his name. I think it's Paul. I'm not sure. How do I take this?
I realize that I can't mend the shirt. I pull the thread taut and the fabric rips. I always tell you I'll be gentle. Tonight I don't seem to be able to pull it off. I'm bleeding on my black and white Batz Maru boxers. Did I answer the door in my boxers? I must have. But I don't remember.
I'm eating dinner in the hotel restaurant. I email a friend. I miss her. I tell her so. I carefully share life details. I tell her truths about praying for her and thinking of her. I type slowly. I don't want to... I'm not sure. Be too honest. Be too much. I want her to like me. I want her to anchor me. To be a constant like the North star. Then, abruptly, I pm another friend. I don't understand what I'm doing until I click "Send":
I'm so lost. Come be with me?
See what happens when I try so hard to be careful? "Life is R-rated," this same friend argued recently. Then I donned a "Guest" avi (male) and went and saw her dance at a club, talking up the patrons with a R-rated wit, no touching allowed... it's VR after all. I stayed across the room. Three paid "exotic dancers." Guaranteed of age. Smart. Mature. They are the only women in the room. Verified and quantified. I feel... nothing. I feel a void. I close my screen. I stare into the dark hotel room. This is a person I was once in love with. I know that now because of that same sense of missing that I feel now for you. This is a person that I see now as a... what? Older sister? Mother? Ex-lover (though we didn't)? And I feel... still.
Bits and pieces of conversations, shared and first-hand, drift to me:
"There, in that quiet, with the children, before the fire, we sat at the center of a tempest and there was stillness."
"The hugs were weird. I think she misses them."
"...I miss her hugs."
"Who can I turn to? Who can I talk to?"
"Why? Of all people why is this happening to her?"
"When I tell you I want you. I mean it. In so many ways, Angel."
"Do you think they'd miss me if I were gone? Do you think they'd be okay?"
"Go thy way. For he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name..."
Voices (some I have never heard) haunt me. I imagine images on cards of how I am seen by my world. I want to be the punk Christian version of Bradley Trevor Greive that startlingly so many blog subscribers tell me I am. I want to be th desexualized, gender-neutral, happy-go-lucky grrl that rolls with life like a Big O or a rounded off missing piece.
I want to go see "Religulous" and marvel at Larry Charles' seamless direction of delightfully scathing Bill Maher's deconstruction of everything that I hold sacred... because he's not. He's skewering the heinous corruption that man does in the name of *their* God who is nothing like my God at all. Bill is tearing down the facade of denomination...
Oh my gosh. And there it is. The control. The forcing into a box. The marginalization of the human soul, of the passion (not of Christ) but of our lives.
The heart of why I sat today not knowing what to write... knowing that Christ would just take me there.
Me: I can't believe I just told you that.
You: I liked it. Very much.
Me: *blush*
You: I hate it when you self-edit.
We try so hard to compartmentalize and control and reign in everything around us. We want our children to be quiet and calm and clean. We want our hearts to be focused and pure. Our lives to be routine. We want our Sunday blogs on Sunday (man's time). We want our pastors unemotional and steady as the rocks they can pretend to be.
We want our game designers on pedestals where we can leave them when we have real life to attend to.
I want to go see "Religulous" with strangers. I want to walk out into the lobby afterwards and laugh my skinny butt off about the ineptitude of the religious convention and not have to worry whose feelings I'm going to hurt or whose sensitivities I'll offend. I want to publish cartoon strips featuring the Robo Pope with the shiny red shoes. I want to blow off work and fly to Washington just long enough to take you in my arms and kiss you like I have thirty thousand times in my head, to hear you gasp my name into my hair... then take your roommate raving with the fake ID Tommy in Tacoma can whip up in fifteen minutes flat.
I don't want to be Bradley Trevor Greive. I want to be the Big Bad. I want--
Someone is knocking on the hotel room door. I look through the peep hole. It's Bobbi. I unchain and unlock and open the door. Bobbi looks at me. A moment passes. "Angel?" she holds something black and silky out toward me. "Why was Joseph's tie stuck in your door?"
I blink. I blink again. I shrug and I love... *love*... the feeling of the smirk that spreads across my face like the Grinch when his heart was still two sizes too small. "God's will be done," I whisper. And I take the tie from her hand and invite her in for a Coke.
I'll drop the tie in the mail, baby. Share, okay?
EJ
Today was somewhat surreal. Traveling for work, shooting new pages on location, I feel unexpectedly uprooted. This may be because last week was difficult. I learned I don't do well without my lover which is new for me. (And new for most of you as well since my hp says relationship status "single" LOL) It's new for me because I'm one of those calm, cool and collected chicks who usually can kinda take 'em or leave 'em and who understands that life is full of time apart, alone and chill with it all. I came to realize that I was never actually in love before. That the things I missed were things that have become part of who I am -- like praying, like math, like breathing -- things I can't live without. And five days? Yeah. That was four days too long.
So now I'm on the road. And I grabbed my fold up easel and a small canvas and kit on my way to the airport. I'm doing a piece for a friend, a dear friend. For her aunt actually. And I brought it with me. I'm painting in the hotel room. I have my smock. Covered in paint. Knock on the door. My director.
Him: What are you wearing?
Me: What do you want?
Him: Call at 5.
Me: Yeah.
Him: You need to look fresh.
Me: ...
Him: Not like today.
Me: *shutting door in his face*
Him: *grabbing my shirt tail* I'm talking to you.
And the event unfolds in that way that surreal events unfold. And it ends with me sitting on the foot of my hotel bed, stitching an eight inch long tear in my smock. My hands are shaking so hard. And I'm not sure if it's from anger or fear or just from the drug called surrealism that appears to be pumping through my veins.
Me: I feel like the rest is a dream.
You: I know what you mean.
Me: That this, here, now... with you... is real.
You: Hmm.
Me: The only thing that's real.
And the song plays on my mp3 player but my headphones aren't in:
now that I know what I'm without
you can't just leave me
breathe into me and make me real
bring me to life
And I watch the equalizer image on the face of the gadget rise and fall and rise again and again, and I think to myself, as I shake and prick my thigh with the hotel needle, "How freaking pathetic."
But I suppose typos aren't the only thing that keep me human. And, dear Lord, I do want to be human.
One put it on a pedestal...
and left it there.
A crew member on set handed me a calling card. It's fashioned after black leather with white bold letters. He smiled. He shrugged. He muttered, "I printed 5000." He walks away. I look down.
Gamer Grrl in Small Doses
http://ejangel.blogspot.com/
...the pastor you always wanted...
I don't even know his name. I think it's Paul. I'm not sure. How do I take this?
I realize that I can't mend the shirt. I pull the thread taut and the fabric rips. I always tell you I'll be gentle. Tonight I don't seem to be able to pull it off. I'm bleeding on my black and white Batz Maru boxers. Did I answer the door in my boxers? I must have. But I don't remember.
I'm eating dinner in the hotel restaurant. I email a friend. I miss her. I tell her so. I carefully share life details. I tell her truths about praying for her and thinking of her. I type slowly. I don't want to... I'm not sure. Be too honest. Be too much. I want her to like me. I want her to anchor me. To be a constant like the North star. Then, abruptly, I pm another friend. I don't understand what I'm doing until I click "Send":
I'm so lost. Come be with me?
See what happens when I try so hard to be careful? "Life is R-rated," this same friend argued recently. Then I donned a "Guest" avi (male) and went and saw her dance at a club, talking up the patrons with a R-rated wit, no touching allowed... it's VR after all. I stayed across the room. Three paid "exotic dancers." Guaranteed of age. Smart. Mature. They are the only women in the room. Verified and quantified. I feel... nothing. I feel a void. I close my screen. I stare into the dark hotel room. This is a person I was once in love with. I know that now because of that same sense of missing that I feel now for you. This is a person that I see now as a... what? Older sister? Mother? Ex-lover (though we didn't)? And I feel... still.
Bits and pieces of conversations, shared and first-hand, drift to me:
"There, in that quiet, with the children, before the fire, we sat at the center of a tempest and there was stillness."
"The hugs were weird. I think she misses them."
"...I miss her hugs."
"Who can I turn to? Who can I talk to?"
"Why? Of all people why is this happening to her?"
"When I tell you I want you. I mean it. In so many ways, Angel."
"Do you think they'd miss me if I were gone? Do you think they'd be okay?"
"Go thy way. For he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name..."
Voices (some I have never heard) haunt me. I imagine images on cards of how I am seen by my world. I want to be the punk Christian version of Bradley Trevor Greive that startlingly so many blog subscribers tell me I am. I want to be th desexualized, gender-neutral, happy-go-lucky grrl that rolls with life like a Big O or a rounded off missing piece.
I want to go see "Religulous" and marvel at Larry Charles' seamless direction of delightfully scathing Bill Maher's deconstruction of everything that I hold sacred... because he's not. He's skewering the heinous corruption that man does in the name of *their* God who is nothing like my God at all. Bill is tearing down the facade of denomination...
Oh my gosh. And there it is. The control. The forcing into a box. The marginalization of the human soul, of the passion (not of Christ) but of our lives.
The heart of why I sat today not knowing what to write... knowing that Christ would just take me there.
Me: I can't believe I just told you that.
You: I liked it. Very much.
Me: *blush*
You: I hate it when you self-edit.
We try so hard to compartmentalize and control and reign in everything around us. We want our children to be quiet and calm and clean. We want our hearts to be focused and pure. Our lives to be routine. We want our Sunday blogs on Sunday (man's time). We want our pastors unemotional and steady as the rocks they can pretend to be.
We want our game designers on pedestals where we can leave them when we have real life to attend to.
I want to go see "Religulous" with strangers. I want to walk out into the lobby afterwards and laugh my skinny butt off about the ineptitude of the religious convention and not have to worry whose feelings I'm going to hurt or whose sensitivities I'll offend. I want to publish cartoon strips featuring the Robo Pope with the shiny red shoes. I want to blow off work and fly to Washington just long enough to take you in my arms and kiss you like I have thirty thousand times in my head, to hear you gasp my name into my hair... then take your roommate raving with the fake ID Tommy in Tacoma can whip up in fifteen minutes flat.
I don't want to be Bradley Trevor Greive. I want to be the Big Bad. I want--
Someone is knocking on the hotel room door. I look through the peep hole. It's Bobbi. I unchain and unlock and open the door. Bobbi looks at me. A moment passes. "Angel?" she holds something black and silky out toward me. "Why was Joseph's tie stuck in your door?"
I blink. I blink again. I shrug and I love... *love*... the feeling of the smirk that spreads across my face like the Grinch when his heart was still two sizes too small. "God's will be done," I whisper. And I take the tie from her hand and invite her in for a Coke.
I'll drop the tie in the mail, baby. Share, okay?
EJ
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Why Stephen Hawking is Wrong
It seems I have heard or read a dozen times the (probably misquoted) Hawking quote, “If in the future, we have mastered time travel, than where are all the time travelers?”
Whether or not Hawking said this, or some version of this, is even less relevant than today's (entirely meant to provoke) title. The real question is not, “Is time travel possible?” But rather, “What is time?”
“Is there really a witching hour?” Faith asks. She is six years old, strong-willed as an ox, tough as nails, and likes to use words like “teleport,” “supposedly,” and “actually.” She asks pointed questions that are framed around her real thoughts (which she only reveals after she has processed the answers) and devises new questions from the nuances of any response. Five times a day I wish she were my daughter. Six times on Sundays.
Of course, Faith (named after the vampire slayer... or the power of belief... her parents disagree on which) has already ascertained that there is no hour when witches and other creatures roam the mortal realm with malice toward the mundane world. She's asking for the historical context, an explanation for why in heaven and Earth such a spooky name like Witching Name ever came to be. She wonders, her little hands on her hips, did the Witching Hour creatures go extinct? And if so, is there a guide book with drawings of orc, eld, goblin and witch fossils?
It all returns to time. Was there a time – a time that is not this time now – when midnight was different? Then. Now. Time is a magical construct – man-made, man-honed. Time is the gearwork veneer of our existence. We know it has no baring, that it is a self-defeating design, fickle to our plights. We have all the time in the world. We're running out of time. Time flies. Time stops. Time is a straight line, an arrow, a ray of light (even they bend)...
Time is a blanket, warm and heavy, wrapped around our shoulders against cold winter. Time to a force. It is a song we hear to comfort ourselves. It is a tool we use to measure when a ruler won't do. Interestingly enough, both time and the straight line are mad-made.
Time is not real. Existence is real. But tick tocks are just life, forced into heart-shaped muffin tins. The sun rises and sets. The Earth spins. None of that is time.
So let's argue that time is a gift from God. A thing of nature instead not the thing that we all normally accept, the man-made thing. Let's argue that time is nonlinear (God didn't make any straight lines) and that traveling God's time is logical and instinctual. Effortless. We can go back to any point. We can even go forward, if we are still enough for the journey. What if all the gray matter in our brains is simply storage space for time travel? Blank disk space on which to burn a massive collection (though not infinite) of time traveling maps. What if memory – triggered by sensation – is time?
What do people remember, what did they see, that they named it the Witching Hour? That is what little Faith is actually asking. And when her brother says, upon stepping outside and smelling the fresh sea on the wind, “I see La Push.” he doesn't mean he can suddenly see 100 miles through forest and mountains to the ocean, but rather that the scent of the nearby Puget Sound has triggered his time travel map and he is teleported to the place he loves. And the flood of memories from that place becomes his time travel adventure. In that moment, with the key turned on, he has access to memories of his special place that he didn't have before he stepped into the sea-rich wind.
My good friend, Ninja, says to me one evening: I was just taking a shower. Nice long one. Relaxing. You know how showers are. But... but suddenly everything changed. The lateness of the night, the hotness of the water, the still-silence of the house... I was back *there.* I was with *him.* It was bad. I was alone. I was certain if I stepped out of the shower I would be stepping out into *that* place... that time.
Because time is part of us. Nature. And sometimes nature does horrible things.
It may take practice to time travel, to access those maps in your brain. It may be so easy it happens forty times a day. Every traveler is different. The places you go may be joyous. They may be dark. I know that I have both. Sometimes I even go back to places that make me blush or that embarrass me or that fill me, like my Ninja, with dread and fear. But always I relish these places. Every one of them... even the one where, standing over me, they said: She's gone. She's not here.
Even the one where you told me you loved me in French and I thought you said, “I like you very much.”
The thing with time travel is that we can't always control it. The triggers, the keys, might be any of our senses... or even things we can determine. But here's a secret from on traveler to the next. Once we recognize what this is – a gift from God – we can shape it. We can associate new maps with triggers.... we can burn over old maps, save over those paths and rewrite the destination. It can be done.
Just think of Christ as a perfect tool. That awesome indelible pen that can write over anything... and yet, on the end? There's a great big eraser, too. Tr easure the places you love. Visit those locales often and write travel logs of your adventures -- old and new. Explore new ideas that come from each visit. And as for those cities you don't care for so much? Remove them from the itinerary.
A fellow traveler,
EJ
Whether or not Hawking said this, or some version of this, is even less relevant than today's (entirely meant to provoke) title. The real question is not, “Is time travel possible?” But rather, “What is time?”
“Is there really a witching hour?” Faith asks. She is six years old, strong-willed as an ox, tough as nails, and likes to use words like “teleport,” “supposedly,” and “actually.” She asks pointed questions that are framed around her real thoughts (which she only reveals after she has processed the answers) and devises new questions from the nuances of any response. Five times a day I wish she were my daughter. Six times on Sundays.
Of course, Faith (named after the vampire slayer... or the power of belief... her parents disagree on which) has already ascertained that there is no hour when witches and other creatures roam the mortal realm with malice toward the mundane world. She's asking for the historical context, an explanation for why in heaven and Earth such a spooky name like Witching Name ever came to be. She wonders, her little hands on her hips, did the Witching Hour creatures go extinct? And if so, is there a guide book with drawings of orc, eld, goblin and witch fossils?
It all returns to time. Was there a time – a time that is not this time now – when midnight was different? Then. Now. Time is a magical construct – man-made, man-honed. Time is the gearwork veneer of our existence. We know it has no baring, that it is a self-defeating design, fickle to our plights. We have all the time in the world. We're running out of time. Time flies. Time stops. Time is a straight line, an arrow, a ray of light (even they bend)...
Time is a blanket, warm and heavy, wrapped around our shoulders against cold winter. Time to a force. It is a song we hear to comfort ourselves. It is a tool we use to measure when a ruler won't do. Interestingly enough, both time and the straight line are mad-made.
Time is not real. Existence is real. But tick tocks are just life, forced into heart-shaped muffin tins. The sun rises and sets. The Earth spins. None of that is time.
So let's argue that time is a gift from God. A thing of nature instead not the thing that we all normally accept, the man-made thing. Let's argue that time is nonlinear (God didn't make any straight lines) and that traveling God's time is logical and instinctual. Effortless. We can go back to any point. We can even go forward, if we are still enough for the journey. What if all the gray matter in our brains is simply storage space for time travel? Blank disk space on which to burn a massive collection (though not infinite) of time traveling maps. What if memory – triggered by sensation – is time?
What do people remember, what did they see, that they named it the Witching Hour? That is what little Faith is actually asking. And when her brother says, upon stepping outside and smelling the fresh sea on the wind, “I see La Push.” he doesn't mean he can suddenly see 100 miles through forest and mountains to the ocean, but rather that the scent of the nearby Puget Sound has triggered his time travel map and he is teleported to the place he loves. And the flood of memories from that place becomes his time travel adventure. In that moment, with the key turned on, he has access to memories of his special place that he didn't have before he stepped into the sea-rich wind.
My good friend, Ninja, says to me one evening: I was just taking a shower. Nice long one. Relaxing. You know how showers are. But... but suddenly everything changed. The lateness of the night, the hotness of the water, the still-silence of the house... I was back *there.* I was with *him.* It was bad. I was alone. I was certain if I stepped out of the shower I would be stepping out into *that* place... that time.
Because time is part of us. Nature. And sometimes nature does horrible things.
It may take practice to time travel, to access those maps in your brain. It may be so easy it happens forty times a day. Every traveler is different. The places you go may be joyous. They may be dark. I know that I have both. Sometimes I even go back to places that make me blush or that embarrass me or that fill me, like my Ninja, with dread and fear. But always I relish these places. Every one of them... even the one where, standing over me, they said: She's gone. She's not here.
Even the one where you told me you loved me in French and I thought you said, “I like you very much.”
The thing with time travel is that we can't always control it. The triggers, the keys, might be any of our senses... or even things we can determine. But here's a secret from on traveler to the next. Once we recognize what this is – a gift from God – we can shape it. We can associate new maps with triggers.... we can burn over old maps, save over those paths and rewrite the destination. It can be done.
Just think of Christ as a perfect tool. That awesome indelible pen that can write over anything... and yet, on the end? There's a great big eraser, too. Tr easure the places you love. Visit those locales often and write travel logs of your adventures -- old and new. Explore new ideas that come from each visit. And as for those cities you don't care for so much? Remove them from the itinerary.
A fellow traveler,
EJ
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