I like to turn all the lights off and wait to see what happens. The cold dread, the spectral fingers on the back of my neck, the sense of a presence in the room -- these things have not happened since I was nine years old. Like the wonder and mystery of deja vu being shattered by the simple truth that it is a chemical loop in the brain, I sometimes miss those very early nights when I was certain that something dangerous lurked in waiting for me.
It should surprise no one (certainly not my parents) that I grew up to be a danger addict with more bones broken than years lived and a complete willingness to do any physical feat that excites me as long as it doesn't put another person at risk. And as for what excites me? Hm. That would make this blog very, very long... and require me to climb down from this roof top, jump over to the next one, shimmy off the side and slink back around to my new bike for jelly beans. Cuz, baby? I'm gonna need a snack if I'm gonna be here that long.
The darkness of a room or the night doesn't scare me any more. The idea of being stabbed or raped or robbed on a city street doesn't amuse me much but I'm not talking about that darkness. I'm talking about the darkness of a room or our homes where we know very well we are safe and sound, the door locked and the windows too. I'm talking about the darkness of a bedroom, quilt over our heads, nervous to turn off the reading light and make every draped shirt a creature reaching through the shadows.
Memory of You... I come downstairs. My bare feet soundless. I am listening to you wash dishes in the light of a full moon. You leave every light off. The whole house is silent except for the water running and the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. I turn into the kitchen. I stand in the doorway. I watch you from behind and I wonder how many women have stood and watched you across a room in the dark. I feel something just shy of predatory...
Are we afraid of those monsters and unknowns because we know *something* must exist other than we? Something must exist, surely, beyond this reality of work and money and petty tones of voice. Something... oh... anything, please! Or are we afraid that *nothing* else is there? Nothing at all. This is it. Seize it. You didn't? Too bad. That was it. Right... there. Gone.
We rush from darken rooms. We turn on lights at night. We carry flashlights. We stumble up stairs wondering what is behind us. We cling to beliefs that grant us epic fantasies and call them religion. We pray to an entity we call God as if He is corporeal and we are able to comprehend Him. But the truth is so much more complicated. The truth is not fairytales for children to soothe them into sweet dreams.
When will we wake up from childhood? When are we ready for the truth?
Memory of Me... I am thirsty. Not like I have ever felt before. I dreamt of music. I dreamt of lights. I am nine years old. My white and red pjs were soaked with sweat and I strip them off in the darkness. My night light has burned out. The moon is black and new. I am so thirsty. I don't want water. But it will have to do because I do not know the name of what I desire. I am a child. No one has told me the words yet. I walk out of my room and into the silent house...
What if the twenty-one grams we lose at death are just returning to whence they came? What if we are all possessed with twenty-one grams of electrical, biological, sentient life and, when this clay dies, we snap back to being with God... to being that force that supports and enables God... to dancing with bosons and demi quarks... stretching thin together like solar sails to glide across this fine cosmos. What if...?
I don't believe in heaven. Nor do I believe in hell. I have never believed that Thor makes lightning or that Athena lept, fully formed, from the head of her father. I do believe that Christ changed the world. I do believe that He hears my prayers. That He answers. That He speaks. I know that the human race did not begin with Adam and Eve. That Mary had never lain with a man in order to be with child. I know that my Christ died a mortal death, bloody and in tears on a cross and that He rose again, unable or unwilling to let go of His twenty-one grams until He finished the circle on the greatest story to ever be told.
Memory of You... You turn off the water. You are pulling off rubber gloves. Looking into the steel basin, now empty. I step into the room. The wood floor is cold. I don't blink. I come close enough to take in musky, rich scent of your hair. The sound of your breathing. My lips part to say your name and you look up. My intent to speak has alerted you to my presence. You meet the gaze of my reflection in the window in front of you. You do not turn to face me. Instead of your name I say, "Did I startle you?" You are silent. There is a long passage of time. You turn. The hem of your sweater jacket brushes my arm. Your eyes, blue-black... undo me. You turn your hands palm up at your hips. You tilt your head to the side in slow motion. You set your jaw, say, "Did I startle you?"
Tucked into easy categories and wrapped in careful mythologies, we want to sing hymns and know that this isn't everything. We want to live right and be rewarded. And just like some little children are happy with a hug and others want candy and still another demands expensive electronics, each of us look for the reward that fits our temperament. Even those of us who walk away from or pretend not to seek religion still search for the reward of living. Look up which religions are the fastest growing. One is even so fast that its founder said he rivaled even Christ. How's that for diverse choices?
In the darkness, what are we afraid waits for us? The truth?
"…For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect, and anticipate their great shame, and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone." (Sean Penn, accepting the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of equal rights activist Harvey Milk.)
In the darkness, where our hands become our eyes, where my touch across your skin is sacred and burns sweet as rebirth, what are we afraid of? That with hands, fingertips, mouth and tongue we will discover the lies in the doctrine? That we will find the cracks in the logic of these human mythologies? If you come for me, like God's own shooting star, like comets that cycle and return, do you think you will wake up somewhere else completely without a road map... or perhaps without a torch to show your way? Is this love not truth enough?
"When I was thirteen years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas, to California, and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life; it gave me the hope that one day I could live my life openly as who I am and that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married… Most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us thirty years ago, I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told they are less than by their churches, or by the government, or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value. And that no matter what everyone tells you, God does love you, and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours." (Dustin Lance Black, accepting the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for "Milk")
Memory of Me... The house was full of shadows. Was I sleeping still? Was I walking through the cold house nude and skinny and afraid? Every corner, every plant and picture and side table I had known all my life was a creature or presence waiting to touch me with unworldly hands. I was alone on the planet. I was driven to keep moving but only because it was so essential to drink. I knew I would surely die if I could not drink. Through the living room, the carpet beneath my feet... the big windows, tall and showing only night... He stood right there. Between me and the kitchen. Just... stood. He could have been a friend of my parents, dark skin, dark eyes, crisp hair. He could have been my brother. Deja vu. I stood and looked up at Him. Deja vu. I stood. He was so normal. So natural. He just... stood.
And I got it.
And I wasn't afraid any more.
Now, turn off the lights.
EJ
If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.
Christ didn't turn tables in the temple because He wasn't a proponent of activism.
"There are a multitude of reasons why marriage equality lost in November. The one I keep coming back to is a failure to cast the role of the villain in the battle against Prop 8. Unlike Prop 6 in 1978, there was no John Briggs to debate, and no Anita Bryant to galvanize our base. Instead in 2008 we had the Catholic and Mormon church, two amorphous beasts that were nearly impossible to vilify in the minds of the public." (www.inlookout.com)
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Personal Mythology: Light and Dark
“Human life began in flight and fear. Religion rose from rituals of propitiation, spells to lull the punishing elements.” --Camille Paglia
“The person has put himself off center. He has aligned himself with a programmatic life and it's not the one the body's interested in at all. And the world's full of people who have stopped listening to themselves.” --Joseph Campbell
Light, dawn light, creeps across my sky, and I think about great thinkers. To listen to the lectures or read the books of Joseph Campbell is to remember that before modern man there was still man. Our rich existence as a species did not begin with the qwerty keyboard nor was it spiritually enriched by the invention of the itty bitty cell phone. Modern playthings are just our current accessories, replacing the beads and bones that once adorned our hair and clothes, replacing runes and smoke signals. Our lives are neither richer nor poorer because of these changes; Our lives have simply continued.
The ebb and flow of time seems to disappear when you listen to Campbell discuss the inherent differences between men and women. Their different needs and responses, their psychological and psychosexual baselines. I do believe in equal pay (for equal work) but I do not agree in different standards for the same task. If a man can do the job better because of muscle mass, aggressive approach or what have you, than a man should be given the job, quotas or not. God did not make men and women the same. He made them equal – just as He made every male and female in every other species equally important – but not the same. To ignore these differences – to not celebrate them – is a crime not just against each other but against the beauty of God.
To grossly simplify Camille Paglia: I want my women passionate, sexy and straight, and I want my men possessive, aggressive and erect. Disgustingly blunt? Not entirely correct? Of course to both. Because in God's natural order for man, as mirrored in nature, His divine map laid here for us, there is room for gentle, quiet, sensitive men, and there is room for protective, assertive, viciously brilliant women. The point is, there is room for all kinds of vibrant differences.
“I do not believe that Christ, our Lord, our Lion and Lamb, placed us on this world alone and without guidance. And you will know your guides because they will refuse to call themselves divine and may not even call themselves Christian. They will be humble. They will hide nothing, for Christ hid nothing. And not everyone will follow them but all will hear them and agree with what they say. Because the truth can be ignored but it cannot be denied.”
I want to paint. Instead I am sitting outside on the closed dome of the private observatory of a friend. I have realized, strangely, that I like to look at the stars with my naked eyes more than I like to view them through the telescope. I do not want to see them so explained and scientific. I want to view them through the lens of my personal mythology. I want to connect their points to form my own constellations. I want to remember them attached to my own memories and the histories of my family. I don't want to *know* what I see. I want to believe what I see.
“Religion is a construct of man. Even if you subscribe to a denomination, you know this as truth. It is a construct of man which stands *between* man and God. It is meant to better facilitate the understanding of God by man. But religion must be transparent. It must be open like air and sky. If it is not transparent, than God cannot be seen through it.”
Why do so many of us flock like sheep to the constructs of man? Why does denomination soothe and call to us? Because it is comfort, ritual, structure and pattern. Because it is tangible belonging. I met once a man who said to me that his faith was strong as steel, that it was everything to him, his life and breath and thought and reality. Walk away from your church then, I answered. Walk away for one year and walk your path, just you and your God. And it was obvious from the blanch of his face and the panic in his eyes that he was sincere when he responded, I would lose my center if I lost my church.
The loss of mythology is indeed the loss of our center. Without mythology we lose the knowledge of who we were and lose touch with the primal forces that still exist within us, sometimes slumbering, other times roiling. Mythology is the key code or directions on our road map to a life lived not in fear but in rejoicing. A life lived fulfilled and rich, a depth of experience that nourishes and sustains us.
Of course, how we build that mythology, where we turn to for that mythology, is entirely our decision and there are as many personal mythologies as there are people on this only green world. Of course, my answer was: Fill that center with Christ.
“The power of Jesus Christ is that He does not need to have been a god to have changed everything.”
“I live my life as if there is no heaven that awaits me, but that Christ was still the son of God. Now then forever, He is my teacher, guide and maker. There is no incentive. There is no after life. There is only what my Lord has commanded of me, and that is enough.”
Society crumbles when one of two things happen. When we either destroy our mythology or our mythology destroys us. Both are equally possible and equally horrible.
“Babylon Syndrome is man as God. Man proposes now or in a far future to be as God. God is not now and was never a mortal man. We are and will be until we return to that which we came from. We are not now nor will we ever be gods. To strive for this – to strive to be as our Lord – is not just blasphemous but a disease that infests through the wound of hubris and spreads like the most virulent of contagions. These are mythologies for small, fearful minds and they are addictive.”
“When we topple our gods, we topple our survival as a unified people. God surrounds us and classifies us as natural unto Him, as He planned for us. We are embraced by Him. Once we fell God, once we lift ourselves out of His natural center and place ourselves outside with Him, we are no longer a people of one heart, one mind, one path. We are no longer concentric circles, but rather opposed and opposer. Elevated and descended. More than and lessor than. Right and wrong. The table, my friends, is no longer round.”
I am witness to a small group of brave young people choking on tradition and struggling against real odds to find themselves in a heritage that has no room for them. I think of the human rights activist Harvey Milk talking about there being no time or luxury for hiding. If everyone was aware that they knew a gay person, he argued, they would see us as human. Not abnormalities or even just the extremes they may glimpse in public. They would see us as part of the pattern. One of the concentric circles of human life.
But instead many people see the world, and raise their children, entrenched in personal mythologies that are outdated, outmoded or simply wrong, founded in hubris or otherwise out of control. It is terrifying how recently many major religions still proclaimed racial segregation a holy mandate and equally disgusting how many denominations do the same today for orientation. Both diverse attributes are positively displayed in abundance in nature and seem to make only logical sense – vivid difference in species allows for the adaption to multiple environments; homosexuality allows for birth control on a planet with limited capacity (gay couples, if they have children at all, have far fewer, on average).
By propagating mythologies that are contrary to our natural truth, we are allowing discord. We are moving against the grain that is God's plan. His map for us is so very beautiful and we are ignoring it when we try to build religions out of smoke and mirrors, denominations that do not stand up under close scrutiny and that fight for traditions that only benefit the further spread of ignorance. The blind are so more easily led. The collection of souls at the thrones of men naming lightning in the dark.
EJ
“The person has put himself off center. He has aligned himself with a programmatic life and it's not the one the body's interested in at all. And the world's full of people who have stopped listening to themselves.” --Joseph Campbell
Light, dawn light, creeps across my sky, and I think about great thinkers. To listen to the lectures or read the books of Joseph Campbell is to remember that before modern man there was still man. Our rich existence as a species did not begin with the qwerty keyboard nor was it spiritually enriched by the invention of the itty bitty cell phone. Modern playthings are just our current accessories, replacing the beads and bones that once adorned our hair and clothes, replacing runes and smoke signals. Our lives are neither richer nor poorer because of these changes; Our lives have simply continued.
The ebb and flow of time seems to disappear when you listen to Campbell discuss the inherent differences between men and women. Their different needs and responses, their psychological and psychosexual baselines. I do believe in equal pay (for equal work) but I do not agree in different standards for the same task. If a man can do the job better because of muscle mass, aggressive approach or what have you, than a man should be given the job, quotas or not. God did not make men and women the same. He made them equal – just as He made every male and female in every other species equally important – but not the same. To ignore these differences – to not celebrate them – is a crime not just against each other but against the beauty of God.
To grossly simplify Camille Paglia: I want my women passionate, sexy and straight, and I want my men possessive, aggressive and erect. Disgustingly blunt? Not entirely correct? Of course to both. Because in God's natural order for man, as mirrored in nature, His divine map laid here for us, there is room for gentle, quiet, sensitive men, and there is room for protective, assertive, viciously brilliant women. The point is, there is room for all kinds of vibrant differences.
“I do not believe that Christ, our Lord, our Lion and Lamb, placed us on this world alone and without guidance. And you will know your guides because they will refuse to call themselves divine and may not even call themselves Christian. They will be humble. They will hide nothing, for Christ hid nothing. And not everyone will follow them but all will hear them and agree with what they say. Because the truth can be ignored but it cannot be denied.”
I want to paint. Instead I am sitting outside on the closed dome of the private observatory of a friend. I have realized, strangely, that I like to look at the stars with my naked eyes more than I like to view them through the telescope. I do not want to see them so explained and scientific. I want to view them through the lens of my personal mythology. I want to connect their points to form my own constellations. I want to remember them attached to my own memories and the histories of my family. I don't want to *know* what I see. I want to believe what I see.
“Religion is a construct of man. Even if you subscribe to a denomination, you know this as truth. It is a construct of man which stands *between* man and God. It is meant to better facilitate the understanding of God by man. But religion must be transparent. It must be open like air and sky. If it is not transparent, than God cannot be seen through it.”
Why do so many of us flock like sheep to the constructs of man? Why does denomination soothe and call to us? Because it is comfort, ritual, structure and pattern. Because it is tangible belonging. I met once a man who said to me that his faith was strong as steel, that it was everything to him, his life and breath and thought and reality. Walk away from your church then, I answered. Walk away for one year and walk your path, just you and your God. And it was obvious from the blanch of his face and the panic in his eyes that he was sincere when he responded, I would lose my center if I lost my church.
The loss of mythology is indeed the loss of our center. Without mythology we lose the knowledge of who we were and lose touch with the primal forces that still exist within us, sometimes slumbering, other times roiling. Mythology is the key code or directions on our road map to a life lived not in fear but in rejoicing. A life lived fulfilled and rich, a depth of experience that nourishes and sustains us.
Of course, how we build that mythology, where we turn to for that mythology, is entirely our decision and there are as many personal mythologies as there are people on this only green world. Of course, my answer was: Fill that center with Christ.
“The power of Jesus Christ is that He does not need to have been a god to have changed everything.”
“I live my life as if there is no heaven that awaits me, but that Christ was still the son of God. Now then forever, He is my teacher, guide and maker. There is no incentive. There is no after life. There is only what my Lord has commanded of me, and that is enough.”
Society crumbles when one of two things happen. When we either destroy our mythology or our mythology destroys us. Both are equally possible and equally horrible.
“Babylon Syndrome is man as God. Man proposes now or in a far future to be as God. God is not now and was never a mortal man. We are and will be until we return to that which we came from. We are not now nor will we ever be gods. To strive for this – to strive to be as our Lord – is not just blasphemous but a disease that infests through the wound of hubris and spreads like the most virulent of contagions. These are mythologies for small, fearful minds and they are addictive.”
“When we topple our gods, we topple our survival as a unified people. God surrounds us and classifies us as natural unto Him, as He planned for us. We are embraced by Him. Once we fell God, once we lift ourselves out of His natural center and place ourselves outside with Him, we are no longer a people of one heart, one mind, one path. We are no longer concentric circles, but rather opposed and opposer. Elevated and descended. More than and lessor than. Right and wrong. The table, my friends, is no longer round.”
I am witness to a small group of brave young people choking on tradition and struggling against real odds to find themselves in a heritage that has no room for them. I think of the human rights activist Harvey Milk talking about there being no time or luxury for hiding. If everyone was aware that they knew a gay person, he argued, they would see us as human. Not abnormalities or even just the extremes they may glimpse in public. They would see us as part of the pattern. One of the concentric circles of human life.
But instead many people see the world, and raise their children, entrenched in personal mythologies that are outdated, outmoded or simply wrong, founded in hubris or otherwise out of control. It is terrifying how recently many major religions still proclaimed racial segregation a holy mandate and equally disgusting how many denominations do the same today for orientation. Both diverse attributes are positively displayed in abundance in nature and seem to make only logical sense – vivid difference in species allows for the adaption to multiple environments; homosexuality allows for birth control on a planet with limited capacity (gay couples, if they have children at all, have far fewer, on average).
By propagating mythologies that are contrary to our natural truth, we are allowing discord. We are moving against the grain that is God's plan. His map for us is so very beautiful and we are ignoring it when we try to build religions out of smoke and mirrors, denominations that do not stand up under close scrutiny and that fight for traditions that only benefit the further spread of ignorance. The blind are so more easily led. The collection of souls at the thrones of men naming lightning in the dark.
EJ
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Are Angels Dancing? G2G
"And so, on the Sabbath, do His work."
The question becomes, now (in our post-modern times), then (when He walked a mortal man) and forever (into our future as a species): What is worthy?
I have a friend who never emails me more than twelve words at a time. She never asks a question without providing multiple choice answers and she rarely expects a response. Lately, her subject headings have all been: Mustard Seed
Christ said all we need... the only thing... is faith as large as a mustard seed. Barely twice the head of a pin. It may seem absurd until you remember how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Perhaps those of us with even just that faintest whisper of faith have enough space to have angels dancing "Swan Lake" in five dimensions.
The simplest answer, of course, and the one that begins to answer that now then forever question is: We are all worthy.
Now, stepping forward, none of us left behind, the next part of the question: *What* is worthy? *What* are we supposed to do on the Sabbath?
My friend Gille does not really believe in God. But she cannot explain to her satisfaction why incredible people like Gandhi and Gurumayi Chidvilasananda and Mother Teresa and Jesus Christ have come to walk on this only green world if there isn't a God. She feels that people like these would never be born if mankind were left here to our own devices alone. Gille believes that goodness -- change -- as ministered by these individuals can simply not be produced from the human animal without divine intervention.
I went to spend the day with Gille today. She is expecting her third child joyfully. She and her partner and their toddler son live together in a classic alpine cabin slash seaside cottage hybrid that is, in fact, sitting on the seashore. It was the first time I'd had Internet in three days. I was most def shaking with cyber withdrawal when I arrived. But the moment I walked in, my busted laptop under my arm, I knew the last thing I would be spending my Sabbath doing was answering email and surfing the web. Every horizontal surface in Gille's house was covered with beta cards of Mardi Gras 3000.
"I'm not sure what I believe, Angel," Gille told me. "But I know that what you're doing with MG3K speaks to people. It lifts them up. And when they look closer, they find God in the details."
And so Gille spends every Sabbath immersed in the brand. I do not have words for what that meant and means to me.
What does God intend for us to do on the Sabbath? His work.
I remember being in elementary school and arguing passionately with a student a few years older than me. Funny how when I look back on "conversations" like these they never seem childish. My religion was far more a point of ridicule than my skin color or (early on) my accent. I don't remember what denomination the seventh grader was but I remember the constant use of, "My teacher told me..." with the teacher in question being a Sunday School teacher. The idea was: The Sabbath is for rest and I was a sinner because I'd spent my Sabbath with my parents on a Habitat for Humanity homesite. It seems building a home for a family in need was a grievous evil.
Less dramatically, I've heard it argued that if something makes you money, it should not be done on Sunday. (For this very reason, I waived all royalties to the MG3K brand and even this blog book -- the printed and bound edition -- will be given away free and sold at cost.) I have no problem with this definition though I do not find an issue with parents who choose to work on the Sabbath in order to support their families. I only hope that they give another day to God. Not for God. He doesn't require our worship to survive nor to love us (it isn't a trade). But in order for us to thrive, we must throw ourselves into *worthy* work at least one day a week.
The celebration of family is a celebration of God. I have always followed that as a good guideline for what should or shouldn't be engaged in on God's Day. Family being defined as partner, spouse, child, sibling, heart-friend. Those that by blood, oath or love are our family in the eyes of our Lord. Sometimes this means making love. Sometimes it means playing tag. Often it manifests as hard work -- working together in the home or yard.
The Sabbath is not a day of rest. God rested on the seventh day after He created the universe. I didn't create the universe this week, did you? The Sabbath is our day to show how grateful we are that He worked so hard to give us what we all take for granted just by not spending our lives on our knees kissing every flower petal, blade of grass or bumblebee. Every breath, every dawn, every windstorm, every kiss, every heartbeat we stand beneath His blue sky or beside His blue-green sea, we have reason to do His work, and do it to the best of our abilities until we are ready to drop into deep dreams, every single Sabbath.
Through the crimbly speaker on the old wireless phone, I hear a mutual friend talking to Gille:
"I just wanted to work today. To lose myself in good work. But I knew they needed something. It was the last cash I had from selling that furniture on Craig's List. I just wanted to show them that even when we have nothing, there is something if we think first of each other, and not of ourselves. Not my money. Our money. We'll do fine if we stay together, if we're grateful, if we stay on the path. I can do the work tonight when they're all asleep. God made me able to push myself. It would be wrong not to. And I saw their smiles... they all knew this was the very best I could do and it was barely anything. But... oh Gille... they were so thankful. It was worth doing."
What is worth doing?
1) Does it change you for the better?
2) Does it change someone else?
3) Does it share the word of God and celebrate Christ?
4) Does it open up your world?
5) Does it fill your heart with light?
6) Does it hold up your impassioned sky?
7) Is it living prayer?
If it is effortless... if it requires no thought... if it doesn't energize and lift you up... if it isn't good, hard work... than it is not intended for the Sabbath.
Christ? Today felt right because I gave myself to you. You rested on the seventh day. I create in your honor on my seventh. Today. Forever.
EJ
This blog entry is dedicated to Ginny and Jennifer in honor of their joint venture, "G2G," a graphic novel/anthology of stories by grrls, for grrls, that center around the theme of bringing glory to God. My pledge is my first paycheck from my "day job." I couldn't be prouder.
The question becomes, now (in our post-modern times), then (when He walked a mortal man) and forever (into our future as a species): What is worthy?
I have a friend who never emails me more than twelve words at a time. She never asks a question without providing multiple choice answers and she rarely expects a response. Lately, her subject headings have all been: Mustard Seed
Christ said all we need... the only thing... is faith as large as a mustard seed. Barely twice the head of a pin. It may seem absurd until you remember how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Perhaps those of us with even just that faintest whisper of faith have enough space to have angels dancing "Swan Lake" in five dimensions.
The simplest answer, of course, and the one that begins to answer that now then forever question is: We are all worthy.
Now, stepping forward, none of us left behind, the next part of the question: *What* is worthy? *What* are we supposed to do on the Sabbath?
My friend Gille does not really believe in God. But she cannot explain to her satisfaction why incredible people like Gandhi and Gurumayi Chidvilasananda and Mother Teresa and Jesus Christ have come to walk on this only green world if there isn't a God. She feels that people like these would never be born if mankind were left here to our own devices alone. Gille believes that goodness -- change -- as ministered by these individuals can simply not be produced from the human animal without divine intervention.
I went to spend the day with Gille today. She is expecting her third child joyfully. She and her partner and their toddler son live together in a classic alpine cabin slash seaside cottage hybrid that is, in fact, sitting on the seashore. It was the first time I'd had Internet in three days. I was most def shaking with cyber withdrawal when I arrived. But the moment I walked in, my busted laptop under my arm, I knew the last thing I would be spending my Sabbath doing was answering email and surfing the web. Every horizontal surface in Gille's house was covered with beta cards of Mardi Gras 3000.
"I'm not sure what I believe, Angel," Gille told me. "But I know that what you're doing with MG3K speaks to people. It lifts them up. And when they look closer, they find God in the details."
And so Gille spends every Sabbath immersed in the brand. I do not have words for what that meant and means to me.
What does God intend for us to do on the Sabbath? His work.
I remember being in elementary school and arguing passionately with a student a few years older than me. Funny how when I look back on "conversations" like these they never seem childish. My religion was far more a point of ridicule than my skin color or (early on) my accent. I don't remember what denomination the seventh grader was but I remember the constant use of, "My teacher told me..." with the teacher in question being a Sunday School teacher. The idea was: The Sabbath is for rest and I was a sinner because I'd spent my Sabbath with my parents on a Habitat for Humanity homesite. It seems building a home for a family in need was a grievous evil.
Less dramatically, I've heard it argued that if something makes you money, it should not be done on Sunday. (For this very reason, I waived all royalties to the MG3K brand and even this blog book -- the printed and bound edition -- will be given away free and sold at cost.) I have no problem with this definition though I do not find an issue with parents who choose to work on the Sabbath in order to support their families. I only hope that they give another day to God. Not for God. He doesn't require our worship to survive nor to love us (it isn't a trade). But in order for us to thrive, we must throw ourselves into *worthy* work at least one day a week.
The celebration of family is a celebration of God. I have always followed that as a good guideline for what should or shouldn't be engaged in on God's Day. Family being defined as partner, spouse, child, sibling, heart-friend. Those that by blood, oath or love are our family in the eyes of our Lord. Sometimes this means making love. Sometimes it means playing tag. Often it manifests as hard work -- working together in the home or yard.
The Sabbath is not a day of rest. God rested on the seventh day after He created the universe. I didn't create the universe this week, did you? The Sabbath is our day to show how grateful we are that He worked so hard to give us what we all take for granted just by not spending our lives on our knees kissing every flower petal, blade of grass or bumblebee. Every breath, every dawn, every windstorm, every kiss, every heartbeat we stand beneath His blue sky or beside His blue-green sea, we have reason to do His work, and do it to the best of our abilities until we are ready to drop into deep dreams, every single Sabbath.
Through the crimbly speaker on the old wireless phone, I hear a mutual friend talking to Gille:
"I just wanted to work today. To lose myself in good work. But I knew they needed something. It was the last cash I had from selling that furniture on Craig's List. I just wanted to show them that even when we have nothing, there is something if we think first of each other, and not of ourselves. Not my money. Our money. We'll do fine if we stay together, if we're grateful, if we stay on the path. I can do the work tonight when they're all asleep. God made me able to push myself. It would be wrong not to. And I saw their smiles... they all knew this was the very best I could do and it was barely anything. But... oh Gille... they were so thankful. It was worth doing."
What is worth doing?
1) Does it change you for the better?
2) Does it change someone else?
3) Does it share the word of God and celebrate Christ?
4) Does it open up your world?
5) Does it fill your heart with light?
6) Does it hold up your impassioned sky?
7) Is it living prayer?
If it is effortless... if it requires no thought... if it doesn't energize and lift you up... if it isn't good, hard work... than it is not intended for the Sabbath.
Christ? Today felt right because I gave myself to you. You rested on the seventh day. I create in your honor on my seventh. Today. Forever.
EJ
This blog entry is dedicated to Ginny and Jennifer in honor of their joint venture, "G2G," a graphic novel/anthology of stories by grrls, for grrls, that center around the theme of bringing glory to God. My pledge is my first paycheck from my "day job." I couldn't be prouder.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Leave Me Breathless
“Because it seemed like a good idea at the time...”
[...was achieved, 26% of study participants reported one, or various combinations, of the following involuntary responses: brief loss of sight; a sensation of falling; loss of fine motor skills; trembling in extremities, and/or involuntary vocalizations. If... was achieved by a combination of... instance of involuntary responses as listed above rose to 92% with a high occurrence (more than 72%) of an inability to breathe...]
I decide to turn over a new leaf and so I say yes (for once) and go to Mass with Lillian. After all, these are dark times and all that yadda and maybe my heart needs a little stain glass light stations of the cross contemplation down on my knees God be with you and also with you inspiration.
I wake with little grrl eyes when Lillian turns off my alarm and strokes my hair. Over her arm is an eggshell white dress in layers of silk and soft lace. I blink up at her. She lays the dress down and moves soundlessly from my room. The smells of dark coffee and fresh sourdough with clover honey fill the space around me. I lay there on my back, staring at the ceiling, my fingers moving over the line between silk and lace.
“...like silk to brushed lace, satin to fine corduroy, you changed under my fingertips in a tangible expression of desire. You whispered something to me. But I found I was breathless and could not respond...”
I think to myself, “In for a dime, in for a dollar.” and I pull myself out of bed as well as out of my d6 boxers. I know I have grrl's underwear somewhere... and I think it's in my size.
Lillian French braids my dark hair with white ribbons. She smiles down at my grandmother's prayer beads, double looped dark olive wood spilled over the high-necked opaque front of the dress. It is surprising comfortable... I feel sheathed in... hm. I draw my mind back to the kitchen. I have not been able to speak to Lillian yet. There is something more perfect in this unspoken time.
She tips my head up with two fingers under my chin. She contemplates my unadorned face. I am three shades darker than the headshot attached to my resume. After an indeterminable moment, dawn's clean light slipping across the tile counters and floor, slipping into my empty coffee mug, across the honey toast crumbs, Lillian nods once and gives me a hint of a smile. Her perfume is exotic. Her suit is Italian. She nods once more and I rise as if commanded in my heels and stockinged legs. I follow her from the house; I am a different woman with very little effort... but with a universe of awareness.
“...were going to be late, the evening almost certainly ruined, and she made a small sound. It may have been a sound of apology had she glimpsed my angry glance at the grandfather clock in the foyer. I looked up. At the top of the stairs she was poured into low waisted black leather pants and a white silk shirt cast with ruffles, waves of softness, across her small breasts. I drew sharp breath. My heart pounded. I felt faint. I had to look away.”
I am presentable. The little white purse and black hymnal work so well as accessories to my good grrl outfit. I keep my eyes on Lillian's face or on the ground. The incredible marble of the cathedral floor is peach and rose and white. My mind is bright and blank, as if willed that way so that my thoughts won't offend this structured holy place with its traditions and rituals of human comfort. I bob my head. Smile without showing my teeth. Avert my eyes. Fold my hands. Lillian introduces me as Angel.
I take in textures through osmosis. As the priest murmurs in a tone patterned to soothe, I absorb the cold of the marble floors and stone columns. The oak and velvet of the pews. The leatherette of the pad beneath my knees. The ricepaper thin pages of the mass-produced Bibles. I breathe slowly and deeply and draw the scents of this place into my body, allow them to become part of me.
“...I remember... I remember your perfume. Still so far away. In my parents' house. Your bandanna. Your perfume. Wild roses. I slept with it under my pillow. Buried my face in it. Closed my eyes. Wanted to breathe nothing else...”
“And I can still smell you on my fingers, and taste you on my breath...”
Half way through the service I think about the light coming in the highest stain glass panes and I look up to see the molten lead lines that stitch together angels... but my gaze never rises that far.
Her red hair braided modestly, her deep green blouse ripples down her narrow torso and tucked into pleated black slacks, is the Horseman of the Apocalypse I danced with not so long ago... when I was, of course, that other Angel. A totally different woman. My mouth opens. Did I think she went forth on her steel horse to seek the other riders and discover the seventh seal? I am about to blink and look away... when she looks up from prayer, and then back at me. Over a sea of bowed heads I am discovered.
“...Christ... there is what I want and what others want to give me. There is what I am content to receive and what others desire to grant. Allow me the wisdom to bring these two extremes into alignment. Guide my decisions and show me the way to the path I must walk and I will walk it. Lord... just point me in the right direction. I will discover the trail.”
The prayer continues and her eyes walk over my body like I have been gift wrapped and delivered to her doorstep. Which, in some ways, I can certainly see how my garb and this circumstance appears to fit that bill. I am unable to look away from the appraisal because I find myself thinking. I am so lost in thought, actually, that my surroundings fall away and my head tips a little to one side in realization.
Feeling helpless. When I was ill, you said to the friend who was caring for me, “I feel so helpless.” And when life, in general, takes us and spins us 'round, we feel out of control. But there is always something to do. There is no scripture or memory I have ever heard that speaks of Christ doing nothing. There is always something to do... it simply may not be what we desire to do. It is easy, for instance, when someone is ill, to be the one to wrap them in blankets and make them soup. Not so easy to pray for them hard and heart-felt at a great distance, to send them a story, a picture, a funny I-Can-Haz. To impress them with poetry or by cleaning their house. To care for their children (who are wild things) or paint their deck.
I think about how we all seem to like feeling breathless... but none of us like to feel helpless. But isn't it when we feel helpless that we are most likely to turn to Christ? Isn't it when we feel helpless that are are most likely to open up to a new friend and realize how much we are loved? When we are most likely to discover peace?
“'...someday you will leave because my life is complicated and entangled. Someday you will go, but until then I will love you.' And I looked at her and I shook my head. Soundlessly at first, but then, 'You're worth it. I'm not going to make a mistake and pass you up because you aren't simple.'”
When are we most likely to unlock strengths we never knew were there... even though they had been whispering to us all along? When our feet stand on bedrock, when we have reached that rock bottom, that is when Christ equips us with our wings. And I have always been partial to wings.
When we feel helpless, it is the perfect time to sit with Christ and make a list of all the things we could do. The grail is always full and there will never be enough hours in a mortal day to fulfill our every prayer. Helpless simply means, undecided. Undecided simply means you have the opportunity to make a decision. And every decision you make builds your emotional muscle. That vital system that allows you to claim your own faith. To carry your own armor. To see the truth in everything.
“Hello, Angel. I didn't know you were Catholic.”
“I'm not.”
“I see. Another faith then?”
“Yes. I'm a Christian.”
(laughter)
“No offense intended.”
“None taken.” (pause) “Would you like to...?”
“I'm sure I would.”
(smiling)
“But, I don't need to. So no thank you.”
And I leave St. Peter's with Lillian and we eat small sandwiches with brie and drink coffee with cinnamon under a heavy, silver sky. We talk briefly about the rise of the church in pagan England and the structure of redemption and the lack of faith in the self that it all represents. And as we walk back to her car and she stops suddenly and the color drains from her face even as I am watching her... as she grips her chest near her shoulder in two hands and crumbles into my arms even as I am reaching for her... as she calls me Pablo and I answer to his name... as I feel the *helplessness* welling in my chest and spilling from my eyes, down my cheeks, across my eggshell white dress... I know I have a hundred million decisions to make and I make them all. I know I will not lose her now. I decide that I will not lose her. And because of that decision, every other choice falls into place to support that first. I am everything she needs (fast, resourceful, him) and nothing that I want (to scream, to shout, to crumble to the sidewalk with her) and I am utterly *there.*
These are the moments that define us. The helpless ones.
Lord? I'm here.
Baptized in your words, I am breathless.
At my best, I am helpless.
These are our moments.
EJ
[...was achieved, 26% of study participants reported one, or various combinations, of the following involuntary responses: brief loss of sight; a sensation of falling; loss of fine motor skills; trembling in extremities, and/or involuntary vocalizations. If... was achieved by a combination of... instance of involuntary responses as listed above rose to 92% with a high occurrence (more than 72%) of an inability to breathe...]
I decide to turn over a new leaf and so I say yes (for once) and go to Mass with Lillian. After all, these are dark times and all that yadda and maybe my heart needs a little stain glass light stations of the cross contemplation down on my knees God be with you and also with you inspiration.
I wake with little grrl eyes when Lillian turns off my alarm and strokes my hair. Over her arm is an eggshell white dress in layers of silk and soft lace. I blink up at her. She lays the dress down and moves soundlessly from my room. The smells of dark coffee and fresh sourdough with clover honey fill the space around me. I lay there on my back, staring at the ceiling, my fingers moving over the line between silk and lace.
“...like silk to brushed lace, satin to fine corduroy, you changed under my fingertips in a tangible expression of desire. You whispered something to me. But I found I was breathless and could not respond...”
I think to myself, “In for a dime, in for a dollar.” and I pull myself out of bed as well as out of my d6 boxers. I know I have grrl's underwear somewhere... and I think it's in my size.
Lillian French braids my dark hair with white ribbons. She smiles down at my grandmother's prayer beads, double looped dark olive wood spilled over the high-necked opaque front of the dress. It is surprising comfortable... I feel sheathed in... hm. I draw my mind back to the kitchen. I have not been able to speak to Lillian yet. There is something more perfect in this unspoken time.
She tips my head up with two fingers under my chin. She contemplates my unadorned face. I am three shades darker than the headshot attached to my resume. After an indeterminable moment, dawn's clean light slipping across the tile counters and floor, slipping into my empty coffee mug, across the honey toast crumbs, Lillian nods once and gives me a hint of a smile. Her perfume is exotic. Her suit is Italian. She nods once more and I rise as if commanded in my heels and stockinged legs. I follow her from the house; I am a different woman with very little effort... but with a universe of awareness.
“...were going to be late, the evening almost certainly ruined, and she made a small sound. It may have been a sound of apology had she glimpsed my angry glance at the grandfather clock in the foyer. I looked up. At the top of the stairs she was poured into low waisted black leather pants and a white silk shirt cast with ruffles, waves of softness, across her small breasts. I drew sharp breath. My heart pounded. I felt faint. I had to look away.”
I am presentable. The little white purse and black hymnal work so well as accessories to my good grrl outfit. I keep my eyes on Lillian's face or on the ground. The incredible marble of the cathedral floor is peach and rose and white. My mind is bright and blank, as if willed that way so that my thoughts won't offend this structured holy place with its traditions and rituals of human comfort. I bob my head. Smile without showing my teeth. Avert my eyes. Fold my hands. Lillian introduces me as Angel.
I take in textures through osmosis. As the priest murmurs in a tone patterned to soothe, I absorb the cold of the marble floors and stone columns. The oak and velvet of the pews. The leatherette of the pad beneath my knees. The ricepaper thin pages of the mass-produced Bibles. I breathe slowly and deeply and draw the scents of this place into my body, allow them to become part of me.
“...I remember... I remember your perfume. Still so far away. In my parents' house. Your bandanna. Your perfume. Wild roses. I slept with it under my pillow. Buried my face in it. Closed my eyes. Wanted to breathe nothing else...”
“And I can still smell you on my fingers, and taste you on my breath...”
Half way through the service I think about the light coming in the highest stain glass panes and I look up to see the molten lead lines that stitch together angels... but my gaze never rises that far.
Her red hair braided modestly, her deep green blouse ripples down her narrow torso and tucked into pleated black slacks, is the Horseman of the Apocalypse I danced with not so long ago... when I was, of course, that other Angel. A totally different woman. My mouth opens. Did I think she went forth on her steel horse to seek the other riders and discover the seventh seal? I am about to blink and look away... when she looks up from prayer, and then back at me. Over a sea of bowed heads I am discovered.
“...Christ... there is what I want and what others want to give me. There is what I am content to receive and what others desire to grant. Allow me the wisdom to bring these two extremes into alignment. Guide my decisions and show me the way to the path I must walk and I will walk it. Lord... just point me in the right direction. I will discover the trail.”
The prayer continues and her eyes walk over my body like I have been gift wrapped and delivered to her doorstep. Which, in some ways, I can certainly see how my garb and this circumstance appears to fit that bill. I am unable to look away from the appraisal because I find myself thinking. I am so lost in thought, actually, that my surroundings fall away and my head tips a little to one side in realization.
Feeling helpless. When I was ill, you said to the friend who was caring for me, “I feel so helpless.” And when life, in general, takes us and spins us 'round, we feel out of control. But there is always something to do. There is no scripture or memory I have ever heard that speaks of Christ doing nothing. There is always something to do... it simply may not be what we desire to do. It is easy, for instance, when someone is ill, to be the one to wrap them in blankets and make them soup. Not so easy to pray for them hard and heart-felt at a great distance, to send them a story, a picture, a funny I-Can-Haz. To impress them with poetry or by cleaning their house. To care for their children (who are wild things) or paint their deck.
I think about how we all seem to like feeling breathless... but none of us like to feel helpless. But isn't it when we feel helpless that we are most likely to turn to Christ? Isn't it when we feel helpless that are are most likely to open up to a new friend and realize how much we are loved? When we are most likely to discover peace?
“'...someday you will leave because my life is complicated and entangled. Someday you will go, but until then I will love you.' And I looked at her and I shook my head. Soundlessly at first, but then, 'You're worth it. I'm not going to make a mistake and pass you up because you aren't simple.'”
When are we most likely to unlock strengths we never knew were there... even though they had been whispering to us all along? When our feet stand on bedrock, when we have reached that rock bottom, that is when Christ equips us with our wings. And I have always been partial to wings.
When we feel helpless, it is the perfect time to sit with Christ and make a list of all the things we could do. The grail is always full and there will never be enough hours in a mortal day to fulfill our every prayer. Helpless simply means, undecided. Undecided simply means you have the opportunity to make a decision. And every decision you make builds your emotional muscle. That vital system that allows you to claim your own faith. To carry your own armor. To see the truth in everything.
“Hello, Angel. I didn't know you were Catholic.”
“I'm not.”
“I see. Another faith then?”
“Yes. I'm a Christian.”
(laughter)
“No offense intended.”
“None taken.” (pause) “Would you like to...?”
“I'm sure I would.”
(smiling)
“But, I don't need to. So no thank you.”
And I leave St. Peter's with Lillian and we eat small sandwiches with brie and drink coffee with cinnamon under a heavy, silver sky. We talk briefly about the rise of the church in pagan England and the structure of redemption and the lack of faith in the self that it all represents. And as we walk back to her car and she stops suddenly and the color drains from her face even as I am watching her... as she grips her chest near her shoulder in two hands and crumbles into my arms even as I am reaching for her... as she calls me Pablo and I answer to his name... as I feel the *helplessness* welling in my chest and spilling from my eyes, down my cheeks, across my eggshell white dress... I know I have a hundred million decisions to make and I make them all. I know I will not lose her now. I decide that I will not lose her. And because of that decision, every other choice falls into place to support that first. I am everything she needs (fast, resourceful, him) and nothing that I want (to scream, to shout, to crumble to the sidewalk with her) and I am utterly *there.*
These are the moments that define us. The helpless ones.
Lord? I'm here.
Baptized in your words, I am breathless.
At my best, I am helpless.
These are our moments.
EJ
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