Your Great Big Ruler

I watch you measuring me up. In your three-piece and your shiny shoes. Your glasses make your eyes look small and rat-like. You twitch your nose in distaste at my ACT UP tee and only intensify the rodentia impression. I am only numbers to you -- some too little, some too big. I am a collection of converse and concave angles, curves and lines. I am BOP and Q Score. I watch your eyes scan me, taking in as much information as is packed into a barcode. Yeah, you don't just think you have my number, you think you have my price.

But I don't even know my price.

I'm laying in your arms and I know you're somewhere else. Got some other browser window open in your brain. Your breathing, I know it so well, and it's not right. You're only pretending to me asleep. As my breath fills the hollows of your back, your hair black satin in the night, I cannot see your face but I imagine that your eyes are open. You are thinking about...

"What are you thinking?"

She always wanted to know. It was the only time I saw real fear on her face. Not fight, just fear. I think she really expected that one day I'd say, "Not of you." And because I knew that's what she thought, every response of any sincerity choked me and stuck half way up my throat. I couldn't get the truth past that lump. I couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, even if I was solving world hunger while she went down on me, or composing sonnets about the way her hands lifted my hips, her wedding ring catching on the satin sheet, even if I confessed to all of that, she'd know I was lying. She'd see in my eyes I was thinking of... nothing.

You were my oblivion.

Going cold-turkey sucked.

So here I am and you're sizing me up and dressing me down with eyes as judgmental as hers never were, and you're already undressing me so you can attach all the labels that you can fit because of my nipple rings and my Christian tats and my d6 pendant and my ankh ear cuff. You have made every decision about me that you will ever make and it stuns me that you don't think I believe in God. I don't just believe in God. I have living proof that He exists and looks out for me. Because if He didn't, than two hours ago, when you first stepped into my trailer, when you first straightened your tie and began to talk, when you first measured my worth with you great big (probably three inch) ruler, when you first did all that... well... if there wasn't a God?

If God hadn't been looking out for me, I would have leaned forward in the first thirty seconds and told you that your wife tastes like honey and nutmeg, and your side of the bed has a great view of the ocean.

(And I would have lost my job.)

God rocks.

One Patch of Earth, One Grain of Sand

“The temptation of Christ refers to the trails of Jesus by the devil as detailed in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized by his cousin John, Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights in the desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him to demonstrate his supernatural powers as proof of his divinity, each temptation being refused by Jesus with a quote of scripture. The Gospels state that having failed, the devil departed and angels came and brought nourishment to Jesus.

“Mark's account is very brief, merely noting the aforementioned events, but giving no details about them, not even how many there were. Matthew and Luke on the other hand, describe the temptations by recounting the details of the conversations between Jesus and the devil. Since the elements of the narrative that are in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark are mostly pairs of quotations, rather than detailed narrative, many scholars believe that these extra details originate in the Q Document.”

It is just a patch of Earth. There has been no stone rolled away here. There has been no murder. Likewise there has been no rousing call to arms preached from this spot. No child conceived on a warm spring day, picnic blanket spread here beneath the surrounding privacy of the trees. It is just a patch of Earth. That is how some see it. And that is truth. Not *the* truth. *A* truth.

Just like I highly doubt that those forty days of fasting were the first or last time that Christ was tempted.

I’ve written before about the glass being half-empty, or half-full, or, as I like to see it, all the way full -- water and air working as one to fill every empty space. But our individual perspective doesn’t begin or end with glasses of water. We are constantly, each of us, living in our own reality. Our own OS. My Reality, version 1.5.

Why the version? Because sometimes we are shaken by quakes of realization or enlightenment that our reality shifts. Not reality itself. *Our* reality. But still that is monumentous because *our* reality is the only reality we have.

Matthew 4:1
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

I am standing in the dead of winter staring any where but at the patch of dirt. Because, you know, it’s dirt so why would I look at it? I am entranced by the sky and the feather brush of the evergreens as they stroke the low clouds. But my friend is staring down. Staring at the dirt.

“In summertime, bronze and orange irises sprout here. They push up from that spot right there and their stems, their stalks are thick and strong. The colors are almost masculine. They look metal. Steampunk even. I can’t look at this patch of dirt and not see them. I feel an ache... and anticipation for them here--” he touches his chest. “I know this is their place of slumber. Sacred. They’re waiting... and I’m waiting with them.”

I look at the ground. The grass is pale and weak. The soil is dun and dull. It is not lush and loamy. It is not dark and pungent. It is actually what you think of when I say the word dirt. It is nondescript. Littered with small pebbles, leaf remnants, bits of twigs and pine needles. It’s just... dirt.

“You see the potential of what this patch could be, will be,” I offer, trying to mesh our realities because human nature drives me to do so.

My friend, who is also my father, shakes his head, “No. I see what it is. Now then forever.”

Mark 1:12
And immediately the spirit drove Him into the wilderness.

I slip the photographed out of my grandmothers New Testament. It has as many blank pages filled with hand-written scripture as it has printed pages. The cover is blood red leather, almost black. The pages are like sheets of rice papers. The photograph is borrowed... stolen... treasured.

Here is that patch of dirt. Just that dirt as it was years before my father and I ever stood and stared at it and not. There is actually no dirt to be seen in this picture. No ground at all. The space is over-flowing with dense clusters of forest green leaves studded with brilliant robin egg blue gumdrop shaped flowers. Tiny petals are visible if I stare hard enough.

My eyes are drawn to the dark-skinned woman in the picture. She is kneeling by the tiny gemstones of blue, one hand reaching out not to touch them but as if to feel their color and vibrancy in the air like heat or vibration. It is obvious that she sees something I do not. My eyes are on her. The lines of her body that are as familiar as my own. Her posture and unspoken language that says so much without words. My eyes are not on the dirt. They are not even on the flowers and leaves and colors. I see only the person and everything my mother is telling me about herself, about myself, about that one patch of dirt.

Luke 4:1
And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

That one space is unable to grow a tree, we learned. Though no one could establish why. It is unable to grow roses of any variety and sedge grass loves it. It receives mid-day an late-afternoon sun but some morning sun as well though the shadows of transition still rest there at dawn.

A person could choose to ignore the space. The study it for hours and days. To write a book about it. To photograph it. To explore it. To turn it. To cement over it. You could nurture it or burn it. Replant or experiment. Wire a street lamp. Lay a patio. The choices for that patch of dirt -- for any and every patch of dirt (or moment, or sentence, or praise, or insult, or strike, or dream) -- are endless and countless, different in all of our realities. What is a temple for me may be invisible to you. Your joy may look like my slavery.

We can never change our reality to another’s. We are simply not made that way. The closest we come is to stop ourselves and lift from our own lives for a moment. To ask ourselves, “How must that feel?” and truly and thoroughly slide into another’s shoes. I think very few people can do this well. I think many don’t take the time to learn how.

After all, even if you can understand or glimpse another person’s reality in perfect detail, impossibly unbiased by our own, it still does not change your own world. You will still have your reality and they will have theirs. The best we can hope for is that, by changing places, by considering the insular realities of others, we might some day come upon that divine moment of realization and enlightenment. That moment when our own reality shifts up a version and finds itself renewed.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke seem to think that Christ’s forty days was something extraordinary for Him. A great Temptation. A poetic and dramatic event that surely served as enlightenment. A unique and power set of trails.

Yet, interestingly, the story of the temptation is one of the notable omissions from the gospel of John the Beloved. Perhaps John, arguably nearest and dearest to Christ, knew that He would suffer so much more, that in other instances (perhaps ones not noted in the written scripture) Christ had faced much worse. Maybe what Matthew, Mark, and Luke saw as a great temptation, was just yet another bout with that same old satan, that same force of malice that dogged Him every where He spoke.

Maybe John knew that Christ would see the temptations as something else. As just a patch of dirt, an expanse of sand in the desert. Just one temptation, one trail among countless others in the life of our Lord.

EJ

Impulse Control

There are certain words that get overused (actually, there are a *lot* of words that get overused -- like "lite" and "free" and “forever”) and used incorrectly and so they begin to lose their meaning, lose their power, and this worries me.

No. Wait. It doesn't worry me. It infuriates me.

Let's talk about these words. Let's actually talk about them as they were conceived, not as they have been conveniently co-opted by lazy thinkers who have nothing better than to approach life as gluttons for momentary pleasure, living so much in the hererightnow that their lack of reflection on what might come after (if anything) doesn’t bother them in the least because, not unlike trans fat, if heaven and hell exist, if reward and consequence are real, than we’ll only know for sure when it’s too late.

What? You'd like to know what these words are, specifically, before investing in the time to scroll down, read (skim), engage (or not) on this topic with a grrl you've likely never met or will meet but who seems to think that actions don't always speak louder than blogs? (Because why else would I? Blog, that is.) Of course, that is another conversation and not the one for today, so I’ll give in and give it up... but just this once, and just because you’re special.

Addiction. Empowerment. Sin.

Still with me? Most of you, I think no. Right about “addiction” is when the zoning out began and right about “empower” is when tiny minds who think I mean men when I say man are rolling their eyes skyward in chagrin in the face of the touchy-feely wonder of it all. Then we hit “sin” and I peak a little interest in the apparent paradox offer, the contrast/compare of gamer and grrl, but quash a bunch more interest because, heck, hererightnow who needs to worry about sin and since when did I start believing in sin anyhow? Like everyone in the whole wide English speaking world knowing the name Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein but only half those knowing who they are and only a tenth of those having ever actually read anything written or composed by either of them.

Now that there are only four or six of us left reading, let’s jump in. Because if I can’t live an examined life, than I’m just wallowing in slop and the last time I looked in the mirrored wall of my favorite dance club I was a taut and sexy thang, not no swine, baby. So let’s go play with pearls.

Addiction is a buzz word. It is hollow cheeks and dark circles and blood shot eyes. It is ultra skinny nothing but bones, covered in bruises, dirty and raw. It is destructive. It is illogical. It is not what anyone wants. It is a call, a pull, an inanimate thing that gets what *it* wants, without thought to host, to effect, to consequence.

I’m sure you can imagine the posters now. The faces. The taglines. The stark colors. You know the substances. The behaviors. The guilt, pain, sorrow, disappointment.

But what if I want to look deeper. What if I want to say: Addiction is an ache that cannot be filled until fed its desire. A constant yearning. A distraction. Elation beyond reason when satisfied. Defying logic to rejoice in consummation.

What if I defined addiction as: That which drives us beyond reason, to the edge sanity and logic, to the utter destruction of everything we were before and everything we could be with it. To yearn, to weep, to ache, to reach. To desire more than breath. To be willing to pay any price, any time, over and over again.

The pearl of great price. The wisdom of His stand: Do not as you have done. Change everything. Change everyone. Change yourself.

His words were more radical than email to carrier pigeon. His actions were more radical than covered wagon to space shuttle. I can code prayers in binary into the backgrounds of the newsletter I publish and that’s still tame compared to turn the other cheek, judge not your fellow man, and ask me for forgiveness... for anything, for everything... and it is yours.

Speak to me, from your lips to my ears, and I will hear even the unspoken that hides in the shadows and folds of your heart.

I will hear you. And what is more... I will understand.

“I fall to my knees
when I hear my angel’s voice.
Oh night divine, this night
when this love was born.”

It is addiction if it hurts someone else. Whether it’s drug-use, hatred, anger, compulsion, sex. It is impassioned if it drives us closer to God... when as it drives us mad.

Empowerment is a raised fist, a rousing speech, a grant, a trust, a parade, a law. Empowerment is pride in the lift of a chin, the direct line of a gaze. It is hoping and dreaming and building pillars beneath every castle in the air.

Empowerment is so close to enabling that the line is draw in dry sand. The winds of popular opinion shift and suddenly the division is gone and so are our good intentions.

I sit in a basement room with checkerboard lino and a cool comfort that encourages talk and chipped, second-hand mugs of hot cocoa and cheap tea, drip coffee that somehow emerges from the keg-shaped tank at the end of a green folding table. The bargain table cookies are gone and the crumbled napkins and crumbs are abandoned and forgotten. It will be my job to clean up the mess.

For a generation, this new generation, after Gen X, sometimes called Gen Y, the words have been shouted: Be proud! Stand up! Stand Out! FTW! (Forget the World.) Embrace the moment. And the statistics that had fallen are rising again. The rousing cry of, “Don’t let them beat you down!” became a growl of, “Nothing can take me down!” and there is no truth in that that isn’t misguided and twisted.

And every time you take him back in, you enable him to keep drinking and smoking pot.

And every time she weeps sorry and you murmur itsallright, you enable her to keep killing you.

And every time you let him fight alone, you enable him to be a rock, an island, an untouchable thing.

Every time you offer best wishes instead of time, every time you let confessions of hurt hang in the air, every time you flood her inbox and her ears with hypocrisy, you are enabling the very behaviors you pray would cease.

We empower because there is a darkness that must be risen above. But all that black still exists, swirling in eddies, maelstroms. We need to educate, not empower. We need to illuminate and examine, not empower.

We need to face the midnight storms, stand within the event horizons, and shatter them, disperse them, destroy them. It is easy to lift up. It is harder to dig down. But solid foundations are always stronger than pillars.

It really seems a sin to ignore the problem and throw bouquets of empowerment. Whether or not the soldiers are empowered, the darkness will still eventually kill them.

Sin is everything you have been taught it to be. Some of us have been taught the same actions, thoughts, behaviors. Others have never even heard of them. It floored me to hear that one doctrine claims masturbation will keep you out of heaven but resisting could eventually make you deity, when just down the street and around the corner, another congregation was teaching humility and out-right martyrdom to its youth, with masturbation as a way to rid yourself of sexual urges and desires and keep your body pure toward others.

Perhaps “sin” cannot be so easily defined? Unless “sin” is a convention of man (by which I mean humans, mankind, not everyone with a penis) and so is concocted by the ruling class, the rule-making, the money-holders, the power players. Is it a sin to step on an ant on accident? How about on purpose? Is it a sin to let a child cry unattended? How about to slap your wife? How about to cheat on your husband? What if you just *think* about slapping your wife when she accidentally looks at another man’s butt? Oh, how tangled a definition of sin we weave when we practice to deceive.

Who is drafting the definition of sin? Certainly not God. Deception is not in the genetic makeup of our Lord or when they told Him, “Dude, just *say* you’re not the son of God, and we’ll get you out of here, ‘kay?” and yet there He stayed. Bleeding. Dying.

But man and deception goes all the way back to Eden:

“Did you eat the fruit?”
“Oh no, no, no!”
“Than why are you buck naked?”
“Cuz we got shy!”
“Who told you to be shy?”
“The armadillos!”

The art of war and survival (not to mention those holy scripts) tells us we need to be fruitful. Just makes sense that anything that doesn’t make babies should be a sin. Common sense! (Oops! Guess none of the prophets foresaw gross overpopulation! Dang it!) The very same arts -- war and survival -- say safety in numbers, safety in homogeny. So suddenly conversion makes sense... holy wars... terror and bombs and ourgodistheoneandonly mantras that are justified even as we vilify each other.

Who decides what is sin?

God decides.

But the masses cry, “What about *until* God intervenes?! What about *before* we slip our mortal coils? What about others who sin and them needing to be punished? What about a prophet or helper or preacher or someone to facilitate the recognition and ramifications of sin and sinners *now*?”

You know what I say to all that? I say, “What a bunch of impatient, self-important, greedy, voyeuristic frakkers.” That’s what I say.

Sin is when Christ whispers into your heart and you pretend not to hear Him.

Sin is when He lights your path but you find it too rocky to walk.

Sin is when you damage or destroy that which is precious to Him.

Sin is hubris, jealousy, hatred, possession. Destruction, disregard, disrespect.

Sin is not dictated from the pulpit. It is a knowledge in ourselves, placed there by His hand, and it is as unique as our finger prints, sewn to fit our soul alone. Where cowardice may be the sin of one man, fury might be the sin of another. Only Christ and our hearts know the truth.

And that is why no man can judge another.

There is power in words. Great hurts can be healed or hidden by simple phrases. So when I see t-shirts with slogans (therein lies a delight) that shout for action instead of words, I pause and muse on longevity and remembrance, on meaning and definition. I think about all the actions -- of addiction, of empowerment, of sin -- that make us all who we are, that make our world what it is, ad I can’t help but wish that a few of us (a few hundred thousand of us) would sit down and stop taking action for a moment.

Just sit down, reflect, shut up... and blog.

EJ

Suspicion

"You start walking your way
and I'll start walking mine.
We'll meet in the middle..."

"Too right for left, too left for right.
You can't get me, I can't get you.
From my spot on the fence
what a wonderful view."

I do this sometimes. Well, I do a lot of things sometimes. Not a very stable grrl, I suppose. But I can't remember ever reading about an artist who was stable. Most of them are down-right nuts and nuggets, as a matter of fact *shrug* I suppose I'm doing all right.

"Walk on down to the corner grocery store.
Bought myself some groceries and a little bit more.
Now I'm flying, flying higher than a kite.
And I'm doing all right, doing all right."

There is a stranger and you all know how I never learned not to talk to strangers. I figure that ever stranger is just an experience I haven't had yet. And as a gamer grrl I gotta get that EXP or I'll never level up, baby. I mean, What's your story? Right? This is Hollywood. Land of Dreams. Everybody gots a story.

So I'm slumming it because I've been working for twenty-three days straight and they've been those killer ten and twelve hour days and it's just shy of midnight and I look like slop. I'm in jeans all torn up and combat boots I bought off the back of a truck that have claw marks from some cat (I hope) along one side and a new-to-me ratty-ole brown leather jacket with Airforce patches and... oh yeah... that's about it.

'Cept, you know, my cross.

Now sometimes I don't wear one. I mean, I have ink. My shoulder. So I'm always wearing one. But sometimes I do stumble on my own belly button lint and I start to spinning about that whole concentric circle game of we're-gonna-be-different-because-we've-so-enlightened, "Why the cross?! What an icky symbol! Why celebrate His death?" And so I wear my Ichthys. You know. The little Christian fish symbol. But tonight I just so happen to be wearing my cross.

And my lefthand thumb ring.

And my left back-pocket purple bandanna.

And my attitude. And your cologne. (Not that I put it on... per say.)

So when I smile (way) up at the stranger in line before me at the corner store -- me a great big cornucopia of patches and symbols and code words and statements -- I'm not really surprised when he starts in. I was only surprised that he wasted no time.

"How do you know who you are?" He motions me up and down (mostly down because dude is like a big brickhouse and I'm his pool boy... or the tool shed).

I tilt my head and shrug a bit. "Cuz my Bible tells me so?"

He smiles, showing perfect LA teeth. I wonder, Do I know him? He says, "Society tells you who you are. The media."

My grin deepens. "I am the media, baby."

He laughs and he has a nice laugh and I look down and he steps outta line and I follow him. he leans against a concrete pillar next to the ice cream freezer and I notice he wears a wedding ring and the numbers tattooed across his knuckles might be scripture or they might be California penal code. Hard to tell. His skin is a two shades darker than mine, as chocolate as mine is cinnamon.

"You aren't suspicious?" He's looking down my half-zipped jacket. Not much to write home about ('cept the wearing no shirt part) but I know he's looking at my cross. "You're all covered in tags."

Oh, hon. If you only knew.

"It takes too much energy to be suspicious," I answer and my sincerity is so obvious in my voice it startles me a little. I guess... you know... I have something to say about suspicions. "I gotta look at it like this: If I work my skinny butt off to prove all my suspicions, I'll do it. Every one. I'll find liars and cheats and people who hate me who I thought were my friends. I'll find money exchanging hands in the parking lot of every church and blood in the confessionals and bribes on the offering plate. I'll find good people where I don't want to find them and bad people holding me tight when I cry. I think I'd rather spend my energy doing something else. Doing something... for Him. Not for me."

The stranger looks at me. The clock on the wall behind him says that, according to man's time, it's the Sabbath. Saturday and turned to Sunday by the power of man's great big black-on-white numbers. The power of the tick tock. It doesn't feel like the Sabbath to me until the horizon is painted with color. Or... does it?

"Do I make you suspicious?" What on Earth made me blurt that I don't know. Maybe not on Earth at all but rather in Heaven.

He smiles at me, the glib response ready to tumble on my deserving head but then he stops. He holds out his hand. We shake, just one pump, then hold, nothing wrong, mutual understanding. His hand is the length of my forearm.

"If I asked you, what should I do today, what would you say?" He means Sunday morning. What should he do Sunday morning.

"Ask me."

His smile widens. He even shakes his head in amusement. I don't wait for him to ask again.

"Stay home," I tell him as I realize our eyes are almost exactly the same color. "Stay home and make love with your lady and laugh with your kids. Go walking alone. Go walking with them. Plant something. Pray aloud together. Pray aloud alone. Realize that every congregation you need already hold dominion in your heart, in your home. You. Your family. God. The rest..." I look away. I shake my own head. I drop his hand and smile back at him. "The rest, man, is all suspicious."

And I turn and get back in line to pay for my gum, my Coke, and a pack of Beef Jerky.

I'll take my communion without the smoke, without the mirrors, without the closed curtains, pre-determined ballots, political pay-offs, and absolutely without the media.

The church of my heart is like my favorite dance clubs. Media Free.

EJ

403. Every person who, without authority of law, willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character (only in its spirit), other than an assembly or meeting is guilty of a misdemeanor.

404. Any use of force, disturbing the public peace, or any threat to use force, if accompanied by immediate power of execution, by two or more persons acting together, and without authority of law, is a riot.

405. (a) Every person who with the intent to cause a riot does an act or engages in conduct that urges a riot, or urges others to commit acts of force and power, or the burning or destroying of lies, and at a time and place and under circumstances that produce a clear and present and immediate danger of acts of force, is guilty of incitement to riot.... (b) The existence of any fact that would bring a person under this definition of subversion shall be alleged in the complaint, information, or indictment and either admitted by the defendant in open court, or found to be true by the jury trying the issue of guilt, by the court where guilt is established by a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, or by trial by the court sitting without a jury.

406. Every person who participates in any riot is punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

407. The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer or lawful institution which confines any person is considered a lynching.

408. Every person who participates in any lynching is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three or four years.

409. Whenever two or more persons, assembled and acting together, make any attempt or advance toward the commission of an act which would be a riot if actually committed, such assembly is a rout.

410. Whenever two or more persons assemble together to do an unlawful act, or do a lawful act in a forceful, boisterous, or tumultuous manner, such assembly is an unlawful assembly.

Yeah... well... nolo contendere, baby. Nolo contendere.