Revisiting the Impassioned Path

Of course, we never left it. But let’s return our focus to that way we walk. Not our passionate path but our impassioned one. That one laid by a divine hand for our feet alone... and, sometimes, blessedly, for our feet together with another’s. Walk with me a ways?

Years ago I did a blind audition for an internship up in Washington State with a small independent publishing house run by a woman just a few years older than me. I’d known her as an author before – a nationally bestselling one – but I had come to know her, through rumors and reviews, as a fearless, no-holds-barred business woman. I wanted to get with that. I wanted to explore that kind of guerilla publishing in the book and gaming world. I won the internship. That summer changed my life.

I was raised a New Testament Christian. As I’ve written before, that means something to some people and other things I others. It does *not* mean that I am a close-minded, bigoted, anti-gay, Republican who owns a gun, a big dog and a strange map of all the Planned Parenthood clinics (actually... I am *one* of these things... but I’ve also been called a “swing voter,” so go figure). I believe that going to church makes you a Christian just as much as standing in a garage makes you a car. I don’t believe in denominations (man’s law) and I do believe that what exists in nature is meant to be mirrored by man. All of this is set up for:

I’ve known what to look for my entire life. Before I was old enough to fully comprehend what “impassioned path” meant, I knew I had to find mine. I was never drifting or lost. But I never worked so hard – at such a thankless... and such a clearly *important* task – as that summer at that independent publishing house.

My goal in high school in Boston was to prove that wearing a leather jacket didn’t preclude getting straight A’s in AP math and science. I graduated a year early and auditioned (life is full of them, isn’t it?) at a performing arts school in New York City. Once on the inside I realized that I might very well be able to make a career out of that crazy acting thing but I was drawn to the “throw away” extracurricular course in acrylics. By the end of my time in the Big Apple, I had fallen in love with the 5’ x 5’ canvas and was painting, on average, six commissions a year.

I fell into painting. I fell into it so completely that my models were known to fall asleep and I wouldn’t notice. I fell into painting like a swimmer or a runner. I dropped pounds when I painted. I dropped time. I dropped my sense of self and place and mortality.

But painting wasn’t my impassioned path. And I knew it. I kept searching.

I thought sometimes about an older grrl I’d met when I was a preteen. She was an author on tour. I begged my mom to take me to see her. We waited in the long line. She signed my book. Her blue eyes were wise and sad and all those things that they talk about in high literature but that you never believe you’ll see in real life. I remember saying to my mother on the way home, “That’s not her path, is it, Mom?” She didn’t answer. Maybe she thought I was being melodramatic.

Turns out, years later, sometime before that grrl had designed a mathematically gorgeous trading card game operating system for my faith-and-science open world “Mardi Gras 3000,” she discovered that her path was being a mother to two brilliant, but special needs children, and being the most honest, demanding and innovative publisher that the independent world has ever seen.

That is her impassioned path. I like to think that it parallels mine. That sometimes, just sometimes, our paths even cross and we stand for a moment and wonder at it all.

I don’t find my path easy. But I have stayed up all night wondering if anyone ever finds their path easy. If any impassioned path *can* be easy. But, as I was raised, I look at the world around me and count my blessings.

“I want to create a place where authors won’t be treated as I was. Where authors have a voice,” Grrl told me. I knew, by then, the hell she had walked through on her national book tours with huge presses. Edits that changed the race of the characters. Covers that made no sense. Marketing that positioned her as meat, as a sex object, as a minor in big grrl clothes. Her path seemed so right...

...so why is her house teetering toward foreclosure? Why does she struggle to raise her family? Is she *too* generous to the authors? Is she too nice, the way she lets bookstores develop payment plans when they can’t pay? The way she let’s authors blame her when chains won’t pay on time? Why does a *good person* struggle?

Dear God, is it truly because the impassioned path is never easy?

My quickening to life arrived when I found my path. When I realized how much it terrified me. How much outside my “comfort zone” it was. How much I’d be required to give and let go of. How much time, money, effort, sacrifice... I knew it was impassioned because it would minister to the heart. I knew (oh, forgive me, friend!) that it was impassioned because it was going to be *hard.*

A different friend (though, God help her, one in this same circle) wrote to me recently:

“I feel like I really am waking up right now. Finding who I really am. I’ve been praying to find out who I'm supposed to be. I feel everyone is here for a reason. Everyone has a mission. Many people don't search hard enough for their mission and they miss it. My whole life I've been adamant that I won't miss that path, and my prayer for years has been that God would reveal to me what I have to do to find and follow that path. Right now, that is a lot of the revelation I've been receiving. How to become the person I need to be, to be an effective servant for Him in the mission He has placed me on.”

Another friend is riding in the car with his mother when she breaks down, she says, “I just don’t want you to take the hardest path. I want life to be easy for you. Not full of persecution and bigotry and hatred. I want you to be happy.”

And he looks at her. His silence acknowledges that life will be hard ahead of him. And he answers carefully, “What makes you think I’m not happy?”

I can be happy... even when life is a trial in darkness.

I can be happy... even when I don’t see the point in the pain.

I can be happy, not because I am a simple-minded, flowers-and-bird-song, cliché-brained idiot, but because I know inside me, at my core, that I am where I am meant to be.

Those of us who choose to live by what man cannot take away, we spend our early lives searching, actively questing for our path. We are not driven by money or even comfort. We believe that not finding that impassioned path... or worse, finding it and choosing, knowingly, not to walk it... is the only unforgivable sin.

We know that one gift that will be given to us when we walk with Him, is that we will come to see ourselves through the eyes of God -- perfect as we are even with our imperfections. Not to be judged my man or even our own insincerities. We are perfect to be where we are. Doing our work which is His work which is hard.

“Do you fear this time?” I asked Grrl (perhaps she is that mythological “One Grrl in Every Generation”).

Her voice held that smile of hers that I miss so badly since I’ve moved away. “As long as I am doing everything I can, to the best of my ability, in every moment of every day, than I am doing everything He asks of me. And no, I am not afraid.”

And what He asks is never easy but it is always impassioned.

E.J.

And Then, Came the Dawn

It only happens when everything is striped away. It only occurs when I am desolate, abandoned to my exile, standing past the event horizon of my existential void. It comes to pass that the stone is rolled away.

The night slips from the sky, fading, but I imagine it sliding down the arc of your Earth, easing around the curve of your heavens to find another home. Dawn arrives pale and new, and the rain is falling, always falling it seems when I need it most, when your renewal, your baptism is the only solace that will satisfy me. When this young Atlas cannot convince herself to shrug, then it is only your tears that rescue me, that flood my world, allow me to sink joyously, to watch my burdens bob away on the currents of your eternity.

It is always darkest before the dawn.

“Why are you hiding?”

I am crying in your arms. I am sobbing, that kind of sorrow that wracks the body and numbs the mind. That kind of pounding, screaming anger that is only expressed in a woman’s tears or a warrior’s cry. I want to take hold of the darkness like a cloak and rip it away from you. I want you and your family to be bathed in the light. I want nothing but love to surround you. But the stone stays there. The stone stays. I want to make it all better. But I can’t. And it gets worse. And the stone stays.

That which killed Him only made us stronger.

“I want to believe, Lord.”

I think of how many times
I have fallen
through the heavens
Lord, to your embrace.
I think I know
only your love.
I think I know only
your love endures.
I think I know
you.

Standing in the rain in Mazatlan on Easter morning, I close my eyes and it is hard for me to imagine what it must have been like for that cluster of apostles, hiding and afraid, having watched the body of Christ perish on the cross. Knowing the stone that was rolled into place, sealing Him away from them. It is hard for me to understand them. Hard to imagine not rising up, fighting back, shouting out...

When I see the Southern Cross
for the first time, for this time
I understand why I came this way.
And the truth I'm running from
is so small. And your promise is
as big as the coming day.

Sweet Lord, my Christ, harbor, companion, confidant, and co-conspirator. My friend. You are everywhere. You are with me and everyone I love. You fill a space made just for you inside my heart and silence my tongue with a smile when stupidity surrounds me. My judge. My God. My first dawn light.

I can imagine you, so easily, too easily, as that man, that man of flesh and blood, and barely past thirty years... that human being cast into bone and muscle and knowing your path even as it unfolds before you.

“Lift this from me, if you can.”

I am crying against your shoulder. Strong as my father’s was, though your hair is shorter, your voice deeper. Not strong enough to carry the burdens despite what you whisper to me. You are so brave. And then you stop. You push me away two inches, you look in my eyes. You touch your chest. “I don’t need the light upon me, E.J., I have the light inside me.” And in that blackness before your dawn... your dawn that seems years away... you are rising up, fighting back, shouting out....

I'm walking toward tomorrow
with my feet firmly in today.
And your love is my anchor
tied with a silver chain.
I have this temple
with stained glass windows shining.
This body is all I can offer
but she finds music in your name.

Our Atlas and savior. The roaring lamb and final sacrifice. The light you cast by walking your path still shines within us. We struggle through the darkness toward that unknown dawn but with you within us we find your bravery -- warrior and wiseman – and today we celebrate your life, everlasting, which allows us to live.

E.J.

Travel Blanket

So much can change in a week. So much can change in 42 hours. So much stays exactly the same. One moment I’m writing a PM on my fire escape, the light of dawn pale and clean with promise. The next, it seems, I’m half a world away, having touched down in five different time zones, gained a day and traded twelve thousand dollars to say, “Happy birthday.”

I’ve spent the last week seventy years back in time and forty years in the future, every time I turned around, or west, or blinked my eyes, it changed. This wasn’t culture shock. It was generational flux. I’ve heard stories both fact and fiction and both were stranger and more compelling than my “real life” of beta testing, scripts, pilots and ratios. For one week I was embraced and shattered, cocooned in living myth and exposed by it. I played the role of angel, rebel, mother, sister, daughter, lover, friend. I drew water from a well and used a GPS. I prayed holding hands and I saw my mother blush for the first time. I beat my chest with indignation to prove my heart was beating.

I remembered what it was like to be among people like me. The undeniable truth that a racially diverse but religiously homonogized community can provide. Never complain, never explain. The knowing is there in every gaze. There is no argument. There is no unspoken heart. The knowledge that I am understood, not tolerated; loved, not accepted despite; respected without conditions and modifiers. I remembered the solace and strength that “congregation” provides... and why so many of my brothers and sisters in faith are so strong and steely. Because we *don’t* prescribe to this path and, by golly, life is a lot harder without a mob of one’s own.

Take your council not from man but from God. Walk with Christ.

This week, I’ve traveled more than ten thousand miles, Erik. And in all that travelling I came to many conclusions about man and God and the nature of tattoos. I’m falling asleep as I type these words, stretched belly down on my bed, literally waking up when my forehead hits the space bar. I *want* to do a million things – eat apples, drink coffee, talk to a lady friend, call another, even paint or draw – but as I know I’ll sleep most of Sunday away, there is only one thing I *must* do. I must write to you.

The quiltwork of our lives is a mystery to everyone but ourselves. If a friend says he knows you, he really is saying only that he recognizes some of the panels in that quilt. Some of the textures and images and bit of cloth are shared in his own life’s patchwork and so he understands.

Our parents are the same way. They wrap us in soft colors and carry us – much longer than any of us like to admit – into the world until our quilt is warm enough, complex enough, big enough to keep us well. They know some of the patches, they helped stitch them there, but others are alien to them, unknown and secretive. Those parts of us that are understood by only two – us and God.

A man at a pulpit (or a woman or a chorus) says to you, Erik, that “We all are together and feel the same.” This is comfort food like saying, “Thor is angry... look at that lightning!” This is words to name the unknowable. You wrote me while I was away and said, “I feel angry at him. He doesn’t know me. He stands and includes me but I am not included.”

Because why? Because he doesn’t understand your parents? (No, not mine either, most likely, my friend.) Because he doesn’t understand the fury in your heart? (I don’t understand it either, Erik, but I love you for it and I would carry it too.) Because you are not easily pigeon-holed. You are the intelligent, gentle, spiritual man that European countries seem to produce in joyous poetics but that America like to label as deviant. You are looking for a faith that may only be found in your own heart, in the eyes of your mother when you look at her, in the good morning call of your little herd that have come to rely on you and find comfort in your presence.

One of the first things I learned, and that came to me again and again this week, is that my feelings – about anything – belong to me. They are valid and part of me because they are my own. I claim how I feel about everything – the life examined can also be lived. I can deconstruct, remodel and rebuild how I feel about politics, art, or love. My feelings do not depend upon someone or something else. My heart is not dictated by the pulpit, the White House, or my time zone.

Christ passes His hand over the quiltwork of my life. He knows every patch – sorrow, humiliation, rapture, passion, inspiration – even some patches that I do not remember myself. He knows. He whispers: This is all part of you, E.J.. And I walk with all of you.

You say that when you spend your Sundays in a church building that you end your day feeling “confused, patronized, and simplified.” You have spent every other weekend trying a different denomination. But on those Sundays that you stay home, that you spend your day with your mother, your siblings, your herd and your friends... that you spend your hours (not just two hours or three) talking about God, talking about life, talking and laughing and adding silver threads to that quiltwork of you, that you end your day with a joyous heart filled with light, filled with what you are beginning to recognize as Christ.

What is He telling you?

I spent the week with people who told me I was divine... and I was foolish. That I was impassioned... and I was blind. But there were travelers in my journey who just smiled at me. Who say those patches in my quilt and embraced me, crushed me wonderfully, and murmured, “Of course. I see. I understand.”

You will find your fellow travelers, Erik. You may, my friend, have already found them. Don’t put your butt on a pew. Put your feet on the path. You know where it will lead you.

In love,
E.J.

Christ As Celebration

"Christ didn't dance, E.J."

"Hm. Bringin' salvation to the whole wide world? Yeah, He probably didn't have a lot of down time."

Oh baby, God didn't give us bodies not to feel this good.

There's something happening. Right now. Right here. In my chest. In yours. That thrumming. A beat. It's not just one heart, not just two. This passion between us. This blood music. She has become a precious thing with wings. A creature of lost scripture and found mythology. My angel. I'm thinking of you in front of eighty thousand eyes. Pilot light blinking: Live. So alive! I'm laughing. Throwing my head back in the rain. Lifting my hands to my face, to the skies, to Christ. Photo shoot. Interview. Public scrutiny doesn't bother me. Can't find me. Not the way you find me. Giving it up. Giving it over. Giving it all to you. Praise the Lord you take me.

"And I'd give up forever to touch you,
so I'm lucky that's not up for trade.
You're the closest to Heaven that I've ever been
and I don't want to fall home right now."

'Cause without you, I'm like the Fallen Angels we speculate over. Striving for redemption on a path alone. Dancing my way through dark clubs, brown eyes glinting, shaking my head "no" to the music, hands in the air, bass line body moving. Willingly lost to the world, condensed into binary and ions, hidden and veiled, cloaked in mysteries that only you and Christ decipher. I'm praying: Stand with me. Walk with me. Guide me. I won't stray because my path is mine. I won't close my eyes because I'm not afraid. Bring the darkness, bring the pain, bring hardship and hate. Bring it. I'm stronger every day. "You've Got Mail." I'm stronger every moment. "You Have 18 New Messages." I'm the woman you always asked me to be, Lord. I'm the person you need, baby. (And, apparently, I'm humble too.)

"And all I can taste is this moment
and all I can breathe is your love.
Yeah, sooner or later it's over
but I don't wanna miss you tonight."

Rejoice! For this is the new day that God has given us, and these, our hearts and bodies, were formed by His hand, and are made in celebration of His glory. What wonder is man. What wonder is God. Rejoice and celebrate! Heed not the words of man who leads his brothers into war and blindness. Heed carefully, intelligently, the written filter, bastardized and removed from the sanctity of context. Turn your face to the light. Listen to the Living Word, beating in your chest. Trust that you will not be led astray because you know you walk the impassioned path. Find it. Claim it. Shout it from mountain tops the way I shout how much I love you. Know evil and be strong enough to slay it, standing alone or standing beside me, donned in the armor of Christ. Know you are enough. Always enough. Just as you are. Perfection made by the hand of God, in celebration of His love for every single one of us. "Christ be with you." "And also with you."

"And I don't want the world to see me,
'cause I don't think that they'd understand.
Everything man-made can be broken,
and I want you to know who I am."

Revel in the new light of day. Step outside. Unsheltered, under the sky. Close you eyes. Then open them. There is your new light. Start from there. Ask Him something. Anything. Feel the truth wash over you like passion. Take you away and lift you up. It is sometimes hard. It is sometimes unfair. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes life burns. But none of it destroys us. None of it can rip us apart. Not if we stand in the new light. Not if we hand it over. Atlas shrugged, baby, and so can we. Christ is there. If He could carry the cross, He can carry our pain, our fear, our uncertainties. Hold my hand. Celebrate in knowing I hold your hand. Every morning, as the new light creeps to the sky, every moment after I open my eyes, I realize my heart is full. I have the time, the energy, the drive. I have every resource in Christ... and one of those resources to draw upon is my passion for you.

Make good. Today. Start now. Today. Rejoice in what you know, not what anyone else tells you. You know. He knows. Throw away fear like a child throws away broken things. Dance. Scream. Run in the rain with me. Pray for those who hurt you and the ones you love. It isn't as easy as it sounds. But you can do it. We can do it. And when I cup your face in my hands, when I gaze into eyes that hide everything and nothing, know that I see Christ in you. Know that the rain that falls over both of us is Heaven sent.

E.J.

Wooing Peacocks

I awoke with the sun shining in windows that will someday be yours. The pale, new dawn light crept through the dense green trees like God breaking over the land. Dawn has a sound. Dawn has a whisper, like a lover in the early hours before responsibilities and life begins. A voice that has always brought me from sleep better than any alarm clock.

Out in the orchard I hear Sparrows, Chickadees, Flickers. The breeze is silent, barely stirring the bare trees. When I hear them at first -- the soft, distant cooing -- I think they are doves. But then they warble-cry and I realize there are Peacocks in this enchanted forest. A year or two ago, an entire ranch (no, not joking) emptied in a single wind storm, dozens of Peacocks flooding the nearby Banner Forest to live free and wild. You'll glimpse them sometimes, standing in the brush. Majestic and fabulous. Regal and otherworldly. You blink and wonder if you imagined it. The large blue-green body of silken feathers. The alert, aware and Godly head.

Birds are God's own angels.

A young man contacted me this weekend. A subscriber to this blog. He asked me to define New Testament Christianity. He was dismayed that *everyone* seems to use this term like a badge of honor (like a catch all) but that few people seem to embrace the tenants that he himself grew up with as an Armenian American in a New Testament Christian family. He wanted something written down, something to show everyone else. Something that says: You are not what I am. This is what I am. Because assumptions are dangerous things.

I told him there were fifty times when I wished for just such a note. But that having it wouldn't be within the guidelines of our own denomination. For a New Testament Christian does not come from a place of hubris. Does not argue with other Christians. Does not convert cross denominations, cut down other Christians, or even point out things we may see as inaccuracies in other scriptures.

Instead I wrote him this:

Gerald, you are a New Testament Christian if the base of your religion is the words of Christ. If you believe that the new day begins at dawn, not midnight. If you live your life by the passage of the sun and not the clock. If you believe that men and women are equal in the eyes of the Lord and were made to support each other. If you treasure children and know that life begins at conception and that conception is way before zygote. If you study history. If the pulpit does not preach politics. If someone being gay, like it is in nature, is genetic. If God, not Big Bang, created the Earth and that every blade of grass is here by His hand. If Christ -- not the Old Testament, not what came after Ascension, and certainly not what man teaches man -- is your Lord. If the body is sacred. If the heart is a temple. If to say "I love you" means I accept you, I value you, I will always support you. If you would never raise a hand to your child or your mate. If you strive to never raise your voice. If you think it's okay for a man to cry and for a woman to shout in protest. If you believe that bigotry and racism and phobias are what happens when man's culture imposes assumptions over God's natural diversity. If you don't accept scare tactics and wear a cross only because He beat it. If you are a rabble rouser. If you leave hubris at the door. If you accept all through the gates of your heart... even when sometimes you will be faced with enemies in your courtyard. If prayer not just at meals but constantly, four, five, eight times a day. Not wishes half-formed in your mind. Conversations, alive, passionate and *never* one-sided. Conversations with a real Christ. Not a vision of a white man with blue eyes. Not a visage. A real man. Powerful, strong, rebellious, articulate, gentle, focused and fully, completely alive. Our Christ. The beginning and the end. Our salvation and our grace. The heart of all that we are.

Do you turn to Christ or to man? If you turn to Christ, Gerald, than you are a New Testament Christian. If you turn to Christ, truly turn to Christ in all things, than you know it.

Standing in the early-spring orchard, cold and alive, I know enough not to write my weekly blog from a place of fear, pride, anger, hurt, guilt or any man-made emotion. I can only allow these feelings to wash away from me. Lifted into the dawn air. I can only know in my own heart that Christ stands beside me. Not because I am great. Not because I am gifted or touched or divine. But solely because I am none of those things. He stands with me because I need Him.

And He stands with everyone who does.

E.J.

Thursday on the Floor

Beat. Wild and raw. Bass in my bones. Dance is involuntary, autonomic call-and-response. I’m all full up of buzz – heart, mind, body - gotta burn it off somehow. Music in my blood. Movement on my mind. Baby... wish you were here.

The lights: Purple, blue strobes timed by the DJ. The darkness: Anonymous and safe. Master mix of techno and rock. Remix melds rhythms to carry the running beat.

I want your hands on my hips. Want to experience – like a tangible thing – that distance between us that can never be breached. Want your eyes on mine. To read your thoughts in time with the music. To whisper mine against your hair, make you laugh, bright and clear.

And when a blush colors you flattered and when the music redeems the realities of this life, I want to watch your eyes close briefly, fine lashes against cream cheeks. Want to dance all night – exhaustion impossible – and see dawn best in our hearts.

A Quickie for Torrance: A Short Poem

You showed up at work
and asked for access
but my guardian angel
wasn't so sure
you spoke friend
to enter.

Over lunch
your foot
in a fine silk stocking
tucked itself under my thigh
mid-sip of your iced tea
with mint and lime.

The Reuben
on sourdough
thin-sliced corn beef
with honey mustard
sweet onions
and pepper spice cabbage slaw
was my favorite
five years ago.
You said
you remembered.

A little cream on my mouth
from a Coke and cream
elicited your leaning forward
smiling sweetly
"I'll get it."
And my stunned silence
must have been amusing
because you laughed
like warm sunshine
but stayed
on your side of the table
for the rest
of our mid-day lunch.

Fire Escapes

Wednesday night, under a blood red moon, I climbed up the fire escape, past my upstairs neighbors making love on their couch, to the place where the metal framework bolts to the brick. I set a boot and bare hands carefully and I pulled myself up, lifting onto the arched bars then over the edge to the roof. In blue jeans and a black WWJD hoodie, a black leather jacket and two brown leather wristbands, I stood alone under the lunar eclipse and marveled at the blood of the sun.

Bobbi can’t understand skinny grrls. “How am I gonna find a double for *her*?” She rolls her big beautiful eyes with as much flare as her Texas accent rolling across her tongue. “No stunt double who can throw a punch has a butt that tiny.”

I spew Coke into my hand, laughing so hard my nostrils are carbonated. “I throw my own punches,” I offer.

Bobbie grimaces and pinches my cheek (not hard). “Have another chocolate cream.” Which is Bobbi-speak for, “Keep dreaming, Tiny.” Because at 5’11” and 185, Bobbi could be a stunt double for a stunt double.

Twice in my life I’ve fallen off fire escapes and broken bones. Once I jumped and once I was thrown but both times I fell. Guess the wings don’t always work. Now, when a throw a punch – a real punch – my wrist aches. My killer left hook makes me pay for it for three days afterwards. But I can’t stay away... not from defending myself and not from fire escapes.

They fascinate me. Which means that my cell phone memory is full up of snapshots of fire escapes from NYC to San Fran, from Phoenix to Vancouver. They catch my eye and I want to see what shape the bolts are and what state of disrepair they exist in. Are they caged in? Are they free? Are they accessible from the alley? Are they sharp with the scent of oxidization and time? Rusty old bones, metallic like blood, steadfast and patient. Hoping to never be used. Wishing they were. Forever useful. Never touched. Some kids like trees. I like fire escapes.

Wikipedia says Bobbi is: The chief grip on a set. Like a foreman, the key grip directs a crew of grips, some with specialized skills such as dolly grips, crane operators, camera car operators, etc. Additionally, the key grip is often the safety monitor, responsible for the safety of all personnel in the presence of theatrical ballistics, pyrotechnics, stunts, and any other potentially dangerous situations and devices operated by other departments.

A lady friend of mine calls Bobbi a guardian angel. I call Bobbi a friend but in my mind I kinda think of her as Mama Bobbi, or Big Sister Bobbi. Something past friend toward family.

A week or so ago, I chatted with Bobbi while she walked to her car. Her middle daughter was making dinner that night and Bobbi dreaded it. “What that grrl will do to my grandma’s recipes I do *not* want to see... let alone put in my mouth.” Bobbi worries that with no innate cooking skills, her daughter will grow up to live alone with cats.

“I live alone,” I offer as reassurance.

“You live with your mama. That’s not alone.” Then Bobbi pauses. “Plus, you don’t have no cats.”

We laugh and part ways. I didn’t tell her about the one-eyed, crooked tail cat that I sneak into my room at night and feed frosted animals crackers and Brazilian coffee with full cream. He lives on the fire escape outside my window. I think his name is Pelucir but he’s only whispered it once... when I fell asleep on my laptop and he had to wake my lame Qwerty self up.

Now don’t get me wrong. I read my lease. I know that the fire escape is not for climbing on. It is for emergency situations only and cannot be used as a plant stand, clothes dryer or urban balcony. But here’s the deal: I follow about 85% of man’s laws and 100% of God’s laws. I just don’t have room for more law-abidingness in my little ole life. So, I like to climb out my window when it rains. I like to sit out there, leaning back against the cold, hard metal, and let the rain drench me until my hair is straight and heavy, my jeans resemble scuba gear and my shirt is downright indecent. Because no one can see me. The sky is dark. The clouds are low. And the rain is right from God, falling on me in my little urban nest, all brick and steel. Because don’t all angels need a perch?

It seems like fire escapes are every where. Those little escapes from a fiery situation. There always seems to be a back way out. An easy way out. And I so rarely take it. My penchant for walking through fire only fuels my adoration of fire escapes. Maybe I like them because I know I’d never use them. How could I when walking through the flames brings me through more tempered?

Under that eclipse moon, circled with stars more brilliant than diamonds and certainly more intriguing, I thought about the nature of love. I thought about the hours in every day that I give to man and the hours in every day that I give to Christ. I pledged to drink less coffee... and take my bike out of storage. I thought about my father. I knew he was with me. I thought about you. So far away from me. I imagined you beside me. I smiled.

I decided that if there were a fire escape to Heaven, all rusty and old, never used and never needed, I would climb it just to stand up near that blood-red moon, to whisper in God’s ear, “Thank you.” And He would know exactly who I was talking about.

E.J.

Half-pint Chickadees & Acrylic

The overachievers start in. They think if they don’t make their crazy peeping calls that the sun won’t ever rise and all the world will be lost to darkness. Crazy little half-pint chickadees. Don’t they know they aren’t supposed to sing until after the sky turns? Don’t they know... omgosh! What time is it?

A radio is on somewhere. Shawn Colvin is singing:

It's a crazy world
On the head of a pin
You only need to look so far
As the smile on my face
To see the shape I'm in

I’m stripped down to my white tank which hasn’t been white in four hours, my blue jeans rolled around my ankles. A couple of toe rings catch the light... right next to fat, still-glistening tear drops of green and blue paint. My hair is down and wild, my eyes are bright, there’s white acrylic on my cheek and a black/forest mix smeared across my forearm. At some point I leaned into my palette leaving an interesting, if somewhat R-rated, impression across the custom colors. This tank top will never be white again.

Where is my alarm clock?

You don't look for love
It's gonna look for you
Well you found me, honey
And you sound so good

I learn something new about this body of mine every day. God didn’t want me to get bored, I suppose, so He hid all these Easter eggs in my eternal binary that reveal themselves with unknown triggers. Like: eating chocolate cake with raspberry swirl makes me want to buy silk sheets. Putting on my own perfume makes me think of someone else. And hearing birds outside my window makes me think I’m going to be late for a 5:15 call.

It also appears that when someone says “it was a promise” at 01:12:23 this triggers rampant blushing, exquisite muscle tension through my shoulders, lower back and thighs and a burning desire to touch brush to canvas. Intensely. For four hours.

I stepped to the easel, your voice still in my ears, replaying phrases and benedictions like Terrapyre Prayers. My brown gaze was locked on the painting even while I started to peel open the caddy and reach, blinding, for brushes, choosing by feel. I paint in layers and you have so many of them, don’t you, baby? There’s that blue spring sky – ‘cause only spring sky gets that blue – and the bare green-brown of slender branches, flexible, pliable fingers, with their nestled gems of opening buds, the pinks and whites of new life, new love, and soft petals. Sky first. Then branches. Then buds. The sheaths that hold them, splitting open like my heart. This is from the last three days. Now the time for more layers has arrived.

Before I start to apply new, wet paint, liquid color and texture and depth, I run my fingers along the tree branches and then off them. I trace what comes next, from mind’s eye to cloth. I haven’t gotten that final picture I need but I know your colors by heart, the shape of your face, the curve of your cheek, the fall of your hair. My fingertips find the picture first and then paint follows.

You're the object
Of my affection
Not a dream
Or make believe
You're the object
Of my affection
Not a phantom fantasy

Some time passes, I don’t know how long, but at some point I stop using brushes and start to blend finer tones with my smallest finger tip, tracing lines that I see as clearly in my mind as I’ll ever see in a photograph. But another trigger takes me. Something you said a week or two ago. Something you probably don’t even remember and I pause, my breath like a runner’s, deep and slow.

Sweet thoughts carry me to a local hotspot – no, not a club, a tea house with wifi – where the air always smells like chai and the room is dark wood and brown leather wingbacks. I’m standing by a bookshelf of antique books, but I look up when you walk in. I know you instantly. Even with my eyes closed, I know you.

You smile softly. You always smile softly. You aren’t prone to showy expressions. You stand for a moment and survey your surroundings. The sunlight, California springtime sunlight, slants through the stain glass Bird of Paradise hanging in the window and casts colors across your skin and jacket. The barista asks if she can get you something. She’s being reverent, of course. With your laptop tucked under your arm, you look like a writer.

You order chai. Decaf. With honey and coconut.

I have forgotten where I am.

You sit down at a small round table with only one chair. The cast-colors of the stain glass fall across the surface, an exotic flower creating a tablecloth of light. You look around again, as if seeing how things change from this new vantage.

My heart is pounding in my chest and I realize that breathing is optional.

You open your laptop. I see the orange and black, then blue and black screens of a familiar location. I hear you typing carefully. Send.

In the back pocket of my jeans, my FlipStart pings. You’ve got mail.

Hobbyist F. Brian Smith writes:

The Bird of Paradise flower is a spectacular blossom. Long stemmed flowers emerge from green boat-shaped bracts which are bordered in deep red or purple. The numerous pointed petals of brilliant orange are contrasted with an arrow-shaped tongue of vivid blue. If started from seed, Bird of Paradise takes three to seven years to first blossom. Pollinated primarily by sunbirds, the strelitzia nicolai can reach heights of ten meters tall and are world renown for the spectacular shape of their flowers.

At some point, I continued to paint. Remembering my professor’s words from years ago: “Keep you eyes on the model, E.J. Not on the canvas. You’re not painting the canvas, girl! You’re painting the woman!” I continued to paint but my gaze stayed on you in that tea house. Just following orders. Just being a good student.

At some point, I forget to set my alarm.

At some point, birds start to sing.

At this point... I am very late for work.

You're the object
Of my affection
Not a rescue remedy
You're the object
Of my affection
Come to me

A Mother’s Path: Mother’s Day in February

I’ve written so much about the impassioned path that if you type it as a string at Google you get my blog. Pretty much all of us have *heard* of impassioned living but very few of us have come to associate it with much more than television preachers and revival meetings. Can everyday man walk the impassioned path in today’s reality? Do these paths -- laid down across the Earth in crimson and indigo by the blood and tears of a Living Christ upon His Ascension – do these paths still exist for us to seek and find?

About a week ago, I said to a new friend, “Getting married and having children is not a destiny. It’s not even a destination.” I felt pretty darn adamant at the time. And don’t get me wrong. I’m not a drum-beating feminist (sorry, Mom!). I actually *do* believe that one parent – especially a mom – should stay at home. I don’t believe that daycare should be a first or even a second choice. I think public schools and daycare centers tend to strip children of a moral code and I think the only “socialization” that happens is akin to ingraining the addiction for mob mentality, mass approval and conformity.

However, I also strongly believe that a mother should be interesting to her children. She should have a rich, creative and passionate life that gives her depth. She is not solely life-giver and cherisher. She is a person, a spirit, not just a care-taker. She is *not* “The Giving Tree” to be eaten from, climbed upon and over, and then, finally, cut down, used for raw materials, only then to be asked to stand strong with nothing. *That* is called subservience. Not motherhood. A mother should not be relegated to any single tree because she is the entire forest and she is an adventurer within that forest as well.

“Getting married and having children is not a destiny.” I was haunted by my own definitive. I couldn’t let it go. Then... like reading my mind (which too many of my good friends do), I got an email from another friend: “You know, E.J., all my life I wanted children, way back when I was a little girl playing house with dolls. But my career took off first. It just happened that way. And I am so pleased with my career. I could die tomorrow and feel I’ve left a legacy in my work that builds every day. But *none* of this means as much to me as looking at my kids. They mean more to me. I would walk away if they asked me to.”

That’s obviously a mother speaking. She’d throw it all away for her kids?! Do I write her back and preach about martyrdom and self-esteem and priorities? Do I counsel her that she can have it all? Or do I stop allowing my own self-righteousness to haunt me? Do I admit – no, accept – that being a mother, just being a mother, only being a mother – can indeed be a destiny, a destination, an impassioned path?

“Christ, give me an answer. Guide me. Walk with me. Show me the way.”

I started thinking about all the moms I knew. Golly, I know a lot of moms! Every single one of them have powerful, satisfying careers – even if those careers happen from their “office” room in their own home. Many of them live private, multifaceted lives. All of them are fascinating to their children. And, even though I didn’t pick up the phone or send out a bulk email poll, I do believe that most, if not all of them, would walk away in an instant if their child said, “I need you. I need *all* of you.”

I argued that it is not *being* a mother that is a destiny but what that mother *does* that is her path. What example does she set? What kindness, compassion and altruism does she bring to the lives of her children and to the world at large? In short, what else does she do? But you know what? She doesn’t have to do anything else. She doesn’t have to do anything other than raise the next generation. Because to do that right, you have to be an interesting person. To change with the times, to guide and shape young people who will rule in a time even more distant? To do all that, you must be open to the unexpected. You must be able to imagine the unimaginable. You must be fully alive.

Just feeding and clothing a child, shuffling them onto a school bus or shuttling them to and from Scout meetings, is not being a mom. That’s called maintenance. Houses, pets, children, even partners require maintenance. That, indeed, is not impassioned path. But we start walking on that path when we cross over to talking openly and honestly with our children about death, about God, about sex, about politics. About creativity and dreams and expectations and reality. About our own hearts. About their hearts. About how it all began and how it will all end.

Gazing at Angels? Yeah, we certainly are. But we’re not just gazing. We’re trekking. We’re journeying with angels. How can being a mother *not* be an impassioned path when we’re walking with angels?

In the forest that is a woman’s heart, she walks with her children until they find their own paths. Paths that, by her guidance and by the grace of God, will be impassioned paths. Paths that circle ‘round and return to the forest time and again, for spiritual encouragement and map-making. For love, for help, for companionship.

To the moms in my life, all subscribers on this beautiful Sunday, and to all the women in my life who see motherhood as part of their destiny – an important part of their destiny – I say: Thank you. Because I live in the world that your children will rule.

With respect and love,
E.J.

I Think of You and Music

It’s 4:09 a.m.. Looking out the window, everything is dark and the street lights are still on. There is a fine rain. It looks like a shower of sparks where it passes the lamps. Somewhere out there right now there are *real* angels and I sometimes wonder if they know who and what they are. I wonder if they even prescribe to organized religion. Sometimes, when I feel very deeply lonely, I think I feel them in the night air.

And somewhere, music plays, like a child's voice, murmuring dreams and sharing visions in the predawn day.

Poems are sketches with words.
Images that we paint for each other
when we're away from the canvas.
Rainforest rain
washed night from my sky
and I turned my gaze to your photo.
I studied and pondered
and was mesmerized
thinking myself in circles
over the wonder of you
the wonder of God
then you again.
I wanted to touch your hair
your cheek
to say words that would soothe
but not tame.
I wanted to tell you jokes
that made your serious countenance
fall away like the rain in Paris
on Valentines.
The things I wanted, whispered outside
angels or memories
brushing the cold window glass.
I realized with a breath that
looking at you in a photograph
wasn’t unlike talking with you
in digital paint.
Because, after all, no matter a photo
or pixels, or flesh-and-blood,
it’s all just God’s own light,
bouncing playfully off our eyes.
The heart resides somewhere else.
Somewhere between and beyond
all these mediums.
The heart is where I stand for you.

"There ain't much to ice fishing
'Til you miss a day or more
And the hole you've cut freezes over
And it's like you've never been there before."
--Bill Morrissey, "Ice Fishing"

Why since I met you, truly met you, why sleep has become a burden. Not to miss a day or more? Not to miss a moment.

Happy Valentines, everyone. Don't let it pass unnoticed.

Good Morning, Sunshine

Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life. —Proverbs 4:23

Before everyone thinks that I’ve gone and turned all Sunday school teacher (though... I have known some pretty powerful, beautiful and thought-provoking Sunday school teachers in my time), let me just mention that as I type these words on my swanky (but slow) little onyx eeePC, that I am sprawled across a thick, silky white carpet in tight blue jeans and a white tank, my shoulders, chest, face and arms splattered with dried paint in blues, reds, purples, and greens. I’m in my favorite white crew socks and my hair – which is long and brown and feathered for work – is tied back in a white bandana that smells of another woman’s perfume and that I most certainly will be taking home with me. Because, right, did I mention it? This isn’t my carpet.

;)

This is that *other* thing I do. I have the ole day job, then – mostly all night – I design games, and, on the side, I paint portraits and abstracts on commission. I got this job when a friend of a friend of a friend heard I was in town and offered to buy me everything new to do a piece (6 x 6 feet) immediately! The theme I was given was “maturity” and the props... well, they weren’t apples and oranges, baby. I did employ the excellent skills of six dozen open roses – red and white, twenty yards of forest green satin, and one very accommodating host. This is still life the way art intended. And if you have never painted or sketched with a model before, I highly recommend that you run out and join a class right now. Because as your eye and hand fall in sync to trace lines so mesmerizing they might as well be the map to the soul, you’ll never believe in evolution again. There is nothing ape-like about the curve of a hip, the arch of a neck, or shoulder blades that most surely once held wings.

The studio is all lit up. The studio being the entire living room of a house so large it probably has several living rooms. Three walls are floor to ceiling glass and offer a spectacular view that I expertly ignore. Not really a chore.

The lights were the most expensive part. I warned my friend: Lights are outrageous. But there was no stopping her. Her big sister was turning a certain age and a portrait was the only thing that would do. She sent me a package of general family-event photos of her sister about two weeks ago. I sketched out some basic stick and line ideas and faxed them over. She kept saying, “Nope. Something more. Something more powerful.” In the end it was a cascade of green and a shower of roses, draped in layers and waves, a long bronze body leaning back, one knee up, one arm draped over that knee, the lights playing on skin and petals and fabric. In the end it was five hours of sketching, then photos. Then dinner far nicer than I’ve had in years. Then five more hours of painting. Now exhaustion.

The canvas looks good so far. I use someone’s (probably my friend’s) old StepMaster to position myself just so, to ensure perspective is correct from low and high. I’m running out of brown.

I miss my own brushes. In moments of frustration, not wanting to waste a moment, I crack one and then two more over my knee cap, shortening the maddeningly long handles. I like to get paint on my fingers. I have whip lash from darting between subject and canvas, not trusting the new brushes to do my bidding.

At the end of the day, I start to pack up, to seal and cover and chill and spritz. I fold the satin and pick up the roses, pouring arm fulls of buds and petals into the large green glass bowl from India. Somewhere in the house I know the shower is running but I can’t hear it. I am swinging my jacket over my bare shoulders when her husband walks in, the brother-in-law. Still dressed from the office, a whiskey in his hand. He strides purposefully over to the canvas. Appraises. Sips. His eyes, but not his head, move to look at me. “What is she paying you?” He means my friend. I tell him casually. “I’ll match it,” he says and walks out. There’s no time or space or reason to argue.

My loving friend, the striking host, and the driven husband... they all share one thing. They all know their hearts. And, to me it seems, they know each other’s hearts as well. There is rarely a feeling more complimentary, more inspirational, and more magical than having your picture painted. We feel immortal. We feel beautiful. We feel happy.

I am just a small cog in this machine. I will come here again tomorrow and turn on the tall lights but I will paint alone, finishing the work over the course of the day, maybe ten more hours. My host will be friendly, elegant, and attentive. She will probably talk about politics or the writers’ strikes or the news. At one point I’ll whip sweat from my face and smear blues across my cheek. I’ll notice her standing in the wide arch way that leads away into the house. She’ll stand there, tall glass of hot tea in hand, her hair perfectly coifed, her blouse ruffles of silk, her slacks crisp, her heels high. She’ll have her eyes on the canvas. On herself. On that moment of time captured forever. Happy birthday.

I am just a small cog in so many machines. In the wikiworld creation of Mardi Gras 3000, I am one small voice. In the lives of my friends, I am often just text on a screen. I am a moment, fleeting from the start, in someone else’s life. A small gate to walk by or through. But here, like this, covered in paint, waiting for a taxi... sitting in an Internet café writing to you... I am happy.

E.J.

Remember the Sabbath

I wrote several days ago that life without gritty reality is not living. Because if we move through the motions of life without hardship then what are we really doing? How much are we truly thinking and contributing to our fellow man?

It seems for some time my life has progressed without much change. This does not mean without trial or windfall. One job ended suddenly and another was offered a few days later. Plans fizzled. Plans were made. Doors closed. Doors opened.

“I watched our personal sky unfolding and knew it would never fold again.”

As I write these words it’s raining. A steady sight that I first described in my mind as grey and ugly. I usually love rain. I’ve been known to do all kinds of crazy, joyful – and yes, Eris, loud -- things in the rain. I was four when I first left my parents’ house during the middle of a downpour, climbed onto the hood of our car, and stood with my hands high above my head… until my mother threw a beach towel over me and carried me back inside. She claims I was laughing. I think I was praying.

I remember the first time I stood in Ireland during a rain storm. I was with the greatest man in the world. He stood beside me and smiled at me and said, “Do you know from this how much Christ loves us?” And he was laughing, my dad, soaked to the skin, his brown hair, flattened to his shoulders. His brown eyes crinkled with life. I felt so alive. Yeah, I was cold. Yeah, I was heart broken at the time. Yeah, I felt like my world as I knew it was ending. But I also felt the perfection of God’s own rain. Of life, of that which most of our world and our bodies are made of, falling from the sky and drenching me completely. It was, in so any ways, a second baptism.

Completely different was the rain that fell in Brazil, visiting with family friends when I was in my early twenties. In their spacious, beautiful home, four floors of white stucco and red tile floors, I awoke in my guest room, the exposed wooden beams of the slated ceiling holding up a roof under the most thunderous rain I’d ever heard in my life. I leapt from bed like a thing possessed and went to the window. I threw it open, the sheer white curtains drawing out. The jungle encroached on every side and through the sheets of rain I could see only a solid indistinct green wash. But somewhere, somewhere in the yard beyond the patio and its white, wrought iron table and chairs, children were laughing. None of them even ten years old, the little ones of the household were running, in nightgowns out of a Julie Andrews’ film like “Song of Music,” they were running under that warm rain. And standing, their arms at each other’s waists, were the Lord and Lady of the house. Both tall and powerful figures. Both regal in black and white. They were standing and smiling, gazing out at the joy, tangible and alive, before them. God’s own children. Their children. This was a third baptism for me and I wasn’t even in the rain.

“Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, And I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.” Psalm 35:24

And I’m staring out at California rain now. And it isn’t tinted emerald and there is nothing regal outside my city window. Until I know eternity, my father will never stand beside me with his hand in mine and I will never see his hair, so fine and beautiful, plastered to his face and neck again. What I have instead is gritty reality.

I have $100 worth of Plato on my bed, that I haven’t slept in, in four days. I have my little black book for counting calories, strangely, alarmingly showing that I’ve had one waffle, two Cokes and five cups of coffee this week and nothing else. Shouldn’t I be dead right about now? I have a frown on my face and a blush in my cheeks that I know is dangerous. I know it because it leads to things like speeding tickets and walking alone in cities I don’t know. I want to strip off my flannels (why did I change into them if I knew darn well I wouldn’t sleep?) and don my jacket and jeans and scripture boots. I want to forget about my intellectual friend in Washington telling me to look to history to know the human heart and my other friend telling me to shut down, shut up and just work. Because the work is pure. And it is. But I want to just know me for a moment. Me in the arms of my God.

I don’t want to know how I feel. I don’t want anyone’s advice. I want personal revelation. One on one. I just want to get out there in that rain. In that steady… silver… big city rain. And so I do.

…

I promised Erik I’d write him a Sunday sermon. But I have so much to say on Saturday. I have a knack, Erik, for making something out of nothing. This can be very good. This can be very bad. Sometimes I second guess the people with the best intentions. All the times, I distrust the dogma and resist man’s authority. I want to talk about God’s laws. I want to talk about what, I believe, we all know as truth in our hearts.

I’ve heard it said that “Christ made us perfect but we live our lives imperfectly.”

What?

Fear is imperfect? Passion is imperfect? Dedication is imperfect? *What* is imperfect? If we do not lie to one another, and we do not steal from one another, and we are gentle and honest and forthright… are we perfect? No, not perfect like Christ. Perfect for each other. Perfect together.

Let’s go smaller, Erik. Let’s just talk about our community, the forum, on the web. Even smaller. Your family. Again smaller just me and you, two brand new friends. Less than a month friends. Where are the seeds of Christ?

You know realty. You know fear and pain and guilt and shame and hiding and finding and being born again. You know these things. In your heart. All these feelings are seeds of Christ. (And that you isn’t just you, Erik, it’s all of us.) Along with the loyalty and passion, and anger and confusion, and crying and laughing, and all of mine and MG’s typos, and speed chatting, and IMVU crashes, and PMs that make no sense (because I don’t want them to), and posts that make me laugh, think or say “Woot!” In everything I see the hand of Christ that is without platitude or excuse. That is vibrant and living. Like “bad guy” Eris trying to sway “good grrl” MG to walk on the dark side—it simply won’t happen. You don’t leap off the path of Christ once you find it and know it and feel it under your feet and in your heart. You don’t dance with the devil once you know the Divine. You throw fruit at the devil in the pale moonlight.

So, my new friend, and all my “old” friends, be not guided by righteousness or indignation. Be not guided by worldly means. Be guided by the seed of Christ that whispers from your heart. By the passion you feel for your art. By the impassioned vision that calls to you. By your own personal revelation. He is telling you to live, Erik. He is telling you to rejoice. Take tomorrow—Sunday, the Sabbath—and find a way to do just that. Find that thing that fills your heart with joy.

E.J.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm (ancient Greek: enthousiasmos) originally meant inspiration or possession by the presence of a god. In current vernacular the word simply means enjoyment, interest, or approval. Isn't that an unfortunate and even sad sign of the times?

The addictive Wikipedia tells us: "Enthusiasm: root - en-theos = in God. An enthusiast is a person inspired by god. Theopneustos = literally God breathed. When the early Christians would see someone convert to Christianity there was this overwhelming joy that followed the gift of Salvation but they had a problem: There was no word to describe this feeling. So they combined the two words (in God) creating the word (entheos) from which we get the English word Enthusiasm."

Is this the perfect example of the stripping of religion and Christ from our everyday lives? Yeah, sure, we all know to be outraged or at least incredulous over "Xmas" and "Winter Break," but the bastardization of powerful words like "enthusiasm" is more subtle and much more damaging.

How much have Christians contributed to the world? If you didn't immediately shout "Immeasurably!" then you don't know Christian history. But today I'm just talking about this one word. A word that I can't let go of lately.

The journey started with a feeling. All the best journeys do. I wanted to describe to someone far away what I felt in my heart. I cannot *stand* using platitudes and clichés and I'm annoyed when they leap to my mind. It's like my aversion to "overplayed" music; Yeah, I might *love* a song but if I hear it seven times a day every time I turn on the radio, I will hate it by the end of day three.

So how did I feel? "Inspired"? Well, yeah. But still, kind of weak. "Amazed"? So banal. "Fervor"? Hmm. That was getting closer. And that word, smacked into Google, my other constant companion like Wikipedia, brought me to the definition of "enthusiasm" as "Its uses are confined to a belief in religious inspiration, or to intense religious fervor or emotion."

!!!

"Really?!" I said aloud. "Geesh, that's not the 'enthusiasm' I've ever used before." But, omgosh, that is the enthusiasm I'm feeling today. Let me try to use this incredible, *Christian* word in a sentence... or attached to twelve sentences.

"When I see you, a great enthusiasm races through my body, stops my heart and I cannot breathe. I am frozen in heat, a warmth like tropical ocean tides, coursing over me. My eyes tear. I am moved from where I am to a place where you are. Where we are together. When I see you again, I know I'll be lost and found in your gaze. I am confounded by the power of your touch, memories of your hands on my face. Across thousands of miles, it is your words, white on black, blinking back at me across this digital age, that paint us together. A landscape of my amazement. Of you tearing down walls of false assumptions about what is possible and what is real. I knew at once that you were strong. I did not know until now that I was in love with you."

Yeah, enthusiasm is a very Terrapyre word.

E.J.

Have Faith

Just gotta have it. There’s no way to get through this life without it. I see all kinds of people everyday. So many of them have replaced faith—you know, Faith—with money or drugs. But wow do these “Earthly” things wear off at the worst possible moments. Your happiness depends on something that man can take away? Ooo-boy. That’s pretty risky right there.

Now I’m not a religious fanatic (okay, maybe I am in my own way) wearing blinders through life. I’m also not comfortably cushioned from sharp realities like unpaid medical bills, or late fees. I don’t live in grant-supported wonderland; I live in the real world and I believe, kinda like my friend Sha quoted recently, that life isn’t living without gritty realities.

“Faith is not a leap to make. Faith is the path you take.” Miriam Sunchild, a New Testament Christian speaker and writer, says that. She means that you don’t grab hold of Faith when you need to leap a chasm. You walk with Faith, on the impassioned path, every single day. And when you do, those chasms that open up, gaping and ugly in all our real lives, will be noticed with a mere glance as we cross over, barely breaking our strike, using the sturdy bridge that Faith has made us.

My friends Jennifer and Cris have a daughter named Faith. Jennifer likes to tease that Faith was named after a certain vampire slayer but Cris just rolls her eyes. Both moms are New Testament Christians and pretty darn kickin’ cool. Faith, however, is a strong-willed, wild, jump-off-the-back-of-the-couch, loving, crazy beast. She also has Type 1 diabetes. That’s the type that doesn’t come from primarily being under-active or overweight; doctors have no idea where it comes from. It just kills the pancreas and laughs. It strikes mostly children. Faith wasn’t even two years old.

Now this means that Faith lives with nine blood checks and seven shots a day. Every day. No exceptions. Her parents keep tight control on her condition and, at almost six years old, she has absolutely no complications or side-effects and she has never been hospitalized. However, in the beginning, the diagnosis was slow coming. And other things, like Cooms (a blood incompatibility with her biological mom, Jennifer) had her in and out of the hospital, under special lights, on IVs, etc. At one point, so fed up with IV tubes and boards to keep her arm straight, Faith whacked one of the nurses over the head and broke the little board right in half. Cris still have that board in her hope chest.

Okay... maybe Faith *was* named after the vampire slayer ;)

In the beginning, when her moms were at their wits’ and their hearts’ end, when tears and prayers didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere, a family member sent them a letter. The letter said simply, “You named her Faith. There must have been a reason. She *will* pull through. You just have to look to Faith.”

Are you looking to Faith or man for your answers? Don’t want to talk to me about Christ? Fine. Cool. “Whatev,” as Brianne might say. I’m over it, okay? But what about Faith? Are you plunging ahead to make every decision that will kill or save you? Or are you asking someone? Are you asking Faith? Are you walking your path with your mortal, flawed body, or are you walking—running, flying—with your eternal body?

People say, “Follow your heart.” I’m asking you to follow your Faith. Faith outlives even the heart.

In Fellowship,
E.J.

Welcome to my wikiWorld

There’s this saying, “We all make our own reality.” On the surface, most of us might readily agree. But then, after a few sips of coffee, gazing over the rim into the smiling eyes of a thinking companion, I find myself scrunching up my face. “You know, actually...” and I’m away on a roll.

If you’re reading this blog you probably already know who I am. I’m a delightfully small-time game designer whose game world kinda, well, caught on. Now a single trading card game (that has only appeared to a lucky few as Beta Decks and doesn’t launch as National Decks until 2009) is probably better known for the most excellent fiction based in the world.

Mardi Gras 3000 is taking off but not “over-night sensation” garbage. I met a grrl when I was still a teen-ager. She was a writer. She got burned by a corporate press. She bought her own publishing house. Years later, I met her again at a convention. I pitched a game to her. She pushed me to, “Make It So!” I did. She published it. Right about that time, she was talking to some other grrls at a bookstore (kinda how she met me way back). She met Launa. Launa was a teen. Launa knew php. Launa liked to build forums... and she was also the author of half a dozen books.

Launa interns for my friend. She builds a forum for MG3K. She posts on other forums about MG3K. Writers start to come to the forum... and they start to build a world.

Now time tests everyone. The online world can seem less important and less real than the offline world. But time shows who sees the Vision of this little ole idea. Some writers drift away. Some try and can’t make it work. Then others start to come in. Word spreads. And then the words start to arrive. After that, it’s the snowball effect. Little excerpts and ideas lead to the 800 word “Introducing the Tribe” and the 8,000 word “Immortal Dreaming.” Then 1,500 word “Immortal Waking: Eris” and 1,800 word “Immortal Waking: Chiron.” And, of course, 56,000 word “Harper,” a full novel of riveting words.

Brianne, Launa, Pahmela, Eric, Luz, Jean and Sha, are joined by Erik, and then artists Anthony and Abbie. Cris, our dedicated, very hands-on, weekly phone calls and lots of encouragement editor joins the ranks as a writer as well. The world grows and grows.

Erik posts on the forum: “I’m glad to have found this wikiworld.”

And it hits me. That’s what we have. When all the writers tell me (and they tell me this a lot, and I love them for it): “Thank you for inviting us into your world!” I feel that something is a little off. And that’s what it is. This isn’t *my* world. I’m just an editor. And not even the Senior Editor LOL This is *our* world. This a world we’re creating together. We’re creating our own realities. We’re writing a world that we can all play in.

Heck, dear reader, this is YOUR world. Come join us.
http://www.mardigras3000.com/phpBB2/index.php

E.J.

Killing our Artists

I have a friend who never complains. Her attitude -- no, her personal religion -- is that no matter what life throws you (and I seriously mean "no matter what") you better just be glad to be alive. You just deal with it and fight on.

She might have this approach for a wide variety of reasons. Her father was murdered when she was five. The first person she seriously dated unexpectedly committed suicide. As a preteen she was abducted by a distant relative and repeatedly raped. As a grown woman and a mother, she struggles with Chronic Fatigue and two amazing but special needs children. She says to all of this: "What does not kill me, makes me stronger." And she says it with this half-smile, this sad/wise/thankful grin that has broken and melted my heart in turns.

I like to call her and ask, "So, what's bothering you today?" I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever ask her this question because, eventually, she'd get so annoyed she'd pop 'em one. But I always dare to ask. On Friday she actually answered me, "We're killing our artists."

And we are.

I'm not going to repeat the polite excuses she offered up for all the parents who quash the creative and the beautiful in their children. I'm not that kind. There is no excuse. There should only be in your face confrontation condoned in the name of saving society from its own soulless unravelling.

Think I'm being dramatic? Of course I'm being dramatic. This is a *blog.* No one reads or writes a blog about grass growing... unless they tie it to the cosmic unravelling of every spark of genius and innovative thought.

You're online right now. You probably love quizs. Here's a quiz:

Is it more socially acceptable for a teen to:

A) watch reality TV with the family
B) sit in his room and write

C) message friends on MySpace
D) use the Internet to research history for a role-playing game he's creating

E) work full-time at a grocery store
F) work part-time at a publishing house

G) go to college at eighteen
H) wait until going to college feels right

How'd you answer? Do you have kids? Were you being honest? Do you have kids for eighteen years or for life? When do you expect/want your kids to move out? When will you shift how you think about them from your little angels to other adults who just up your water and electric bills? When does the "family home" become "my house"?

My buddy Cris says to her kids, "This isn't *my* house. This is our house. Your rooms are not your only spaces. Every room is your room." I seriously doubt that Cris' kids will move out until they marry. Cris' kids have been known to say, "Mama, I really need some down time today." And she makes that happen.

Are *you* your child's patron?

Or are you there to break his will and make him see the error of his ways?

It should go without saying: We each have one life. We can make only our own choices. Our children are not ours to shape (read: manipulate). Our children are ours to guide, to love, and to marvel at.

I cannot *imagine* Cris turning to her son and saying, "You've been silently drawing for six hours! Get off your bum and go outside and play football!" I *can* imagine her praising him endlessly for his creative mind -- even as she is washing floors, making meals, and doing dishes. Why? Because *she* chose to have children.

International bestselling author Jeanette Winterson writes in her book "Weight:"

"Right now, human beings as a mass, have a gruesome appetite for what they call 'real', whether it's Reality TV or the kind of plodding fiction that only works as low-grade documentary, or at the better end, the factual programmes and biographies and 'true life' accounts that occupy the space where imagination used to sit.

"Such a phenomenon points to a terror of the inner life, of the sublime, of the poetic, of the non-material, of the contemplative."

If you don't feel the cold fingers of dread and sudden illumination chill you when you read that, if you're not nodding your head and murmuring, "Dear God, that's it." Then read it again. If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention. Let me give it to you like this:

We want our kids to grow up, get out, a do what we tell them is valuable because then we, as parents, as human beings, are valuable. We've raised 'em right. We've done good.

We want our children to have jobs in the real world -- the dirty, hard, tangible world. Not jobs that start in dreams. Not jobs that they even enjoy.

We want all of this because that's what *we* did, damn it, and if they don't do what we did (or what we couldn't do) than we are no longer valid. We are no longer current. We are outdated and ridiculous.

"My son is an artist. He lives at home. He paints twelve hours a day. He makes no mess for me. He sits and eats all three meals with me and we talk. We meet at midnight and share a mug of tea. My son is an artist. Sometimes he sells his paintings. Sometimes I just get to hang them on my walls. He lives with me. I am his father. I am so proud of him I could burst. He is gentle and kind. He is loving and funny. I am so glad he didn't do what his mother told him and grow up to be a doctor."

In college, the boy across the hall had that taped to his door. It was a prose-poem written by his dad in blue ballpoint. When we graduated (and he moved back home), I asked if I could have it. "Sure," he shrugged. "I don't need it now. I'll have my dad." I've kept it ever since.

Because creative children are arcane and wonderful. They are unexpected and passionate. They are fiery and hard to live with. They are temperamental. They are be real snits one minute and loving snugglers the next. They are flighty and forgetful. They whine. They will write or paint or draw for fourteen hours and forget to take out the trash. They can have *real* conversations with you about *real* things before they're old enough to drive... heck, before they're old enough to tie their own shoes.

Creative children *scare* mundane parents. They scare mundane society. They *are* the sublime, the poetic, the non-material, the contemplative. They are our darkest fears and our brightest hopes all laid out in the open. They are smarter than us. They are better than us. They have already ascended this dirty and hard world and found their own heaven.

Are you your daughter's patron?

Or are you doing her a favor by handing her a reality check signed with your tough love?

"Immortal Madre, I wanna walk away from a lucrative career. I wanna create an open universe with a trading card game, a role-playing game, and novels, where everyone is welcome to create together. All of this will bring glory to Christ and the gentle, underlying message will touch hearts and change souls. It will take time. But it's God's work. It's good work. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my everything. And I'm ready."

And she answered, "Let me be your patron."

Tired in the Morning

I watch her from across the room.
She’s contemplating her interior spaces.
Cathedrals filled with stain glass memories
from five countries and more than fifty years.
Elegant experience. She turns heads then, now.
What are you thinking?
I would never presume to ask.
But if I did I know the ghost of a smile I’d receive.
The sadness in the cinnabar eyes.
The “sweetheart” or “honey”
prefacing the “Don’t worry. Nothing.”
It’s the End Times, Mom. You down with that?
She wouldn’t be rattled.

Tired of me writing about my Immortal Madre?
Yeah, Patrick, maybe you’re ripe for another shower scene, huh?
Brianne is rolling her eyes, “Whatev.”

There’s a man sitting alone across the cluster of small round tables.
He is perfectly framed, the image of reflection,
the backdrop of Starbucks mermaids and sirens.
Dear God, he looks so alone.
He’s Greek or Italian or some other olive-skinned,
rugged Mediterranean locale.
When he ordered his drink, his accent was thick, a rumble,
a sound I want to listen to.
His black curls are shot with silver.
His wide brown eyes close for a moment,
thick black lashes like butterfly kisses.
“Why isn’t he drinking, Mom?” I ask impulsively.
She doesn’t look up from the New York Times.
“Because he isn’t here for the coffee.”
Thirty minutes later he leaves.
The full tall-cup drops into the trash.
$2.75. It makes a solid sound. He makes no sound.
I watch him walk away into a crisp winter world.

Tired of me writing with my contemplative muse on my shoulder?
Rather having a rave? A flash of speed? A lap dance?
Launa laughs. “You’re fine, grrl. Just write.”

Christmas bells, Christmas bells, shopping all the day.
Why do we always finds ourselves at the mall?
“How about Victoria’s Secrets?”
I give her an incredulous look and steal the last bite of Cinnabon.
“How about Wilson’s Suede and Leather?”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
She rolls her eyes at me, “So glad I had a son.”
But we wind up at a kiosk with cheap steel jewelry.
I like the heavy weight of the rings on my fingers.
“I want a blank book.”
“Only if it plugs into a USB,” I tell her.
“Sometimes, sweetheart, I write things
that I have no intention of sharing.”
And she walks into Hallmark. Leaving me standing, staring.
Some yuppie in a business suit with a Blackberry
openly cruises her – short feathered hair, cinnamon skin,
tailored jacket and knee-length skirt.
I consider an elbow to the gut and a growl,
“Hey, bud, that’s my mom.”

Tired of the Freudian, Old World vignettes?
Feeling like my life -- unlike your life -- is stuck in rehash?
Wondering why I don't just:
Grow Up
Get Over It
Get a Life, Baby
Looking for a review of Halo 3 (cr*p) or BioShock (uh...)
to put the “Gamer” with “Grrl”?
Slinky pushes auburn bangs out of her face. Looks at me with cool blue eyes. Hands me a cup of coffee because suddenly I can't breathe. “You know I’m always reading.”

Yeah. Don’t I know.

I know so well who’s out there.

Minister2Me, Baby

A man stopped me on the street today. Downtown Seattle. Cold day. Silver sky. Got in my space. Spoke too loudly. Held a black Bible at chest level. Just under his fully buttoned, very white shirt. He spied me crossing the street. In my riding chaps and leather jacket buttoned up against the cold. My dark hair streaked with neon red because I'm off work 'til January.

He said (it wasn't asked), "Have you been saved?" He knew what he thought the answer was. He was already opening his mouth to continue when I said, "How many have you saved today?"

There was an awkward moment. I suppose it was awkward, I mean. He looked kind of uncomfortable. And I know my Immortal Madre (that's mom's nickname) squeezed my elbow really hard. I just kept talking.

"I can't imagine that you reach many young people with this approach. Teens. Twentysomethings. They're so wary of the authority figures that this culture shoves down their throats. Plus so many aren't blessed with great parents in the first place. I mean, Christ really bucked the system, didn't He? Just like every teenager boarding in the no loiter zones. Bet they never think much about how Christ would have sat down on the edge of the half-pipe with them and talked about what to do the next time their dad got drunk and starting busting heads. Bet Christ would talk about survival and addiction and places to go for help. Not just some turn the other cheek and pray stuff.

"Is that your Bible? Your own Bible? And of course it would be too easy to ask, Have you read it? Sure you have. My Bible is pretty dog-eared and marked up and stuff. It also fits in my back pocket and all the best parts fit in my head, already translated into pop speak. New Testament Christians have got it easy, I guess.

"I have a friend who recruits without a Bible. She's brought the Light into more people's lives than anyone else I know. She's just chill. She's just got it all going on in here, you know? In her heart. She talks about Christ and you have to listen. She smiles at everyone and has this gentle wit. She's tough as nails but she speaks the language of the people. Whatever people. She can just talk to anyone. Never cops an attitude. She just *moves* people. I wanna do that. I wanna bring people to Christ without ever saying, Have you been saved? Because you know what? Saying stuff like that conjures images of this right now, right here, for every punk, raver, raw, wild person without the Spirit. I say, Jesus Christ is your personal Lord, and they think: Here's some stuffed shift, up in my face, in the street, when I just wanna Christmas shop with my mom. That's what they think."

And because it's Seattle, and because I've been taught to project, and because I'm not too short, and Immortal Madre is just darn tall, and because Jesus likes it when people talk about Him, it happens to be that when I stop talking there are a bunch of people standing around and looking at me. They kind of look like they recognize me. They kind of look like they recognize the situation. Or maybe they just wanna catch their bus, get their newspaper, or cross the street.

Some young guy in a blue and green knit hat mutters, "Amen." And Mom and I walk on. I open the door of the bookstore for her, my helmet under my other arm, and Mom walks in and a few other people too. I'm standing there, feeling kinda mad. Feeling kind of like there isn't too many people willing to do this right. Feeling like spreading the Word isn't about pretentious, pious Scripture-spouting... Feeling like I wanna shout, "Build a house! Plant a garden! Design a game!! Do something *real* for them. Give a nonbeliever something to Believe in!"

Then I turn inside the store, and I look up for Mom. There she is, by the stairs going down into the cafe. Around her are strangers. Three or four. She is smiling at me in her elegant, composed way, and she beckons to me. "Let's all go downstairs for coffee," she says. "Come on, darling."

Come on, E.J. Come minister.

I Am Not Alone

This idea, Mardi Gras 3000, has taken over my life. But I don't mean that every spare moment is utilized by MG3K (okay, I do) but that at any moment, at pretty much every moment, I can just start talking about the MG3K world and people... like... stare at me. No, seriously! I ordered a tall, single latte. And the next thing I knew I was telling the cashier about a deep, smooth, frothed milk drink was such a good idea, and the coffee flavor was such an earthy goodness flavor... but too bad about that whole it really is as addictive as nicotine and the fact the drinks have gotten bigger and bigger, and the number of shots per customer increases as time wears on, and, for a while in the 2004 at least, the coffee chain staff (you know which one) were being encouraged to ask customers if they wanted an extra shot in their drink to, you know, bring up the cost of the average sale... and feed those stupid addicts more of what they crave.

Should coffee come with warning labels like cigarettes? What would they say:

WARNING: Addictive stimulant. Cardiovascular effects: increased heart rate; increased blood pressure, and irregular heartbeat.

Of course, if this law were put into effect, just to be fair, several people I know would have to have these labels stuck to their shirts. LOL

Coming full circle: So, in a recent piece of MG3K fiction, the author announces that alcohol, nicotine, chocolate and caffeine are all controlled substances in the year 2056. What do you think? Interesting, huh? Crazy? Maybe not. But my point is...

THERE ARE MG3K AUTHORS NOW!!!!

Yes, I am screaming. With happiness and excitement. Because I love the players. They play the game with a dedication and an obsessive passion. They create moves. They make strategies. They are making the card game powerful. But the setting of the card game--the atmosphere, the universe--has to be rich for me to continue to live in this place. To be okay with how obsessive my own thoughts have become. A friend actually said, "Bonkers, E.J., are you speaking in tongues now?" When he asked if I wanted to go club hopping (to dance) and I answered him by reading 400 words out of a new MG3K story set in a night club. *Everything* ties into MG3K lately.

For a while, everyone (and, my gosh, I do mean everyone) seemed to have a MG3K idea. But, well, I didn't really get excited because I've worked at a publishing house. I've done the wanna-be author convention circuit thing. Yes, *everyone* always has an *idea* for a novel. But only .05% of them ever actually write it. And, heh, I'm not putting them down. You don't see me whipping out a novel either. My excitement came when authors actually started to ask for *contracts* and send in finished *stories*!! Suddenly, it was real. And it was really good.

The fact that the authors see the world and the characters in the same way that I do--even when the authors are miles or half a world away--is incredible and powerful. It inspires me to write very, very, very long posts on the forum. Where does that stuff all come from?

From the collective mind of the audience, my friends. Remember that post way back in the day? ;) The collective mind is proving itself. I believed. Now, let the good times roll.

E.J.