In the garden of Orthodoxy

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Your love had provided you with a sweet-smelling yard, a garden smudged at its edge -- like chalk in the rain -- with sudden open fields. Although the yard was bounded, it was infinite. You could well walk the labyrinth of its pine-needle path for a lifetime without reaching a pause in its great mystery.

You were alone there or comfortable enough that it felt like being alone in any case. Where are you, my sweet one, you would sometimes call with sorrow in your voice but if you asked with enough insistence and for a sufficient time, God could always be found. God could be depended upon.

And in any case love was always more delicious being found after being lost. Just as truth always feels *most* true at the moment that it is revealed.

There was a sort of bricked enclosure in the center of the garden. It was like a fortress yet somehow much easier of access, and the truth was that it let anyone in who really wanted to come in. So if it was a place guarding from danger, the danger wasn't you. You seemed to have free privileges there. Now the fortress was called Orthodoxy and it was an expression of your dear one's love. Orthodoxy was not a set of beliefs, though it looked that way from the outside. It was really a mode of protection, a place in which, standing covered, you could think safely. For instance, your doubt existed as a fact of life in the world. But when you stood within the fortress you could envision doubt without getting hurt by it. The place was not a book of facts but more like a concavity of knee-worn stone where you could feel the touch of a certain kind hand, God's hand. There were oddities in Orthodoxy's structure but these oddities could only be seen, much less understood, from the inside. So, in summary, Orthodoxy was another word for protection.

You did not spend your life within this place but you did go to very great effort to make sure it was never far. For its assurance was realer than real and truer than true.

If these bricks made in some sense a house of assignation, nevertheless the love that was made there was clean and holy and enduring. David's ark was not so far away in spirit and truth. People mingled here from various faiths that were able to keep their privacy and integrity just that, intact. Mingling heightened the purity of faith; no reductivism occurred. It was like a house of prayer that had never stooped to politicize prayer. People were happy here. God was so much present that you became dizzy with joy.

Such was Orthodoxy -- hated by those who didn't know how tender it was.

Your only sorrow -- in this place that was single yet filled with folk -- was to watch friends you loved grow comfortable and play fast and loose with their own protection.

I am completely safe, they said. I can walk out of this place and not worry. God is love and God is everywhere, they said -- a truth that was correct and yet not complete. I am not going to worry, they said. They were like Milton's Eve, who when she gathered flowers was yet a more perishable apparition than the flowers she gathered. Don't worry about us, these friends would say, then they would wander off into the smudged and confused edges of the open field, never indeed to be seen again.

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Story: 2 brazen sluts -- ?? -- The "Girls for God"

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"My song is Love Unknown".

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Christians, read this story to the end before you judge it.

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2 teenage girls were comparing their love adventures from the previous night. The teacher overheard and felt enormous shock. Said to himself: America is doomed. Doomed.

First girl: He was so tender, so understanding. When there was a movement in my heart, he anticipated it and made the movement *first*! He was the perfect dance partner. All night long. I felt so safe inside his rhythm and his thrust.

Second girl: Well, my love was rough with me, maybe a bit really. He took my spirit places I thought I didn't want to go. Weird exciting places. With him I decided to go. I went. Pain waited for me there and yet, on the other side of the pain, this vast "acceptance". A sense of beyond pain. Not without it but beyond it. Nobody ever gave me that before.

First girl: So did you "entregar"? Did you give yourself completely?

Second girl: Oh girl, me entrego, there's *no* hesitation, I assure you, I just do it. No ifs or buts or filthy qualms or lacy gloved evasions. Oh no. I'm there for him. He's there for me. We don't measure our love, we go for it.

Teacher: Why you brazen, shameless little sluts. But then the 2 girls laughed at him.

For the girls both had the same lover and that lover was God.

What they described was a sort of prayer life, in a world where prayer is real.

And their teacher was only shocked at them because he didn't believe any of it, that poor sad man. He had unwillingly become a sort of atheist. Which was another way of saying that, when it came to the life of faith, the teacher was nothing but a prude.

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Christians, read this story to the end before you judge it.

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"My song is Love Unknown".

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Defense of Muslims and Jews

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American evangelicals make a great deal out of verbally professing Jesus's name -- something even a White House warlord can do.

But what if the key factor is not your recognizing Jesus but Jesus recognizing *you*?

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Love and death

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The lover fingered death like a product in a store. If I were to put this on now, would I be closer to the one I love?

Like any shopper the lover found it difficult to just walk away, because the price seemed so low. Every bargain screams to be bought. Otherwise someone else will buy it, some stranger, and then the good will run out. And you will be left out. The rack seemed so tempting. But oh no. This was not the way to get close to God. Paying for closeness with your own conduct. That was not the way.

How did you get here, get this existence? You were foisted on earth, rolled out of darkness brutally into existence, shaken there out of the dark sack of genetics. You existed, you lived. That meant that you were wedged in conduct -- the conduct flowed out of your body like a form of energy. So God was insisting that you live here and spend your being *here*, use it up for your love's sake, not dare to bury this vibrancy in the ground like the smothered talent in the sacred story. So death was the shortcut you were not allowed to take, lover.

Conduct was not a side-issue but the center of one's love for God. People said that the ones who loved God spent their entire lives trying to learn what God wanted and then do it. If so, you had to be too busy listening for his advice to so much as consider a cheap good like suicide. God is God of the living not the dead.

Even so, you wondered why people who don't much care about God act as better Christians than you ever seem to manage!

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"If push came to shove..."

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So you vowed never to abandon yourself to anyone's hands except God's hands. Only those hands.

I will be faithful above all and after all. This was how you put it. Yes but God's hands, however mighty, were invisible and hard to measure. It was still you who decided, it was still your responsibility.

So that even when Father Sam, in his kindness, said: Do (some specified) thing and you will be purposeful and happy, you had to stop. You stopped and thought.

What if "purpose" took you away from God? What if "happiness" moved you out of God's hands? Wouldn't you rather be close to God than be happy? That is, if push came to shove, and the kingdom of God drew "near".

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Poem of waking -- someone had willed the recurrence of your will

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Your best moment was your waking. Existence occurred, not for some judicial motive but because it simply did. There was someone who loved you and wanted you alive.

The waking was full of silence and the silence was full of order.

Your love awakened you. As long as God continued to breathe you, you would continue to breathe.

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Magical?

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There is something magical about being poor. What, you mean drinking polluted water and not having medical care? No, not that, I didn't mean that, something else. Something that can't be pulled off like a decal and applied to the rich (as anxiety can). Hey, one thing is, the poor know they're poor, the others don't know -- but still are. Still that isn't quite it.

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It isn't just knowing but knowing what it means.

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There is the shiver of existence, the fact of having it -- so many people don't anymore or never have or will. They don't *exist*, forget about happy and sad. So why does X have it, when Y has had it taken away? It's not like an injection or an application, it's more like you yourself. X exists. He cannot say he deserves it, he can't say that. You can deserve a salary or title maybe. But existence never. To deserve you would first have to *exist* and what justifies *that*??

So back to the nakedness of existence, and this is something the poor still understand and the wealthy would seem to have forgotten. Because it seems that if you barely have it, you have more of it than someone who thinks he has so much that he can take it for granted and ends up -- well, essentially not even existing.

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The blessing of Brokenness

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"I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame." (Job 29:15, KJV)

Yes but what an arrogant bastard I was -- not like Job at all!

Whenever I was "eyes to the blind", they would try to avert them, they would turn their eyes away, in order not to see how broken I myself was.

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The secular ones...

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... act more or less correctly but no longer know why they do this -- or want to -- or ought to. Who this is for

-- & thus expend the capital of their own love.

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Like dying

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The sweetness of your love is like dying. It hurts like nothing else on earth, hurts way more than a petty orgasm, hurts like a body tearing to let transcendence come in. Scary, horrible. So do it. Come in.

This is not a "safe" love. This is not a healthy love from the point of view of your dietician or neurologist or even your priest. But what they no longer see behind the damage is the new life that the damage hides. Are you addicted to God? Oh yes, you will never let this go no matter what. Only it seems that your addiction is different from the countless others insofar as it leads you to nurture the widow and orphan and to pray for all prisoners, homeless, little ones in pain. Because they are now you and *you* -- through sheer crazy love -- have chosen also to be *them*. And if you don't do this, you are not in love.

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When God takes away...

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The most amazing aspect of God's interaction with his lover is that when he takes away he gives.

One movement, not two.

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When he takes away everything -- yes but look carefully. That is when he gives the most. Nothing but himself equals -- himself.

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Love not a drug, after all

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No way. "I have love so it doesn't matter what I do." Forget all that, you simpleton. Conduct matters more than anything.

Conduct was the only communion on offer to you. It mattered what you did. Helpful?

Terrifying?

Love not an assuagement, not really comfort. Your new age friends told you what a fool you were to have chosen this love. Chosen? Was love ever chosen?

Time accumulated and spawned reflection. Then reflection invaginated and became a will -- your own. So your conduct was still a mystery, was it?

What to do from moment to moment, given love has eyes, given love watches. Guards in a way, in a way not. Breathless. Ask the question without stopping for breath: what should I do?

They said that love would tell you what to do but you had to ask, so had to know how to ask, how to hear the answer when it came, words or silence, perhaps silence. But a silence full of clues.

Oh God, make it easier for me.

It seemed your conduct always got in the way of your asking and hearing. How to pray in front of a honking horn, in the middle of an argument, on a weary day like today? Hearing the phone ring, not answering? Hearing a voice on the phone that pulled you into outer space without a helmet, without a plan. Why have you left me here so unsupported, Lord?

Or was this conduct itself a way of speaking, a form of conversation? Were you saying what needed to be said?

Was even this a kind of test? And if so, were you failing the test or passing it?

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The main thing....

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The main thing for the Christian at least is not to "give to the poor" but to *be* poor, and then to give from the gushing abundance of your poverty, which is infinite and bottomless.

Not to be separate but to be with -- and to give as to a brother, a sister, or to yourself.

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Obsessive passion

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You now seemed to spurn your friends, you lost consciousness of them. Your love was everything. You sat at your desk waiting for the allotted time to end so that you could run to be with your love. The thought of your happiness constricted your breath. Then like a bell ringing slowly came the hour that had been designated and you rushed to your meeting, stood waiting for the door to open. It was the hour when things were still visible but without sun, everything outlined and a little bit dark. There were dry crackling branches against the walls, and shadows in the chalk powder alcoves. Where was your love? What could you do to get close to your love and give yourself away completely, forever? You climbed into the bus. All the passengers were drab and sad.

Your love was here, riding in the bus (as he’d been at the desk before), but you couldn’t just take a seat next to him, he wasn’t simply sitting in one of the seats. It wasn’t that simple! Your love, your God, was more widespread than a single seat or a single hour.

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One certain fact: every gesture of love that is given to God or received from God has this in common, that it has some relation to the poor. Sometimes in America, it is hard to tell who is poor, the poverty can be hidden behind money, of all things, but there it is, and God is not far away. After all, who exactly is poor, if not you yourself?

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There are many more poor than the poor themselves realize, no, don’t say they, say we. Why hide? A refusal to be poor is a hindrance to love.

What is wealth but a distraction?

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It is on the bus that you first betray your love – by not in fact loving, not sharing it somehow – for instance, in this space where all the poor are riding home, sullen and disconsolate. You know what you are supposed to do but you don’t do it. You are worn down by sharing, you want to keep it all. So you frown at the other passengers or ignore them. The love ebbs away at the exact moment when you think you are storing it. And it is a shock how poor you yourself will suddenly feel.

No longer abundant but scarce.

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“Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not; he passeth on also, but I perceive him not.” (Job 9:11, KJV)

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Love the forbidden substance

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A. So do you think the whole conflict between faith and sensual pleasure is based on a fallacy? People talk about sex and drugs as sort of incomparable, delicious forbidden things. You know, nonpareil. But what if those sensations didn't even *exist* compared with the love of God?

B. You mean that feeling God would be like the ultimate high? But if that were true, how come nobody ever says so? How come nobody knows?

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Why was faith always described as a duty? Why didn't anyone mention the joy?

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What the fig tree sang

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Oh you sweet idiot (the fig tree sang). The pain and sorrow, they come to you whether you love or not. Love as love has nothing to do with pain. Only the 2 of them, that is love and pain, huddle together under a single reality opened like a transparent poncho, a fabric that ripples while rain falls on top of everything, all things equally wet.

Then the sunlight transpired and you stood in the garden. And the fig's "hands" were huge and its leafsurface rough, and the uneaten fruit fell onto the slab in a livid color like a three dimensional bruise.

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The Pains of Love

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Why you're really a pervert, some sort of degenerate. That's what your friends now say. Ex-friends, it might seem.

You don't have any more words to fight them with. Love has drained the fight out of you, truly.

Your situation has become one of intense pain. Was love supposed to lead to pain? Other lovers have weddings. Why is it that only your love leads to ridicule? Shouldn't we all be in this together? (But in "what" are you to be in "this"?)

If we all belong to God, why are we so torn among ourselves?

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Explaining your love of God

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Oh no, you try to tell your friends that this love of yours -- which you pause to relish for a moment in bliss -- you try to tell them that this is not an *instance* of love, not one more *case* of being in love, oh no -- it's not like a story in some book they've already read, where everything turns out weepy and tragic, oh no -- oh, no -- and it's not like some illness that comes and goes or the redness of the trees in fall, oh no! The contrary! You guys have it *exactly* upside down. This thing that *you guys* are calling love is just a bad reflection of the reality of love that our world has distorted but cannot explain. But they only reply: yes yes, every lover always says that.

So you say to yourself -- your you says secretly to your you -- okay okay, allright, I'm just not going to talk about it at all. Nothing anymore, no thanks but then God says, No. That's not an option. You have to talk about it. At least your body does. Your conduct. The behavior that oozes out of you based on who you are, which is: a person in love.

And of course whatever God says goes. Absolutely. No one is questioning that. Because anyway that's the way you want it to be. That's the kind of love you go for and go after. No other. Complete abandon, complete risk, no hesitations. Anything else is something else, not love.

People talk about "safe sex" but there is *no* such thing as "safe love".

Now when your own mother says, You seem to be talking about a brute and a bully, you answer: No way, Mom. Because "brute" and "bully", those words are for *men*.

And really that's the issue: Nobody understands who you're talking about. When they say "overpowering" and "terrifying" they've barely taken their first baby step into the mystery. Because God is love. And he isn't kidding about that!

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The gift of destitution

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Exploring the gift

So destitution is a gift from God, a gift that first takes away and then gives.

They say that every true gift tells as much about giver as recipient. So a gift is not simply something that the recipient wants or needs. To be true it needs to speak to the giver, say something about that person. If this is true, then destitution must not only be from God but somehow of God. Yet how could the creator be destitute? Or is it a form of destitution and kenosis merely to notice human beings at all, to stoop to interact with their dissheveled unruly attitudes? Is the destitution one goes through something God is going through at the very same time? And is that in fact the gift?

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That God is love -- is a frightening thought

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We're talking about a destructive passion. The love of God is like explosive material handed to babies.

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This is not a sanctioned relationship and nobody approves of it. No one who takes the least thought for your welfare, your comfort, is anything but disturbed. God is the wrong match for you, darling -- everyone agrees. The ladies sit and talk about it. Your family, your teachers, your counselors, your friends, the person who writes editorials for the New York Times -- they all, there are no exceptions, not one, all of them try to dissuade you before it's too late. It's a life decision --

And even your enemies are dismayed to see you enter so violent a relationship!

He will hurt you really bad, they say.

Right -- you answer. And now you're going to tell me that God will leave me too.

No they say. Not that. You'll be in pain and begging to be left to your selfish idleness, alone. You will beg, it won't be pretty. But no, he won't listen to you -- he is always faithful -- he will never leave you or let you down. Can you even bear such love? We really doubt it!

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Evangelism to the Flesh

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A new month, a new topic. New? Aren’t we still trying to get well?

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Well, I am not yet well. But move on so that we can hover there.

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We Americans are a fleshy people, we love sex without commitment, Lord almighty how we love this! So how do you evangelize God’s love to such a weird people? Don’t walk away, oh no. Instead you try to speak what an ear can hear. What was always true remains true now. “Be all things to all people.” Okay. So you remind the people of the times they were smitten, against their will, by a lewd armpit popping with smoky curls, a nipple with a briny sheen, and a little tender fold of skin that is pouting like a face. Oh, I’m in love, a person would cry, but this is never exactly love. It had the sting of something temporary – namely, of flesh. And the person with this horrible power over you would always abuse you in one way or perhaps in another. There was always abuse. Because a human body, in fact *because* it was human, was not likely to be a fit object for worship, oh my delightful yes but not *fit*. And so the human one with this power over you would betray you to your face, that was just how sex operated, one of the rules of the game. Yes, but the intensity of the passion, that still hung around when the object of the passion had disintegrated and fled. There was always a sudden opening of the soul. The opening was real anyway.

And so you tell the people of one you love with the same intensity as this. You love this one just as much. But this one does not betray you or hurt you in a wanton fashion. This one is so oddly *worthy* of your love. And the hearer starts to have the awful impossible suspicion that the one who is worth loving is God. He was here all the time, why did we ignore the passion in that name?

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