*
Is the faithful one like a drunkard on the steps? Like the avid connoisseur of drugs? If you were to judge by appearances is this what you would say?
God fills his follower's heart to the near exclusion of the world. The world lies underfoot but is hard to navigate, hard to negotiate because its solid floor lies at right angles to the other path, the better path, which is: this closeness to God. Buying food, getting to work and then working, those are side effects of this other, more intimate walk. So the God-drawn one has the hardest time putting his foot down before him. His attention is elsewhere.
Meanwhile, hard core "Christians" -- the ones who reduce faith to behavior control -- they watch the faithful one walking and grow disgusted. Her steps do not add up into a rational path. Her feet dance the drunkard's dance. The one who is pulling her off the path, that one is difficult to see.
What would a reassembled world look like to the one who is drunk with God? Since I am your average backyard sinner, I must be careful describing what I barely know. But I think the foreground and background of the picture might be changing places. Seen thru God's eyes.
A typical picture in our city: 2 well-dressed women walking into a store. A homeless man stands in front of the store. Cars rush by. But the drunken one cannot see the cars and the store is just a sort of black void that is receding from the picture and not really part of it. Whatever enters the store also disappears. Well then, is the homeless man at the center of the picture? Is the appalling smell that he gives off in reality an elixir concocted by God? Where is God in this landscape and where exactly are you? Disorientation is more or less your strongest clue.
*
And the pavement circles you like a cement mixer as you try to figure out just where you are.
*
Saturday, September 04, 2004
Friday, September 03, 2004
Poem: The inward as the path to the outward
*
Walking slowly through and into sand,
nothing but sand that whips the face
and draws lines on the eyeballs, permanent
arabesques of sadness, sir,
holy sir, my melancholy sir,
where do you think you go? Away from "here"?
Do you think you've escaped this world, this "here"?
The sand lacks all nutrition, scorpions
are sculpted out of air and their despair
is indigestible -- even the birds
avoid all flights that happen to cross near
this destitution. Only God
cares to be present here -- yet where you meet
God, the earth lies trembling at your feet.
*
Walking slowly through and into sand,
nothing but sand that whips the face
and draws lines on the eyeballs, permanent
arabesques of sadness, sir,
holy sir, my melancholy sir,
where do you think you go? Away from "here"?
Do you think you've escaped this world, this "here"?
The sand lacks all nutrition, scorpions
are sculpted out of air and their despair
is indigestible -- even the birds
avoid all flights that happen to cross near
this destitution. Only God
cares to be present here -- yet where you meet
God, the earth lies trembling at your feet.
*
Thursday, September 02, 2004
Dave's dream
*
After eating too much fatty gunk in the late hours, Dave tossed and kneaded himself through the night, making no headway on the twisting road to rest, because even rest had become painful.
When morning finally came, he tipped himself almost into wakefulness but couldn't make the last twist. At 7 he dreamed that he was in a restaurant facing a plate of chicken that still had a mouth attached -- it pecked his hand and face, it wouldn't lie still. His own food was eating him. The dream went on and on, even as its minutes should have thinned into the breathable air of daytime logic -- because none of this could ever possibly happen. They wouldn't take the plate away. He woke panting and late for the food closet where he would be volunteering.
When he told a client about the dream, the man understood it instantly, the way "ordinary" middle class people never do. You may have gotten a warning not to eat any more meat, the man said. There's a chance that maybe a thousand Christians all over the country had the same dream at the same time.
It was as though the man too had had the dream.
Prayer is no trouble at all, it happens completely naturally, whenever you are terrified.
*
After eating too much fatty gunk in the late hours, Dave tossed and kneaded himself through the night, making no headway on the twisting road to rest, because even rest had become painful.
When morning finally came, he tipped himself almost into wakefulness but couldn't make the last twist. At 7 he dreamed that he was in a restaurant facing a plate of chicken that still had a mouth attached -- it pecked his hand and face, it wouldn't lie still. His own food was eating him. The dream went on and on, even as its minutes should have thinned into the breathable air of daytime logic -- because none of this could ever possibly happen. They wouldn't take the plate away. He woke panting and late for the food closet where he would be volunteering.
When he told a client about the dream, the man understood it instantly, the way "ordinary" middle class people never do. You may have gotten a warning not to eat any more meat, the man said. There's a chance that maybe a thousand Christians all over the country had the same dream at the same time.
It was as though the man too had had the dream.
Prayer is no trouble at all, it happens completely naturally, whenever you are terrified.
*
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Then he questions
*
"All sheep and oxen, *
even the wild beasts of the field,"
they are okay -- so why am not I?
*
"All sheep and oxen, *
even the wild beasts of the field,"
they are okay -- so why am not I?
*
Dave tries not to lie
*
Because only what you actually are can be saved -- not what you pretend to be -- nothing is more important than actually being that horrible appalling person that, so unfortunately, you in fact are. Be what you are, not somebody else, even if that somebody else is better. Because if you pretend to be well when you are ill, and then God rewards and saves the well image of you, what happens to the reality, the sick person you actually are? Who benefits when the the poster of the actress is blessed but the actress is not?
If nothing else, telling the truth at all times is imperative. Truth is not a luxury.
*
Now the man who had saved Dave from being abused every night in prison had also brought him to read Kierkegaard -- that impossible Danish philosopher & scold -- that awkward unglamorous *Christian*, of all things -- now reduced to sad somber dog-eared porridge in the prison library. Kierkegaard was the road to many a religious conversion in prison, because even the books' obscurity somehow pointed outward, which was enough.
When Dave didn't understand a word -- and he didn't understand very many or perhaps any -- he would simply use that word as a placeholder in his traversal of the sentence. He would read the words anyway. So a word like "ideality" -- and what the hell is that anyway? what could it be within a prison? -- he would simply hold like a precious jewel and lay it down carefully in the context of the paragraph. It seemed to rest on dark velvet. It was what he didn't have and what still existed anyway, austere and quite graspable. Over time "ideality" and "reduplication" took on some sort of meaning that was what they came to mean for him, which was something beyond freedom.
*
Now, today, on parole, free but not free, he would reread the books as intently as a man trying to re-find himself. "The strivings [of a businessman or professor] are worn like gaudy clothes -- but people reaching for the absolute seem to be walking around naked, they offend everybody, you can't help laughing."
The mouth that tells the truth is ugly, repulsive.
Yes, Dave said. But not to God.
*
Because only what you actually are can be saved -- not what you pretend to be -- nothing is more important than actually being that horrible appalling person that, so unfortunately, you in fact are. Be what you are, not somebody else, even if that somebody else is better. Because if you pretend to be well when you are ill, and then God rewards and saves the well image of you, what happens to the reality, the sick person you actually are? Who benefits when the the poster of the actress is blessed but the actress is not?
If nothing else, telling the truth at all times is imperative. Truth is not a luxury.
*
Now the man who had saved Dave from being abused every night in prison had also brought him to read Kierkegaard -- that impossible Danish philosopher & scold -- that awkward unglamorous *Christian*, of all things -- now reduced to sad somber dog-eared porridge in the prison library. Kierkegaard was the road to many a religious conversion in prison, because even the books' obscurity somehow pointed outward, which was enough.
When Dave didn't understand a word -- and he didn't understand very many or perhaps any -- he would simply use that word as a placeholder in his traversal of the sentence. He would read the words anyway. So a word like "ideality" -- and what the hell is that anyway? what could it be within a prison? -- he would simply hold like a precious jewel and lay it down carefully in the context of the paragraph. It seemed to rest on dark velvet. It was what he didn't have and what still existed anyway, austere and quite graspable. Over time "ideality" and "reduplication" took on some sort of meaning that was what they came to mean for him, which was something beyond freedom.
*
Now, today, on parole, free but not free, he would reread the books as intently as a man trying to re-find himself. "The strivings [of a businessman or professor] are worn like gaudy clothes -- but people reaching for the absolute seem to be walking around naked, they offend everybody, you can't help laughing."
The mouth that tells the truth is ugly, repulsive.
Yes, Dave said. But not to God.
*
Dave meditating in bed
*
And to tell the truth, now how do you do that? Telling the truth is a bigger high than any orgasm, more powerful than any drug. I want to wedge myself so deeply in truth that I give off the smell of truth, fair or foul, so when the truth is gritty I am nothing but grit and when the truth is shameful I am a walking cesspool of shame. If I can manage that humiliation, then later, when the truth turns into joy as we know it ultimately does, I can be rendered, be seen as joy. No no, not "be seen as" but "be". I want to be true, to a greater extent true even than good, given how "even when we are unfaithful God remains faithful, because he cannot deny himself" and "cannot lie".
Imagine going even 24 hours without telling even a single lie.
*
And to tell the truth, now how do you do that? Telling the truth is a bigger high than any orgasm, more powerful than any drug. I want to wedge myself so deeply in truth that I give off the smell of truth, fair or foul, so when the truth is gritty I am nothing but grit and when the truth is shameful I am a walking cesspool of shame. If I can manage that humiliation, then later, when the truth turns into joy as we know it ultimately does, I can be rendered, be seen as joy. No no, not "be seen as" but "be". I want to be true, to a greater extent true even than good, given how "even when we are unfaithful God remains faithful, because he cannot deny himself" and "cannot lie".
Imagine going even 24 hours without telling even a single lie.
*
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Dave crosses the threshhold into September
*
Most threshholds you can't even feel -- take the equator, you feel the same on either side. Long term something definitely changes, with a small fruit on top that signifies your eventual or sudden awareness that something has changed. There is not an objective "moment" of change, because change always includes subjectivity either within it or wrapped around it. There is a quasi-physical occurrence, and then there is the awareness of it. One of them may be sudden while the other takes centuries. Sometimes awareness is so quick that it comes like lightning before the "physical" thing it is aware of has even quite happened. Sometimes the other way around -- a split-second change wrapped in long years of response.
Take being well, being ill. A well person stops to ask himself how he feels and discovers he is ill. Too bad! And at the same moment an ill person, a person who has been ill for years, recovers and heals but the healing is not instantaneous. The crossing over is so subtle, so gradual. You cannot analyze this, you can only stand in it -- on one side or the other.
I would rather *be* well than *feel* well any day. Awareness is wonderful but what I really want is what it is aware of.
Idle thoughts? As my thoughts continue and give way to each other, suddenly, imperceptibly, August becomes September. But those who were ill in August are probably not suddenly well in September. God has tons of patience, and even the hour hand on a watch moves in a feverish hurry by comparison to this patience. I believe I will be well the day (or decade) when I am able to accept God's concept of time and live within it obediently. Things just don't move quickly -- except in those terrible "moments" when they do. And those tend to be "moments" that last forever.
What a ridiculously ornate way this is of saying that September will continue August's theme of "getting well". Speaking for myself, I have more recovery to do and maybe a little more time to do it in. How about you?
*
Most threshholds you can't even feel -- take the equator, you feel the same on either side. Long term something definitely changes, with a small fruit on top that signifies your eventual or sudden awareness that something has changed. There is not an objective "moment" of change, because change always includes subjectivity either within it or wrapped around it. There is a quasi-physical occurrence, and then there is the awareness of it. One of them may be sudden while the other takes centuries. Sometimes awareness is so quick that it comes like lightning before the "physical" thing it is aware of has even quite happened. Sometimes the other way around -- a split-second change wrapped in long years of response.
Take being well, being ill. A well person stops to ask himself how he feels and discovers he is ill. Too bad! And at the same moment an ill person, a person who has been ill for years, recovers and heals but the healing is not instantaneous. The crossing over is so subtle, so gradual. You cannot analyze this, you can only stand in it -- on one side or the other.
I would rather *be* well than *feel* well any day. Awareness is wonderful but what I really want is what it is aware of.
Idle thoughts? As my thoughts continue and give way to each other, suddenly, imperceptibly, August becomes September. But those who were ill in August are probably not suddenly well in September. God has tons of patience, and even the hour hand on a watch moves in a feverish hurry by comparison to this patience. I believe I will be well the day (or decade) when I am able to accept God's concept of time and live within it obediently. Things just don't move quickly -- except in those terrible "moments" when they do. And those tend to be "moments" that last forever.
What a ridiculously ornate way this is of saying that September will continue August's theme of "getting well". Speaking for myself, I have more recovery to do and maybe a little more time to do it in. How about you?
*
Story: The ex-con (Part 3). Playing the role of a Christian
*
"Playing the role". But what would it mean *not* to play the role?
Tattoos are of the skin and forever but you can still take them off. It costs money but what is money after all? Just something people pass around. Tattoos are of the skin. But Christianity is more, it is more inward. It is thus more bodily still. It is imprinted so deep that you can't peel it off.
Nor do you just pass it around to other humans as though it were fungible, moveable, a mere thing like money. It is worth too much to bandy around.
"True knights of faith can never teach but only witness." (Grafitti found in the head at Soren's cafe.)
*
Christianity is so deep that even if you sin (which may God prevent -- but then you are only a human, and sin is what humans do, by coercion, by choice, at work at play) okay, even if you sin somehow your sin is done as a Christian, which means among other things that it isn't all that much fun. That's another story, "the ex-con part 75". But meanwhile the need to sin goes very deep. But after all, Christianity goes even deeper than that. If it survives in you, it survives in your most molten core, a substance not an attribute. It cannot be peeled away, it is not a skin or of skin. You must remember this during sleepless nights when you thrash like a fish.
So what does it mean to "play the rol"e? It means anything else besides actually being a Christian. For instance, when your faith touches your core but you yourself do not. It consists of the slightest lie. Even maybe the white lie, where you say you're fine when you're not. Dave, the truth is that you are practically never "fine".
*
As the weeks passed, Dave watched Mary Louise lead "the prayers of the people", which were become the most spiritless part of their service. By this time he was virtually certain that she was a criminal, at least at church. She was robbing the till, embezzling without shame. And praying at the same time, in front of people, and he didn't see how.
Nor did he know how to respond to the sound of her voice at prayer. Of course, there was a large selection of Pharasaical responses available but as a broken person, an ex-con, a closeted queer, an aging friendless loser, he didn't feel righteousness was quite the thing, quite available, at least not for him. Not available, not appropriate. That would have been "playing the role" even more than he already was. When all he wanted was to be this thing -- "Christian" -- and not to play it like some actor on TV.
About the embezzlement, he had no right to speak and no right to be silent. So he had the choice between two different sins, which only meant that the way he'd lived up to now mus have been wrong, to have led him to this impasse. Sin had been a long term strategy, not just a single act. To become, not even a "good person" but simply passable and adequate, one saved through fire, well that was going to take more patience than he seemed to have. The first step was to stop playin the role.
*
So he said, Oh Elena, someone really ought to be double checking the church's books, don't you think, and she only answered: Oh don't worry, Mary Louise already does that. So we are safe, we don't have to worry. And he said, Oh Elena, and then she looked over at him with a certain discomfort, as they walked home together from some meeting. I bet she doesn't even want to be standing next to me, he thought.
It's not right, it's not a just thing, to put her or anybody in that role, Dave said. Think of the pressure. Then there is temptation. Even church money just reeks of wrongdoing, don't you think? Why, Elena, I never go near money unless I have a bodyguard with me to protect me, it's not even a friend, better yet to have someone who isn't even a friend. Someone upright and stiff like you.
You don't understand, Elena. Money stares at you and says, Go ahead and take me, I'm just money. I think a lot of thefts are initiated by the money itself, just sitting there being money, while some poor stupid robber stands over it and feels the influence.
*
Elise was a hard person to be with. She scrutinized him for some seconds. Looking into her eyes felt like looking into a mirror. Dave, babe, she finally said. Money has no power over a Christian. It buys things we're not even really supposed to want. Still, if you want to go over the account books yourself? And Dave said no no no. No no. Not that. As for that: no no no. I never said I wanted to do that
That was the night they ran into Don's cat, spine to navel, running around forlorn along the avenue.
*
"Playing the role". But what would it mean *not* to play the role?
Tattoos are of the skin and forever but you can still take them off. It costs money but what is money after all? Just something people pass around. Tattoos are of the skin. But Christianity is more, it is more inward. It is thus more bodily still. It is imprinted so deep that you can't peel it off.
Nor do you just pass it around to other humans as though it were fungible, moveable, a mere thing like money. It is worth too much to bandy around.
"True knights of faith can never teach but only witness." (Grafitti found in the head at Soren's cafe.)
*
Christianity is so deep that even if you sin (which may God prevent -- but then you are only a human, and sin is what humans do, by coercion, by choice, at work at play) okay, even if you sin somehow your sin is done as a Christian, which means among other things that it isn't all that much fun. That's another story, "the ex-con part 75". But meanwhile the need to sin goes very deep. But after all, Christianity goes even deeper than that. If it survives in you, it survives in your most molten core, a substance not an attribute. It cannot be peeled away, it is not a skin or of skin. You must remember this during sleepless nights when you thrash like a fish.
So what does it mean to "play the rol"e? It means anything else besides actually being a Christian. For instance, when your faith touches your core but you yourself do not. It consists of the slightest lie. Even maybe the white lie, where you say you're fine when you're not. Dave, the truth is that you are practically never "fine".
*
As the weeks passed, Dave watched Mary Louise lead "the prayers of the people", which were become the most spiritless part of their service. By this time he was virtually certain that she was a criminal, at least at church. She was robbing the till, embezzling without shame. And praying at the same time, in front of people, and he didn't see how.
Nor did he know how to respond to the sound of her voice at prayer. Of course, there was a large selection of Pharasaical responses available but as a broken person, an ex-con, a closeted queer, an aging friendless loser, he didn't feel righteousness was quite the thing, quite available, at least not for him. Not available, not appropriate. That would have been "playing the role" even more than he already was. When all he wanted was to be this thing -- "Christian" -- and not to play it like some actor on TV.
About the embezzlement, he had no right to speak and no right to be silent. So he had the choice between two different sins, which only meant that the way he'd lived up to now mus have been wrong, to have led him to this impasse. Sin had been a long term strategy, not just a single act. To become, not even a "good person" but simply passable and adequate, one saved through fire, well that was going to take more patience than he seemed to have. The first step was to stop playin the role.
*
So he said, Oh Elena, someone really ought to be double checking the church's books, don't you think, and she only answered: Oh don't worry, Mary Louise already does that. So we are safe, we don't have to worry. And he said, Oh Elena, and then she looked over at him with a certain discomfort, as they walked home together from some meeting. I bet she doesn't even want to be standing next to me, he thought.
It's not right, it's not a just thing, to put her or anybody in that role, Dave said. Think of the pressure. Then there is temptation. Even church money just reeks of wrongdoing, don't you think? Why, Elena, I never go near money unless I have a bodyguard with me to protect me, it's not even a friend, better yet to have someone who isn't even a friend. Someone upright and stiff like you.
You don't understand, Elena. Money stares at you and says, Go ahead and take me, I'm just money. I think a lot of thefts are initiated by the money itself, just sitting there being money, while some poor stupid robber stands over it and feels the influence.
*
Elise was a hard person to be with. She scrutinized him for some seconds. Looking into her eyes felt like looking into a mirror. Dave, babe, she finally said. Money has no power over a Christian. It buys things we're not even really supposed to want. Still, if you want to go over the account books yourself? And Dave said no no no. No no. Not that. As for that: no no no. I never said I wanted to do that
That was the night they ran into Don's cat, spine to navel, running around forlorn along the avenue.
*
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Her howl
*
And the dog who sits at the front window howling for the master... that dog is smarter, knows more than the ones who are sure they are fine.
*
And the dog who sits at the front window howling for the master... that dog is smarter, knows more than the ones who are sure they are fine.
*
Story: The Ex-Con (Part 2)
*
One of the tricks used by a good white collar criminal is to cover his tracks with a layer of boredom. If he is cooking the books (and there's no reason why he is necessarily a "he") then the transactions are broken down in countless futile baby steps, in the hope that anyone examining them will soon get a headache and just give up. Well, life depends on trust, the inspector will say, closing the books with a sigh. Or: only God would have the patience to scrutinize this fully.
When Dave took a small part in a small capital campaign for the church, he glanced at the account books, then looked a bit harder. Something in the back of his head began to tingle, as he spotted the unnecessary breakings down of simple payments. It wasn't really anything, just a style that he noticed. He felt he recognized it. An attack of accountant's nausea swept over him. He said nothing and was quieter than before.
*
The church's bookkeeper was an outgoing woman named Mary Louise. She had no enemies, no one ever criticized her. She'd had some domestic sorrow that no one directly talked about so it hung undismissed as part of every incomplete conversation concerning her. Now she was a single mother with 2 small unruly kids. She had a couple of part-time unstable jobs. Somehow she managed o survive from month to month in a community where most people drove expensive cars and traveled to Europe. In that one way, she and the ex-con were similar.
*
They tended to regard each other with suspicion. What are you doing in this church? each of them seemed to be asking the other. Why aren't you out there explicitly among the broken? Who *invited* you?
*
Drop this whole thing, babe, Dave's sister said, rubbing her little brother's temples. Matt her boyfriend sat in the corner and whistled to himself. Matt was of course uninvolved.
Dave, whatever is happening over there is none of your business, Dinah said. *Your* business is to keep your nose out of, that is, never ever ever again, nunca, jamas, even *touch* an account book, baby. Picture those numbers as surrounded by an electric field. Mushrooms in the meadow with evil drooping gills. Please. You don't need that stuff.
Baby, for you, opening account books is the same as me walking into a casino.
Just
don't -- and then
that's solved.
*
One of the tricks used by a good white collar criminal is to cover his tracks with a layer of boredom. If he is cooking the books (and there's no reason why he is necessarily a "he") then the transactions are broken down in countless futile baby steps, in the hope that anyone examining them will soon get a headache and just give up. Well, life depends on trust, the inspector will say, closing the books with a sigh. Or: only God would have the patience to scrutinize this fully.
When Dave took a small part in a small capital campaign for the church, he glanced at the account books, then looked a bit harder. Something in the back of his head began to tingle, as he spotted the unnecessary breakings down of simple payments. It wasn't really anything, just a style that he noticed. He felt he recognized it. An attack of accountant's nausea swept over him. He said nothing and was quieter than before.
*
The church's bookkeeper was an outgoing woman named Mary Louise. She had no enemies, no one ever criticized her. She'd had some domestic sorrow that no one directly talked about so it hung undismissed as part of every incomplete conversation concerning her. Now she was a single mother with 2 small unruly kids. She had a couple of part-time unstable jobs. Somehow she managed o survive from month to month in a community where most people drove expensive cars and traveled to Europe. In that one way, she and the ex-con were similar.
*
They tended to regard each other with suspicion. What are you doing in this church? each of them seemed to be asking the other. Why aren't you out there explicitly among the broken? Who *invited* you?
*
Drop this whole thing, babe, Dave's sister said, rubbing her little brother's temples. Matt her boyfriend sat in the corner and whistled to himself. Matt was of course uninvolved.
Dave, whatever is happening over there is none of your business, Dinah said. *Your* business is to keep your nose out of, that is, never ever ever again, nunca, jamas, even *touch* an account book, baby. Picture those numbers as surrounded by an electric field. Mushrooms in the meadow with evil drooping gills. Please. You don't need that stuff.
Baby, for you, opening account books is the same as me walking into a casino.
Just
don't -- and then
that's solved.
*
Friday, August 27, 2004
Parable of the Nazi Kommandant's Wife
*
So the 3 of them in a restaurant, Elise, Scott, Mary Louise, sat discussing the parable of the Nazi Kommandant's wife. Have you heard it?
She was born a Christian, raised a Christian and, sometime soon after her all but compulsory marriage -- imposed without appeal by a dominating father -- she suffered a Christian conversion. From Christianity to deeper Christianity, and it almost killed her. For weeks she didn't eat. She lost her first child. Her husband's patience vaporized. Hours praying and talking to herself. Growing weaker and stronger at the same time. When the war got underway her husband was assigned to run a certain camp.
Did she know about the camp? Her mystical tendencies were like a fog obscuring certain realities. She had never in her life met a Jew, that she knew of. She had no interest in German patriotism, in politics at well. The faces on the coins she never cared to look at.
Vigils, fasts, she became one of those Christians that cannot hide their faith even when they don't evangelize.
A child came who loved her. She protected the young one from its father. Without a word of criticism. Without ever a word.
*
And there was smoke from the building at the other side of town, where one didn't go or couldn't go. And she never asked her husband anything about his work.
In some ways she was what I'd like to be, Mary Louise said. Scott stared at her, not sure if she was joking or if this was one of those things women said and only women understood.
*
There was smoke, Elise said. What do you suppose was burning, Mary Louise?
What? Are you saying it was one of *those* camps?
*
Well like most parables this one wandered slightly off the track of ordinary realism. There was a day when some sort of explosion occurred or a bomb fell -- or God's thunder from heaven -- and a fair number of civilians fell down without rising afterwards. The Kommandant's wife was one of them.
When she found herself tangentially grazing the beautiful soft sphere of heaven, soft and comfy as a giant fitball, she couldn't help smiling. I have wanted to be here for a long time.
The problem was that it was people that entered heaven -- that is, people, not individuals but entities with culture and a worship that bound them together. You didn't get in as a celebrity or as a localized believer.
So the guardians asked her not just about herself but about the place she'd occupied and changed or failed to change. I am not a Nazi, she said, I barely even know who they are.
*
Was this answer good enough? We can't answer, Elise said. Not only because we don't happen to have the answer but also because we don't have the right -- I mean, even to speculate from outside.
How many African babies do you suppose have starved to death since the time we sat down to this dinner?
*
So the 3 of them in a restaurant, Elise, Scott, Mary Louise, sat discussing the parable of the Nazi Kommandant's wife. Have you heard it?
She was born a Christian, raised a Christian and, sometime soon after her all but compulsory marriage -- imposed without appeal by a dominating father -- she suffered a Christian conversion. From Christianity to deeper Christianity, and it almost killed her. For weeks she didn't eat. She lost her first child. Her husband's patience vaporized. Hours praying and talking to herself. Growing weaker and stronger at the same time. When the war got underway her husband was assigned to run a certain camp.
Did she know about the camp? Her mystical tendencies were like a fog obscuring certain realities. She had never in her life met a Jew, that she knew of. She had no interest in German patriotism, in politics at well. The faces on the coins she never cared to look at.
Vigils, fasts, she became one of those Christians that cannot hide their faith even when they don't evangelize.
A child came who loved her. She protected the young one from its father. Without a word of criticism. Without ever a word.
*
And there was smoke from the building at the other side of town, where one didn't go or couldn't go. And she never asked her husband anything about his work.
In some ways she was what I'd like to be, Mary Louise said. Scott stared at her, not sure if she was joking or if this was one of those things women said and only women understood.
*
There was smoke, Elise said. What do you suppose was burning, Mary Louise?
What? Are you saying it was one of *those* camps?
*
Well like most parables this one wandered slightly off the track of ordinary realism. There was a day when some sort of explosion occurred or a bomb fell -- or God's thunder from heaven -- and a fair number of civilians fell down without rising afterwards. The Kommandant's wife was one of them.
When she found herself tangentially grazing the beautiful soft sphere of heaven, soft and comfy as a giant fitball, she couldn't help smiling. I have wanted to be here for a long time.
The problem was that it was people that entered heaven -- that is, people, not individuals but entities with culture and a worship that bound them together. You didn't get in as a celebrity or as a localized believer.
So the guardians asked her not just about herself but about the place she'd occupied and changed or failed to change. I am not a Nazi, she said, I barely even know who they are.
*
Was this answer good enough? We can't answer, Elise said. Not only because we don't happen to have the answer but also because we don't have the right -- I mean, even to speculate from outside.
How many African babies do you suppose have starved to death since the time we sat down to this dinner?
*
Story: The ex-con (Part 1)
*
There was an ex-con in the church membership. Only a few people in the congregation, a very few, knew about the man's past in prison. Father Sam had been one of the few to know and he hadn't discussed it with anyone else. Nevertheless, when the man looked around at the other members he always had the feeling that they knew. And this was maybe just part of the man, part of his nature, part of what your nature becomes when you've been through that. On the other hand, maybe they did all somehow know.
*
During a desperate part of his first marriage, he had embezzled money from his employer, someone he loved, someone who trusted him. There had been an illness and absence on his part, then a check of the books, and then there had been the prison time. That was a time for abuse and reflection. That was a time when one tried to look at what happened from a distance and realized that any distance was unreal, unsustainable. Because I did do those things. They happened. What I am now is the effect of a cause I don't dare try to shake off. the story is about me, I am not just watching it. You are the man.
For anyone who has this kind of experience, what happens next is very strange: suddenly every story is about you, you hear yourself in them. The paragraphs point at you. You don't like at all what you hear but this "don't like" is very important because it is the key to your recovery.
*
The ex-con's name was Dave but not many people called him by his name. That was the kind of person he was. If you needed his help and he was standing in the next room you didn't call him, although he would have come. He would have come but this was never tested. He just wasn't a person you would call.
If he had wanted to be called, that would have had to be one of those wants and desires to be given up like a Lenten sweet. Because a person calls only what is somehow already his own, what somehow belongs to him. But if darkness surrounds you, you do not try to call it, unless you are already so fully in it that the darkness is all there is to call.
[END OF PART 1]
*
There was an ex-con in the church membership. Only a few people in the congregation, a very few, knew about the man's past in prison. Father Sam had been one of the few to know and he hadn't discussed it with anyone else. Nevertheless, when the man looked around at the other members he always had the feeling that they knew. And this was maybe just part of the man, part of his nature, part of what your nature becomes when you've been through that. On the other hand, maybe they did all somehow know.
*
During a desperate part of his first marriage, he had embezzled money from his employer, someone he loved, someone who trusted him. There had been an illness and absence on his part, then a check of the books, and then there had been the prison time. That was a time for abuse and reflection. That was a time when one tried to look at what happened from a distance and realized that any distance was unreal, unsustainable. Because I did do those things. They happened. What I am now is the effect of a cause I don't dare try to shake off. the story is about me, I am not just watching it. You are the man.
For anyone who has this kind of experience, what happens next is very strange: suddenly every story is about you, you hear yourself in them. The paragraphs point at you. You don't like at all what you hear but this "don't like" is very important because it is the key to your recovery.
*
The ex-con's name was Dave but not many people called him by his name. That was the kind of person he was. If you needed his help and he was standing in the next room you didn't call him, although he would have come. He would have come but this was never tested. He just wasn't a person you would call.
If he had wanted to be called, that would have had to be one of those wants and desires to be given up like a Lenten sweet. Because a person calls only what is somehow already his own, what somehow belongs to him. But if darkness surrounds you, you do not try to call it, unless you are already so fully in it that the darkness is all there is to call.
[END OF PART 1]
*
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Myth of wellness
*
Today the Pharisee is the person who is well. He (perhaps she) looks over at her mentally ill neighbor and says, Thank God I'm not like that person over there (while all the mentally ill person can manage is the scriptural plea: Jesus, please rescue me).
The well person, the Pharisee, looks over at his ill brother and sees no resemblance, missing the fact that the ill person's condition is also his own.
*
Today the Pharisee is the person who is well. He (perhaps she) looks over at her mentally ill neighbor and says, Thank God I'm not like that person over there (while all the mentally ill person can manage is the scriptural plea: Jesus, please rescue me).
The well person, the Pharisee, looks over at his ill brother and sees no resemblance, missing the fact that the ill person's condition is also his own.
*
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Story: The 2 churches
*
An “inward anthropologist” – one lost in study of her sect and self – might have discerned 2 churches co-existing in one building, one time and space, even one creed more or less, yet the 2 churches clearly had little in common.
There was first of all the church that was functioning properly and that met for a short period every Sunday. Well dressed families would drive up to the building, socialize quietly, worship in due order, socialize a bit more then drive away. All was well both with them and the institution that served them. The moms who were the driving force in this effort definitely saw themselves (and I am in no position to say “saw themselves wrongly”) as good Christians whose lives in general harmonized with the hour they gave to the gospel every week. There was no conflict there. The rest of the week consisted in working and raising children. Church neither helped them nor hindered them in these other activities nor did they seem to expect it to help or hinder. It was simply church. They did not make a big deal of it, make a big deal of going, they didn’t pretend to be profoundly moved. But they did attend, as often as they could.
*
The other church was more ragtag. It was harder to see because its members tried to avoid any display, not out of humility, more as a matter of low self-esteem or shame or just the unwillingness to be "seen". This was the church of the broken. In some communities it consisted of one person, in some communities none at all. In some places it might be the broken who filled all the pews. there were even some communities in which the true congregation was the one that stood outside, afraid to come in, unsure if invited, unsure if welcome.
Some of this 2nd church's members had never in fact been inside the church. Or not for a very long time
Of the collection of the broken there were some who had tried to step outside but hadn't quite been able. Matt the carpenter had once been absurdly eager for communion. Tasting Jesus was more powerful than any form of sex, it was like the joy of unwrapping an endless present. It got him through the week. But one Sunday morning after he'd had to work on an emergency job, he got to church just as people were homing in on the rail, and plunged in without waiting. He was dirty and smelled like the worker he was. The children stared at him and a young matron took the trouble to speak with him after the sacrament. That was the day he discovered which church he was really a member of. And after that, the taste of God was filtered through a mixture of resentment and shame. You couldn't pretend it didn't matter who was standing next to you.
*
So that it turned out that for the church of the broken everything about the church was also broken. When hymns were intense the broken needed them to be more intense still. When the music was bland they twisted with pain. When the theology was strict they felt constricted, when beliefs grew loose they felt themselves cast loose. Nothing was allowed to just fit and be fitting. It was as though a God that was critical of them was the only God they could have. And there was no amount of God that could have possibly been enough for them. As things were, they seemed unable to be happy. Their incomes were low, their clothes rather out of date. Their presence tended to be ignored in capital campaigns. The kiss of peace somehow slipped off their faces. Even the most generous moms found themselves backing away. It's not personal, they insisted, yet were inwardly certain that it was.
*
In America, everywhere that you looked for the Body of Christ you would find it torn into several pieces, yet this couldn't be the final truth, or even the semi-final one. Nobody wished it to be this way. No Christian actively sought schism.
Yet things held in their dysfunctional patter as if indefinitely. People rarely crossed the aisle or straddled a doorway. If there was relief it was only that -- as Elise noticed -- now and then a mom would cross the room, drop to her knees, cross herself and quickly pray. Perhaps for an hour without stopping. Often it was a "newborn" single mom whose guy had just given into the urge not to be married anymore. He became as if dead to the community and the wife's eyes swollen with hectic tears. She had joined the church of the broken without a shiver of hesitation, while her children watched in astonishment. She would begin praying and doing good works as though there were no tomorrow. The flock of the abandoned would stand around her timidly, hoping to absorb from her proximity the secret of how to become this entity they had longed to be for ever so many years and with such limited success: an honest to God practicing Christian.
*
An “inward anthropologist” – one lost in study of her sect and self – might have discerned 2 churches co-existing in one building, one time and space, even one creed more or less, yet the 2 churches clearly had little in common.
There was first of all the church that was functioning properly and that met for a short period every Sunday. Well dressed families would drive up to the building, socialize quietly, worship in due order, socialize a bit more then drive away. All was well both with them and the institution that served them. The moms who were the driving force in this effort definitely saw themselves (and I am in no position to say “saw themselves wrongly”) as good Christians whose lives in general harmonized with the hour they gave to the gospel every week. There was no conflict there. The rest of the week consisted in working and raising children. Church neither helped them nor hindered them in these other activities nor did they seem to expect it to help or hinder. It was simply church. They did not make a big deal of it, make a big deal of going, they didn’t pretend to be profoundly moved. But they did attend, as often as they could.
*
The other church was more ragtag. It was harder to see because its members tried to avoid any display, not out of humility, more as a matter of low self-esteem or shame or just the unwillingness to be "seen". This was the church of the broken. In some communities it consisted of one person, in some communities none at all. In some places it might be the broken who filled all the pews. there were even some communities in which the true congregation was the one that stood outside, afraid to come in, unsure if invited, unsure if welcome.
Some of this 2nd church's members had never in fact been inside the church. Or not for a very long time
Of the collection of the broken there were some who had tried to step outside but hadn't quite been able. Matt the carpenter had once been absurdly eager for communion. Tasting Jesus was more powerful than any form of sex, it was like the joy of unwrapping an endless present. It got him through the week. But one Sunday morning after he'd had to work on an emergency job, he got to church just as people were homing in on the rail, and plunged in without waiting. He was dirty and smelled like the worker he was. The children stared at him and a young matron took the trouble to speak with him after the sacrament. That was the day he discovered which church he was really a member of. And after that, the taste of God was filtered through a mixture of resentment and shame. You couldn't pretend it didn't matter who was standing next to you.
*
So that it turned out that for the church of the broken everything about the church was also broken. When hymns were intense the broken needed them to be more intense still. When the music was bland they twisted with pain. When the theology was strict they felt constricted, when beliefs grew loose they felt themselves cast loose. Nothing was allowed to just fit and be fitting. It was as though a God that was critical of them was the only God they could have. And there was no amount of God that could have possibly been enough for them. As things were, they seemed unable to be happy. Their incomes were low, their clothes rather out of date. Their presence tended to be ignored in capital campaigns. The kiss of peace somehow slipped off their faces. Even the most generous moms found themselves backing away. It's not personal, they insisted, yet were inwardly certain that it was.
*
In America, everywhere that you looked for the Body of Christ you would find it torn into several pieces, yet this couldn't be the final truth, or even the semi-final one. Nobody wished it to be this way. No Christian actively sought schism.
Yet things held in their dysfunctional patter as if indefinitely. People rarely crossed the aisle or straddled a doorway. If there was relief it was only that -- as Elise noticed -- now and then a mom would cross the room, drop to her knees, cross herself and quickly pray. Perhaps for an hour without stopping. Often it was a "newborn" single mom whose guy had just given into the urge not to be married anymore. He became as if dead to the community and the wife's eyes swollen with hectic tears. She had joined the church of the broken without a shiver of hesitation, while her children watched in astonishment. She would begin praying and doing good works as though there were no tomorrow. The flock of the abandoned would stand around her timidly, hoping to absorb from her proximity the secret of how to become this entity they had longed to be for ever so many years and with such limited success: an honest to God practicing Christian.
*
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Story: The rabbit hole
*
So she was sick, but she was cranky and impossible to be with. When they passed a secluded chapel she asked her husband to stop the car. How efficient and precise, how athletic, how staccato each step she made. She pulled the door open and disappeared as into a rabbit hole. He sat in the car and felt terrible.
Be brief, my love. Get the job done and then say: that's that. Let us not get bogged down.
In the chapel was nothing. No seat, no altar, no decorations but the ghosts of decorations. She saw a spot on the wall where there had been a cross -- there was now a sort of fungal outline. In the center there was a piece of rusted iron sticking out like a hazard. She touched it and her hand buzzed. Later she found blood on the ball of her thumb, but not now.
What do I want? Why am I here? She closed her eyes and moved in a circle -- her posture became more malleable. You could hear a tiny snap. That was the initial resistance breaking.
I have no purpose being here. I would like just for once to have no plan. No structure, no furtive intent.
Make me available.
The chapel was vaguely circular and when she opened her eyes she wasn't sure which door was the one she'd used before. And she liked not being sure. She leaned on one of them -- not the same one, it couldn't have been -- and tried to wedge it open. Why did it resist so much?
There was a gravel path and many dying trees. The ground was curved and yet it went on forever. Her shoes were totally wrong for the ground.
She found herself further advanced on the path without having the memory of walking. That wasn't fair, wasn't right. She wanted to do the walking properly, that is, consciously -- otherwise how could she be positive she had really arrived?
There was no place to sit anywhere. She felt certain that if she just kept walking she would find a place to sit. The ground simply repelled one but it wasn't clear why.
Why am I always trying to be the tough guy? Well in part because when I act otherwise it doesn't seem to be me. The person I would wish God to shower with mercy is not my worldly persona or my lookalike, proud of all her earnest striving, but instead is simply me. And who might that be really? She found that the path went continually uphill. When she reached the landmark of a stunted oak she was sure that the path would now curve back to the chapel. It would surely be downhill. But no. It continued to rise instead.
This was not like some teenage thrill ride where kids stepped onto the ride, got scared, and then returned to earth as exactly the people they had been before the ride.
Traveling this felt equivalent to changing, it was a form of change. Up ahead she heard the sound of trickling water. There was an old man holding an old green hose and watering a bare pot of ground. He was wasting all the water. His face showed considerable irritation at her presence.
You are supposed to be here, he said. But not now. Not yet.
Hearing him the woman felt an old panic rise from her bowels to her throat. First it was the panic of recognition or rather of being recognized but soon enough it changed into an even less acceptable form, a sort of panic made out of panic itself and therefore needing no cause. She turned to go back the way she came but it was uphill too!
When she turned to look at the old man his eyes had softened. Maybe you will remember at least some small piece of this later, he said.
As if without moving he stood next to her with his hand on her shoulder. Close your eyes. It was as if he spun her and then she found herself back in the chapel, more or less facing the two doors. When one of them resisted her pushing she gave up quickly (that was not like her!) and transferred her attention to the other door. It led her right back to the car where her partner sat waiting. How was it? he asked and she didn't know what to say.
Later she asked him how long she'd been in the chapel. Less than a minute, he answered.
*
So she was sick, but she was cranky and impossible to be with. When they passed a secluded chapel she asked her husband to stop the car. How efficient and precise, how athletic, how staccato each step she made. She pulled the door open and disappeared as into a rabbit hole. He sat in the car and felt terrible.
Be brief, my love. Get the job done and then say: that's that. Let us not get bogged down.
In the chapel was nothing. No seat, no altar, no decorations but the ghosts of decorations. She saw a spot on the wall where there had been a cross -- there was now a sort of fungal outline. In the center there was a piece of rusted iron sticking out like a hazard. She touched it and her hand buzzed. Later she found blood on the ball of her thumb, but not now.
What do I want? Why am I here? She closed her eyes and moved in a circle -- her posture became more malleable. You could hear a tiny snap. That was the initial resistance breaking.
I have no purpose being here. I would like just for once to have no plan. No structure, no furtive intent.
Make me available.
The chapel was vaguely circular and when she opened her eyes she wasn't sure which door was the one she'd used before. And she liked not being sure. She leaned on one of them -- not the same one, it couldn't have been -- and tried to wedge it open. Why did it resist so much?
There was a gravel path and many dying trees. The ground was curved and yet it went on forever. Her shoes were totally wrong for the ground.
She found herself further advanced on the path without having the memory of walking. That wasn't fair, wasn't right. She wanted to do the walking properly, that is, consciously -- otherwise how could she be positive she had really arrived?
There was no place to sit anywhere. She felt certain that if she just kept walking she would find a place to sit. The ground simply repelled one but it wasn't clear why.
Why am I always trying to be the tough guy? Well in part because when I act otherwise it doesn't seem to be me. The person I would wish God to shower with mercy is not my worldly persona or my lookalike, proud of all her earnest striving, but instead is simply me. And who might that be really? She found that the path went continually uphill. When she reached the landmark of a stunted oak she was sure that the path would now curve back to the chapel. It would surely be downhill. But no. It continued to rise instead.
This was not like some teenage thrill ride where kids stepped onto the ride, got scared, and then returned to earth as exactly the people they had been before the ride.
Traveling this felt equivalent to changing, it was a form of change. Up ahead she heard the sound of trickling water. There was an old man holding an old green hose and watering a bare pot of ground. He was wasting all the water. His face showed considerable irritation at her presence.
You are supposed to be here, he said. But not now. Not yet.
Hearing him the woman felt an old panic rise from her bowels to her throat. First it was the panic of recognition or rather of being recognized but soon enough it changed into an even less acceptable form, a sort of panic made out of panic itself and therefore needing no cause. She turned to go back the way she came but it was uphill too!
When she turned to look at the old man his eyes had softened. Maybe you will remember at least some small piece of this later, he said.
As if without moving he stood next to her with his hand on her shoulder. Close your eyes. It was as if he spun her and then she found herself back in the chapel, more or less facing the two doors. When one of them resisted her pushing she gave up quickly (that was not like her!) and transferred her attention to the other door. It led her right back to the car where her partner sat waiting. How was it? he asked and she didn't know what to say.
Later she asked him how long she'd been in the chapel. Less than a minute, he answered.
*
Sonnet: A faithful lover
*
He betrayed those he loved, he always had.
And God was one of those
whom he "adored" and "treated bad".
God was like an abused and trampled rose.
I didn't mean to do it, so he said,
not once but several times -- repetitive,
mechanical, and then would plead
sheer weakness and of course God would forgive,
again, again. God didn't seem to learn
how hollow this man was, and what a sham
this man's impassioned promise to return
to the last faithful one who'd stuck with him,
when all the others (and that would include
the man himself) had given up and fled.
*
He betrayed those he loved, he always had.
And God was one of those
whom he "adored" and "treated bad".
God was like an abused and trampled rose.
I didn't mean to do it, so he said,
not once but several times -- repetitive,
mechanical, and then would plead
sheer weakness and of course God would forgive,
again, again. God didn't seem to learn
how hollow this man was, and what a sham
this man's impassioned promise to return
to the last faithful one who'd stuck with him,
when all the others (and that would include
the man himself) had given up and fled.
*
A story that is nothing but questions
*
Don? Are you still there? Don? Are you still listening for God? Don? Is there a person stirring inside there still? Are you lost in yourself, lying there on your bed, flooding the couch with lachrymose fluids? Are your ears still open, puppy dog? Those 2 foolish flaps of flesh that don't know how to keep sound out, are they still functioning the way they used to? Don? Don? Do you still hear?
*
Have you pondered this, little Christian? Have you stopped and thought about your brokenness, or are you just groveling in it? And how long will that go on? When do you stop and think about what being broken might be *for*?
Were you better before you were broken? Don? Are you pondering this with honesty? Were you really better, imagining yourself as a strong Christian, a hairy-chested Pelagian guiding others like some sort of mini-God of sanctity? That was better???? Oh honey, wasn't that just a fantasy? Weren't you always a great deal weaker than you pretended to be?
Remember the time when..... and how she cried?
Isn't it better to know you are weak when the fact is that you are? Isn't brokenness more than the crack in a teacup? Doesn't it lead somewhere? Doesn't the fissure make an avenue of its own like a path to hike, isn't there a lane leading through there, don't people travel through here? Haven't you watched them pass, haven't you looked down on them?
*
Isn't there a possibility that this is good? And if it is good, or might be good, why do you flinch and refuse to go the way your own weakness points you to go? Are you acting wisely or refusing to be wise? Is a young girl helped by your breaking down?
Don? Are you listening? Or is your refusal to listen somehow secretly listening? Are you going to just let time, with its undiscriminating destructive power, take care of this for you? Are you not going to look for the truth that is everywhere so also must be here? Are you never going to listen? Does never mean never?
*
Is it some macho thing of yours then to roll around in your own sickness, to feed upon it, to refuse to study it and learn? Is this an important part of your manhood, to refuse to get well? Is refusal a part of you? An intimate part? And if you refuse to listen -- if you ultimately refuse -- ask yourself then, just who is it that you are refusing?
*
Don? Are you still there? Don? Are you still listening for God? Don? Is there a person stirring inside there still? Are you lost in yourself, lying there on your bed, flooding the couch with lachrymose fluids? Are your ears still open, puppy dog? Those 2 foolish flaps of flesh that don't know how to keep sound out, are they still functioning the way they used to? Don? Don? Do you still hear?
*
Have you pondered this, little Christian? Have you stopped and thought about your brokenness, or are you just groveling in it? And how long will that go on? When do you stop and think about what being broken might be *for*?
Were you better before you were broken? Don? Are you pondering this with honesty? Were you really better, imagining yourself as a strong Christian, a hairy-chested Pelagian guiding others like some sort of mini-God of sanctity? That was better???? Oh honey, wasn't that just a fantasy? Weren't you always a great deal weaker than you pretended to be?
Remember the time when..... and how she cried?
Isn't it better to know you are weak when the fact is that you are? Isn't brokenness more than the crack in a teacup? Doesn't it lead somewhere? Doesn't the fissure make an avenue of its own like a path to hike, isn't there a lane leading through there, don't people travel through here? Haven't you watched them pass, haven't you looked down on them?
*
Isn't there a possibility that this is good? And if it is good, or might be good, why do you flinch and refuse to go the way your own weakness points you to go? Are you acting wisely or refusing to be wise? Is a young girl helped by your breaking down?
Don? Are you listening? Or is your refusal to listen somehow secretly listening? Are you going to just let time, with its undiscriminating destructive power, take care of this for you? Are you not going to look for the truth that is everywhere so also must be here? Are you never going to listen? Does never mean never?
*
Is it some macho thing of yours then to roll around in your own sickness, to feed upon it, to refuse to study it and learn? Is this an important part of your manhood, to refuse to get well? Is refusal a part of you? An intimate part? And if you refuse to listen -- if you ultimately refuse -- ask yourself then, just who is it that you are refusing?
*
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Story frag: Role model
*
Oh you crazy guy, why do you leave church at exactly the moment when you need church the most??? Is it because because because the church can only take your joy (which you don't have) and has no use for your sorrow?
Has it rejected you and spit you out?
*
The congregation said, Oh where is Don? And Mary Louise (the bookkeeper, whom you will meet soon) said: He really elevated the spiritual tone, you know. And Dave the hardened criminal (you will meet him too) felt a big hole in his heart, a hole that oddly had exactly the shape of... Don. It was as though a brother had run away.
*
"Create in me a clean heart -- renew me...." The choir sang Psalm 51 but sounded all wrong because Don was missing. The music director fumed. That guy should feel terrible for ruining our harmony.
*
And Dave the criminal brooded in his apartment. Not being great with doctrine, he had been looking for an actual model of the Christian walk, a man whose steps he could follow in his clumsy way. And now that model had just about skulked away and this was the same as not to model anything at all.
*
Oh you crazy guy, why do you leave church at exactly the moment when you need church the most??? Is it because because because the church can only take your joy (which you don't have) and has no use for your sorrow?
Has it rejected you and spit you out?
*
The congregation said, Oh where is Don? And Mary Louise (the bookkeeper, whom you will meet soon) said: He really elevated the spiritual tone, you know. And Dave the hardened criminal (you will meet him too) felt a big hole in his heart, a hole that oddly had exactly the shape of... Don. It was as though a brother had run away.
*
"Create in me a clean heart -- renew me...." The choir sang Psalm 51 but sounded all wrong because Don was missing. The music director fumed. That guy should feel terrible for ruining our harmony.
*
And Dave the criminal brooded in his apartment. Not being great with doctrine, he had been looking for an actual model of the Christian walk, a man whose steps he could follow in his clumsy way. And now that model had just about skulked away and this was the same as not to model anything at all.
*
Monday, August 09, 2004
The Art of Getting Well
*
As for the art of getting well, they say Step 1 is recognizing the sickness, *really* recognizing it, so that your recognition is like a competent person performing diagnosis. Be careful that the recognition is itself not part of the sickness, do not let the recognition get sick or else it will miss an important symptom and even become an important symptom. Step 2? What is Step 2? Step 2 is not letting go of Step 1 when self-loathing detonates like a home-made explosive. So Step 2 is Step 1 en serio. Si, hablo en serio. This is the real thing and the hardest part. Step 3, they say, is to take care that when you explode, as you will, you make sure it is in God's hands that this happens. Do not ever trust a mere human to make you well. Do not ever be alone with another human without God also being in that room.
*
Step 4 is a piece of advice that cannot be given to you as you are now but only to you as you will become: the pulsing body in God's hands that you now fear to become yet cannot honestly avoid being. And being and being.
So the steps are roughly these: first recognize, second do not flinch, third take shelter and then fourth -- Step 4, which you will recognize at the time that it comes.
*
Don, we are praying for you.
*
As for the art of getting well, they say Step 1 is recognizing the sickness, *really* recognizing it, so that your recognition is like a competent person performing diagnosis. Be careful that the recognition is itself not part of the sickness, do not let the recognition get sick or else it will miss an important symptom and even become an important symptom. Step 2? What is Step 2? Step 2 is not letting go of Step 1 when self-loathing detonates like a home-made explosive. So Step 2 is Step 1 en serio. Si, hablo en serio. This is the real thing and the hardest part. Step 3, they say, is to take care that when you explode, as you will, you make sure it is in God's hands that this happens. Do not ever trust a mere human to make you well. Do not ever be alone with another human without God also being in that room.
*
Step 4 is a piece of advice that cannot be given to you as you are now but only to you as you will become: the pulsing body in God's hands that you now fear to become yet cannot honestly avoid being. And being and being.
So the steps are roughly these: first recognize, second do not flinch, third take shelter and then fourth -- Step 4, which you will recognize at the time that it comes.
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Don, we are praying for you.
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Sunday, August 08, 2004
The Story of the Lamb (Part 2)
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He lay in his apartment at night, knowing that his life as a teacher was over. Not because of anything physical that had happened (because indeed nothing had). What had happened was in that wider, supposedly "mythical" space where things were truer than true and events that hadn't happened were still written down in the record books merely because they had been thought about.
The space that had separated his arm and her breast had turned out to be nothing but denial. He was in love with someone he was not allowed to love and this love was nothing new. The only new part was the large eraser slash down the middle of the negation. Denial had been denied. He was not a spectator, "he was the man".
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You pass through a story like a tourist and discover its power is such that you are going to have to reside there for the rest of your life! Here is your new home.
*
In their sister church, one that belonged to the same denomination and city but (through some quirk) was part of a different diocese, there had recently been a scandal. One of the youth workers had been investigated for something or other, and the authorities had found child porn on his home computer. The story made the papers, the children were interviewed, the land of story began to bleed into the world of verifiable truth, and meanwhile the sister church next door tried not to watch but couldn't take its eyes away. This is horrible, the mothers said. This is horrible, the youth workers said. This is so horrible that -- it is too horrible for words and too horrible to think about, Don said. I can't believe it happened, I can't believe that there are no controls, that just where you are sure there are controls, you suddenly find --. Yet you could see them, you felt safe before.
*
And he went on and on.. And when even the parents turned to other thoughts, he continued to brood, had no choice. Because the lamb he had stolen -- had not really stolen -- had stolen in the land of "truer than true" where stories resided -- that lamb walked through all of his dreams and now lay down, heavy mournful thing, in the very center of his bed.
End of Part 2 of "The Story of the Lamb"
*
He lay in his apartment at night, knowing that his life as a teacher was over. Not because of anything physical that had happened (because indeed nothing had). What had happened was in that wider, supposedly "mythical" space where things were truer than true and events that hadn't happened were still written down in the record books merely because they had been thought about.
The space that had separated his arm and her breast had turned out to be nothing but denial. He was in love with someone he was not allowed to love and this love was nothing new. The only new part was the large eraser slash down the middle of the negation. Denial had been denied. He was not a spectator, "he was the man".
*
You pass through a story like a tourist and discover its power is such that you are going to have to reside there for the rest of your life! Here is your new home.
*
In their sister church, one that belonged to the same denomination and city but (through some quirk) was part of a different diocese, there had recently been a scandal. One of the youth workers had been investigated for something or other, and the authorities had found child porn on his home computer. The story made the papers, the children were interviewed, the land of story began to bleed into the world of verifiable truth, and meanwhile the sister church next door tried not to watch but couldn't take its eyes away. This is horrible, the mothers said. This is horrible, the youth workers said. This is so horrible that -- it is too horrible for words and too horrible to think about, Don said. I can't believe it happened, I can't believe that there are no controls, that just where you are sure there are controls, you suddenly find --. Yet you could see them, you felt safe before.
*
And he went on and on.. And when even the parents turned to other thoughts, he continued to brood, had no choice. Because the lamb he had stolen -- had not really stolen -- had stolen in the land of "truer than true" where stories resided -- that lamb walked through all of his dreams and now lay down, heavy mournful thing, in the very center of his bed.
End of Part 2 of "The Story of the Lamb"
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