An idea I love

Somewhere awhile ago I read a quote which went along the lines of “Behave in such a way that only makes sense if you believe in God”, or something like that. This is a notion that fascinates me. Since I do believe in God, and since I have my whole life, and since I think about this All The Time, I’d like to assume that some of my behavior at least reflects that a little bit. But who knows? I spend a lot more time inside my head than I do watching me, and who knows what habits I’ve picked up, what mental ticks I’ve incorporated into my life?

I believe in a God who creates out of love- am I receptive to love? Am I loving?

I believe in a God who is eternally forgiving- am I forgiving of myself? Do I forgive others easily?

I believe in a God who places the greatest value in “the least of these”- where do I place my greatest value? What parts of myself do I polish, what parts do I let languish?

I believe in a God who takes tremendous joy in diversity, in finding new ways to express His creativity, his boundless love- do I seek out and explore all that is new to me and which I don’t know? Do I open myself to it with awe, or shut myself down with fear?

I believe in a God who invites us to dance with him, to learn the dance and teach the dance. Do I accept the invitation?

***

I also read recently (I think in Slate) an article about Heaven. It was not a particularly impressive article- I mean, it basically said that the majority of Americans believe in Heaven, the majority disagree about what Heaven is, and no one has any scientific proof of Heaven. Since this article is basically going over the discovery I think every kid in my church made around the age of 8, I’m not going to take the time to dig it up and link it. But one aspect of the article got me to thinking-

The writer implied that it is our desire to see our dead loved ones that motivates our desire for a heaven (and, implicitly, it motivates our need to make one up).

I am testing that out in my heart right now. I’m thinking of my loved ones who are dead (or even who I’ve lost touch with so completely I don’t even know how to find them). I’ve experienced deaths- deaths of friends, deaths of family members, deaths by stroke, by car accident, by drug overdose, by suicide, by murder, by stupidity, by cancer. I’ve experienced them early on and recently, and maybe I have experienced them early enough and frequently enough to be numbed by it, but the one thing that I feel certain of is that even though the physical presence- the words, the lips, the hands, the eyes, the laugh, the gait- even though all of that is gone, I don’t feel- at least not totally- alienated from my dead loved ones. I write this even know feeling my grandmothers’ smile on me, the laughter of various aunts, the guiding hands of departed friends. I don’t think my dead are saints- I think they love to watch me bluster and fall and make an idiot of myself, and love to tease me. But I think my dead love me and look out for me. I think they want whats best for me. I think they don’t worry too much.

So yeah, I want to see my beloved dead after I die. But that’s not why I personally want Heaven.

I want heaven so I can meet God. That’s basically it. I miss God. I love God. Maybe I’m totally insane and delusional. But I think God misses me too. And this is why I crave heaven. I crave the heart of the deepest mystery, the greatest joy, of my entire life.

That is also not emperical proof, I recognize. I’m just writing it because I think that is how it is.

Sabatouer

A lot of times when I read the news, I get the feeling that the Tim Lafayes of the world are starting to win. Not in the specifics of their ideology- I don’t get the sense that premilitarist Christianity is on the rise- but that lots of folks are sick of this world and eager to hurry on the apocolypse, and either wipe the slate clean and start over, or start something new, or just flat not start again. It seems that there is this mad rush to destroy everything.

Then sometimes, mostly when I’m on the bus or walking or falling asleep or on the elevator or in some in between state, I think of the story of Abraham and God and Sodom and Gomohorrah, and how, for the love of Lot, Abraham begged and bargained with God to save the cities. And I find myself thinking- what if God were to ask me about this world, with its blatant brokenness- what if he asked me about saving it? Abraham bargained with righteous men. What if there was 50? What if there was 10? Would God save the city?

God said yes.

What, then, would I bargain with? How could I buy time, how could I get God to say yes?

Abraham loved righteousness, and he loved God, and that was their bond, the love of righteousness. I don’t really care all that much about righteousness, frankly. I don’t even know what it means. But I do love a lot of other things in the world.

So at those moments, I go about my day whispering to God: “What about the men who stand outside of the on the corner of 6th, singing to each other and to whoever passes by? They came from someplace perpetually warm but are in this city that is cold and drizzly ten months of the year, and they sing during the day?”

Or I say “What about that lady on the bus with the wrinkly wrinkly face, the sunken in eyes, the whisps of hair from the huge multicolored yarn knit hat? When she looks up and smiles, her eyes are so full of sparkles? Isn’t it worth it for her?”

Or I say “What about the little kid whose dad is holding him right now, and he is looking around the world, taking it all in, and his dad is oblivious to the world, just taking in the little boy?”

Or I say- what about those clouds reflected in the skyscrapers’ windows? Isn’t that a kind of worship, at it’s heart, this reflection of your work back to you? Or I say- what about that pop song that is ridiculously bad but always makes me dance when I hear it?”

Or- “What about dancing? What about the desire to dance?”

And on and on.

And basically, what I want to say, is that I think that God is listening to me. I mean, it opens me to smiting, I guess, if God is that kind of God, but I don’t think God is- so I’ll say it: I think God likes to be reminded of why the world he made is pretty amazing. I think God agrees. I think he wants us to agree. I think he wants us to act like we agree. I think he’s leaving us here to figure it out, and there isn’t much of any kind of “fresh start”- there is this, and waking up to it, and taking joy in it.

So apocalypse cravers, end of the world urgers- I’m not on your side. And I look out the window and see my neighbors solid pink siding and ridiculous cat meowing, and the apple tree full of moss and silly bits of blossoms, and I think you ought to know that so far, despite your best attempts, you are not winning.

In gratitude

My cousin passed along, via facebook, her husband’s blog. I have not read much of it yet, but what I have read is very exciting to me. I know next to nothing about the Episcapalian tradition (like, for example, how to spell it!), though the bit of nothing I do know makes me grateful for the good work that community does. I really look forward to reading her husband’s sermons and thoughts on social justice. Maybe you will too?

Also, remember when I started my “I will read the Bible all the way through” idea? As predicted, I got through Genesis, then stopped. I swear the Bible itself pushes me away, and then there is all these other beautiful lovely stories to read that actively try to draw me in….. But, having finished The Brothers K, and having lost a man whose writings stemmed from his understanding of the Bible, and were critical to me, and facing a bit of a religious exile next year when it comes to home churches, I am determined to renew my familiarity with the Bible, no matter what, starting (ahem) tonight.

Wish me luck! Or pray, if that seems more appropriate to you

Post Easter thoughts.

Words are a poor medium for awe.

I’ll say that up front. I’d like to say something bigger, something less obvious, but that is what I have right now. A heart full of awe, and a thimblefull of words I’m squeezing out of a pinprick of a brain.

Yesterday was East Sunday. My congregation held our services at a local park. The sermon, by all accounts, was fantastic (shout out to M, if he reads this!), though I cannot say from first hand experience. I was leading a raggedly organized group of kids (ages three to eleven) up and around winding waterfally paths and through flowering trees to keep them occupied until the true point of Easter- the egg hunt!- could commence. So I missed the sermon, which I regret a bit, as it was one of the few pointedly “Jesus” shaped sermons of the calender year for my congregation. (I think, collectively, we dig on Jesus, but I think we are a bit reluctant to invoke his name in a religious setting).

I miss sermons, but I probably, in the balance of things, would prefer to be with the kids. Their lives are lived immediately, and when that immediacy is one of beautiful flowers! and the shape of leaves! and how far and fast can I run up this path! and oh, this beautiful, beautiful flower petal on the ground! and oh, this funny hilarious thing I am telling my friend!- and then right around the corner is an Easter Egg Hunt- well, who wouldn’t rather be basking in that kind of energy?

But what it means to be running around or after or carrying children is that I didn’t have much time yesterday to think- at all- about Easter. About the concept of redemption or resurrection at all. I went about the day filled with immediacy- first the church immediacy, then the immediacy of brunch and a visit with my future mother in law and future fiance, then the rare luxarious immediacy of deciding to spend the rest of the day, beginning at five o’clock, in bed watching Little House on the Prairie and reading and napping to the sound of the rain (rain which, miraculously, held itself in check all through the Glory of the Easter Egg Hunt, and allowed the sun to shine out appropriately!). My only even remotely religious thoughts were around bed time, when I was filled with reflective gratitude, about how fortunate I am and how undeserving, but how I’ll try to repay the fortune with my joy, not my inadequacies.

And it’s probably not really that terrible of a thing for me, as a person who isn’t a Christian, to not spend much time thinking on Christ’s resurrection. Except that, I’m not entirely not a Christian, and Easter, which my really whole-heartedly not a Christian housemate calls “The Holiday of Zombie Jesus?” (question marks included) is the most important moment in the Christian Calender- in fact, it is the point of the religion- that Christ died and was risen. That his sacrifice was not in vain, and that, in dying and rising, he redeems our whole entire lives.

I did spend the Saturday before Easter thinking about this. Well, actually, I spent the Saturday before Easter thinking around this. Particularly, I was seized with a specific example of a pretty regular (and idiotic) anxiety in my life- in this case, what if a particular lovely and loved member of my family, who is both younger than me by a decade plus some change and also devoutly, devoutly Christian of the literal variety and also actively involved with Evangelicism- what if she wants to talk to me about faith? Hers? Mine? The whole potential what if is kind of ridiculous (we live at least 2000 miles away, I’m almost certain she assumes I’m a Christian anyway, we see each other three times a year if that, etc), but it terrifies me, because of all things I don’t want to do, complicate another person’s faith is pretty high up there. Right along with not lie about my own.

The problem as I see it boils down to this: I believe- fervrently, passionately, deeply, in God’s love, joy and benevolence. And I remain pretty agnostic to almost anything else anyone has to say on the subject of God, except, as a caveat, it all seems to me to be equally true, and equally valuable, and equally holy and equally awful, given context, interpretation, etc. If my family member finds grace, love, strength, joy and happiness in her relationship with God, and sees that relationship through the lens of Christ’s sacrifice and revival- well, who am I to question that? And she does. So there is that.

But if she is to ask me what I believe- I can’t be honest and say I believe in Jesus as my savior. I just can’t. Maybe Jesus really did die on a cross and was really, really raised from the dead- maybe he really went to hell first, and triumphed there before going to heaven to prepare a place for his followers. Maybe that really was the whole entire point of his life. But from where I am standing, that experience only complicates, not completes, the general mystery of God’s love to begin with, and only works if it’s one of the many many paths that people take to get to God (including a path of honest atheism). Which is to say I find it completely possible, and even likely, that that is true. That Christ really did die to save us. But I don’t think it’s a unique event in human history. I believe that kind of thing- God’s constant, steady, all the time attempts to reach us by any means possible- is going on all the time. That doesn’t, to me, mitigate or lessen Christ, it just means that Christ is joyfully sharing the load of shepparding us fallen humans with all the Gods and Goddesses and avatars of all the other world religions that urge us towards mindfulness of each other, towards radical love, towards radical sacrifice and radical joy.

It makes a lot of sense to me, given how generally awful humans can be and how generally amazing we can be too, and how in need we all are of finding the grace inside of ourselves, and in letting go the muck, that we might well require the sort of God who actively comes down to Earth to live as a human and die as a human and come back as a more than human to get our attention. And for people who find their path through Christ and his sacrifice- for people whose faces shine with the joy of the knowledge of that love, and whose hearts yearn, as Mother Theresa put it, to be broken so deeply that the whole world falls in for the sake of that love and sacrifice- for those people and their story, I have only awe, only gratitude and humility in the face of it.

But I can’t claim that as my faith. And, if asked, I don’t want to lie. And I don’t want to dismiss my kin if she asks. And I don’t want to shake her own faith at all with the complicated meanderings of my own. So on Saturday I fervrently cleaned our house, and fervrently swept, and fevrently thought about what to do if we end up, she and I, having This Conversation.

I didn’t come up with anything eloquent (and I probably won’t- the conversation, when it comes, inevitably, will probably be awkward and filled with long pauses and inappropriate giggles on my part, and then long, long drawn out ruminations afterwards about my own inarticulateness!), and finally my fiance gently encouraged me to turn my mind to something else, since this was getting me deeper and deeper into no where.

Today, then, Monday. Easter is over. It came and went, like so many things, on the steam of its own seperate existence, and my awareness of it, or of its deeper meanings, or lack thereof, didn’t affect it one whit. Monday is an easier day to deal with, theologically and even just psychologically. Monday is filled with all the infinite practicalities of work, finances, housemate relationships, overdue letters and library books, etc etc. Glory, Grace, God- all that stuff, on, on Monday, is truly a miracle because you get it in glimpses between all the other stuff, the scaffolding of life that feels like drudgery at times but which I am convinced is what makes grace even remotely possible to deal with. Grace makes you a glorious madman, and if you have any desire to do things like, oh, say, save up enough money to take care of your parents in their retirement, you need the mundane not even so much for itself, but as a protective measure against losing your sanity to the gloriousness of it. I think there must be some overarching thing- some SuperGrace- that touches and encompasses it both, the glory and the mundane of it- and that overarching redemption, when I think about it, makes me laugh and feel joy in the same place I find God smiling at me all the time, even when I am crying.

So on Monday, I can spend the time between learning a new computer program or puzzling out how to meet my new found responsibilities to my clients by getting glimpses of the glory and grace and beauty of this world, and letting myself just soak in the wonder.

I must admit, that is probably my religious life. Avoiding God when I have time to think about God, and then God and I play this huge and gigantic and ridiculous game of hide and seek, dodging around things like Responsibilities! Regrets! Longing! Etc!

But there is this other thing I also want to tell you.

I envy the kids in my Sunday School their immediacy, but I recognize I’m not that far removed from that myself. I spend my life in as much a state of responsiveness, and as much get caught up in the lovely, silly, ridiculous, gorgeous details of the moment. A stranger’s accent in the elevator. The way my coworker looks so deeply contented when she has an a-ha moment at work that I just want to hug her. The petty emotional dramas I get involved in. My cat, curled on my lap and purring. How frustrated I become when I feel neglected or taken advantage of. All of it, all those details and infinitely more, they take on the mantle of My Whole Life for the moment I am looking at them- and then I set them down, and the next new thing comes along, and that, too, takes on my entire existence. I really am like the kids on their Easter Egg hunt- the thrill of each new find, each new discovery. And while my deeper heart longs to step back and connect it all, to see the pattern, to see God’s thumprint on it- really, in the day to day, I can barely manage to keep my mind focused on connecting two of those things, or on remembering to be generous and kind while I am at it.

Today I left work, left that sanctuary of busyness, and decided to go to a coffee shop and finish a novel by David James Duncan, called the Brother K. I hope I get to write about that novel soon- I thought it was beautiful, and filled with so much love and charity and joy- but tonight it is not the thing I’m writing about. When I finished the novel, I felt as if all the love he’d infused into it, all the deep deep hearted acceptance of the world, and love for it, had seeped into me, and I walked home through the wet mist and the traffic noise and the clouds obscuring the stars and felt the thrumming, patient goodness below it all. I felt kissed on the forehead, and felt my heart reach out to bless the trees and the strangers I came across and the homes with lights on and the homes in darkness.

Then I came home and read that a Christian writer whose works I admire more than I know how to say, and whose struggle to follow Christ’s example of bondless limitless love was a crucial thing for me to read, when it comes to reconciling myself with my once family, then bitter enemy, the American Christian Church, as well as giving me a much needed example myself in those very same lessons, had passed away.

His passing was not unexpected. He was in the end stages of cancer. He was surrounded by his wife and family, and he died the day after Easter.

He was a man who truly gave himself up to Christ, in a way I have not previously seen in my life, and whose giving was a joyful, inspiring, terrifying, brave, honest, brutal, amazing thing.

I cannot help but be grateful that his friends and family have Christ’s resurrection to look to for hope. I cannot help but be moved to awe that he also has that story in his heart. I know that soon enough I’ll be sad and broken for the loss of him, because his writing has been a beacon for me (and I know for so many other people)- but tonight all I can think of is gratitude for him, and for his God, that they get to be reunited. It must be a joyful thing for them both.

Gods of the day wage war for my soul!

The God of the day today is the God of presence amidst mind numbing boredom. This is the God who wages peace with traffic stopped at stop lights, three hour work meetings, and writing the content for the wedding website my fiance and I are diligently trying to do.

This is the God who I am beseeching right now, while the opposing God (the God of the seduction of mindless entertainment, whose current Avatar is the internet tv series Clark and Mike) is currently wooing me!

And finally- my newest favorite blog

I have been wanting to write about this forever, and I guess this is the night!

I’ve been reading the blog “Slacktivist”, which is the writing of an evangelical socially- liberal Christian. I think perhaps you might enjoy his writing as well? Or, possibly, you will not enjoy it. Hard for me to say, really, but you should check it out, just in case!

I hope when the New Atheism ceases to be the coolest religious trend, it gets replaced by New Polytheism. I hope it’s a DIY sort of religion, where we all get to make our own new Gods. I hope folks come up with clever names.

A friend of mine recently said that religion resonates in the same part of us that poetry does- a non-literal part, an imaginative part, a creative narrative part. I think my friend is a genius on this matter, and it’s led me to think about the creativity of religion, which so often gets wrung out with the attempts to prove it.

I pretty much cannot wait until we move to the next religious fad, and I pray to God (who I think more or less gets what I am saying here, and doesn’t hold it against me) that it’s polytheism. Aren’t we due, really, for some household gods? And honestly- I have to admit, it’s a cognitive stretch for me to contemplate that the same God who has his eye on the sparrow and counts all the feathers on it’s head is also the same God who is busy creating universes whole cloth, and also is the same God I mutter an urgent “Holy crap, please let me defeat physical reality by catching my bus on time even though I just woke up and the bus will be at the bus stop in eleven minutes, please please please!” plea to on the unfortunately not rare enough occasions that I sleep in. Not to mention that it would be pretty awesome, really, for the big three religions if, instead of fighting over the attributes of God (which *must* really annoy God!) we could all be released to just actually draft different versions of Gods.

Some Gods I’d like to initiate:

The God of the things my cat sees when she is staring out the window at nothing at all, but very intently.

The God of almost always missing that last step, but still not falling on your face.

The God of forgiveness for uncomfortable conversations on the elevator.

The God who watches over long ago boyfriends so you can stop obsessing over them.

The God who got you through 8th grade, somehow.

The God of finding your tax returns at the last minute.

The God of finding beautiful, soul connecting random passages when looking over strangers shoulders at the books they are reading on the bus.

Etc.

Frankly, I’d like to see a world where instead of killing each other over A God (and/or his non-existence), we could all instead engage in a Marketplace of Gods, where we get to barter and engage in all sorts of religious intercourse and bidding and etc over our various incarnations of diety.

It just seems, potentially, endlessly more fun.

God is so slippery

Close to my house is a bicycle shop. It’s a place where the owner and his friends fix up old bikes to sell, and teach folks who come in how to fix up bikes- it’s a place where people in my neighborhood like to hang out, and the owner has the rare breed of charisma that makes you feel welcome and at home but also extremely honored to be in his presence. I’m not a bicyclist, and mostly I admire this from the meager distance of passing that way twice a day to and from work, or in the second hand accounts of my friends, who really, really like the shop a lot. Going there is a bit of a local sacrament, among my environmentalist, bicyclist friends. Going there is a bit of an act of sanctuary. It’s a religion I don’t belong to, and I suppose I feel a bit of the things you feel when it comes to religions you don’t belong to and are drawn to, but then also nervous about- fascination, wariness, respect but also a reservation to that respect- all at once.

Once a week, the owner opens his shop to a woman who practises punk rock yoga. Punk rock yoga is a movement by yoga instructors who are trying to break yoga out of the cultural trap of provence of wealthy, skinny white woman (or those who aspire to get there); the notion is to create a space where a wider range of people can come to practise a deeper awareness of their breathing, their bodies, their community, their spirituality. My friend B introduced me to it before she moved away to a different city; I was nervous about it, having my fair share of body unease to begin with, and also being in the midst of a serious reluctance to try new things, but B made a gentle and persuasive pitch for it, and I wanted to go with her, so I did.

I go there, not regularly, but regularly enough that I’ve begun to feel a sense of familiarity replacing the initial sense of awkwardness. I go there to try to be mindful of my body, to try to get out of my head, because I have some vague notion of the virtousness of yoga (it’s perpetually on my list of “oughts”). I go there because afterwards I feel delicious. Or, as in the case of tonight, I go there because I’ve talked it up to a good friend earlier and, while the last thing I want to do when it comes to it is move my body through a series of challenging poses for an hour, the thing I want to do even less is stand up a friend.

I go there, but, in some fit of contrariness, I’m rarely ever really mindful of the place itself. I’m familiar enough with yoga, and flexible and pretty strong, so I can do a lot of the poses without thinking too much about it. So I tend to go there and, in direct contradiction to the purpose, spend that hour and fifteen minutes thinking about the things that fill me with anxiety- problems at work, stressful friendships, worries about family or money, all the things I don’t like about myself, etc. I leave yoga feeling physically exhausted, but not particurlarly spiritually refreshed. And I leave there feeling really, really guilty about that.

Today, for whatever reason (and I suspect that the reason exists beyond my peripheral vision), I had this moment in yoga where all of that just, suddenly, drained away. It was gone and in its place I suddenly felt extremely aware- what a blessing to be in my body! What a blessing to be surrounded by women concentrating on their breathing, on their balance and their posture- what a blessing to feel my breath leave my body and float around in the room to mingle with their breaths!

It reminded me a little of other times of sudden, communal sacredness. When I went monthly to a friends sweat lodge in Ohio. Youth group as a teenager. Listening to my friend P’s band perform my favorite song in a pub. Singalongs when my friend bring banjos and battered books of protest songs from the sixties. Chaperoning youth group sleepovers and that moment of impossible exhaustion and elation that comes at 3 in the morning on an August night. Sharing a train ride across the country with a recovering alcoholic and a lady lutheran minister. As I listened to the labored inhalations and exhalations of the women around me, and my own allergy induced weeziness, and as the musician this evening (a leather faced, thin boned, white bearded gentleman playing blues on a guitar, moaning along with his melodies) strummed and hummed, in a shop filled with bicycles and smelling of grease, and with just candle light and the light from the street lights outside to illuminate, and as I stretched my body, I felt such warmth and light, and such total delight. I felt such tremendous joy, such tremendous contentment, and also, paradoxically, such a pure yearning to follow that contentment and gratitude to the heart, to find God to thank him, personally.

I tend to focus on finding God in the midst of my mistakes (God is a very frequent visitor of my messes; God seems to be a lot more patient with picking me up and dusting me off than, well, I am), or of finding God in the tiny still details of my walk home (the sudden look of clarity in the eyes of a stranger, the oh my good lord too beautiful unfurling of leaves or soft snowfall or patterns of rain), or of finding him in the grace and silences of my most intimate relationships, or in the forgiveness and gentle forgetfulness of the same, or in the least of our brethern, socially speaking, who humble me every single day. It’s wonderful when God pokes me someplace I forget to look, and say “why, hello there, I like this yoga stuff too! Why hello there, isn’t it kind of incredibly, you silly girl, that you have a body that does amazing stuff, and that so do all these other people, and that you come together to be earnest and silly in the midst of these body moving machines”? I like finding God in the midst of that ohm. I have to giggle like Hafiz when God reminds me that from a certain perspective, it’s all so much play.

Christianity is for Losers, Part 3

We can’t help but look to our culture for guidance about how to interpret the larger, deeper, more mysterious spiritual signs we are offered- as hard as I am about what I call American Christianity, I know that any other version is doomed to as much subjective interpretation and open hearted forgetfulness, to as much myopia, as American Christianity. And perhaps I am only cantankerous because in this particular area- this realm of winning and losing- I am perpetually at odds. Maybe it’s genetic. I side with the underdogs and the losers at every turn, and I have an almost visceral reaction against self-satisfied success. I could spend hours and hours writing diatribes against the notion of the self-made man and meritocracies, hours which would impress a sympathetic audience and fail to impress a skeptical one, but none of my arguments really can tell me *why* I feel the way I do. A scarred middle school experience? A truly genetic predisposition to mistrust the outcomes of contests and games? A lifetime of misplaced or overplaced empathy?

Whatever it is, I find consolation in another American notion (which, arguably, is influenced by and influences Christianity)- our notion of equality. Written into the fabric of our national existence- “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal “- the notion of equality dogs and confounds us, tugs at our national heartstrings and conscience, and is central to our arguments about ourself. Our battle grounds- from the personal (the role of legislation in abortion) to the sociological (the role of government to provide for our wellbeing in the form of health care and education) to the corporate (the role of government in regulating business)- on some level, these are all arguments about what it means for us to be equal, to live among equals, to actualize equality in a world of stark, uncompromsing differences. Where does this equality lie, when we can’t see it in our schools, across county lines, in the stratifications of rich and poor, resource plenty and resource less? Beyond the issues of class, how are we to consider ourselves equal when some are fantastically talented and some strive just to muddle through their existence without pulling catastrophe down on their ears every morning- some are gracious and draw and admiring crowd and some people come across like fingernails across a blackboard. Some people are beautiful to look at, others are hideous. Etc etc. In all areas- luck, love, professional success, gardening skill, etc, there are huge disparities. In the midst of this, how can we possibly talk about equality? What can that even mean?

I was raised to believe that when we spoke of equality, we spoke of potentials. Everyone, potentially, had the possibility in front of them of doing something, of being someone. This mysterious, intangible (but also, apparently, essential) essence fascinated me as a kid, and I’d look for it in everyone, and use it to excuse everything- the more bizarre or inexcusable the behavior, I reasoned, the greater the heights of that future potential. I imagined my own potential as a well deep inside of me, a place that was inaccessible to anyone at present but somehow represented the *true* me, and excused my own misdeeds and grudges and hurts.

This idea about being equals in terms of our ultimate selves is a beautiful idea, and I still really hope it’s true. But it’s much harder, for me, personally, to rest with any comfortable faith or certainty in this notion, at least right this moment. People die- all the time- without reaching that potential. I’m not questioning that their souls carry on and continue with the overarching education and rarification that existence might be- but the fact of death- abrupt, rendering- leaves it difficult to find a practical application for that notion. What does it mean that I am the spiritual equal of a person who is unredemptive about, say, child molestation? What does it mean to say I see God in the face of the person who beats his wife? How am I to begin to see the potential in a person who seems bent on choking out that potential? How do I do that while being fair to the people they hurt, or not killing myself?

And, also, how can I believe in that essential goodness on days when I am confronted with my own rottenness, impatience, selfishness, cruelty, dishonesty, etc? How can I honestly confront myself and at the same time hold on to my notion of essential goodness? And, if I can’t find it in myself, where do I begin to look for it in other people?

I came across a really different notion of equality the other day, which seemed radical to me, but also it rung all the parts of me as being true, and it reminds me, again, of what Christianity has to offer the world. The reflections are here: http://crosscut.com/2009/12/25/religion/19468/ , and I urge you to read it, because the writing is clear and beautiful.

The essence is that we do not meet each other in our places of success- which are always fragile anyway, always prone to revisions. But rather we meet each other in our brokenness and in our failure- that these, our faults, are the true levelizers. And (here comes the radical gift that Christianity offers (though by no means do I think that Christianity is the only hand which offers this gift! It’s just the one I know best!)) the thing that redeems this mess of awfulness is that it is also in this place of brokenness that we can redeem each other (and be redeemed ourselves)- through loving and caring for each other, as is.

This notion- that love, that care and regard and affection and even joy- are things which we can give and draw out, irrespective of them being earned- is a radical, impossible, scary notion. I can only hold it in my head for a minute or two- it burns so brightly, but it is dangerous, and scares me. I am sure it is impossible. But it is also the most valuable, the most precious of notions- and I think in my heart of heart, it’s the thing I want to believe in the most. That I am capable of being that sort of loved, and that I am capable of loving in that way.

I think that our notions of self- the things we congratulate ourselves on, and the things we work towards, and the cracks we try to pave with our success- get in the way of being able to know our own brokenness, and of recognizing that bond we share with others. It is in this way that the pleasing ideas of American Christianity damage us, I think- by focusing on a rosy material future that is no farther away than God’s next blessing, we seperate ourselves from those who see no blessings, and we seperate ourselves from that part of us which needs so much more than a new car, a new job, a breakthrough, nice teeth- so so much more than that. We suffocate that part of ourselves, but if we are truly beloved creations, that those parts of us are created and loved too, and we do God a disservice to amputate them.

A breather from Christianity, today I give you:

This sunday, a member of our church gifted me with two books of stories made for storytelling- they are books in a “healing” series, and the particularly titles are something like “Storytelling-healing for families” and “Storytelling- healing for communities”. I didn’t have much of a chance to ask him why he thought to give me these books, as it was the sort of rush and frenzy of the last fifteen minutes before service begins, which every week is it’s own form of predictable yet nerve wracking mayhem (and which always turns out fine, even when no one brought the keys to open the building, when the heat is broken on the coldest Sunday in history, or when the lectern is, mysteriously, missing). I’m not sure if he passed them along to me as a professional courtesy, or if he senses the general period of wondering in the wilderness I am experiencing. But in either case, beyond the content of the gifts themselves (which I really am looking forward to getting aquainted with!), I was touched by his offering them to me, and it reminded me of a much missing fact from my current life and spiritual excursion- religious and spiritual truths are to be found in much in community as in silence and reflection. I generally live a life that is utterly in community (I live in an intentional community, my family functions very much like an extended community, my friend base is a community, I work in community, I worship in community- and I see the transience of my bus ride and my walks around the neighborhood as functioning within community- not to mention the far flung internet communities I find myself a part of, etc)- and perhaps because of that bodily ultra involvement in community all the time, I tend to withdraw my spiritual and personal self into a very private place, and share my ideas and struggles either simply with my partner or with God or with no one, depending on how vulnerable or frustrated I feel.

In striving for more physical space for solitude, I think I also need to be mindful to open myself up, emotionally and spiritually, to the communities in which I am involved- and in particular, to open myself up to the wisdom and guidance of my communities, collectively and individually.

Another thing that happened in church- I told a member (who is a fantastic, fantastic storyteller) that I had thought of him when watching Jim Henson’s The Storyteller with my fiancee, relaxing before bed. We got to swapping our favorite gaelic, welsh and russian folk tales, and he told me one bittersweet one which moved him to tears. It stunned me (this man is rather self contained), and made me mindful, again, of the gifts that we give each other. He shared story that close to his heart.

Sunday seems miles ago to me because that was a day taht seemed rarified and beautiful, and today is a day when I am petulant and crotchety, but those two gifts from people within my church are weighing on my mind and soul, little white moon pebbles on the road in front of me, or little bony fingers pulling me away from myself and my selfish fascination with my petty problems and frets.