Encounters With Pluto

Final Countdown

I have friends who believe that life exists on other planets. They speak matter-of-factly about the presence of aliens and spirit beings, both good and bad, who influence us here on Earth.  Whenever they speak of such matters, I must confess that I smile and nod, but say nothing at all to express my…concerns that we’re all just bonkers.

Of course I’ve only recently allowed myself to stand near the metaphysical archway, and the beliefs and practices of those passing through run the gamut. I have a guide who’s an archangel. I have great respect for my shaman godmother and my soul friend the light worker. I accept them all on their terms and have no problem suspending my disbelief at some of their more inordinate practices and value systems. It makes no difference to me--but life on other planets? Really?

To be honest, I’m lost after having left my very fundamentalist faith behind. It’s not that I lack direction or teachers, such as they are. But every now and again I take an inventory of the spiritual influences pouring into my life, and I wonder if I’m dreaming without the benefits of sleep. Well, I do have a couple of atheists and skeptics to balance the witches out. Still, Toto and I are ages away from Kansas, and the more I click these silver shoes together, the farther away Home seems. 

In fact, the prompt Out of This World does not exactly invoke an image of the galaxies for me; instead, it triggers nostalgia and longing for community, for my tribe, for people who speak my exact spiritual language.

*

A fantasy once came to me unbidden, then later returned over the years in variations--images of the sun rising over a canyon, and my friends and I standing at the unconscious edge with the morning unfolding before us. It was our last morning together on Earth.  We were pioneers, adventurers, freedom-seekers. And we loved each other. But leaving behind everything we’d ever known, well, this loss rested heavy upon me most of all. The others were much more focused on the mechanics of our voyage.

Discretion had been a key element of our preparations, but here, at the eleventh hour, our need for secrecy had been superceded by practical considerations--safety, accuracy, practicality--the elements that were still within our sphere of control.  I did my part, but I noticed that Tara, too, seemed a bit pensive. This day wasn’t ideal for us to start breaking apart as a unit, so I made a mental note to check in with her after completing the task entrusted to me. When I went looking for her, however, she had disappeared. No one else had noticed her absence, but suddenly I knew where she was, what she was had gone back to the village looking for.

I borrowed Barry’s bike.  Quickly, Judy darted to my side.
“Where are you going?"
“Tara’s gone.”
“Gone!?!”
Mike and Jonah couldn’t help but notice the roaring of the engine, but I made my escape quickly. “I’ll bring her back," I shouted over my shoulder.

I  wondered how Tara made it back to town with such seemingly little effort. That ride was the longest of my life. Every scene from my soon to be previous life faded into and out of my internal sight, a video montage of every friend I’d ever loved and lost, dinners with grandmother Meme when she was alive, tensions with my parents and siblings, school days, and, of course, He was there. How could He not have been? How could I leave without saying goodbye?

Finding Tara was easy. I knew where her unfinished business lived. She was standing outside the gate crying.  Of course. They never cared about her before; why would that change now? But I didn’t dare voice the truth. I just put my arms around her, and, after the grief passed, I motioned her towards the motorcycle.

“Take this,” I instructed.

“What about you?” she croaked with her battle-weary voice.

“Don’t worry; I’ll make it back.”

She hesitated for a few moments. She probably knew I was lying, but with her own fresh acquaintance with perspective, she was anxious to return to the only family that had never trespassed on her blood. She let me go. I watched her ride back towards the mountain. Then I wandered as the movie of my entire life continued rolling across my eyes, uncut.

The ending of this fantasy changes from time to time. Sometimes I wander back to my own house of intrusion, sometimes I am aimless, paying more attention to the world behind my eyes than the surrounding one. Sometimes I see Him from a distance; sometimes He sees me before the end. But always, always, the sun calls to me, and always I chase it back to the fold. Like Tara, I know where my truest loyalties lie.

I make it back at as the sun sets. The tension settles. I am part of the whole in this place. I am its heartbeat. Here I have love and friendship; here I have freedom. Life is measured out before us, filling all of our cups with a brew rich and sweet, for all the bitterness in the roots we’re leaving behind.

And always, just before the beginning, I look over and he takes my hand. And we stand together, facing the unknown with our tiny little circle of love enshrouding us.

*

Tara, Barry, Jonah, and the others all represent parts of my personal mythology. Some of these roles have been played, in part, by people I have known. On some level, though, I think I'm still waiting on my traveling companions to arrive. Perhaps they are already beyond the heavens, dreaming of me.

no more closing my eyes to the light

Falling Away. Remembered. Finding.

I’ve sketched out ideas for entries based on Sunday Scribblings prompts for the past few Sundays, but finally, today, I will actively pen my thoughts to the page, and also explain where I’ve been since September of last year.

Last fall I felt desperate. Stagnant. I kept reaching for something, kept jumping and straining and longing and feeling the tiniest whisps of motion, though all I kept bringing back in my clutched hands was air.  I went to work, came home, searched. Went back to work, wondered, got lost again. I abandoned my voice lessons in fear and depression--again--though I returned to the piano, after a very long hiatus, under the tutelage of a very gifted and innovative teacher. Still, I wasn’t sure where I was going, or what I was even continuing to strive for, after years--decades--of finding nothing but more trouble. Not “getting it” was, I suppose, the root of my ills; but I was so far away from even a design, a plan, I wouldn’t have recognized any answer that wasn't labeled (and wouldn't have trusted anything presented with such a tag), so what was I bothering about any of it for anyway? Was every aspect of my life based on habit, the pattern of seeking, wandering without hope of finding or ever being found?

Around this time my favorite author arrived in town, and I very gratefully attended his talk and gorged myself upon his presence. Bless his heart, the poor guy was drained from his tour, and barely had the voice and energy to read excerpts from his newest novel, much less answer questions, but he pushed through. To be honest, though, had he sat silent and sullen, I still would have gladly sat before him, admiring his inner reflections. But fatigue did not diminish his heart; his stories are, for me, a beacon, my siren call into the madness of a life that saves.

But his signing opened another, unexpected door. The woman who sat beside me that evening has worn (and continues to wear) many hats, yet the Work of her life is storytelling and leading seekers through rites of passage ceremonies. She very graciously agreed to listen to my crazy life story and counsel me through my own vision quest. I finally surrendered to the whailing of my own confusion.

Of course I’ve attempted various retreats over the years, but all details of my life coalesced into this one concentrated effort--to finally awaken, saying yes to the life  I’d shoved into various corners over the years. To return to those dark passages with the light of hopeful wisdom. Or, at the very least, to sit beside the motionless, abandoned girl I used to be, and silently remember her.  Perhaps that would be enough, if she wouldn’t allow me to offer more after years of being betrayed by everyone, including herself.

But change embraced both of us. 

Some people attempt rites of passage ceremonies and return from the wildness untamed and restless; some find solace,  answers. Some get altered in places we can barely access consciously, yet our surface lives take more time to reflect anything other than our previous understanding of ourselves and our place on the cube.

Most of my friends and family don’t know any details about my quest. But there’s no denying to anyone that has been actively present in my life this past year that I met something in the heart of the Black Forest besides myself. Suffice to say,  I found the answers sufficient to the questions rattling inside my head. And I left nothing behind that was meant to journey forward with me into the great heart of being. So all with me is...beyond well. Freaky eerily well.

When I  read the journal prompt for today, my immediate reflection was, in fact, upon the deep inner clarity I feel.  Gods, I feel so pretentious speaking about "inner clarity." I’m still me, for frak's sake! I still get depressed, still have questions. But that sadness, those questions have more to do with living on the underside of doubt. Remember the zen adage: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after englightenment, chop wood, carry water?  I get it! I totally feel it!... so, this is it, then?  There's no rest for the wicked, the weary, or the wise. The sun rises and sets on bewilderment and insight. There's only the ax, the pail, and the state of things at the heart of all. Hmmm.

*

My living room is cluttered; since last night I have been retrieving parts of my past in clumps from a ten gallon tote filled with: letters and postcards from friends as far back as eighth grade; old college papers; evaluations from teaching observations;letters of recommendation for various undertakings; souvenirs from New Orleans, North Carolina, Oahu, Fukui... handfulls of disorganized reminders of where I’ve lived and who I’ve loved. Memories evoked by a phrase on the back of a postcard, by an unearthed description of a dream I can still recall with such triggering.

I don’t feel confused. I don’t misunderstand this chaos. Some of us, once retrieved, can’t be returned to our dark corners.  The lid's off the box now. Things will never sleep again.

Earlier in the week, while walking on the trail behind my apartment, I felt very strongly that there is no turning back for me. There is no forgetting myself again. No, I haven’t yet arrived; nor am I lost.  There is only the path, and I either walk or I cut off my legs and wait to die. But there’s no pretending I don’t know what I’m heading towards.

Simply put, I no longer get to indulge in "not getting." It’s a comfortable place. But I don’t regret leaving it behind. Perhaps I should say, it leaving me behind.

For Granted

There’s always a price, isn’t there? Bless and curse the muses and the vibes, for telling us exactly what we need to know--and what we dare not allow ourselves to, for fear of being overwhelmed, of not passing the test. Well, fear or not, I’ve put it off long enough. Pretense, even as elaborate and instructive as my fantasies are, has barely delayed the inevitable. See, life will speak to us in our own private language, in the symbols that resonate below the cruel words and shapes those words take. It walks with us through itself, pointing out the tiniest bits, sign and scene, that we can digest. Feeding us like babies, it keeps us alive. . .ah, but once the call comes, once the summons has been sounded, the cow bell rung, it’s time to join the feast or be left out in the dark until next time, until all life and hope and heart and dream has shriveled to regret, until we only have our remembrances of what might have been to nurse us. . .

*

I had the dream last week. Unsettled bones. Fragility. Piercing glance. I can barely think of it now without wanting to still myself against tears. I’ve known people over the years who could lie down and sleep the future; my friend Kat in Japan was gifted with such sight. Not so with me.

Yet there have been nights where I have traveled through so many parallel worlds that I woke up aching from having had to balance myself between such contrasting lives. I remember elementary school dreams with vivid imagery (I read that we dream in black and white; upon waking we color in details.) On particularly clear nights I can remember five distinct dreams the morning after. Of course all of this sensory information, in its own peculiar way, is marvelous fun. So many people have trouble grasping a simple image or two from their night journeys;for me sometimes preparing to dream’s the best part of my day (and I don’t intend that statement to be a commentary on the quality of my day-life.)

Though I cannot dream lucidly (or at least not well) I can choose how much of my attention to give to what goes on beyond the veil and well, I have a certain fondness for overload, it seems...

Even so, it’s always light and enchanting, until, well-- until the dreams come. The ones that don’t repeat their images, like “something something find the second star/stair”, a line/image/scene that repeated twice and varied once last week. The dreams come once, and they pull all of your attention into them, into every glance, every aching emotion. Then, when they fade into nothingness,  eyes open and then don’t close again soon. Some dreams have frightened me at 3 a.m. but they’ve let me go back to sleep and awaken rinsed of their horror. I have postponed thinking about this dream until tonight, the fifth night after its summons, and if I close my eyes I can see. . .

*

It’s one thing to claim the mystic spirit, to carry a medicine bag, to say that I believe in the spiritual realm. It’s another to have medicine, to be claimed by it--it’s such another thing that there aren’t any words for it. True mystics know what they know and don’t need to advertise. True mystics have already been slain by the dream currently stalking me. For all of my insight and perception and wisdom (ha!) beyond my slight years, I’ve never had to live on these things that others say that I know, these things that I pretend to know in the dreams that I can lie with.

"And it’s the stars that shine for you. . .and it’s the stars that lie to you..."--Stone Sour

Days Like Thursday

So, I'm not one to like the notion that the fates sometimes take aim at us, but Thursday of last week was a day that hell wouldn't even claim--I could've made a killing down in the French Quarter selling fetishes to people to curse their enemies, so fowl was the juju stalking my shadow.

The second I closed the front door at ten til eight, on my way to work, and realized that I had locked my keys inside--all of them!--and the spare in my hand wouldn't actually unlock the door, I knew, instantaneously I knew that everything I thought important was locked out with me, some things permanently?

Was it the deep breathing and speaking exercises I've been working on all week? My voice coaches told me that attempting to alter the voice can evoke strong emotion. Did I stir some sleeping demon with my inhalation? Was some day last week an anniversary of difficult past pain? All I know is that mid-way through Thursday, I knew all I could do was endure, and watch cups fall and messes drip during my cafe shift, and wait for the phone call canceling my student's writing sessions for the next month or more (good thing I wasn't expecting that money to help keep me alive!) and wait for the message that says the guy I've been most anxious to meet has also been anxious--to meet someone else. . .

oh well, at least I didn't set the cafe on fire, like last time. Of course, even that day, the signs weren't so markedly against me.

*

The rain falls on the just and the unjust, they say. I must confess that for a brief moment I pondered repentance. How sad! As if the only way Christ can keep followers is to punish us with fate; it was a repulsive thought, truly, but I'm only human.

The truth (or a truth) is that Thursday didn't take from me anything that wasn't mine. It hurt, having to stay open to such strong waves of disappointment and frustration and anxiety, but it was my allotment, my daily bread. What else was there for me but to eat, to say grace over even such a dry, hard meal, and be grateful for each morsel of it,  even the dark patches and crusty edges along the path both chosen for and accepted by my broken girl self?

*

My student's mother called earlier this afternoon. Turns out there have been some schedule changes, and we may be able to meet next week after all. So, the fates want to make peace now, ne? I much prefer those crazy girls as friends anyway. Maybe next Thursday I'll invite them to lunch.

Dusting the Furniture

Ohisashiburi des, ne?

It's been awhile since I've visited my blog. For various reasons. I no longer have easy i-net access from the comforts of my desk at home. I've also been...going through some changes. Those who know me shouldn't be surprised, but take heart, all--these changes have been, well, mostly good.

Been on a couple of mediocre dates with really nice guys. Please don't read any sarcasm into the previous line. After certain of my past experiences, I find really nice guys to be a pleasant alternative. It's also been good that these encounters with the opposite gender have been mature. They were professional men, honest and...again, nice. They just weren't living in the same galaxy that I am, which only means...

they aren't quite crazy enough. Or perhaps it's a lack of perspective. Certainly with one of them, a 6'5 engineer who has never even thought outside of the box, there was a deep lack of compatibility.

Which is depressing, in a way. Mediocrity is a kind of death, I feel. Still, in retrospect, I could have (and have, in fact) wasted other evenings on vagueness and dreams that have/had no practical applications.

Never dated in high school. Or college, for that matter, not really. It feels kind of silly, and fun in a youthful sort of way.

But changes in my social life aren't the only ones visiting my life, currently. I'm moving to a new place, and trying on some new dreams as well.

Feast or Famine?

So...I'd like to say that I'd fallen into a hole that took me through the grand jungle of an interior world and I've just now recovered myself and have resurfaced to fill in all of the abstract details of my voyage. Maybe if I twisted the tale in the middle and tucked in one of its edges, I could squeeze a fair bit of interesting data from the monotony of ordinary day, which, incidentally, I hate monotony and ordinary day...

but the truth is that i've been everywhere and nowhere. i've been high and low trying to catch the scent of  something, a feeling perhaps! And yes I've found myself in the midst of several differently dark woods, but about a mile or so into them I was back on familiar ground so, no grand adventures there.

But such is life. a life alone.

I'm sitting at Atlanta Bread Company surfing cyber waves for the cost of a large sweet tea. The people around look so amusing, dressed in their ordinary ways and needs. Is it part of the human condition that we are blind to our blessings until they escape us? I am alone today, but not terribly lonely--perhaps because I accept that changing a lifestyle is similar to losing weight--it can't be done fast and well (which, those of us with plump tendencies understand all too well!)

A handful of years ago now I lost forty pounds, went from size 18 to size 10-12, and kept the weight off fairly easily until I relocated to Japan where I promptly gained ten pounds back. But I felt really good in spite of those peskily clinging kilos because I was so physically active. Then I returned to the US and, though I am still energetic and decreasing the size of my fat cells and increasing my muscle mass, the scale has barely moved in two years. Part of me is really pissed off about it, but what is it about a number that speaks a truth devoid of Balance?

Something interesting happened to me in the initial months after reaching my goal weight the first time, or, rather, didn't happen. I didn't change. There was less of me, but I didn't become someone different, someone special because I looked smaller. Guys noticed me more, but you know what--guys notice me now, most notably on days when I feel like being noticed, which isn't all of the time.

Which is why I say that losing loneliness is as difficult and challenging as losing weight. I ingest people like food, either in small regulated doses or in binges. Most of the time I eat to live, but sometimes I have a taste for something exotic and different. Some days I know my body needs something, but it's not convenient to give it that something, so it has to settle for the same old crap it always gets. Some days I know my body doesn't need something, but see above excuse. Some days I get so caught up in filling my emotional spaces with activity and plans that I forget about my body altogether, until it starts banging on the doors of my consciousness with lethargy and headaches and cramping stomach muscles. Then eating becomes a barely palatable physical pain.

And with people? I interact enough to get by; though I forever am hungry for depth and soul and passion and deep, honest connection in all of my relationships, I avoid pain like famine.  And, in addition, while my stomach won't allow me to question the necessity of eating, I have often in past years questioned the necessity of relationships.And then, on certain haunted nights, I reach out and grab hold of anyone within distance that can sustain me through the pain of my life. I don't look for strangers in these moments, but people who I love and who love me irregularly. Love has long been inconstant in my life

which is, in fact, why I'm sitting at Atlanta Bread in the corner people watching and studying the very borders of loneliness in my externally quiet life. I asked for this fate, and I fed my independence and starved my emotional connection to the collective world accordingly. If I want to change my destiny, I have to switch tendencies. I have to choose to take care of myself first by feeding the real hunger. 

Had a date with Peter Parker tonight.

There are few movies that I will brave opening night crowds and craziness to see. But there's never been a question when it comes to Spider-Man. Some of my Colorado friends find it an odd quirk of mine--the fact that I have a Jedi robe in my closet, for example! That I would take a weekend off from work to go hang out with a friend at Starfest! Or that I would break a six-year cable fast in order to watch Battlestar Galactica once a week. But science-fiction/ fantasy themes appeal to me in a way that I really cannot explain. Actually, I have been known to dream fantasy "epics" that at least one of my friends has implored me to pen to paper one day in future.

But these particular genres are more mythological in nature, and according to Joseph Campbell, mythology is the soul's chosen language. I remember one of my old churchmates told me that Paradise Lost spoke to him in a way that rivaled the Holy Bible. I would place the Lord of the Rings trilogy on that particular altar. Tolkien's life's work is nothing if not deeply spiritual.

Anyhoo (hmmm)...

I expected to love Spider-Man 3. I expected to be excited, to be moved and--perhaps even more strangely--I expected to be taught. (I cannot stand to sit in front of a screen of any size for even a solitary moment and not learn something.)

It was a good movie. But not in the ways that I thought it would be. The pacing, though in retrospect, essential to tell the darker aspect of Peter's journey, made it difficult to settle into any one feeling about the things that were taking place. I didn't really spoil myself, plot-wise, prior to watching, for which I am grateful. Three bad guys and, in fact, three separate personal crises...also, there was a unique plot twist that...damn, awakened an ache that I hadn't felt in, well, a really long time. And as I drove home from the theater, I wanted to drive through the night, though I had no place really to go.

On the drive home, I heard a song that seemed to echo:

I was blown away
What could I say
It all seemed to make sense
Your taking away everything
And I can’t do without.

I try to see the good in life.
The good things in life are hard to find
We’re blowin away, blowin’ away
Can we make this something good?

Well I’ll try to do to it right this time around

It’s not over
Try to do it right this time around
It’s not over
Cause a part of me is dead and in the ground.
This love is killing me
But you're the only one
It’s not over

I’ve taken all I can take
And I cannot wait
We’re wasting too much time
Bein strong, holding on
Can’t let it bring us down

My life with you means everything
So I won’t give up that easily
Blowing away blowing away
Can make this something good?
Cause it’s all misunderstood?

Well I'll try to do it right this time around...

You can’t let this get away
Let it out, let it out
Don’t get caught up in yourself
Let it out...

I don't even want to say what I'm thinking as I listen, again and again, to the strange story of a life I've weaved... I don't mean to imply that I'm depressed or disheartened...I'm

surprised. Surprised by how I really feel about her. about him. them, too.

*

Earlier at work I had a conversation with one of my managers where I very smugly explained to him how easy it is for folks to really love one another and how we take and twist love into all of these unnatural positions. It's simple, I said. You love someone. Someone loves you. You make it work. You don't love someone, you let go and move on. Simple. He joked that I should write a book. I told him nobody would read it because it wouldn't be impossible enough.

Well, the night has humbled me. Perhaps love is the easiest element in the equation. But discerning the particular eccentricities of the human heart, learning when love means holding on fiercely and when it means letting things be...when to be courageous and when to be insane...

Reflections From Yesterday

Tending a house is like tending a life, as evidenced by the piles of clutter stacked in every crook, crevice, corner of my apartment, as well as in the center spaces of every room. Stuff. Important stuff. Useless stuff. So much stuff that the important stuff gets mislaid, misplaced, contributing to the scattering of even more stuff when deadlines and due dates approach. Too much. Much, too much.

So I’ve been cleaning for the past several hours--first, a trek to the Laundromat, forstalling the no undies crisis for at least another month. Then, the bathroom…need a new washer for the faucet cause I hate to even think about water flowing from a ring with that much gunk on it…need to relocate this poster, “What is Life”, to the front room…really didn’t realize I had all of this deoderant hiding beneath here, and what the frak! A pile of woodchips where smooth cabinet surface used to be…it really hasn’t been that long since I looked down here…

And so the afternoon has gone. Beneath the little ordinary observations, though, crept a very sane thought--why do I need this clutter, this periodic clutter purging exercise? I have a lot of stuff, yes, and I know this. But I also know that I don’t need most of it, and, in fact, most of my clutter is ideas, rather than actual objects. Most of these piles are pages of thoughts, emotions, reflections.

Yet I let feelings and things pile up into these overwhelming monstrosities that need annihilation. Why not daily care? Why not dust a room a day, why not get rid of something the moment it exceeds its usefulness? Or, even better, why waste much money on things that can never deliver what the promise (or what I expect them to)? Why buy a five-pound bag of apples because I need to eat more fruit when, really, I don’t like them very much? Why live a life of shoulds that my heart just cannot commit to?

Change In The Air II

My friend David sent me a very crazy, very David package with several books, a note written in guy script and a set of about 15 sermons. We have been speaking most recently about issues of faith, among other crises. I gave him permission to share with me some items that helped him through his own Christian dilemma, and he, true to form, went all out, figuratively and literally! jumped overboard and hauled in the motherload for his reply to my questions. I appreciate this aspect of him because, in truth, he is the only person I have ever met who can match me passion for passion, verbosity for emotional extreme, and then elevate me to an even higher extreme, and then balance us both by remembering (and reminding of) the thread of clarity that anchors us--only we label this unifying string with differing terms these most recent of days.

I don’t know how to tell him, though, that, when I reach turmoil's end, my decision about faith won't have much changed (because the toll to even enter the cave of doubt was high!) My choice is the one both Arwen and Eowyn made, keepers of the soil and the souls of worthy men--of breeding both high and deep, the daughters of kings and wisdom of the Edar, and yet I weep at both of their graves, for one day we will run out of...let me not say chances, for both of these women made choices both prescribed and ordained, as well as agreed upon by the measure of grace granted to both of their frail hearts. But time and chance were very real factors in their world, as well as in mine. I always flinch for fear of consequences. It’s not that I am uncertain of my steps, it’s that I am unsure of what each of those steps is worth, what each will cost me in chronos and kairos and other precious resources, in mortality and eternity.in cosmic law and karmic debt.

*

We spoke, David and I,  yesterday morning and after the conversation ended I was left with so many words that I found myself compiling a CD for him, of all of those unspoken things I believe about him and also myself. I discovered this quote on the BSG forum that seemed apropos:

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. -Frank Herbert

I want to say to David that our most recent round of dancing has been lively and amusing, but he has never been a steady flame in my life. His gifts are faithful companions, but not his personal fire. He comes. He (mostly) goes. I want to say that, when the music ends, and I tell him that regardless of how the church has failed me, regardless of how I betrayed myself to stand beneath the banner of Christ and Heaven, that if all debts are forgiven and all oversights called in and accounted for, still I can’t make myself believe what I would never have believed had I not been so damn sad and pathetic and in need of a savior. They told me Jesus saves and I believed them. Yet here I am still unsaved, as I am yet myself in this world and the words that speak to my soul are not the words I pretended to know and to understand years ago.

Or, in short, I believe there is life beyond Christianity. I never thought that Jesus was the only true path to grace or God--I made myself believe that in order to be better than I was. Since I didn't believe it, I was clearly fallen and baseless and evil in God's eyes, right? I never cared much about heaven or hell. Who lives their lives on the credits of faith? I always cared about being a good person, a righteous person, a blameless person in the now, not worrying about winning crowns to toss at the feet of Christ in the eternal forever, which seems to me an awful long time to stand in processional and sing holy holy (and think--i made it out of there alive after all!)  At the end of the day, I cannot stomach the hypocrisy inside of myself, and I don't know that I will ever be able to purge myself of the stench of living for years with a hijacked faith.

So, what happens when the truth emerges--do I then become irredeemable? Will you kick my dust from your heels before departing for your next trip? (It's not that I think this ill of you personally, but it's a very real fear since many of the people I have been close to in my life are devout in an almost tyrannical sense, or at least have faith systems that brook no alternatives, no plan bs.)The few Christian friends that I've told have been understanding in a little doggie has lost his bone sort of way. It's not that anyone really suspects that this decision is one that I can really stay true to. I've gone from being of the fold to being a mission project--there are outreach groups inspired by folks such as myself, those of us who remove ourselves from the blood, from the cloak.

*

I'm remembering an episode of Highlander with guest star Rae Dong Chong playing Claudia, a gifted pianist and also a sleeping immortal who is slain by an admirer, another immortal, who hopes to preserve her genius for all of eternity. . .conflict arises, though, when her newly reborn fingers can no longer call upon the gifts of the Masters. . .after struggle and doubt and torment, this coming to terms with a destiny completely caught on the downwind and unchosen, she looks at Duncan and says, plainly and sadly:

Who will love me if I don’t play?

*

Will you still love me if I don’t believe or have I reached my outer limits? I’ve lost so many people over the past few years, partially to my own negligence and also this pesky need in me to scrape my own layers, to get to the bone of my own existence, to figure out the difference between a false promise and a true one. Will you still love me if I say that one end of our common thread leads me to a different Source...or is it all under the banner of the grace of the one true God? You cannot believe this, can you?
Jesus has been forever true to you. I must confess that I know him as neither man nor God. I prayed to him for years, converted,repented in his name and yet, yet there's always been Something Deeper. That's the simplest way I know how to say it. Jesus is neither the answer nor the question, but something in between, along with the rest of us...

False Truce

As I sit here trying to call forth some glimmer of word-song from this most sacred of May days, I find myself quietly crying and wondering why. Truth be told, it was a hard day. Depressing, even. It was dreary on all sides, but nothing horrible happened. I didn't lose anything. I slept most of last night. I did start another self-life excavation project, beginning today, but those who know me understand that I was born a Seeker; it's just as likely I'll turn over a stone in my consciousness and find a dung beetle hiding beneath it and not a pearl--but even shit serves a purpose if it feeds...

maybe, though, I turned over one stone too many, starting today. No, I don't mean that. Every uprooted falsehood is a masked joy. I found a major falsehood today, though, lurking in the shadows of what has become ordinary. Ordinary was always an enemy of mine--funny how, under the right circumstances, the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend. It's just that--that I turned over the rock where the common enemy lay sleeping

and it looked as if nothing had ever been there

and my soul has embarked on some strange lament while I sit here trying to create word-shapes to accompany it.