Relevant

As our society and culture move ever faster, the rate at which "buzz words" and "memes" become old and tired also increases exponentially. The "emerging" church? That's so ten years ago. If it hasn't emerged already, like a wildly-colored, tatooed caterpillar from its coccoon, then it deserves to be eaten by the next sharp-eyed robin that comes along. Gobble that thing up, and don't let the piercings scratch your throat on the way down. If a new Church can't run around on its own five minutes after it's born, then it's going to be taken down by a hungry cheetah. I've seen the YouTube clips uploaded from the Discovery Channel. Haven't you? 
  
And stop insisting that you're "relevant." Please stop. If you are, in fact, relevant, we'll pick up on it. I don't need to see the name tag on the greeter at the front door of the alternative space you're meeting in, "Hello, My Name Is Relevant." I don't need to hear it namedropped in the sermon, or the message, or whatever chunk of text you're downloading to your audience. I get it. I'm really familiar with the freeware template; everyone's been using a version of it for millennia. This Church Template is a Thomas Edison wax cylinder that you keep trying to stuff into your Blu-Ray Disc player. And five minutes from now, people will be saying, "Blu-Ray? Are you kidding me? That's such a tired technological reference." I should have just said Betamax or LaserDisc. That's how quickly the formats of our perception shift.  

You can't keep up with the rate of change, Mister Church. We can't even keep up with the rate of change. Everything is blurring, speeding, melting from the friction of change. We're burning out on New. They don't even repair us any more, they just throw us away and replace us. We're all made overseas by multi-national corporations. We don't know where our food is grown, we don't know if our food is grown, we don't what the difference between food and non-food is. We're all hungry and we're starving because the food goes out of warranty before it reaches our mouths. And the Church is claiming to be relevant and new? The Church actually *wants* to be relevant and new? Are you off your nut?  
  
I don't want the Church to be relevant and new and fresh and trendy and Olsen Twins and sparkle motion. 
  
I want you to stop publishing the mountains of inspirational books that I see spilling from the shelves at every big box bookstore.

I want you to stop competing on the same level as shopping malls and movie theaters and the Internet.

I want you to stop producing knock-offs and substitutes and copies of mainstream culture.

I want you to stop the "sneaky deep" marketing to my demographic.

 I want you to get your hands out of my emotional assets.

I want you to stop trying to get us to come to your crib, where all the magic happens. 

Really.

I want you to give everyone a free ticket for inviolable, respectful space. 
  
I want you to be still, but not mute. 
  
I want you to be fluent in the language of listening. 
  
I want you to be ageless and agefull. 
  
I want you to be as biorhythmic as breath, as autonomic as my heart beat. 
  
I want you to be as forgettable as air before the urgent moment of drowning.

I want you to be as thin as the membrane between grief and joy. 
  
I want you to glimmer silently, supersaturated with God. 
  
I want so much that's promised, and not deliverable.

I Have A Plan

 

I am tired of the word "agenda"...

Particularly when I read it in the context of "gay agenda" or "homosexual agenda", when certain Christians in the media sound the alarm about "The Gay Agenda."

To make a geeky new Battlestar Galactica reference, it's like they think that gays and lesbians are Cylons, Who Have A Plan, An Agenda, who may look like people, but you know what? They're Not Really Human. And these Gaylons are going to come get your children and turn them gay after they destroy the rest of human (Christian) society. That's really how all the hysterical rhetoric sounds. And these Christians wonder why we have Pride parades? How about to keep our sanity and reaffirm our collective sense of humanity?

When I weigh my experiences in the different worlds through which I've moved, and the people I have met and known there, it's the Christians who have been the ones with the Agenda, Who Have A Plan. I, who am a Christ Follower, however imperfect a one, am appalled by the cloak and dagger evangelical espionage techniques I have witnessed. Witnessed, and taken part in when I was younger.

Part of becoming honest is to question your own motives. Why do you do the things you do? What is the spark that propels you to act? What is before the spark, in the darkness, the dry fuel that catches flame? Why do Christians always want to be on fire? On fire for Jesus. Fire is singleminded. It doesn't multitask. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't consider its actions. It just burns. It consumes. It eats and eats until there's nothing left and then it dies, utterly spent. It leaves nothing but ash, indecipherable and barren. Dead. Martyred. Cleansed in the fire. Holy fire. Tongues of flame.

But consider (unlike fire) this: the Burning Bush. Not exactly fire-like. The Pentecost. Didn't burn people's heads off.

Why do the Christians I hear the most about (scream the loudest?) want to be the Nuclear Fire of Devastation? They never seem to want to be the Considering Flame, the one that burns but is not consumed, that sheds light, that enlightens but does not destroy. I don't have an answer to that. I don't understand it.

However, when I start wearing my geeky new "Gay Cylons for Jesus" t-shirt, I intend to find out. Or at least, I Have A Plan. 

Flying By

Life is speeding up. Flying by. I feel motionless, molasses slow, as it spins around me. I want to get it all out, get it all down, carve it into stone, preserve my words, make my mark before I slump into dust, so many nameless motes and bits.

It's cold and mean outside. Inside, too. I have to fight to care about my own voice. I have to push and punch and grind my teeth. I have to growl to keep the stray dogs away from my morsel of voice. I carry it, warm and vulnerable, in the back of my mouth, beneath my tongue. If I speak it might dart away, may fly, lace wing, stick bug lost in the hurricane.

I let it out to hen scratch on paper, peck at the keyboard, lay eggs beneath the back porch. It clucks and furtively struts, it's chicken and likes to hide in the coop. In its voice nest it dreams, weaves feathers, preens and gobbles shiny pebbles for its gizzard.

Beware the fox. Beware the knife. Beware the sniffing hounds and beware the farmer's wife.

 

Homecoming

Do you remember your homecoming, your prom, your turnabout? Was it exciting, awkward, humiliating, tender? It's probably a mixed bag. Adolescence is a mixed bag. A grab bag. Can I just wear a bag over my head? Stepping on toes, shuffling from side to side, where do I put my hands? Where do I put my heart? Can I hide in the shadows? Can I hide in plain sight?

I went to a faux Homecoming Dance this past weekend, a do-over Homecoming Dance, for all ages. There were young twenty-something couples, elderly couples who REALLY knew how to dance (no shuffling), and everything in between. There were shy wallflowers and brash sunflowers, twilight and limelight. There was a live band that knew how to boogie and knew how to croon, played it fast and strummed it slow. There was the sound of high heels clicking on polished hardwood, petals dropping from crushed corsages, rustle of satin and velvet. You could see that this would be a night to remember. A night when things began or began to end.

I also keenly noticed that there were straight couples, and a few lesbian couples, but no gay male couples. Sure, there were quite a few gay men there who danced, but not with each other. Solo or with an acceptable girl, isn't that appropriate? Acceptable. Careful and civil and proper and straight. In that way, it felt like high school all over again. I felt a shiver of cold, of old loss; I could trace the fleeting shape of it like frost on window glass.

We are trained with wires of convention, bent and styled like bonsai trees, pruned of our upstarts, our quirks, our naughty bits. Snip out, splice in, graft some straight fruit to that queer branch. Oh to be Golden, to be Red, to be Delicious, the apple of everyone's eye, the beau of the ball. Instead, I am quince, I am star fruit, I am horned melon. I am variegated and hybrid, I am other, I am heirloom and throwback. I am not round, I do not roll; I weeble as I wobble and sometimes I fall.

Sometimes I fail. The words fail me and I fail the words. I fear. When I kiss him, I wonder who's watching. I want to hold hands walking down the street, but I don't. I wonder who has a brick, or who has a metal bat. I know what cold sweat feels like between my shoulder blades, the rush of blood and the ringing in my ears when I hear: FAGGOT... HOMO... QUEER... They are bold and capital and blunt, they are hammer and mallet, they sledge and slam. So I want to slam and mosh, punch and shove, dance and dance and then hold you close, I want this to be the night when it began, not when it began to end.

When fear sets up shop, it nests. It infests. It mites and bites and fleas and tease. If you listen, you'll never leave the house. You'll cower under the dark covers of your skull. Fear is syrup and opiate, just a spoonful of shiver makes you sleep, comforts and conforms, keeps you compliant in public.

Lower your voice. Look straight ahead. Pay attention. Use pencil, not pen. No outside food or drink. Follow the signs. BYOB. Merge. Hands behind your back. Please use other entrance. School Zone. Chin up. Stay calm. No shouting. Emergency exit. Safety first. No parking. Stop, drop and roll. Stay in your lane. Enunciate clearly. No smoking allowed. No shirt, no shoes, no service. Walk slowly. Sit still. No dancing. Don't be a fucking faggot.

 

Outrage Fatigue

I read this quote last October (2006) over at Susan's Visual Voice blog, and it's still timely:

The effort to say nothing that will offend anyone is to say nothing that will benefit anyone. Likewise, a culture that values above all else not offending anyone is a culture whose sole purpose is to maintain superficiality and polite dishonesty among its citizens. It may be the same for the Church.~ Roy Howard

Polite dishonesty. I spend so much time being politely dishonest, embroidering my life and interactions with so many little rules, so many little reminder notes, that I start to lose myself. I don't even know that I'm gone. I turn the other cheek so often that my head spins around in lazy circles like a rotating dessert case down at the corner diner. I'm sweet as pie; would you like me warmed up, sugar? Dollop of whipped cream? Cherry on top?

And in this pre-election season, with the Candidate-critters scurrying around like earnest squirrels, collecting nuts and garnering votes for 2008, there's enough polite dishonesty in the air to set off every bullshit detector in America. My outrage filter is clogged and needs to be replaced so often that I'm experiencing outrage fatigue. I'm tired of being angry, of reading the headlines every morning and being shocked at the pettiness and hatred and bigotry in this country and... and... after a while, I just run out of words. I scan the back pages of newspapers, pick through buried text on websites, I listen to the voices in the electronic wind, and can I find glints of gold? Can I find facts that haven't been stretched like saltwater taffy, bland pap to fill our hungry tummys and make us warm and sleepy? Can I find any indication that we're not being told to live in an epic series of fantasy novels? "Fairy Tales From The Executive Branch"... I would even settle for the naive realism of "My Pet Goat" at this point.

I also hear the rallying cries of bullies in their pulpits, pointing fingers, brandishing verbal torches and pitchfork rhetoric. I hear them spit words like "immigrant" and "alien"... I hear them sneer "gay" and "agenda"... I hear what they say about citizenship and marriage, "family values" and morals, and I hear that they would never call these people son, daughter, brother, sister, father, mother, or beloved. They barely acknowledge them as fellow humans, as real people, let alone family. And they most certainly do not recognize them in their exclusive clubs, in the gated communities of their locked hearts, or in the safety and comfort of their climate-controlled churches.

tipping point

What are any of us capable of when we make selfish, self-serving choices? Any good person is one bad choice away from not being able to look at themselves in the mirror, and several bad choices away from looking at themselves in the mirror and seeing nothing wrong. We're all sitting several tables over from the self that most of us would never want to be, but could be.

If you wear a comfortable groove of bad choices down the center of your soul, it gets harder and harder to jump the tracks, doesn't it? You think it's easy like Sunday morning, all molasses and flow, but the tide is going out and there's an undertow...

If bad people ever decide to make good choices, do they get steadily more good? How deep is that new veneer of sweetness on their nature? Do maggots shit icing, black widows spin sugar, mosquitoes spit back their stolen blood? Do the snakes among us molt out of the slinky layers of dead skin, dung beetles slough off the crusty brown carapace, crocodile teeth cut down to the bone and expose clean, new flesh?

Can I teeter on this totter and see the pendulum swing, the parabolic track between good and evil that makes us do, makes us be? Where is the tipping point, the flash point, the crystallization point where ice spikes out across the still surface of a night-bound pond, the ignition point where a tinder-brittle forest erupts in flames?

Roll the dice, count the pips, read the leaves. The sure, solid step on the balance beam allows you to cross; hesitate or falter and you fall. Better to toss the dice and know, than spend your mayfly time clutching the unformed possibilities in your tight, sweaty palm. Better to eat the apple and spit out the seeds, leaving a trail of trees and tears, a life well-lived. Better to step through the portal, choose a path, make mistakes, tame regrets, than to spend your days and nights staring at the closed door, a stem cell wishing it was a forest, anything but itself.

father's day

I wish I could say something nice about my father today. Bring up a cheery memory and bask in the warmth of it. Feel proud and noble, connected to an endless chain of fathers and sons stretching back to Adam. Something manifest. Something destined. Something good and true.

Really.

But I just sit here at the keyboard, and wonder what kind of sly sob story he's telling his new wife today, his new friends, his new church, anyone who will listen to and feel sorry for him. His sons have rejected him, especially his cruel, thoughtless, angry eldest son (the gay one? Really? Oh, that's such a shame), and on father's day, it's just so sad... Isn't that a sad thing, for a father to be alone on father's day? Isn't that the saddest thing in the whole fucking world? Can we do shots of his crocodile tears with some salt and a twist of lime?

If you feel sorry for him, he has you where he wants you. He'll slither up into your head along the silvery-slime trail of your pity, nesting in your brain pan, laying eggs in your compassion. And if you love him, well, that's a tether, bit and bridle that he'll yank you around with until you're broken, jawless, and then he'll just drag around your corpse, smearing the black rot of your love on his face like war paint. He's his own tribe, a tribe of one, and there's no room for others.

I made my decision. I won't be a trophy he can hang on the wall in the den, between the hunting rifles, above the zebra skin. I won't look good for him. I won't let him use me. I won't let him wear me like a glove, puppet strings making me bow and smile, mouthing his words and never wondering, never wondering what it's like... to be free.

I made my decision to be free.

No matter the scratchings at the door in the middle of the night, the mewling, the big eyes moist and full of pathos. I won't be a part of his passion play.

No matter the years of silence. He can bide his time. He can whisper things in my brother's ear, things that wend their way to mine, depth charges meant only for me. He can leave comments on the Internet like dung, like spoor, marking his territory with little piles of circular logic, hate masked as reason, lies masked as Divinity, shit and God mixed up together in the mud... would you like a mud pie? Oh, he can bide his sweet time.

I expose him to the light.

Forgive him again and again.

Let him fall to inconsequential dust in the back of my head, a daily mantra, an exorcising psalm, a mandala of protection, a prayer of absolution.

I can say something nice about my father today.

He didn't kill me, or my spirit, even though he tried every day for decades. He made me who I am, because I made the choice to never be like him. I made the choice to love. I made the choice to be exactly who God made me to be. I made the choice to never give up. I made the choice to take risks. I daily choose the path of mindfulness and not mindlessness.

He made me who I am today, and I couldn't have asked for a better anti-role model.

trojan

I delete his digits from my cellphone,
cut his name from my email with swift clicks,
sever the dedicated connection of his trojan
trust, remove the flickring pics of his face,
his smile, his eyes, his laugh, his fingers,
the feel of his skin to the recycle bin,
wipe his memory from my harddrive and
punch him in the software, block his handles
and avatars, his podcasts and profiles,
his webbed words and IMs, his voicemails
and texts, all the digital roads that led to my
analog heart.

February

You have to give yourself permission to stop, hold the breath in, hold the breath in until you know your lungs are wet bags of wind aching to gust, and then let it out. Let it all out.

You have to give yourself permission to stop, take a good look at how far you've run, the footsteps in the snow trailing off behind you into the distance, the footsteps in the grass dipping over the horizon, the footsteps, the holes in the ground, the peaks and valleys are all you have left to show where you've been.

You have to acknowledge the breath and the footsteps, the grief and joy and distance. You have to sit with the grief, read it from cover to cover, live with it until the sharp edges wear down, hold it in your hand until it's warm and the chill fades.

You have to acknowledge the joy too, creeping up behind you, stalking you, hunting, tracking you by the scent of your grief. You can weigh life down, tie it up with cement blocks and dump it in the river, but it will bubble back up. Life always finds a way to surface.

But sometimes you have to help the life along. Give it a nudge to set it in the right direction. Or set it back on the right track if it's gone astray.

blood oranges

blood oranges, sweet burnt setting suns,
stain my fingers amber and red;
I will dry the peels, thick citrus skins
thinned to tatters, bits, sticky strips
of rind and sky.

forsythia blooms in sprays, rockets, spring
fireworks of searing yellow, crazed graffiti
against retinas, afterimage upon afterimage,
unveiling layer upon layer, unbearably bright
after winter's brown and white.

unfurling bud and pendant bulge, crocus and
sparrow, heave and twitch, coil and tense,
snap and fuzz, soft and scent, burst and rush.

the green sap swell breaks the cold dam of April
and all is well again, all is well again.