Lover

tell me,
how has your heart not killed you?
mine would kill me, except for you
oh, you suffered, you suffered

you lent us Christ and

we killed him, we killed him
(but we loved him too)

and I need you,
but I am a distracted lover
a graceless partner

chasing after pimps and shadows
but they love me, they love me
or at least I beg them to,

tell me,
who comforts you?
(I wish I would)

God, please be Good.

(The song I listened to while writing.)




Why do I believe what I believe? Where does this faith come from? Richard Dawkins tells me it comes from a value passed on from my ancestors. Some people are programmed to believe in God, some are not. I won the faith lottery. Maybe. I guess anything is possible.

I look at my friends struggling with the God of the bible and Christ, and I don’t know how to struggle with them. I don’t think my faith is ignorant, but it is strong.

I have been thinking about why I believe, why I love. And the story of the Good Samaritan comes to mind. A man is bloodied on the side of the road and several people pass him. But the Good Samaritan stops and helps him and takes care of him. I wonder if that Good Samaritan was a wife beater or a murderer. I wonder if the beaten man would care, if anyone could ever talk him into believing the Good Samaritan wasn’t that good after all.

God, are you Good? I feel that you are, I think that you are. How do I ever know anything? Why do I believe at all?

I think God is my Good Samaritan. It doesn’t matter what other people tell me of Him/Her. He saved my life and I can feel Her love and so I’m here.

There is one memory that comes to mind when I think of why I love God. I hate going back to it. Those memories feel infectious, oscillating. Like there is something in them - then, that wants to be with me -now. The last time I wrote about it I caught a sickness. But I will go back now.

I am curled up on my bed, in my mothers art studio in New York. It is in the middle of the night, and I am awake, shaking. My stomach hurts and there is a new thing growing in me. The scale in my mothers bathroom tells secrets of hard work. It is the only thing about myself I am proud of. Every pound I lose is the equivalent of a year in jail, or like the slashes on my friends arm. And I want to pay my debt to the broken society I left behind. I will take my punishment and even though I do not have a razor or a jumpsuit, I have my thoughts, or Someone Elses thoughts, I don’t know. My eyes are wide awake in the dark and I am screaming: I am a Fuck Up. I am Going Insane. I am a Bad Friend, a Terrible Christian. I am Guilty. I am Ashamed. I am Disgusting. I Am Just Like My Mother.

My body aches and there is an inexplicable pain in my heart that deafens me, like a screaming mob in a cathedral and I can’t feel anything else. I can’t hear anything else. My breath comes in faster and the room is still dark but it is not empty. Time is suffocating me, it is dragging me along and the present is a murderer. Faces flash through my mind and I try to swallow all of their pain. It is the only thing I want to eat and it settles in my stomach. I put a hand over my mouth so I won’t scream it out. The room is dark but it is not empty.

This can’t be just me. My life stretches before me in minutes and years all the things that Could Happen and it burns and I don’t think I can bear it. I know that I am going somewhere dangerous. I think of my mother and how she felt before she pulled the trigger. Did she think these thoughts, too? My stepmother told me once that she killed herself because she had pain all over her body. The doctors could never find a reason for it and nothing worked and she couldn’t stand it. I didn’t think much of it then but now I wonder whose heart my mother broke. Or who hurt hers. I feel pain all over my body, too.

I sit up and the air feels viscous, it is weighing me down. This room is dangerous but I have nowhere to run. My heart is pounding, terrified. Maybe this was how my aunt felt, when she took a rope and went into the basement. Maybe she was wild with fear and just wanted to be done with it. I realize that it is not just death that connects me to the women in my life, but the very thoughts that bring us all there. But not me, not yet.

I close my eyes and pound my heart so it will shut up, shut up, shut up. And I feel like a child running around in the dark. There must be somewhere I can go, there must be some way to stop this. And so I run and pound on the only door I can think of.

I beg God to love me, to change me and fix me and to getmethefuckoutofhere. And he does. The accusations fade as the Spirit mumbles scripture. Beautiful moments slide behind my eyes: praying in a tree when I was seventeen; laughing with Jenna; listening to Tina sing…. The cathedral empties and it is just me and this ridiculous God. And all the philosophy in the world could not make me love Him less. He is Good to me and I am so sorry if He is not Good to you.

Are you my imaginary God? Why can’t you comfort my friends?

This story has repeated itself dozens of times in the past few months. In my own bedroom, in cars and at church, coffee shops and downtown lakes and grocery stores.

Am I tricking myself? Is this all just mental self help that I brand with the name of God? If so, I am stronger and stupider than I could ever imagine.

I don’t like hell. I don’t like absolutes or most Christians. I don’t like reading Joshua or 1 Timothy. But there are always things I don’t like about the people I love. I guess the same applies to God. And goddamn, I love this God I only know as a terrible mix of Wrath and Love. A God of just Wrath would approve of my mothers scale and my friends arm. A God of just Love, the one that so many people wax on about; the God of Passivity and Keeping it Cool. Like my friends father who let her smoke weed and have boyfriends sleep over when she was 13 and he was such a Cool Father and she Loved him for it. That is the God most people want, but that God broke my friend and I don’t think I trust him.

So I have a God of wrath and love. A God like Jenna who hurts me with truth because it will heal me later.

I only know this God by a pastor taking my hand at sixteen and telling me to pull away. I could not, and I started to panic and then he told me that this was like God. That He would never let me go and it terrified me and enraptured me. The idea of not being alone anymore was both blade and soft skin.

Maybe I just believe this lie because I don’t want to be alone. I can’t bear to believe I am totally, utterly alone. But that doesn’t make sense, I push Him away so often…

I only know the point of prayer because the friends I fought with I mostly kept, those I never argued and cried with I lost.

I only know intimacy when I am singing before God and it feels like the prelude to a kiss and I am still and breathless.

I only know naivety when I look at the world’s cruelties and really believe that it would be different if more Christians believed the words of Christ. But most days I cannot so I try to give the world a break.

I only know redemption by going into prayer ashamed and terrified of what I may find there. And every time, I find grace and a tender whisper and sometimes that is harder to hear than wrath.

Am I tricking myself? Telling myself words I don’t believe but I know subconsciously will help me? The voice of God is just my tender logic? But my logic is never warm. How can I slash at myself and then heal myself the next second? I guess I could…

But I only know grace through the last words of Christ. Why can’t those be my only words?

I only believe in the cross because I know forgiveness is not free. It is rarely easy, it is never a simple shrug or an effortless thought. Forgiveness is swallowing someone elses sin and it will kill you sometimes, like it killed Him.

I only know wisdom through Jordan telling me not to jump while waiting for the subway. He must have had good reasons.

I only know hope when I look at Jen and Tom and Guilherme and see those who will restore works of art, who will work with Christ to wipe the shit off of saints faces.

The language of Christ when speaking of the Holy Spirit: I leave with you a great counselor. Well, good. Because we are really fucked down here, God.

I only know faith because I woke up this morning and knew nothing could hurt me worse than myself. I kissed the mirror and my mothers picture, told my father I loved him and Christ that He did not die for nothing, in case He needed to hear it today and I know love.

I can’t be making all of this up. I love you, I love you, I love you. Oh God, please be Good.

garden

Revamped a bit-


Are you still lonely?
does your heart still ache
like it did that night
in the garden of your abandonment?

Did you think of Adam and Eve
when you saw your friends
sprawled down and asleep
your coppery red sweat
plaintive words that rang in the heat:
Can’t you stay awake with me?

a mile away
Judas heart beat, beat, beat
the priests played him on puppet strings
and they all danced toward you
hidden in the night
past the houses of those you healed
Judas thought they would fight
they would use their new legs and new sight
to raise an army and win a war

he never saw you on a cross
but on a horse instead
and he didn’t listen
when you said
your kingdom was not here
but the priests kingdom was and is
and their swords were ready
while Peter dreamed dreams of the simple and sweet
and you begged:
if there is any other way…
a soon-to-be Savior that wept

you went to your friends
and woke them up again
another plea
you were lonely and afraid,
-but they were tired Lord, so tired-
so you went back to your grass and tears and knees
your way God, not mine
and then you heard Judas heart
beat, beat, beat
and saw the hell-strings
of the puppet that gave you a kiss on the cheek

and their legs burned as they ran
they were awake and afraid and naked and ashamed
running from the garden like adam and eve

but, oh God! there was no army and
Judas could not live with his lips and
as your mother watched you die
she screamed your cry:
My god, My god, why have you forsaken me?

and then your final words-
They know not what they do
but some of them did, some of them do
are you still lonely, Lord?

because we are still naked and ashamed and running and afraid

we let you save us from hell but
rarely from ourselves
from name brand fig leaves
and chasing after lovers less wild
we are all
sprawled and asleep
we are tired Lord, so tired
of having Judas hearts
in a kingdom of priests
stuck somewhere between eden and gethsemene

people watching

There is a woman sitting across from me in the coffee shop. She sits on the edge of her chair, back straight, purse clutched in her hands. Her skin is dark, toffee colored, and her beautiful braids are gathered and pulled back from her slightly lined face. She is round yet petite, her clothes are designed to hide, not express. But maybe that is her expression: I do not want to be noticed.

But I do notice her. She strikes me because though she is sitting with no one, talking to no one, her face changes expressions rapidly. Her lips twitch slightly and her eyes narrow and brighten. She stares into some far off point across from her.

She is having conversations and I wonder who she is speaking to.

I have sat in this coffee shop before and been haunted by words I have and have not said. I, too, have replayed moments and wished for boldness or gentleness instead of what was burned into my memory.

I put in my ear buds (Thom Yorke) and peek at her from over my book (Emily Dickinson). Her jaw is set, her eyes are bright with tears. She must have gotten to a difficult part. But then she swallows and closes her eyes. A second later her expression is hopeful, her lips forming a most plaintive smile.

This makes me afraid of everyone else and everything they do not say. How funny, our imagination, our ability to fantasize. This person she wants to speak to is not here, but they are, kind of, in her mind. And at her whim they are pleading, or forgiving; kind and apologetic. I wonder what other people have made me say in conversation. We can make people dance like puppets, speak like poets, or act like lovers all day long in our minds. But the longer we stay there, the more harsh the reality of their free will. People are not all poets or lovers and we are not always misunderstood.

She is now nodding wisely and with relief, as though she or her mystery friend has come to some great enlightenment. In the next second however, she must remember the truth of time and consequence, because she is solemn and afraid again.

Suffering-

I would like to take a crack at something. I have been thinking a lot about the basic philosophies of Christianity. The issue of suffering is a huge one. How many times have we heard someone say that they could not believe in God because of suffering in the world? I don't know if there is ever an adequate philosophical response to this question, but I wanted to share some thoughts.

A lot of people blame suffering in the world on God, and conceivably so since he could stop all of it. Makes sense. So what if God took away suffering? What would that look like?

We have to agree that while suffering is universal, the definition of what constitutes as suffering is not.

Picture a room, and in it, we will put those who suffer.:

A woman raped.
A young girl who did not get the lead in the school play.
A wealthy socialite with a chemical peel gone wrong.
A man that loves a woman that does not love him.
A child whose hands have been cut off.
A woman who’s husband was shot in front of her.
A child who did not receive a toy they wanted.
A man who lost his job and has a family to feed.
A man who lost his job, but has no family.

We may scoff at the woman and her chemical peel, but could you blame the child with no hands not understanding why a man who lost his job was in the room with him? Is it ridiculous for the rape victim to roll her eyes at the tearful cries of a man unloved?

The girl that did not get the lead in the school play may feel shame; self hatred; anger; bittnerness- and feel them quite hotly. We can say she is young and immature in what causes her suffering, but it does not change the fact that her response is, indeed, suffering (and also that we are arrogant for believing that our vantage point of what constitutes as suffering is the ultimate authority).

Does the acknowledgement of sex slavery in the world lead you to cry less when someone has broken your heart? Probably not.

So. If God was Good, then there would be no suffering. But that means no suffering, of any kind.

I think a response to this would be the idea that there should not be rape, or AIDS, or cancer or murder, the ‘tragic sufferings’ maybe.

But lets say those things did not exist. But if we could still feel pain, there would simply be different scale of sufferings.

Imagine a world where the only health problems anyone ever had was the common cold. That’s it. No other diseases.

People would say that if there was a God, he would not allow people to have colds. The indignity of nose blowing and the harrowing torture of a sore throat would cause people to question his existence and goodness. People would lose their faith after catching a cold, or perhaps find God in the midst of their sickness, needing Something to comfort them in their distress and anguish.

We think that is silly only because we know the range of suffering pertaining to health. If the range was a cold only, it would be the worst thing in the world. And we would be right back where we started.

Let’s continue with this line of thought.

A world with only colds. No rape or murder, no adultery, or stealing.

So now, in this new world where all extreme suffering is removed- we would have new extreme sufferings.

People would be atheists because they could not believe in a God that allowed broken nails; bad break ups; boring jobs.

Philosophers would write books on the spiritual cruelty of acne and bad hair. They could not accept a God that did not make all of creation aesthetically pleasing. Ugly people means an ugly God.

Again, these things seem petty (maybe) to us only because we understand the spectrum of suffering.

So, all suffering would have to be erased. And not only would God have to take away the things that make us suffer, but he would have to take away our very faculties that process suffering.


We would either all have to get what we want, or not be able to process pain of any kind. One is not possible, because what we want often hurts other people, so two could be the only logical conclusion.

So the following words would be incomprehensible to us: worry; anxiety; pain; fear; abandonment; rejection; neglect; hurt; anguish; misery; annoyance; disturbance; etc.

Without those words, or the ability to understand what they refer to, the following words are also meaningless- happy; joy; love; kindness; forgiveness; gratitude; contentment; ecstatic; delight; acceptance.

Without suffering, of any and all kind, we also would not be happy. We would have no concept of the word.

So I wonder a few things.

I wonder if God has saved us from suffering even more greatly than we can imagine.

The same way we laugh at a world that dismisses God based not getting parking spots or coveted jobs, is there another world that would laugh at our suffering of rape and genocide as petty?

I can think of nothing worse than being strapped to a bed and raped. But I wonder if God’s response to that would be: “There was the possibility of me creating a world where men could literally rip out your essence, eat it, and you would be trapped in their body for the rest of your life.”

Again, ridiculous. As ridiculous as American missionaries explaining video games to south American natives. Just because it is incomprehensible does not mean it could not be true. That would be putting ultimate authority in our cognitive faculties, which is a little arrogant. If God is blamed for all disasters, I wonder if there are disasters he has kept us from?

There is one suffering we know exists, that only one Man felt. When Christ was in the garden, and on the cross, He was completely cut off from God. It hurts when we lose relationships with those we cherish, even if we may have only known the person for a few months.

But what of the pain of losing our spouse of 50 years?

Christ (going on the assumption that he was who he said he was) lost the companionship of God that he had had for all eternity. He felt cosmic abandonment. Intense. Intense enough for him to cry out “Llama sabachthani” My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

When I hear stories of Christian martyrs, it strikes me that they died more bravely and perhaps seemingly more faithful deaths than of Christ. I can only image that Christ’s sufferings went far beyond the physical, into another spiritual realm that I can only think of as science fiction.

But I think we can all admit that at least some of our sufferings have produced good in our life, in the form of character; patience; grace; etc. So if we can see some good coming from suffering and evil, isn’t it possible that God can see good coming out of all?


I suppose I am comforted that the justice I desperately want on this earth is not pointless, it is promised in the form of heaven. That the heaven Christ talks of is not just one of consolation, but of restoration.

Last random thought: maybe we feel pain because God does. Not just Christ, we know he suffered. But God, in the Old Testament, suffered. Pain and suffering exist in God’s realm just as much as this one. God is not separate and detached from our pain, it is found in Him. We are made in his image, and that may be somewhat physical, but it seems primarily emotional to me. God feels hurt; abandonment; rejection; pain. The Christian faith is that of the God Who Suffers. God was so moved by our pain, that he sent Himself to take it on. It did not alleviate all of our pains here on earth, but Christ’s sufferings and his desire to be with us, can help us suffer well and come out of it stronger and wiser. And if our sufferings lead to death- our desire for what we want on earth, is now found in the hope of resurrection and heaven.

the scientist and the artist

I was praying a few years ago, distressed at my desire to be a writer. I was telling God that there is something so beautiful about creation. That these people and stories exist in my mind, and I see it clearly as though it were on a screen, and I want desperately to show other people what I see… I was half defending myself, half pleading. I think I expected from God what I told myself:

This is impractical Kate, a foolish desire shared by millions of other starving artists…

But instead I thought something else. And the sheer magnitude of this thought, the freedom and delight in it could not have come from me:

You want to be like your Father.

I held my breath like I had just been kissed, and I had, in a way.

God used science as an artistic medium, the way I use a pen, or you use a camera or cloth or a stage. He Created. The quark was his paint and the human his art. I do not believe in the literal garden, but I do believe in a God that created and thought it was Good. And he gave us hands and lips and this ability to make Something from Nothing. And that desire is in us. I understand the desire for food and drink and sex and destruction by evolutionary instinct. But why would evolution give us something with only abstract practicalities? The animal kingdom has no need for art. Why do we? I think the desire to create and see art, the desire for beauty points to something more than eating and sleeping and continuing the species.

The Scientist and the Artist are socially two completely different creatures, but their gifting so similar: revealing to us the things of God. It amazes me that there were paintings in Picasso's head and music in Bach's ears. That my hand can barely hold a pen straight and the most beautiful things can come out of yours.

I am always nervous before I write. The entire process is so inexplicable to me, I am always afraid nothing will happen. But Something happens. Whether I have a muse to lead me there or not, there is Something Else in me, separate from my cognition, a mysterious Well to draw from- and out come words, scenes, life. Sometimes I think my words exist in me, before I think them. That I’m not really creating anything, just writing down what was already there, waiting patiently for me to look. There are poems waiting to be discovered inside of me. There are movie scripts and love letters and the rest of my mothers book, hidden somewhere behind my eyes.

So what is hiding in you?

What does creation look like in you?

Mine looks like a black lake.

This lake holds all of my movies, my T.V shows, maybe a few novels down at the bottom. Whenever I get an idea for a film, it is like looking at a black screen or a rippling lake. And then certain things start to emerge. Flashes of scenes, dialogue, character traits. Then all of a sudden the lake is a movie screen, I can play out scenes in perfect quality. My lake is shimmering with ideas currently. This one came alive today:

I want to write a music video about the creative process in artists. A painter seeing a painting, on the side of a building, the sky, then finally a canvas. A writer who gets a phrase (since we hear only music, I think it would be cool to have him thinking about his poetry- scrawled in his handwriting on the screen) and we see him writing poems, scribbling it out, writing it again. A photographer who sees pictures as they happen- an intimate moment between a father and daughter is slow and sharpened and he captures that moment in his mind if not his lens. Even something as seemingly simple as fashion: a woman who takes in everything everyone is wearing, but certain things stand out, literally. The cut of a dress, a necklace, a way of wearing a scarf. These things are sharper and more in focus and represented into her own clothing choices the next day.

I do want to be like my Father. I want to create and encourage other artists and scientists. This is the closest to God we can get. I believe that God exists outside of time, and so all art has already been seen and created by him first- but I think he gets excited for us, he roots us on. He sees the poetry and the great american novel and trends and pictures inside of us.

What is hiding in you? I'd like to see it, read it, listen to it.

What does the creative process look like to you?

Friends and Ghosts

A few weeks ago, both Jahred and Bradford were gone and I could not sleep. My room felt suffocating and dangerous. So in the middle of the night I went into their room and crawled into Jenna's old bed (which the subsequent room mates have used) and felt the weight of being an other. I heard the dogs pounding across the living room, Bjork mewing on the porch, other flatmates closing doors and all the pets we have crawling around in the walls. I listened to the fan creak and the bushes scratch the window. I experienced my house from another room, and I missed all the other people that experienced it. All the people that were sleeping somewhere else now. I wonder if they ever think about that room.

Bradford moves out in a few days, Jahred a few weeks after him. My heart hurts when I think about it. When I walk into my house and pass that room, sometimes I feel like it is filled with ghosts.

I see Beth tapping away at her computer, her brown hair tucked behind her ears and a counseling book in her lap. Beside her Jenna sits on the floor, flipping through magazines for fashion and art ideas. Dana and McKenzie lounge on the bed, their laptops out as they discuss church and school and life. Jahred reads on his air mattress bed and Bradford does yoga.

I don't want any more ghosts, there will be no more room mates. I will take out the bed and put in a couch and my sewing machine and line the walls with racks of dresses and books. The ghosts can keep me company as I work and dream.

I am in a stage in my life where many people have left or are leaving. But I remain the same. In the same house, and as of Monday, return to my old place of work. This distresses me. I am tired of people moving in and out and on. I am sad to look into a face I love and know I will not see it again for quite sometime.

This is where the idea of a husband, of a consistent friend that won't move away seems incredibly appealing for the first time.

I was explaining this to God in prayer, and I was hit by a realization. I mean, I know it. I say it all the time and we hear it all the time and blah, blah, blah-

But-

What I long for in a friend or a lover, Christ is. Christ will never leave me. He won't move out or get sick of me. I was hit with the full truth that Christ actually, genuinely, for really real likes to hang out with me. I felt in prayer how grateful I was to have this friend that will comfort me when other friends leave and rejoice with me over new relationships. I do not need a husband to anchor me down, I can have that in God. I can tell him about my day and talk to him about everything I experience, knowing he is experiencing it with me. I need to train myself to hear his language, to be more sensitive to the movements and whispers of the spirit. Because that language, that movement and whisper fills me with love and joy and utter gratefulness.

"At that time"—this is God's Message still—
"you'll address me, 'Dear husband!'
Never again will you address me,
'My slave-master!'
And then I'll marry you for good—forever!
I'll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness.
Yes, I'll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go.
You'll know me, God, for who I really am."