adultery

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

My faith would be easier if I believed that I was only a daughter, or a servant of Christ, an ambassador or friend.

In studying the history of scripture- the narrative- I believe more and more that we are called to be Lovers of this God. We are the Bride of Christ, not just his slaves, or employees or whatever other more comfortable word most pastors and churches teach.

This very language hurts us.

Imagine two people going into a relationship- one expects an employee, the other a wife. A bewildered pair. This is most Christians.

How I would love to be a soldier of Christ! To take my orders, black and white commands, and march forward, never caring for my leaders heart, emotional well being, not thinking he would ever care for mine.

How comforting to be a servant of Christ. To serve his church and do what I must, and never presume to think that I should sit at his knee or have him heal my heart- there are dishes to wash, and things to do at church and meetings to attend.

How easy even to be a daughter of God. I'll check in, bring the boy friend around, call when I need money.

But to pursue God the way we desire a lover. To think of him, to bring him gifts and words. To consider him above myself, to spend time learning his language and desiring his advice. It's too much. Being in love is a terrible gift.

I remember the first time a boy gave me a foot massage. I was so content I could have purred. He looked at me and said, "I wish you could see your own eyes. You look so happy." I was.

I went to work and my heart felt tight and alive. One of the other servers spun me around. "You're glowing, you're in loooove." I was.

I remember him coming over early one morning and laying in bed with me. He was losing me and I was losing myself. He held me so tightly but it didn't work. "I love you." I said. I did.

How do I love God more than this? How do I light up with his love? How do I stay with him. Falling in love is not difficult with me. But the staying part-

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.
Prone to leave the God I love

The intimacy of prayer is too much for me at times. To be fully naked- to stand before someone who knows all your faults, no secrets, no excuses, and to still be loved and desired. It is what everyone wants. I have this in Christ but it is too much. I run. I pick fights. I sabotage. I want more immediate lovers. I throw my heart to dogs and pearls.

But I know I want more-
I know I was made for more-

Here's my heart Lord, take and seal it.

If we could just learn to be lovers over servants or friends. I think this would hold the key to the world. If we can love Christ patiently, persistently, to be satisfied in him- with that would come character and integrity, discipline and gentleness, faith, hope and love.

What fearsome creatures we would be.

i do not understand

freedom is a heavy burden, tonight
when the voices of saints are free to go quiet
when those whose faces shone
go blank and dark
or perhaps brighter with another god

your gift is a terrible thing
to allow your art to think against you
to allow my mind to curse your clay-caked hands

you are either a very stupid god
or a very patient one
you either could care less
or your definition of love is more, more, more

(are my thoughts
really
the pointless pulsations of an ape
is the world
really
devoid and temporal
or am I
the frame work of a masterpiece?)

the only truth I have found is in forgiveness
a bloody cross that makes sense
when i remember
what it is like to swallow anothers sin
and redeem
it is blood
it is blood- every time

faith is a terrible gift, tonight
when surrounded by those given the freedom of disbelief and disappointment
i miss their voices, i miss their faces, i miss their light

magic

I look at myself in the mirror. I make my usual funny face. It looks just as funny. My nose is the same, my eyes still brown, my freckles still silly. This is my face and it has been with me for a long time. But I can look at pictures and know that I looked Different. Weight and hair length/color, clothes, confidence- it has all flickered with time. I look at pictures from the past few months, and I look the same. But I am not. I am Different, even though my funny face is unchanged.

There is a pill bottle in front of my mirror. I open it and take the last one. The little blue pill disappears into my mouth and fixes something in my head.

Magic.

I have had these pills for months and did not take them until four weeks ago.

I thought I should be stronger. I should prayer harder, process better, just get. the. fuck. over. it.

But I really, really couldn't.

The day after I took the pill for the first time, my hands shook and my mouth was dry. I looked up the drug and read the side effects; dry mouth; hand tremor; nausea; insomnia; inability to sustain an erection (snicker). But then I read the results and started crying. Panic attacks; gone. Depression; gone. Social anxiety; gone. I was so grateful. This was what I had been begging God about for months. My prayers rattled around in a little orange container.

It has been four weeks since I had a panic attack. It has been four weeks since my stomach hurt so bad I could not eat. It has been four weeks since I took my clothes off and cried because I looked so very terrible. The scale in my doctors office is different. The numbers are higher and I actually don't mind.

I am not perfect. I am not numb. I am still sad, but it doesn't drown me. I am still lonely, but it doesn't rob me.

This is all good, good, good.

But I wonder if it's all a lie.

When I have cramps, I practically overdose on Motrin. I don't feel pain, but my body is still cramping. Things are still happening inside me, I just don't feel it enough to care.

Tonight my mind started to race, but just a little. My heart beat just slightly faster. My stomach hurt but only for a few seconds. I couldn't cry, but I kind of wanted to.

And I thought: I am probably having one of the worst panic attacks I've ever had.

The bottle is now empty, and I think it will stay that way.

I'm not sure I want to be dependent on magic.

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.