PSR at Christmas

Meet me at the lion’s head stairway,
gather your heart into your cupped hands,
light leaking from between your fingers.
Caution tape and crows line the playing field.
Behind Benton, the blooming prickly pear
cluster – a crowd of clowns waving you on to the carnival.
Hanukkah lights and a short, stout Christmas tree, covered with ornaments
that fat Frank mistakes for tennis balls.
Pink flamingos nest in the ferns and
the caged tomato vine clings to the bars and waits for spring.
Away at Cal, the sheared London plane trees clench their knuckles to the cold sky
while the carillon plays holy, holy, holy.

In the interim, a few poems for the season.

Soon we'll return to theologies and adventures in seminary land, but for now, a few turkey related recipe poems:

Curried Turkey and Apple Soup

2 Granny Smith apples
cored, peeled, chopped
naked, trembling
waiting for the sweet of cinnamon
the heat of pepper and Tabasco
the slow comfort of curry.
And then, sleeping with the windows open in early September
the first time in the season you can pull up the quilt
and wake, in morning,
delicious.

Lemon Chicken Rice Soup

I forget which lover taught me the way
to soften lemons.
Drop the fruit and
press it gently to the floor, rolling it under the arch of your foot.

I remember the lover who taught me
to boil whole chickens.
And the one who showed me how to plant basil
and how her spatulate hands looked in the soil.

A slow boil
A simmer
A dash of Tabasco
1 small carrot diced fine
I remember:
Heat, amount, and the cut.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

The best way to eat broccoli
is to pretend you are a brontosaurus
chomping your way through the forest canopy.
Forget that the name brontosaurus
only exists in the popular imagination, and
was formally discarded by scientists in 1903.
Who needs scientists anyway?
You would eat them too
but you know that the brontosaurus,
by any other name,
is an herbivore.

On Turning 40: A Manifesto

Here’s my rule on my birthday: I only do things that make my heart say: hell, yeah!

I was a little surprised when my heart wanted to start the day writing (because I usually have to drag myself kicking and screaming to the page, though after I get there, I wonder why I fight it so hard). But I even went back for my little computer so I could sit in this coffee shop and write a bit about turning 40.

I was talking with two of my fellow seminarians, both women over 40, and one said she had called her Mom when she was 40 to ask if she would ever feel like a grown up. I laughed, because I have the same feeling. What does it mean, anyway, to be a grown up? I remember when I bought my house at 25 – part of me wondered: how is it that they are giving me all this money? Don’t they know how young I am? Later, when I had a professional gig in the big city, I kept thinking: don’t they know?? As many of my friends married and had children, I kept thinking, really? How did we get here?

Last night, a dear friend from Seattle came to visit me. I was trying to describe how I felt about turning 40. Now sure, it’s just another day in some ways, but I tend to think those “big” birthdays are a time to take stock, to review where I am and where I want to go. But I was saying: this is not where I expected to be at 40 – back in graduate school (again), single/unmarried, no kids, taking on extreme student loan debt. And seminary? Really? I said: I mean, I’m happier than I’ve been in a very long time, but it all just seems like I should be further along somehow. I figured being in recovery for so long, and therapy for longer, I shouldn’t be feeling so insecure, and I shouldn’t have to budget just to buy a new pair of boots.

Now, my friend is one of those women who is really successful – she is graceful, smart, loving, funny; and she’s beautiful, she has a great marriage and is doing very well in her downtown corporate gig. Later in the evening, out of nowhere, she pauses and says: You know it is because you’ve been in recovery (ie practicing this spiritual discipline) for so long, that you’re able to do this. She said: there is no way I could do what you’re doing, it makes me afraid just to think of it.

It was the best birthday gift ever.

I think I’ve spent so much of my life measuring myself against other people’s standards of success, I forget sometimes what is really important is learning your loves, and following what your love calls you to do, regardless of what it might cost and what it might look like. Maybe this is what I mean by being a grown up.

Coming to seminary, even if I couldn’t admit it at first, is the loudest “hell yeah” action I’ve ever taken. I came even though it seems crazy, even though it rocks everything that I thought I was, even though I suspect that it will makes my chances of having a hot lesbian love affair virtually nill. I’m here even though being here, and claiming Christianity, has complicated many of my previous relationships in ways I never would’ve guessed.

And I love it. And I love the idea of spending the rest of my life doing this work. Which is good, since I’ll be paying off my student loans till I’m 85. It doesn’t matter.

So here’s what I think I want for my 40s:
1. I want to never again apologize, equivocate, or dodge ownership of my life choices and the things I love.

2. For the big stuff, if it isn’t hell yeah, I’m not doing it. (There’s plenty of little things, like laundry, that just requires a:” yeah, I don’t want to wear dirty clothes or walk around naked.”)

3.Recognize, welcome and support other people in their “hell yeahs”

4. Stop judging my insides based on other people’s outsides.

5. Celebrate all the quirky things I love that make me, me.

So that’s what I want to say today. Now: a massage, shopping for shiny new boots, some deliciously lame romantic comedy, time with my dear ones, and a good deal of playing hooky.

Overheard at Seminary #2

"You know, when you learn Spanish, it's all like: 'how are you' and 'my name is.' In Hebrew? one of the first phrases you learn is: 'whole burnt offering.' "

Why reading the annoying psalms is part of my practice, or: Psalm 4, Part One.

When I first started meditating on the psalms a year and a half ago, I skipped the ones that irritated me. This was a necessary thing for me. At the time, I was trying to open my heart to a religion whose most visible proponents labeled me an abomination and who were, in my opinion, raging hypocrites and self-righteous assholes.

Coming to believe in anything spiritual is a process for me (we’ll talk about what I mean by “belief” some other time, for now: I don’t mean a mindless/willful insistence on a comic book superhero “god” that will act like a celestial vending machine and beat up anyone who doesn’t agree with me).

When I made the decision to really explore Christianity, I had to put a lot of my knee-jerk reactions on hold. Look for the things that open your heart, I told myself, don’t pay attention to the other stuff, for now.

My critical thinking friends might describe this as a willingness to be brainwashed, but it’s not like that. It’s more of a choice to be open and to pay attention to the things that bring out a strong reaction. And it’s only a first step in the process.

The thing is – stuff like religion (or spirituality/relationship with the divine), or love, or family, or identity – are things that usually matter to people on a deep level. As such, when injury happens, rejection or reaction to those things/people/institutions is pretty fierce. I remember a time, back in the early 80s, when I started realizing I was gay; I remember the heartbreak I felt when I thought I could no longer have any kind of spiritual life. This heartbreak hardened into an intense hatred of the religious right and its brand of “Christianity.” (I put that in quotes because I think they are not actually Christian, as the religion they practice bears little resemblance to what Christ actually talks about.)

Of course, over time, I recovered an openness to the divine (or God/the universal flow/creator/etc). I realized that the televangelists and so-called moral folk filling those huge mega churches did not own god.

Back to Psalm 4. The first verse goes like this:

Answer me when I call, O God of my right!

You gave me room when I was in distress.

Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.

Now the first time I read this, I instantly labeled it irritating and skipped over it. But I love Psalm 3, and they are right next to each other, so I’d always finish loving 3 and crash into that ridiculous first line of 4. The psalmist sounds like a stalker girlfriend, or my mom when I was 5: “Answer me when I call!”  And: “O God of my right” sounds so…arrogant. Like you have some special right to God¹?

I’ve been doing this practice for a while now and a lot of my fellow seminarians (and the professor/pastor types) talk about engaging with the stuff in the Bible (or I’d argue, with anything) that really bugs you because your passionate response can lead to insight or action.  This mirrors what one of my spiritual guide-folk once told me: “Pay attention to where your resistance is.”

The psalms, which are essentially poems that were written (or more accurately, collected from oral traditions) across hundreds of years, are a record of the wide range of human emotions. And they are a record of the very human relationship of a community with the divine. When I pray the psalms (by memorizing, meditating on them and speaking them), I have to use words that I’d rather not use. In some ways, it forces me to recognize emotions of my own I’d rather ignore. And the repetition of the words hammers through my various defenses.

For example, this morning I tackled Psalm 4.  Inhale. Answer me when I call, O God of my right. Wince. Exhale. You gave me room when I was in distress. (The translation of this is having room, as in not being trapped or hemmed in). Ok. Inhale. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. Exhale, huh? Repeat.

For about 45 minutes I sat with this verse. Slowly, I began to identify that my big problem with “Answer me when I call, O God of my right” was tied up in a deep pain of my own. My first thought: who does this guy think he is? Led to: wow, she’s pretty confident that the universe is listening. Led to: That’s pretty audacious, to call on the universe and think it’s your right. Which led to: Well, sure I think people should be able to confidently call on the universe/God to help them in times of need. Which led to: but what about me? Why don’t I think I have the right to call on God (or, the loving universe) and believe she/he/it would welcome and support me? And then I kinda cried. Hate that.

One of the things I’ve always struggled with is my actual right to exist. Sounds silly, but frequently I feel like I shouldn’t be here. Or if I should, I should be really, really quiet, and draw as little attention to myself as I can. There’s often that little voice in my head that hisses: Who do you think you are, anyway? You have nothing important to say. You don’t count. Other people can ask for help, but not you. You don’t deserve help (or love, or happiness, or, or, or…).  

I sometimes react to this by thinking: well I don’t need help/love/sense of belonging anyways. But I think this is my reaction to heartbreak: withdraw, don’t ask, try not to need. All of this, of course, works against my having an expansive, loving life.  It also keeps me from asking for justice – either for myself, or for other people.

This realization makes me wonder how much of my resistance to the “annoying” psalms is related to my perception of who wrote the poem and where they are speaking from, and to whom.  And this makes me angry with the religious right and their historical ilk (again) for appropriating a religion that is based on the love of god, personal transformation and social transformation, and perverting it into a religion of oppression and smug self-righteousness. Not that I have any opinions on that….

------

¹Now, there are some people who really don’t like the idea of a “person” god, and I totally get that. When I say God, I really don’t mean Papa (or Mommy) in the fluffy white clouds. My reality is that God/Spirit/Universe/Celestial Wonder Dog/Big Giant Spiritual Reality is way too big for me to wrap my brain around. So, I’m going to just use the word God here. (Please see previous entry on what I mean when I say that.)

Miniatures

Some mornings, my roommate and I write poems. Lately we’ve been doing my exercise of recipe poems – basically, take a recipe and use the ingredients list or some of the supplementary material as a launch points. (I’ve got about a chapbook’s worth of these…)

Yesterday was “corn risotto” but the side bar about baby corn was more interesting and made me think about miniatures…(the rule with these exercises is that you have to finish in 15 minutes and not revise, at least not right away, it’s more like a game, less like high art…) For example:

I used to love miniatures.

When Gulliver was tiny, giants built him toy houses and stitched doll clothes.

When you are miniature, no one sees you, but you can hide in convenient places and

watch them – be privy to stories you shouldn’t know and secrets you don’t have to do anything about.

 And nothing you do matters, because it will be so small.

You can protect yourself against cats with

            straight pins and knitting needles

And never have to do bills

            because you are too small to cost much.

And everything you have -  thread spool tables, toothpick fence posts, thimble cups –

 is stolen,

(laws are made for bigger people.)

You can have wonderful adventures in Christmas villages

                        and on toy train models

(Though remember, your world is bound by a season or a circle)

Never mind: see how pretty the Christmas lights are?

The snow isn’t even cold (though cotton makes for lousy snowballs)

And eating your body weight in gumdrops is easy.

I think the thing that occurred to me is how I think I’ve been living a miniature life in some ways. I’ve heard that the definition of humility is being right-sized – being neither too small, nor too big. Historically, I’ve struggled with trying to dodge attention, or grab too much of it. Like most addicts, I tend to either try to be the best or the worst. I remember hearing a woman in a meeting once, praying to be one of many – a friend among friend, a worker among workers. She didn’t mean it in a mediocre way. But I think there is some significant value in trying to be the (metaphoric) size you are.

Sometimes, it’s easier to be mini-me.

So, the psalm of the day is #19, and the first section goes like this:  “The heavens are telling the glory of God;/and the firmament proclaims his handiwork./Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge./There is no speech, nor are there words;/their voice is not heard;/yet their voice goes out through all the earth,/and their words to the end of the world.”

What struck me here was that in just being, the heavens, day and night, all attest to the glory of the divine. Like the silent praise that is implicit in just being who we are created to be. (Anything less would mess up the big sing. ;-)

(I know this entry is a little slight, but I wanted to get back into posting. More soon...)

A Tiny Bit on Genesis

So you know: Genesis? Funny. Plus, it reads like a soap opera, minus the alien abduction.

It starts with two creation stories. I just attended a three-hour lecture partly focusing on this and I’ll share some of the more academic gems with you all soon (when I’m not coming off a twelve-hour day). But I wanted to just note this one thing, because I kinda love it.

The second creation story has this really sweet verse (for those who are following along at home, this is Genesis 2:19):

¹⁹So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

The thing I love about this is that it is as if God is playing with her new creation – like she’s all excited to see what the man is going to call each animal. I imagine it, God totally having fun and cracking up when man comes up with things like platypus or orangutan (or whatever they are in the “original” translation…)

The context of the verse is also funny (here’s the whole thing 2:18-20):

¹⁸Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” ¹⁹So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.

I also think it’s kind of endearing that the God in this section is not only worried about the man being alone, but that his first move is to create animals and birds. It’s only after the man names and rejects all the animals as helper/partner that woman was made. Now I know there is a lot of possibility for snark here, but that’s not why I brought it up. Sometimes it’s fun to think of a God that doesn’t know the whole plan first and is having a wicked good time experimenting.

A bit about "salvation"

This morning I was doing my morning meditation thing with a couple of lines from Psalm 13, which is titled Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies (we’ll talk later about all the breaking of teeth, cheek smiting and general beat-downs the poets in Psalms seem to revel in).

The lines were: “But I trusted in your steadfast love/my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.”

(How this works for me: generally, I just pick out a couple of lines at random that I like, then for 15 minutes, I inhale while repeating the first line in my head, and exhale the second.)

I was about ten minutes into the thing when I realized I’d been replacing the words “my heart” with “I” so, I shrugged, and reverted to the text, and then got completely clobbered with gratitude.

Three years ago, I was driving home from work on a rainy day. I was in this place in my life where everything felt terrible. I’ve always struggled with depression, but this was crushing. Every morning I’d get up with that impossible weight and dread. When people would be excited about something, I’d be cynical and point out all the ways it could suck. I was becoming negative, bitter and really, really unhappy.

So I was stopped at a stop light and I thought: if I believed in sin (in the sense that sins are thoughts or actions that keep me distant from god/spirit/celestial-wonder-dog) this is maybe the biggest one – to not be willing to feel and see all the beauty that is in this daily life, and to be so crippled by my own depression/fear/insecurity that I can’t reach outside of myself to do anything more that make fun of people who are doing what they love, partly because I was starting to feel like I never would.

And I knew, as I sat there in my car, that my heart was broken and I had no clue about how to fix it. I didn’t even know if it could be fixed. I thought heartbreak was supposed to be related to breaking up with a significant other, but my heartbreak was this huge loneliness and realization that I didn’t know quite how to allow love into my life. My habit was to try to figure out in my head what people wanted and try to be that. And as far as any internal softness or need I felt – my response was: Kill it!!

Now, perhaps in the traditional version of this story, I’d say: “Then I found Jesus, and got saved and now I’m going to Disneyland….erm, I mean heaven.”

That didn’t happen.

But what did happen was that I committed to myself to start paying attention to the things I loved and the things that brought me joy. When everyone says: do what you love and all else follows – THEY ARE NOT KIDDING.

But how do I recognize what I love?

(A lot of you know this story, but for the newbies: ) Ten years ago, I lived in the county. One morning, as I was driving past a familiar field, I saw an animal. I thought at first it was a horse, but then I realized no….it’s a donkey. Actually, four donkeys. And I smiled and thought, huh. When I drove by the next day, I looked for the donkeys and kind of laughed. Sometimes I’d actually pull over and just watch them. I didn’t know why, but I just felt happy when I saw them. They were sweet and ridiculous and I loved how their ears would point downward when they ate.

And one day I was sitting there, laughing at these donkeys and I realized: this is what it is like to just purely love something, without agenda. For most of my life to that point, I loved what I was supposed to love, or what it was cool to love, or what everyone else loved. But here was this thing that just made me happy by being exactly what it was and I was happy because I was loving it just because I loved it.

This is how I recognize love now – the things or people that make me want to laugh when I’m around them. (Not because they are cracking jokes, but just because they are who they are and I am who I am).

 I mean, not everyone loves donkeys, the color yellow and but I do.

And it’s one of the simple things I was put here to do.

 “I trusted in your steadfast love” today reminded me that I started looking for those things, people and actions that brought out the love in me. And while it wasn’t an immediate thing, eventually my heart started healing; and by choosing to do this thing (seminary) that I was terrified of doing (and yet wanted to do with my whole heart) I get to feel joy again.

When I say salvation, at least in this sense, I mean that I no longer have to walk through life numb and cynical. My heart is being freed of these things that keep me from loving myself and the people (and critters) around me. It’s a kind of gentling process.

And once again, it compels action. It is impossible to be able to see and feel and not challenge myself to do more, again, because it’s one of the simple things I was put here to do.

Mondays? Even suck at seminary.

You ever have one of those days?

You know the ones – you’ve got 9 hours of class (or work or childcare), you don’t have the right pants, the dog is bitter, the coffee is weak. A friend looks at you the wrong way and you’re sure it’s because you’ve done some unspeakable evil that you can’t remember, you say something that wasn’t quite as brilliant as you’d like, and follow it up with a binge of cigarettes/too much ice cream/booze/illegal substances or meaningless sex.

Yeah, you know those days. I just had one.

A few things I try to remind myself on these days:

1. The world does not revolve around me.
2. Nine hours of class plus little time for self-care would make Spock cranky.
3. What other people think of me (or what I might think they think, which is even more fun) is none of my business, (though it is my favorite hobby.)
4. Right when I think I have control in my life, god/spirit/celestial wonder dog is having a good laugh.
5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the cure for all ills.

As I am in seminary I’d like to take this opportunity to share with you further deep spiritual insights I’ve had about all of this, but, I’m too darn tired.

So, that leads us to the fun Bible fact I learned today:  testimony is related to the word testicles; apparently, since ancient folk couldn’t swear on the Bible (as it wasn’t quite written yet), men would swear on their testicles. This custom is mentioned in the Old Testament. In the King James translation, the passage reads, "And Abraham said: 'unto his eldest servant of his house... Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear...’”

Which of course led to one of my super-cool female seminarian friends to say: “Maybe we should just say ‘breastify.’”

It’s the little things like this that bring me closer to the divine…

Overheard at Seminary #1

"Yeah, (at Bible camp) we sometimes used Oreos and milk instead of the bread and wine..."

Psalm 104

This is not, you might have noticed, a daily blog. As it happens, there is a ridiculous amount of reading in seminary. No, really. And despite my bazillion years of therapy, as it happens, I’m having a ridiculous number of feelings. As Carrie Fisher might say, it’s a veritable feeling festival, lead by a parade of less friendly feelings. You know the ones: that wincing self-loathing with a dash of rage, a touch of alienation and just a soupçon of paralyzing fear.

Of course, there is also a big chuck of startled wonder and quite a lot of peace and joy.

Today, I had more of the first set than the second, but I’d really rather write about Psalm 104. One, because I get so bored by my self-obsession and two, because it’s really a good psalm.

This isn’t going to be the big gay psalm blog (and later, when I can fill at least two twinkies with my biblical knowledge, I’m sure I’ll write about more academic things), but for me, the psalms are kind of an entry point into scripture. The first time, I went through and read them over the course of a week or so (there are only 150 and they are fairly short).

I was about midway through and the thing that struck me the most was how connected I felt to a sprawling humanity that stretched back three thousand years. I’ve heard other people say this since then, but it seemed so beautiful that people a zillion years ago struggled with similar feelings and experiences and expressed those feelings in poetry that praised their god and sang to the wonder in the universe.

Psalm 104 would be the best psalm to make into a children’s book. I’m sure someone’s already done it. It lays out how the poet imagines god created the world and its critters.

A few of my favorite lines: “You stretch out the heavens like a tent/you set the beams of your chambers on the waters/…you make the winds your messengers/fire and flame your ministers.”

Or my favorite: “Yonder is the sea, great and wide,/creeping things innumerable are here,/living things both small and great./There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.”

I love that the poet imagines that god created leviathans just to play in the ocean.

The other thing that I love is that when I look at this poem – describing this fragile, beautiful place – I experience no t just a sense of peace and connection, but I also experience it as a call to action to take better care of the world. Not in that nagging, oh-I-better-recycle-and-buy-a-prius way (though that’s good too), but in this kind of attention to the outside world way.

This path for me is a gentle and firm push towards becoming more responsible and aware of things outside of my brain.

I am not motivated to action because “I should do X” but “I want to do X” out of love for this world and its sporting leviathans.  

Mornings on Holy Hill

My little seminary is nestled on the north side of the Cal campus, along with several other seminaries. This area is known as holy hill. Sometimes I see monks at the dining hall, which I kind of love.

Rose and I took a new route this morning, finally heading up the hill.  The roads became narrower and narrower, until the neighborhood began to look a bit like Lothlorien – all stairways and wooden bridges. Someone had constructed a fence of brass bedposts twined with trumpet vine. Along the sidewalks: a shock of fennel, wilting nasturtium, monkey puzzle trees. Agapantha exploding like frozen fireworks.

For the past year or so I’ve been doing this meditation practice called lectio divina. I first heard of it when I was reading Kathleen Norris’ brilliant Acedia and Me. Later, when I was deciding to explore the progressive Christianity thing, I found “instructions” on the United Church of Christ website. 

So, I tried it.

(You have to understand that even saying the word “scripture” still makes me wince a bit. So many religious terms are almost fatally attached in my mind to people whose politics and behavior I abhor it can be a struggle to even say the same words. I suppose it is like reclaiming the word queer, turning it from a negative smear to an empowered positive. In some ways the whole past couple of years have been about this for me – trying to turn the clichés of right wing rhetoric back into the words of beauty and peace. I’ll say more on this later).

The thing I love about lectio divina is that it gives me time, breath and space to not just think about what the person is writing about, but also to feel it in a new way. I’m generally moved by language anyways, but in some way, the words become a part of my body and shift around in meaning.

So this morning, I had returned to what has become my favorite psalm -- #73. I like it because the poet basically says: yeah, it’s great to be all righteous and holy, but I was looking around at all the wealth that I don’t have and feeling jealous of everyone who seems to get everything they want. He talks about feeling bitter and cynical and still, how the spirit is always with him. This is the point that I love – that when he is feeling so hard and bitter, he realizes that he is still loved, and his return of that love is so sweet:

“Whom have I in heaven but you?/And there is nothing on earth I desire other than you/ My flesh and my heart may fail; /but God is the strength of my heart/and my portion forever.”

(Some of the rest of the psalm is a little problematic to me, but let’s put that on hold for now.)

The only thing about this verse, when I was meditating on it, that didn’t feel quite right to me, was the part: “And there is nothing on earth I desire other than you.”  I feel like I could say: there is nothing I desire more than my relationship with the spirit/god/universe, but there is nothing on earth I desire other than you? Not so much.

I have a lot of desires: I’d like a nice girlfriend, a house with a garden, maybe another Harley, definitely some better clothes. A pile of cash would be great too. Maybe a trip to Greece. Erm…and world peace.

As Rose and I hiked up the sidewalks, I was thinking about my poor neglected blog and what I might write today. Everything seemed like a poem – the winding streets, an orange tree, canna unfurling. Columbine blooming – like clown hats or candy. The sliver moons cut in garage doors, the stairways painted purple.

Suddenly it came to me: there is nothing on earth I desire other than you. What I usually really desire was this – being able to see the beauty of god or spirit in everything I passed; like we are moving through god.

Interlude: Lessons to Live By

This moment of paralyzing fear and insecurity is brought to you by....attending seminary....

Just wrote this to a friend and thought I'd share it with my wider circle: I have a complete knack at saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time when I'm nervous.

Note to self: do not use snark to cover insecurity.

This is what I mean, when I say God (the poetic version)

God is your waking breath, butter on black bread, the seldom thunder. Hubcaps hung on rafters and your mother’s love of fresh black licorice. Pigeons lifting off from the median when the bus passes by, the willow tree on the corner and the swinging street sign. God is Christmas lights on the water and the scattering of wet leaves, the song you loved ten years ago and haven’t heard in a while. The crumbling foundation stones of a building torn down. The dizzy delirium of everything falling apart and coming back together. God is the unimaginable beauty in this breath and the next and the next.

Come away, now, come away from your chrome and glass, come away from the sidewalks, we’ll work out our salvation with trembling hands, we'll gather bittersweet and baby’s breath, we’ll teach the clematis the lines of the trellis.

We’ll listen to the lovers dancing upstairs to the sound of Barry White; I’m learning the steps myself, alone in my living room, shot with sweet longing. God is the steps down the terrace, the “for sale” sign in heavy wind. Sheet lightning I always sleep through now, like water. A rocking chair you gave me three years ago. Porch swings and confessions. Dogs sleeping in front of heaters. Summer concerts at the zoo and you haven’t heard her in years. God is scarecrows and dancing streetlights, the cacophony of stone and roses. Black cactus flowers and broken cigarettes. God is the texture of light – tensile and whispering. 

God is like driving too long in heartbreak.

I was thinking there was something more than violence and power, there was something more than this sense of pain and loss. And I thought, I should imagine god loving me and I should imagine being touched by that kind of love. Being wanted and held and lifted until I forgot my name and skin and touch and yes. And when God came to me that way my heart broke. My body felt flung open, stunned into a kind of ecstasy: every breath a shatter, cracked like glass, like ice, like brickle. Breathless.

This is my prayer: Open me, unfurl my heart, unclench my hands, remember me.

Orientation continues...

As soon as this constant orientation is over, I promise to tackle a few more serious subjects about seminary; such as: WTF??! Why Christianity?  and "You don't really believe that shit, do you?"

But for now, let me mention that seminary orientation includes karaoke (picture me and one of the guys singing the opposite gender parts to Summer Lovin'). Madonna's "Like a Prayer" was covered, as well as a bit of Jesus Christ Superstar and 99 Red Balloons.

In the mornings, Rose and I slowly expand our walking territory. There are black cactus flowers here.

A few notes on orientation, day 1

It's been one of those 12 hour days where you spend way too much time staring at power point slides that are screen shots of things you've already reviewed. Power pointless. Maybe it is the nature of any orientation though, or a secret bonding experience. This will not be my most coherent entry.

Things that made me happy:

1. The opening worship service. Write down the things you want to let go of, drop it in a bowl of water at the altar. Light a candle for those who brought you to this place. (I kept thinking of you, my dear ones, I would write a list, but it's late. If you are reading this, you are probably on it though. I hold you in my heart.)

2. An anecdote: A fellow MDiv noted that she once knew a fundamentalist woman who carried around oil "in case she had to anoint anyone."  (I wondered if she ever used it for salad.)

3. Writing poetry about baba ganoush in morning with my suite mate.

Orientation Starts Tomorrow...

I’m starting seminary. It’s a weird realization. All week, as I’ve wandered around this new college town, I keep suddenly remembering, I’m here to go to seminary. And I laugh.

Starting this blog is also a little weird, since some people have known me for a zillion years, and some of you I’ve just met, and maybe some of you I’ll never meet. So, a little back story, a few labels, and a couple caveats:

I am attending a really progressive Christian seminary in Berkeley. Me: I’m 39 years old, 18+ years sober, very queer, and mildly introverted. I have a dog named Rosemary. I just started attending church a year ago.

Relatively speaking, what I know of the Bible could just about fill up a Twinkie.

I really never expected to be attending divinity school, but over the past six years, I’ve come to two conclusions: God is persistent and God is really funny.

Six years ago, I had an experience that seemed crazy to me – essentially it was a push towards considering ministry as a career path – as I wasn’t affiliated with any religion, the idea seemed completely bizarre. Or grandiose, or like I said, nuts. But it left a powerful impression on me, and a kind of nagging longing.  I talked about it with a few friends who were ministers – one was a United Church of Christ pastor who described the “open and affirming” resolution at UCC. She also introduced me to the idea that Christ called for social justice; while this seems obvious to me now, my only experience of Christianity at the time was the “religious right,” which acted as force of oppression and intolerance towards pretty much everything that mattered to me.

My friend said: “Christ didn’t die for our sins; he died because he bucked the power structure.”  I went to her church once, and she gave an amazing meditation on this.

Still, it took me several years to make myself explore church.  (I think it’s funny that I moved to Indiana and came out as a lesbian, then moved to Seattle and came out as a Christian).

Like a lot of people, my tendency is to try and figure things out on my own, mostly so I won’t feel so self-conscious about not knowing how to do things. But somehow I understood that trying to learn about Christianity was going to require me to join a community and allow that community to see me not know. It was a scary thought. 

I started “church hopping” in early-2009.  I initially decided on the United Church of Christ because of my old friend; this decision was solidified after a conversation with another pastor in Seattle who described the UCC’s emphasis on building a "covenantal" relationship with God, versus having to adhere to a particular creed or set of rules.

 When I first started going to church, I’d look around the room and my head would start in. My head is an interesting place, and it lies. It lies all the time. It even lies to the elliptical runner when it asks for my weight. In my active addiction, my head told me that I never drank alone because the radio was on. So I knew not to listen to my head when it said things like: Look at all of these losers, of course THEY have to be here. They must have no other lives.  What my head couldn’t explain was why I cried every time I was at church. Or, conversely, why I felt so happy there – that is, when my head could stop obsessing about what people would think, or if the pastor liked me, or if I was nuts. 

I finally chose an urban church in downtown Seattle. The very patient pastor there met with me several times and listened to my confusion and encouraged me to just show up and pay attention – she also shared her experience and a few books. So, I showed up.

Every Sunday I went to church, I went to Bible study, I went to advent services, I tried different prayer exercises, I joined a service cluster, stayed for coffee hour, helped decorate for Christmas, hung around for the “re-visioning rallies” and planted bulbs in the garden.  I even baked a pie for the dessert fundraiser thing. These are not my normal activities. I felt pretty awkward all of the time. But I noticed how people acted. We have a lot of homeless people who come to services, and the other church members treat them with respect and dignity, not in that polite-but-please-don’t-touch-me kind of way. Some of the long-time members went out of their way to ask me out to lunch and get to know me outside of church – they did it for other people too.  I started reading the work of Marcus Borg, Peter Gomes, Karen Armstrong, Sara Miles and Kathleen Norris. I even bought (and started reading) a Bible.

It was not something that happened suddenly, and I still can’t quite explain it, but my life has been deeply changed through the radical welcome of this church. Somehow, becoming a part of that community and opening myself to God there brought me to a place of deep wonder.

Not only do I feel like I belong to this community, but I feel stunned with gratitude and really, love. And from that gratitude and love, I want to serve.

As I am discovering progressive Christianity, I am becoming more aware of how the perception of Christianity has been distorted by the religious right. It makes me sad and angry to think about how a religion based on radical personal and social transformation has been appropriated by a political movement that works to oppress the disadvantaged and maintain the status quo. I’ve seen way too many people who think that God doesn’t love them or believe they are going to some imagined hell because they haven’t followed the rules established by fundamentalist churches. And in my time in the Midwest, I saw so many people who walked away from fundamentalist churches feel bereft and as though there was no other path.

I think God loves everyone, period, and I think maybe people need to hear that.

So, I’ve sold most of my furniture, tossed journals and poems I’ve been carrying around since second grade, gotten rid of my car, and moved into student housing.

Orientation starts tomorrow.