Two weeks ago
in the darkness
of the new moon
I celebrated Ostara
On this day
in the light
of the full moon
I celebrate Easter
Two spiritual songs
proclaiming new life
after the transformation
we call death
Harmonizing together
with countless more
a chorus of life
throughout the earth.
A friend posted the following on Facebook:
Tell me about something that completely changed the course of your life, for better or for worse.
Challenge accepted. This is the result.
My parents lived in Albany, NY, and I was attending Michigan State University. The summer after my second year, I got a junk job in Flint, where my then-girlfriend lived. After she dumped me, I stayed with some nomadic hippies in Flint for a while, then went to visit a school friend at his family’s summer cottage.
After a week or two, his mom figured out that I hadn’t told my parents where I was; meanwhile, my ‘rents were panicking because they couldn’t get hold of me at my now-former apartment in Flint (no cell phones in 1970). The two sets of parents talked, and I was sent home to face the music.
Mom and Dad made it crystal clear:
I would not be going back to Michigan.
I would be living with them.
I would be getting a job in Albany.
I would be going to school in Albany.
All of this, until I “learned some responsibility”.
After a week or two of the new regime, I had to make a quick trip back to Michigan State, to pick up the possessions I had left in dorm storage at the beginning of the summer, and bring them back home.
Returning to Michigan State and East Lansing felt like coming home. I stayed overnight with friends. After much talking late into the night, I did what I had to do. I went to a pay phone, called my parents, and told them I wasn’t coming back, that I was going to stay in Michigan, because I wanted to.
Dad hit the roof. Usually careful to keep control when he talked to us kids, this time he barked, “You get your ass back home right now!”
“No,” I said.
And just like that, I left home for good.
It’s taken a couple of weeks to put this into words, though it feels like we brushed past each other at D.’s bedside just a day or so ago.
I hate you. I hate that you took D. I really hate the way that you did it. The only satisfaction I have is that she gave you a hell of a fight. Three times you tried to get her with cancer, and three times she beat you. But then you unleashed the fourth one, that took away the use of her body. That was really dirty. D was nothing if not an embodied person. She loved her body, used it, expressed who she was with it, experienced the world with it. No wonder she went with you once you took that away. As usual, you won, but you can’t take any pride in that win. It was dirty.
It’s too many now. Just a short few years ago, I knew exactly how many people you’d taken out of my life — four grandparents, one father, one uncle, one father-in-law, one uncle-in-law, and three friends. But then, with S. and F., and now D., that’s six friends. You’re up to 14. (There were others, like my ex-sister-in-law, but they were no longer in my life when you came along to take them.)
Who’s next? My Mom’s 89, and my brother’s heart is weak. Am I going to have to deal with you taking them next? You better keep your hands off my kids. They’re too young and you know it.
Or maybe I’m next in the family, my wages of sin for a lifetime of smoking, or the past 15 years of gluttony and sloth. Oh, I hear you calling. Sometimes you think you can talk me into joining you voluntarily. But no. Absolutely not. Yes, I came close twice, and have the scars to prove it. But if there’s anything that proves I’m too much a survivor to fall for that trick, it’s the fact that I’m still here. You’ll never get me that way, if only because I’m too stubborn.
So I suppose you’ll be sneaky, like you are for so many people. A little piece of fat buildup in my artery, invisibly breaking off and traveling to my heart to jam a valve. Or some hidden organ in this incredibly complex body will fail — kidneys for me, I suppose — and you can watch me suffer til you finally take me. Or maybe you’ll sneak up on me on a dark street one night, in the guise of a tranny basher.
You and I both know that eventually you always win, with everyone. But I can guarantee you this — when you come for me, you’re in for a hell of a fight, whether it’s a physical fight with a street thug, or a spiritual fight with a disease.
You may be inevitable, you may be perfectly natural, but I still hate you. Because you attack the one thing in the world that makes my life — any life — bearable. You tear apart Love, the greatest force in the Universe. Oh, what, you think you’re the greatest force in the Universe? You’re wrong. You could not be more wrong. Because as much as you can hurt Love, as much as you can try to rip us away from Love, you can never take Love, the way you take each of us. No matter how many of us you take, the Love remains. You take millions in war, but when the war is over, there’s still Love. You take away friends and lovers and parents and children, but even then, Love remains.
You, Death, always take away. But Love always remains. And with that, you lose, and we win. Every. Single. Time.
Question (answer with rationale invited):
Should the Electoral College elect Clinton or Trump?”
Who do you call at 3 a.m. when the tears won’t stop
When you hear the sweet song of the razor blade in the bathroom drawer
When you’re hurting inside but don’t know why or how long it’ll last
In the empty apartment alone by yourself with no one else there
Who do you call at 3 a.m. to tell you the words
That’ll give you a little bit of hope to balance the pain
A reason to sleep, and more important, one to wake up
When it really sounds better to close your eyes that final time
Who do you call at 3 a.m. to hold your hand
And kiss your tears, to hug you tight and never let go
When all of your lovers are far in the past and even your family
Can not understand why you’re crying or where you’re lost
What do you do at 3 a.m. when there’s no one to call
Is all that’s left to stay awake and look outside
And wait for the sun to brighten the sky and start the day
Then go to work and try again to stay alive
i fell for you
adore your
heart
mind
body and
soul
well not body
i’ve never seen your body
you don’t post photos of it
but then nor do i
really does anyone
so
heart
mind
face and
soul
of course all seen
through the filter
of that blessed curse
cursed blessing
that is facebook
you’re not the first
array of flick’ring pixels
I have fallen for
here
but you’re the one
i can’t kick
facebook “friends”
we always want to put
that “friends” in quotes
then how much more ridiculous
facebook “lovers” or
as here
facebook “beloved”
yet it’s true
this feels like being trapped
in a minnelied
not surprising
facebook works quite well
to confine love
to the minnesang conventions
returning then
to where i started
i sing your praises
heart mind face soul
a heart of courage
and caring
and passion for
the soul work
that is who you are
a mind that leaves me feeling
ignorant and clumsy
by comparison
yet that mind finds pleasure
in our interplay of words
i’m grateful for
noblesse oblige
your face so lovely
so beautiful
so perfect
not by any other’s standard
any other standard
than that it radiates
perfectly
who you are
i would gaze upon your face forever
to bask in who you are
your soul the flames
deep inside
the forge where beauty is created
from raw ore of words
and raw sweat of your mind’s effort
and raw blood of your heart
and raw tears on your face
alloyed and hammered and tempered
to create that beauty
your gift to the world
i dream of being at your side
of touching once your hand
but the oil on my fingertips
would surely tarnish
the brilliant gleam
that i so cherish
so i shall take my leave
delighting in the ache
of the lump in my throat
may you be well
object of my limerence
and radiate forever
your perfect shining self
No safety blade; the razor must be straight.
It cuts the best, the fastest: so, most sure.
They say. A kitchen knife cannot be made
to take enough an edge. They say. And more —
The sequence of events important too:
The weaker hand cuts first the stronger one,
That second might the stronger one cut through –
though cut itself – the weaker one. Thus done.
And after that is just to wait while pain,
unbearable at first, diminishes
as it flows out along with crimson stain
until, with all that is, it finishes.
It’s just a gesture, not attempt. They say.
Unless it happens to complete today.
This is such an insidious, disingenuous attack on LGBTQ people that I can hardly control my anger. The statement is all about self-justification and self-defense and self-righteousness; it is not at all about being compassionate or even holy.
Computers hate me. *sigh*
Well, not all computers. My personal laptop doesn’t hate me really — it loves me as much as its little brain allows it to.
But the computers that I’m surrounded by at work, the ones I’m inundated by at work, the ones that are an ocean of computers on which I am adrift like a sailor clinging to a piece of driftwood in the midst of a Category 5 hurricane — those are the ones that truly hate…. Oh that’s not really fair either. Part of the problem is our co-dependent relationship — they need me to help them think straight, and I need them to help put food on the table — and codependency is just not healthy in any relationship.
And really, I owe them at least a smidgen of compassion, knowing how they’ve been abused and neglected in their previous relationships — just used by whoever showed up, nobody giving them the tender loving care they deserve, all of them walking away chasing the next piece of shiny hardware without so much as a fare-thee-well.
But still. They’re old enough to know better. They know that it’s wrong to take out their anger about the past on the one who’s trying her best to love and care for them now.
It’s not really hatred, I guess. More like a temper tantrum. Or rather, make that 10 simultaneous temper tantrums today. I’m confident I can get them to settle down and behave in fairly short order. It’s just wearying.
Who knows? Maybe it’s all projection. Maybe what’s going on is that I’m the one who hates them.
Anyone know any good counselors?
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Gen.1:27
Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. Gen.2:7
Genesis wastes no time: right there in the first chapter, it tells us what it means to be human. We are the very image of the Holy One, the Creator’s ultimate creation. Surprisingly, though, in the very next chapter Genesis apparently tells us just the opposite: we are dirt.
Which is it?
“In the beginning” and “Adam and Eve” are both part of the popular imagination, but it’s when you first get serious and start actually reading the Bible for yourself that you find that these are not the same story, but two different stories of Creation.
We can thank 19th-century German theologians for rigorously examining, then proclaiming, what many had suspected for a long time: there are two stories because there are two authors.
One author’s view of human nature soars to the heavens: we are holy, almost divine, the image of God; the Creator’s final and highest accomplishment; so filled with goodness that God entrusts to us the caretaking responsibility of everything that God has just created.
In contrast, the other author has a very earthy view of human nature: we’re made of dust; we eat things that aren’t good for us; we are so evil that we blame our wives for our own misbehavior, and even kill our brothers when we feel unloved.
Whether we believe that being human means being high and holy, or that being human means being low and dirty, we have a Bible story to support our conviction. We can argue endlessly over which is the “true” or “correct” understanding of human nature. And many of us do, because many of us hold to one belief or the other when it comes to essential human nature.
But it doesn’t have to be a dichotomy, a choice, an “either-or”. Perhaps the final editors of Genesis intentionally included both stories, believing that sometimes one is true, and sometimes the other. In this view, to be human is to see our nature as dual, a blend, a “both-and”. Sometimes we’re the image of God; sometimes we’re just dust that has learned to breathe. Part of each of us is good; part of each of us is evil.
While this approach allows us to account for both Biblical stories, it is ultimately unsatisfying as an answer to, “What does it mean to be human?” because it is not an answer; it is two separate answers, connected by a decision to choose neither.
I would propose taking yet another step beyond “both-and”: our nature lies in the tension between “image of God” and “image of dust”. Both Creation stories – both images – are necessary to understanding our essential nature. But, instead of elements of a mixture, the two stand as separate, independent poles, and we exist in the space between them. A physical analogy: if the two are weights, we exist in the balance between them. A balance is not either weight, nor is it both one weight and the other. And it is certainly not neither weight. The balance’s existence derives from the weights, yet it is not itself composed of the weights.
In other words, we need both Creation stories to understand what it means to be human, because we need the space between them. We were made, and we live, in the dynamic equilibrium that exists between sacred and profane, good and evil, God and dust.
(Adapted from a paper written for an assignment in my Old Testament course at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, in the fall of 2008.)
