god talk

. I just read an article about how the liberal church is dying the phrase: "perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world." I think that is the question I have been trying to articulate and understand about my relationship to Christ.

There is a Thomas Merton writing:
"Lady, the night has got us by the heart.
The whole wide world is tumbling down.
Words turn to ice in my dry throat
Praying for a land without prayer,

Walking to you on water all winter
In a year that wants more war."

For some reason I resonate deeply with that prayer-- the imagery, the thirst, the desire. I do believe that there is something uncompromisingly unique in the message of Jesus if we can look at it fully, look at it with eyes that value others and this earth... I do think there is no salvation under any other name than Love (and that love that is not the cliche, consumed offering of desire to be loved-- but a self-sacrificing, forgiving, relentlessly and radically hospitable love... I know that the symbol of Jesus has formed me, has led me to healing, to reconciliation, to forgiveness, has even led me to my body. But, it is so so tangled in misuse. I need Jesus, as a symbol outside of myself that reminds me that God is with us, that the sacred is incarnated, that we must learn to love greater than our fears. But what does that mean? Because the message is also irrelevant if it doesn't recognize the context and history of the church, of excluded voices, etc. We need both to be critical and wise and merciful (serpents and doves) towards ourselves (as the Church) and towards others-- as equally valid and loved vessels of the divine.

Mercy. Mercy.

Returning

We live in a culture of violence, yearning for alternatives we cannot yet speak of, language lagging behind experience, experiencing undefined without language. Returning, I realized how much I have missed the chaotic liveliness of Chinatown. The peach tree ripened in my absence and on these cool mornings I snatch a dangling fruit as I walk to work. Everything continues, and I revolve through my roles: friend, advocate, mailman, janitor, listener, conflict manager.

Today we met to process the recent homicide on the corner of our home street. During the meeting, R.'s niece arrived to inform us R. had passed away. In these short six months, there's been two shootings on J. street and this will be the fifth death among my Chinatown community.  Life on the streets does not get easier, and I chose to return, to remain, but others don't have that luxury. The culture of violence permeates everything-- economic, structural, systemic violence, personal, emotional, physical violence. The violence that lies in my own breast and lashes out- white-hot in my own tiredness, lack of control, unmet desires, or sense of attack. Wonderful, wild, R. -- so many mornings of coaxing her, trying to remain patient while she nagged and harassed and sometimes laughed her wild delicious laugh. We were all mad about R. even though she was a handful.

Thinking of the three victims who were shot walking home from church, I wonder about their stories, how their families and communities will grieve, how they will deal with their loss, how the survivors will accept their life in the face of lost friends. Every act of violence continues. It is frustrating to see the media wrangle out more viewers from the callousness and drama of a death. Where do we begin to live into the alternatives? Steph picked roses from our bush and left them on the corner. Every act of love is a small resistance. How do we continue to hope in the face of systems and cycles that create and fuel violence? Gangs, substance abuse, racism, lack of funding for healthcare, for education... returning to the same faces on Soledad, some who have been on the streets for years. The interchange between sorrow and joy is so subtle. Millions of people kissed today, laughed today, were delighted, shared stories, shared meals, played... millions were fearful, hurt, hungry, hurting, dying. Every act of love is a small resistance.

I don't have answers for most of my questions. I do not always know how to make sense of the rage, sorrow, and joy I feel (in quick successions.) I know that I desire to live deep awake and that sometimes to remain awake, to listen to others, is costly, exhausting, and painful. But this is life.

"Look at the names carved into us
Look at the days when they were lit up
Brushing my head and I feel their rage
Years of radiance, years of rain

And the world stops spinnin’ when you stop spinnin’
Sighs when you sigh when you sigh
I’m coming home so leave the light on for me
I’m drawing over the moon on this fell
When I’ll get in I will see you all there
I’m drawing on the great exhale
I'm soaring on the great exhale."  - Great Lake Swimmers

Things Forgotten

Her spine is a tree that branches

around her heart, holds
the tent of her skin taunt
as a drum off which
the rhythm of the world

must form a beat

she shapes the song, she bends,

she bends. 

What would she carry in her pocket

if she knew the fast would end tomorrow?

Would she break the darkness open

like a loaf? Or crack the neon egg that

shivers over the jagged scoop of Mt. Toro,
slurp it down whole and quivering?

She bends, she bends.