For Andy W.E. and Lisa Sparrow

Even on an ordinary Tuesday, you shine like Sabbath sun and play like its a prayer:
You dreamed of inviting us all into your home and we came.
And we do it often, or wish we could, because it seems so easy to be at home with you.

When we arrived at the intersection of Sacred and Profane, we found you painting walls pink, cooking us dinner, planting a garden and hoping not for bounteous produce but only for a place where we all might be nourished by learning to love the dirt; you left the gate unlocked and the dog unchained to greet us.

You are the hopers, the dreamers, the risk-takers who retreat into the forest and then emerge ready for another month of life in the urban ecosystem And as you live in the holy bothness of your forest love and city heart I think of all that I want to be--much of which you already are. You see new life for the prostitutes and would anoint the Johns with oil. You keep watch over the human traffic as it mingles with the morning commute and I am ever mindful of the adventurous spirit you bring to all you do.
And I will never forget the day you warmed my cold old soul with coffee and split open pomegranates so that when I felt most exhausted and infertile, you noticed my hands covered in red like a midwife's: shrouded in evidence she has been with the newly born.

I wrote the following piece on the day I learned it . You have known it all well for a long time. But I want you to see it. And I'm posting all this here, even though I could just send you an email, so that folks will know that you are, that you live this and during this, the holiest of holy weeks, when blood and water; death and life collide, everyone might know that you exist,
That you are
and that you are
Dear Guardians of the holiness of whores and the Jesus in the Johns...
and this our hope for our children is what you birth every day.
And I thank you, with all my heart, thank you.
::::::::::::
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month...
so there is this:
NATIONAL DECLARATION BY RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL LEADERS

TO ADDRESS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN


We proclaim with one voice as national spiritual and religious leaders that violence against women exists in all communities, including our own, and is morally, spiritually and universally intolerable.

We acknowledge that our sacred texts, traditions and values have too often been misused to perpetuate and condone abuse.

We commit ourselves to working toward the day when
all women will be safe and abuse will be no more.

We draw upon our healing texts and practices to
help make our families and societies whole.

Our religious and spiritual traditions compel us to work for justice and the eradication of violence against women."

* * *

then there is also this thought I'm working on, a part of my self, my story, haunting me, like a ghost of an idea about falling and failing in love, jumpers, flight and fight and all these other ways we move into love and out again.

there was a moment yesterday, crossing the aurora bridge, the one famous for all the jumping from its trestles, and I thought of flying instead of falling.

I thought of the birds, like swallows, moving wings once or twice and then stealing through the air without moving a muscle. Chins up, wings folded, toes curled, feeling the power of the one thrust propelling them toward the next tree.
I straightened my back, closed my arms straight down my sides, and stretched my neck toward the sky, blue and filled with the cold of autumn against my face. I had pulled back against the wind of fear, and it lifted me up higher than it ever has so I could rest against it for a moment and slide myself between clouds like bed sheets or warm water.

I thought of all the times and places to fall in love.
The truth is that these days I am better than I've been in years. Old friends tell me they see me again, the ways I used to be and new friends say it is nice to hear me sing along, to see me play along, bounce down the sidewalk, smile honestly, weep it out, and hold on to myself.

But there are moments, when I feel so alone.
In those moments I think of all the missed opportunities: the chances we didn't take.

if you stop taking advantage of the chances to fall in love, they begin to disappear, they are replaced by anger, dead ends, silence, yelling, screaming, hating... you begin taking risks to fall in love. I began to let myself fall for hurtful things because that was all I knew and all that was offered and so the falling in love became more like suicide jumping. I was falling for anything, everything and not just falling but jumping and hurling, hurtling, hurting,
like a kamikaze fighter pilot, heading straight into death, fearlessly, gracefully and powerfully into the pain (to cause it, to feel it)... but not honestly, or hopefully and not in a healthy way--only silently, secretly, furtively, dangerously, thinking only of saving my marriage, not myself.

then there was one night
i sat on a park bench, smoked two cigarettes, drank a can of simpler times lager
and then

i called a friend who said haven't you been through enough?
i called my dad who said you can feel guilty if you want to but you didn't do anything wrong.
i called my sister who said it sounds just awful.
i called my mother...
and by the grace of God she said
don't ever give up hope
but i heard her say
Love can happen to anyone, anywhere, it can happen over and over again. The way birds migrate toward warmer weather, or return for a break from the heat of things with full bellies and nearly grown babies. think of love following you, waiting for you, wanting you, even when you are moving from one warm place to another, trading trees for oceans, not life for death.
you needn't go about love like you're on a suicide mission. that is not hopeful, not helpful.
so
here is a list of things to look out for, excerpted from a pamphlet published by planned parenthood:
"Does your partner...
Threaten to harm you, pets, or himself?
Blame you for everything that goes wrong?
Lie or break promises to you a lot?
Ever say, "you make me get this angry," or "I can't help being so mad with you around."?
Expect you to do everything he says?
Ignore or dismiss your ideas or the things you want to do?
Get jealous when you spend time with family or friends?
Seem very overprotective or ask other people to watch over you?
Call you all the time?
Accuse you of flirting or getting romantically involved with someone else?
Keep you from having money of your own?
Force you to have sex when you're asleep?
Get angry and threaten you when you don't want to have sex?
Force you to have sex without protection against pregnancy
Hurt your genitals or any part of your body during sex?
Criticize your sexual performance or use sex as a way to punish you?
Only care about his own sexual pleasure?
Refuse to take full responsibility for the abuse?
Refuse to get professional help?
Become more and more abusive?

if you answer yes to any of the above, you are in an unsafe relationship."

Don't rush forward. Get some space, take a deep breath, that might be all you can do for now. But the day will come when someone will offer you help, hope...

because there is more out there and you have not missed your chance to be loved, you just aren't loved by that person, and that doesn't mean you are unlovable altogether.

one day
there will be a different yes because there will be a different set of questions...

"Do you talk openly about your feelings and tell the truth without fear?
Do you listen to each other's ideas?
Do you solve problems and disagreements together?
Do you each have friends, interests and activities of your own, and ones that you share?
Do you respect each other's privacy?
Are you proud of each other's talents and accomplishments?
Do you talk openly about your sexual needs and desires?
Do you protect each other from unintended pregnancy?
Do you always have each other's consent for sex?
Do you help take care of each other?
Do you have disagreements without becoming violent?
Do you respect each other's belongings?
Do you feel closer to your partner as times goes on?
Do you feel happy when you think about staying together?
Do you solve problems together more and more?"

Well, do you? Do you want to? Do you know you could, would, will?

Don't ever give up hope. Look for the next chance, take the next chance to be loved but if you feel yourself falling too far, too fast, don't forget
hope is a set of wings, a warm updraft, a curl in your toes and a lift in your chin, hope does not search the horizon for an enemy, or watch the ground for signs of life to be snuffed out, hope does not increase the speed of disaster,

hope turns falling around and failure takes flight...

We are the storytellers

We are the prove it to me, show me kind of people that we are because we have made it too easy to deny the power of words.so if a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a poem worth? Or a fable? How many words is it going to take for us to unravel the truth hidden in a fable? How many words, how much wine will be spilled, as we work out together what each line, each syllable, each vowel, is trying to do to us for us, or with us as we read? Are they worth the words they’re written in if they are going to require so many more? How much meaning ought we smash into each word so that it might finally bear the fullness we hoped it would? How many possibilities must each word hold in order to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Given the option (and believe me, I have been given such an option) I have chosen to stare at a word instead of a photograph. I have an affinity for paintings that seem almost to have been crossed out, because the artist has used the brush like a pencil and written a word over the top of a still life. Even the painters end up saying, if not writing, the words to help us understand what they were trying to do with an image or color or line, and the captions enrich or take away from the meaning because they are just that important.

This whole thing makes me want to figure out the perfect way to put up or shut up.

How on earth are we supposed to get back into the pulpit every week?

Damnit,
we are the story tellers, even if we are the photographers, the painters, we are also the truth tellers and nay sayers, the chatty cathys and gossip columnists and the only reason we tell our children "sticks and stones can break our bones but words can never hurt" is because we know damn well that words hurt and so we must tell ourselves... well, something, anything.
So how do we go about telling a story about God who explains there are blessings for those who can believe without seeing? I mean, if words are so powerful they are bound to hurt, even if they're just trying to tell the truth and it seemed like a good idea, and then in the end it wasn't because it just wasn't as helpful to tell the story as to be a part of living the story... but we don't have the option of seeing it with our own eyes. Its such an awful mess we're in.

See, I refuse to believe the story of Thomas is about how Thomas was supposed to trust God (God shows up sometimes and sometimes God doesn't). And that is precisely why the story is more about Thomas learning to trust his friends' when they say, "omygawd! Thomas, he was here, he was right here! You just missed him!" Its about Thomas giving credence to the words and then letting them hang in the air long enough to dispel at least a little of the jealousy that reigns upon overhearing a friend got to see the miracle and he didn't.

Its about shutting up and shutter release, but its not about God having to prove Godself, or telling us that its wrong to desire that God would show up. God doesn't ever have to prove anything--its one of the privileges that come with being God. Another one is that you're more in control of your emotions than humans. So I really don't think God is pissed because Thomas didn't get it the first time and I don't think it was any huge effort for God to make time to go down and help Thomas out in a moment of dis...pair, dis-ease, dis-belief, what have you.

I know the Thomas like picture takers and kinesthetics like me, we are not in such dire straits because God does show up sometimes, not always when we need it most--sometimes when we don't need it at all. Its more like those of us who would prefer the first hand account to the revised standard edition are missing out on one kind of blessing that comes with giving in to the power the storytellers possess (I would call it "the power of the gospel" but that is a little cloying). Thomas' friends were brave enough to open their mouths and confess--we've got to give their story a little credence. So, he says, blessed are those who have not seen (they've learned to take their friends at their word, and good friends with good words are hard to find).

But then Jesus keeps showing up! So maybe its a win/win, or at least a lose/lose: either you're going to get the blessing of blind faith and somehow know the truth when you hear its feint whisper or you're going to get the picture, the whole picture and nothing but the picture, you're going to taste and touch and see and that will be that. Thomas' only real mistake was doubting his friends, his only betrayal was in telling them he just didn't trust them. If they hadn't been flying high as frat boys on a Friday night, intoxicated by the sight of Jesus alive and kicking, the gospel would probably say something about Thomas bringing them down: "Man, Thomas, we knew you weren't going to believe us! Why did we even say anything man!" I think the word "jaded" would probably have been in there somewhere, you know Jaded Thomas, instead of Doubting Thomas, I'm just sayingisall.

But Thomas' gospel buddies stand quietly by, you can almost hear their eyes roll innocently toward the ceiling. They're so sure of what they saw and what they said, they're sure that their level of excitement was warranted (they pulled the piece out on the lanes, so to speak and its left to Thomas, who seems like the kind of shitter you can't shit, and the biggest loser because of it. They saw it with their own eyes. But in talking about it they've done the unspeakable and expected Thomas to believe the impossible. They told him Jesus was there and even if Jesus had crossed the threshold, it was Thomas' friends who crossed the line. Their story had such a hold on Thomas: he probably feels like a real jerk for showing up too late to see the miracle, and an even worse jerk because they probably were right, but they didn't have to expect him to believe it! How could they?!

They're not wrong, Walter, they're just assholes. Yeah, you know what I'm getting at, I'll be buggered if, in my imagination at least, its not exactly like when Walter tells the Dude, "calmer'n you are, dude, calmer'n you." So Thomas just prays they'll shut up about all their big plans and the next round robin and all that "if you will it, it is no dream crap." So he puts it in reverse and slowly backs out of the handicap spot.

What is a Thomas supposed to do?

Its the words that bother him so much that he wants to give up on them--they hurt. There is no way such a painful truth won't cause a little doubt, discomfort, disbelief, especially when you have to hear about it. Thomas tells them off when he says, "Well then, have it your way. I'm going to do more than just see Jesus. If he is alive I'm going to touch him. I'm going to go about this smarter than you, braver than you. I'm going to ask to see where the nails went it--wouldn't you like to have made sure he was who he said he was? Did you even check him out? Or were you all just imagining him?" And in the end it is the power of those words that come back to make Thomas sure that God is God and cares about Thomas. Its the power of the savior saying all those words right back to Thomas, telling him its time for getting exactly what he wanted, that elicits Thomas admission that this is God. We don't get to know whether Thomas actually touched Jesus or not, but we know those words touched Thomas' soul until he picks up right where he never intended to and decides to use more words, to confess that Jesus is the Lord--good grief!

And Jesus responds in kind, kindly, like God is sometimes wont to do when he tells it like it is, and in my head I can imagine that crazy Jesus telling his Thomas

Well, there you have it Thomas, this is how it had to go down between us--you're just being you and I'm just being me. I gave you the opportunity to let the storytellers rule the day, but you let their words get you all worked up in all the wrong ways. So instead of the blessing of blind belief, I'm giving you what you asked for. It will be harder from now for you to trust me because I've given in to your whims. But that is okay, you'll be okay. Just remember that if you don't see me next time, its not because I don't want to show up again, its not punishment or withdrawal; its because blind belief is just as good as what you asked for. I want you to know it too because I want you to know the power of the story--I can show up just as well in the Word as I do in the flesh. Blessed are those who don't get to see me--you'll be among them soon, and they'll believe you when the tables are turned and you're the storyteller. Just wait--you'll see the power in your own words and it will teach you to lean on the words, love the words; Love the Word Thomas, it loves you.

That's just how I imagine it anyway... I'm not sure, but it seems like a pretty good explanation for an often abused story, don't you think? I mean, if you walk away feeling a little less guilty about wanting to see for yourself then I think that is good and if you're left with a little more respect for your own ability to tell the truth then that is super and maybe, just maybe you're not going to worry when they tell you, because they will:
you're not wrong, Walter, you're just an asshole,
because really sometimes you are an asshole and sometimes you're not and who gets to say which is which anyway? Maybe you're just you being you and me being me and sometimes that is exactly how the gospel goes down.