times

You know those times in your life when you are full of thoughts and ideas and crises and beliefs and doubts and hopes and fears and everything all at once but you don't have the strength or desire to deal with any of them?

That is where I am.

So...last wednesday I attended the Thanksgiving Conference at New Hope Baptist Church. For most people, this means nothing. You have no memory of hours of pew-sitting and fiery preaching and endless cheek-pinching. This conference is a three day event that boasts the best preachers that the independent Baptists can wrangle, an endless buffet of food, and an evangelical agenda. I can remember the childish awe I felt as I listened to the blending voices singing the approved songs of the faith. The pews were full then. It has been many years since the pews have buckled under the weight of the masses. The pews have had decades of rest now.

If you spend any significant amount of time with me you will undoubtedly be subjected to at least one of my frequent rants on the evils of legalism. I grew up in a culture of rules instead of grace. I often say that, "Jesus died for me, and I refuse to live as though he did not". This passion rises from years of observing the oppression of grace, and women, and sinners. given my angst, I was a bit worried about again visiting this church that represents my past.

I suppose a part of me expected to explode upon crossing through the doorway. I was convinced that I would not be able to handle the hypocritical, oppressive, blind conservativism that I have come to despise. Much to my surprise, I did not explode. I did not feel oppressed or angry.

I felt love. I felt sadness.

In my righteous anger I had forgotten that the system I resented was full of people who are dear to me. I love the people who are entrenched in the Baptist tradition. And more remarkably, they continue to pour out their love to me. I am horribly undeserving, but they are the embodiment of Christ to my wretched soul.

So these people, my famiy in Christ, have torn away the elitist, judgmental attitude that I never knew existed. I find myself still distrustful of the institution, but full of love for the people who embrace the institution. Perhaps I am not always inherently right.

Then I looked around the sanctuary and I counted perhaps fifty people in the crowd. Scarcely any soul under the age of fifty. And I asked myself, where are the people that used to fill every pew and even spill into folding chairs? It is a dying subculture. It certainly left me scars, but it also gave me the gift of Jesus. As I sat in one of those mostly empty pews I wrote this:

Cavernous

rows and rows
pews and pews
warping wooden cage
scratches and scrapes
hymnal's truth in
happy? harmony
melody
silence
screaming bloody muddy red
comfortable cushion
crossed legs
lying lips
empty
but full
of bald white heads
suit coats
neck tie nooses
lacy, flowery mask
A-effing-men
preach it true
young and old
and old and old
and older...
dead.

This conference, while perhaps not well attended by human standards, managed to raise $25,000 for mission work in various countries. It is not, as I may like to believe, a pointless practice of out of touch, nominal Christianity.

Failure

I fail pretty much all the time...ALL the time. And I am rarely conscious of my blatant failure. I think that is what scares me and shames me most. I am hesitant to even write these words outside of the confines of my journal...because I want everyone to think I am perfect. Yep. It's true. In spite of all my efforts to be genuine...I am lying to myself, and God, and the world. I am an expert face painter. I am really, really good at making you believe in my deception. I am crippled by my overwhelming desire to make you think that I am righteous and virtuous. I am, in reality, depraved and crooked in every way. I like to spout my noble ideas of justice and love, but I fail. I once cross-stitched a pillow (mostly my cousin cross-stitched the pillow) with the phrase "actions speak louder than words" ...and my inaction exposes my own lack of justice, my own hatred.



I promised God that I would not abandon the children I grew to love. I have abandoned them. I promised God that I would pray more often, more sincerely. When I manage to remember my God it is a half-hearted cry. I promised my Savior that I would actually read the Bible and live out it's message. It has been weeks (at least) since I have found true joy in His words, and I mostly pretend to live out the gospel. I promised to be more selfless and loving. My every act is inherently selfish and self-loving. I promised to be open minded. I have closed my mind to past thoughts and old allegiances. I promised to speak out for Detroit. I have become a self-righteous, hypocritical, inactive voice.



I have failed in every conceivable way.



And I don't even know if I want to change. I hate all of my ways, but it is easier to remain as I am. I am terrified at the prospect of seeking God and missing him. I am overwhelmed by the Bible, and social justice, and my human promises...and my failure.



I would like to end this with a nice, upbeat, tie up the lose ends sort of conclusion. But that would be insincere. I suppose I should say that all of my feelings are normal and human, and to not lose heart because God is in control. And that is certainly true. I believe that with all that I am. I would be lost without that conviction. But some days, I just don't feel like believing it. That might be blasphemous or heretical...or human.



I want to see my Jesus. I want to see him. Touch him. Watch him. Love him. I want to want him.

I think that life really is beautiful and wonderful and miraculous. I also think that life really is ugly and unfair and painful. The paradox is one that tears at my soul. I am infuriated that humanity is forced to exist somewhere in between blissful perfection and disgusting depravity. The last few months of my life have been full of great darkness. The beauty that should exist alongside my pain seems to have disappeared. I find myself increasingly pessimistic, and increasingly hostile to the idealism that I once held in high esteem.

I witness so much hatred and ignorance and injustice. I watch the masses walk blindly by their begging brothers. I watch the cycle of the city- and the world - as children grow up fatherless and women grow up unprotected and men become their absent fathers. I see it in the faces of the children who so eagerly seek love that so violently evades them. I hear it in the silence. In the bullhorn. I see it in hoarding hands and selfish service. There is no one righteous, and that truth has never been truer than in this moment.

As I sit on my comfortable couch, in my heated room, at a private college, in an affluent city, I see the hypocrisy of my pen ( or keyboard). Close by, I have friends who are sitting on cold, hard, lonely benches. Perry, Terry, Gwen, James, C... These people are the people of the benches. They are the people of the park. And I say they are my friends...but I would not let my real friends live on a bench. in a park. all alone. I would not visit them once a month to throw food and Jesus into their faces. I would sit on those benches with my friends. To mourn. To laugh. To pray. To cry. To heal. And we would move together toward our hope.

I am crushed under the weight of the despair and darkness of the world and my own selfish existence.

And then. I am on the brink of insanity, and light shines through the murky waters. And I am given miracles. I am given the joy of my Savior. I am surrounded by giggling girls whose tiny, precious fingers form braids in my frizzy halo of hair. I am embraced by a homeless man who transcends social and racial and cultural boundaries to spread love and erase inequality. I am given hope by the girls of AG and their voices and encouragement and thoughts.

So, I am convinced that I will continue to live within this infuriating contradiction of pain and pleasure. And I have no answers. But I'm beginning to become accustomed to that feeling. That is all I suppose...I love life. That is really the lesson I have learned. Life is great. But life is also difficult. And that is ok.

Volcano

Majestic Woman
Beauty Towering
- covering truth in mountainous bounty
Beneath –
Flows the mystery of the deep
Simmering below the mounds of glitter and dirt
The passionate Throes
Rumble and groan
Crack open
The deep heart exposed
diseased blood?
cuts
uproots
Peace
- fire water rage
The Womb violently banishes the toxins
the pressure
red-hot fire
Burns under the surface flow slow and steady destruction fast and fiery extrusion
- purification through expulsion

Pastry filling – strawberry life/will kill you*

Life
Clouds of freedom release the heat of
Death-Life

Collapse
empty sparse dead
The life-fire escaped
The stirring Soul
Now a gentle dust left on the surface
tame

Only nothing left
A deep chasm the only memory of struggle
Crater of cold barren sorrow
The monument proves meaningless
Life - only a myth
Struggle - the ultimate deception
Life now death
Death now life
Life
- stripped naked
- jagged gray
- beauty in blissful dormancy?
- rest in memory of Truth?
meaningless meaningless angry burning flow cutting cold silence

Life and death in the power of the Pressure
- but nothing means anything
- anyway…
at all


* "pastry filling" contributed by Kyle Hogan

** original formatting is not shown. aka - ask me if you want the real poem...