Koinonia

These are random thoughts from a Jacob's Porch bible study I managed to attend during the minute and a half I was in Ohio between moving from Wyoming to Colorado.

Koinonia is an anglicized (meaning it's been English-fied) Greek word that basically boils down to community. We were specifically using the word in the study to talk about community between members within a church.

We ended up dialoguing about community with God vs community with each other. It seemed as though we were talking about having just one or the other, or that having community with one was better than having community with the other. Personally, I think that both are right. There is an innate, inescapable sacrifice of ourselves to be in community with God. We lose ourselves basically. Everyone loses self to be one with God. Every single person is one in God, so every single person is one with each other. This leads to community with each other. It's like a cycle of community, and losing of self to gain another self. But if both communities (community with God and community with each other) are not equal, one will overtake the other. And that's not healthy.

Koinonia is whole when it's broken. By this we meant to focus on vulnerability and the role it plays within community. A person is whole when they are broken, but only when they are broken with others. We cannot be broken alone--that will lead to death. As people, we are broken, but that is not the end of our story. We are not the end; church is not the goal of Jesus. We are not perfect; admitting our brokenness brings healing.

One of the topics I found really interesting during the study though, was the mentality people have in groups. When we are a part of a group, we stop being about our individual selves. We will protect the group from threats by individuals that are a part of the group. If an individual is threatening the welfare of the group, the group will protect its existence by getting rid of that individual.

For more information, please check out the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koinonia

Community is there to be what you don't want to be that day. -Amber Loewen

If Only I Knew How

I promise you this,
I would take it all back if I could.
I would take back the eye contact,
the first smile
the quick glance down
and then back up to make sure you were still looking.
I'd take back the first words
the first texts
the first phone calls
that led to the first
second
fifth
twentieth
dates.

I would take back my love
I would take back my heart.
And try to put all the pieces back together.
Even though I wasn't the one who broke it
and the glue never seals the cracks up right.
I promise I would take it back.

I promise you this,
I would take back my bed.
I would take back my yes
out fairytale plans
that quickly added up
until we ran away.
Just us
a judge
and strangers as witnesses.
I would take back
every moment I spent in your arms.

I would take back my love
I would take back my heart
and try to put the pieces back together
even though I wasn't the one who broke it
and the glue never seals the cracks up right.
I promise I would take it back.

I promise you this
I would take it back if I could.
I would take back the phone call late that night
the 3AM knock on the door
the "I'm sorry for your loss"s
and "Is there anything we can do?"s
or "Is there someone you can calls?"s
I would take back
standing in a too bright green lawn,
neatly manicured to hide the skeletons in the closet.
I would take back staring at a granite stone
with dates the mean nothing
but broken promises of forever.

I would take back my love
I would take my heart
and try to put the pieces back together
even though I wasn't the one who broke it
and the glue never seals the cracks up right.
I promise I would take it back
every single moment
if only I knew how.

I Promise

Uses music to drown out the world
and booze to drown herself
drink the poison
bite the apple
death means numbness
and numbness means peace
try harder, just a bit more
to get people to like you
sleep in one more bed
stare at one more ceiling
with fake stars glowing in the dark
but watch out for the paradox:
they. hate. you.
the more you try for love,
the easier it is to hate.

i hate you
and i hate him
but mostly because,
or only because
i first hated me.

i would burn it all to ashes if i could,
i promise.

9.13.2011

Elements

philos-->air
storge-->earth
eros-->fire
agape-->water

My earth, my stability,
my rock and security.
You shoulders have lifted me
above the flood so many times
and given me a safe place to lie
when the world is imploding.
A familiar love,
the fondness due to the first faces ever seen
the affection that comes from finding each other together
by chance.
You're my earth love, my storge love.

My air, my breath,
my silence and my laugh.
Your arms have carried me from death to life
and given me solace from the darkness I seem so attracted to.
Sharing a common bond,
the companionship that exists just because you "get" me--
whatever that means--
being able to breathe when I'm around you.
You're my air love, my philia love.

My fire, my rush,
my destruction and my life giver.
The spark,
with the risk of building a new community
or completely annihilating everything that matters.
You maintain the balance between life and death,
a second away from either.
The spark and the blaze.
The roar and the crackle.
You're my fire love, my eros love.

My water, my core,
my sustaining life force.
My whole being and my entire world are filled with you,
consumed by you,
life given by you.
The all encompassing totality
completely inescapable
magnitude of your reach
astounds me.
You're my water love, my agape love.

9.1.2011

Philos

I miss the hookah lounges
smoke curling across the ground
around our legs
like a fog machine in a haunted house.
I miss holding a cigarette in one hand
a cup of coffee in the other
walking back to your church-home
to talk about God or school
or whatever else came up.
I miss dancing,
closing my eyes and losing everything to the beat of remixed 80s music.
I miss the late night talks,
early morning walks;
eye contact and smiles.
The introduction to fedoras
and white guy rap music
and a love for poetry.
I miss my best friend.
But we grew up in a year--
I moved for a career
and you for school and marriage.
It was never a passionate love we shared--
it was something else,
something deeper.
The kind of love that looks beyond scars to the person underneath,
the kind of love that makes you siblings of choice.

9.1.2011

Settling down

I don't think I'm the settling down type; running is always going to tempt me. I like being lost to others, to myself. Someone will always find you if you have a permanent address. I don't need to find myself, or search my soul, but I am most content when others can't find me or reach me until I allow them to. Sitting on a boulder, at the base of mountains, watching people walk by as I drown them out with music is happiness to me...today.
I want to be able to leave everything, and everyone, sometimes. I want them to let me go, because sometimes it feels like they have their claws in me and will never release me. They want to hold me because of love, I'm certain of that. But I don't want to carry their love, their worries, their responsibilities and dreams and wishes for me. The weight of the expectations I feel when I'm around them almost crushed me once, and I don't want to go back to that.
I'm happy having lost their weight. I want to dance down mountains without having anyone slow me down. I want to lose myself in the background of the world, sink into nature, and just breathe. I forget to breathe when I'm around them...because they are my triggers.
I love them--that's why they are my triggers, because of love--but I can't live with them.

9.1.2011

Escapism?

Maybe he is right, and I'm doing this escapism thing in my life right now. I've always been a runner; leave before you're left, because somebody always gets left.
But that makes me sound selfish and weak, and I don't believe my behavior is actually selfish or weak. I just don't want the life that's waiting for me there. I don't want to take care of them anymore: not my parents, not my sisters, not my church, not my adopted family. Is it so wrong to not want to hold everyone and everything together? They are adults...shouldn't they hold themselves together?
If I am running away, I'm running from the fights, the threats of divorce, the actual divorce that's looming, the babysitting, the lies and secrets and distrust, the immaturity--I'm running from the life that I've helped plan, that's caged me in.
I need them all to let me go. I am willing to admit that I'm selfishly guarding my freedom now. I will not go back--they can survive without me, and if they can't, they can come and visit me. I will always be a daughter and a sister to them, but I can't be their rock; I can't be the dependable one. Is it still love is it has to be love from afar?
I will not watch another divorce, and I won't stay where the threat of them exists. I won't live in Ohio again.

The fact that I haven't talked to him in so long puzzles me. This is the longest we've gone without a conversation since we became good friends. I'm more bothered by the fact that I'm not bothered by the silence, than I am about the actual silence. Am I not bothered because I expected the silence, I always expected him to slowly leave? Or, am I content to be me without him as my safety net? I would hope, and be pleasantly surprised, if it was the latter, rather than the former?

For better or worse, there is romance and beauty in self destruction. There is an innate, painful balance between apathy and love. An automatic notion in which apathy shows up like a stray animal whenever love gets too close. An ability to cut ties and leave the people I love most when staying becomes more painful than leaving. A cautious recklessness that shouldn't exist so comfortably in one person at one time. A belief that sex can mean nothing, and cheating doesn't have to be bad, as long as you're honest about it. An appreciation of the beauty of flowers and a desire to tear them from the ground, or throw a bouquet into a garbage disposal. Wonder at nature always alongside a desire to drop a lit match and watch it all burn to the ground. If it came down to a choice, would I save my own life, or just let the arms of death carry me away? I both love and hate, at the same time. How? I would leave everyone, only so that they could not leave me. Recognizing this does not change it. Odd, that...

Hell can be beautiful, too. Just because it looks like Paradise doesn't mean it won't turn on you. A place doesn't have to be ugly to be hellish.

8.9.2011

Can people be good without God?

I think we can be. People can be great without God; we can be compassionate, nice, beautiful without God. I don't think the point of God is to make us better. I believe He does make us better, but that's not His point. I don't have a point or motive to existence--I just am. So, if I don't have a point, why would a higher, better, more being have to have a point in existing? God just is. If His point in living was to make us better, that would mean His existence would rest with us; the creator would exist because of the creation. That doesn't make sense. It would be like an architect existing solely to make a building; the architect doesn't exist to make the building, the building is a side effect of the architect existing. The creation exists because the creator made it; the creator exists outside of the creation. His point isn't to make us better, just like my point in living isn't anything. A side effect of knowing Him can make one better, but it doesn't have to make one better, and you can be good without knowing you know Him. If God is love and God is good, then whenever love or goodness are present or known, God is present and known.

7.9.2011

Freedom

tree branches tangle
holdings hands cautiously
just brushing the fingertips
like teenage lovers
above the fairytale path leading to grandmother's house
or to the witch's castle.
a path diligently followed because
whatever the ending
the journey was a story of magic.
summer heat and winter snow
mix in a time paused land.
real.
but not a reality recognized
by the human inhabitants.
nature loves here
unassisted by man,
trapped in a reality with no escape
from the zoo of offices
and the circus of education
and the rodeos of commitments.
is that why we insist on chaining and caging?
because we chained and caged ourselves
without realizing the consequences
neglecting the freedom of nature.
we built fences to keep the outside out
and ended up fencing our souls in.
what is freedom
but another fence
to keep one thing away
from another?

6.10.2011

The point I'm trying to make still eludes me

Sometimes (and more frequently than not, lately), I've been thinking that being a Christian is overrated. And I wish that I could believe in Jesus without having to believe in Christians. I've been told this summer that I'm spiritual, not religious. I think I with that...if the spectrum is religious versus spiritual, then I'm definitely more spiritual. Religion, to me implies rules and structure and an "us versus them" mentality. But spirituality just implies God to me; it means wonder and listening and communion. I'm the kind of girl who can lie on a rock and almost believe if I wait long enough, I can feel the rock breathe. And I think everyone, and everything, has a soul. I don't think trees and rocks have minds, but I believe they have souls as much as humans and animals have souls. My beliefs don't really fit into modern, American Christianity. But I also don't believe modern American Christians have any clue what God is. How does one fathom an abstract Being? If God is Love, if God is I Am, what does that even mean? What is Love? Because no one has the same definition of Love--it's an abstract concept. So can it even be possible that we can imagine one same God? And if it's not possible to imagine one same God, what are we worshipping? What are we doing? What's the point, if we're just stumbling around in the dark, killing each other over minor disagreements about something we know nothing about?

random (probably) heretical musings

So I've been thinking about God and souls and nature a lot since I've come to Wyoming. Living at the base of the Tetons, among the animals and forests and fields, reminds me just how small and insignificant I am. This place--nature--does not need me. My efforts aren't required to keep this place going, to keep nature in existence--not in a good way or a bad way, just in a factual way: I am not necessary for this place to remain.

I don't think God is as black and white as we like to think. We like to define things, but defining God makes Him smaller, makes Him understandable. Humans will never understand God. We live in the gray areas, life isn't black and white, so I don't think God really is either. I believe He is a good Being, but all the wars and murders ordered by Him in the Old Testament make me think we don't have a complete definition of the word 'good'. And things written as rules for the biblical culture have changed a lot too--Mary was 14 when she married Joseph and that's against the law today; it was acceptable to rape a girl as long as you married her afterwards then, and that's not acceptable now. I don't think God is what we say He is, not completely.

I don't think humans are the only beings with souls. I think animals have souls, and nature, too. Trees and mountains and animals and plants and stones--I think they all have souls, I think they all matter intimately to God. I think He gave us a living, breathing playground to exist with, and He wanted humans and nature to benefit from and enjoy each other. But humans and nature are at war because of sin--the relationship with Eden was destroyed when we were exiled. I think God is both a higher Being and an Earth Mother--It's bigger than our definitions can describe.
I wonder if every single person's opinion or idea about God/a Higher Being/Mother Guia/the Universe is right. We all have different views of a higher being or power, but maybe we've just all been given a different perspective of the same Thing. Like together, we know what It is, but we won't understand It until we understand each other. To understand It, we have to be in community. We have to understand and listen to our neighbor before we can see It. Not just humans in harmony with each other, but in harmony with nature, too. And until that ultimate harmony happens, this whole God thing is inaccessible.

love, and whatever that means...

I am protective of my words. Words can be used against you. People can take your words and use them for their own devices, to hurt you or to help themselves. I talk a lot, but I write much less than I talk, and even then, most of the words I commit to paper never see this blog. I think twice about giving people access to my words, not because I think my writing is so great that I have to protect it (I don't), but because I fear having my words tossed back at me like garbage. That's why I have mixed feelings about this blog, I think. I mean, I love blogs--I have become recently obsessed with them and I follow a fair few diligently. But it's different when I'm the writer, when the words are my words, when the readers are allowed to see into my world...

And it was in realizing that fact that I realized that I am much more protective of my words than I am of my heart. I don't know how I feel about love, and I'm talking about the kind of love between lovers here. Sometimes it seems like the greatest gift our Abba created for us, and other times I would swear that a Cosmic Sadist had to have made love, knowing the trials it would bring us. I've wondered for years now whether or not I was actually capable of feeling love like a normal person (whatever that means). I've said 'I love you' to two different guys now, and I meant it every time I said it. The guy who took my virginity said he loved me. Do I believe in soul mates? I mean, is there a reason the love I had with the guys in my past didn't last? Is there one man I am destined, fated to end up with, a guy that was made for me specifically? Or are free will and choice the winners in love? Can we fall in and out of love--real, true love--with multiple people? (Personally, I'm inclined to go with the choice and free will option, but whatever, to each his own).

I don't really trust love, most of the time. It's fine for other people. I believe other people can fall in love and it can last forever; I just don't trust love when it involves me, I guess. I don't think someone will fall in love with me, without wanting to change me into his image of the perfect girlfriend. I don't believe a guy will fight for me, that he'll defend me when his mother wants him to break up with me because I won't play her mind games. I don't think someone will choose to stay with me when it's easier for him to walk away. I don't think a guy won't use his strength and manipulation to get what he wants in spite of what I have to say.

I guess I'm contemplating love tonight because my most recent ex is on his way home from Iraq right now, for a two week break. He's the one whose mom wanted him to break up with me, or didn't want to stay when it was easier to leave (metaphorically, not physically, obviously). I thought it was love because we never ran out of things to talk about. Our first date lasted for five hours, and we talked the whole time. There were no awkward moments of silence while we just looked at each other, hoping the other person would figure out something new to talk about. I wasn't anxious or nervous with him, we kind of just happened. It was easy. It was natural. My best friend happened to be his first cousin--it was almost like it was fated. It worked, until it didn't. It was love, until it wasn't. C'est la vie, I guess.

I'm not really sure where I wanted this post to go; I feel like I might have started out with a point, but I lost it a few rambling paragraphs ago...
I don't know. I might delete this in a couple of days, when I reread and think it's drivel. But maybe I need to learn that not every blog post has to be going somewhere, or saying something in particular, or coming to some earth shattering, brilliant conclusion. Not everything has to be perfect. So maybe, I have to let go of control. I have to let my words go. I have to let this blog be whatever it's supposed to be.

"The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."

haikus

white dress of magic
a stiletto in each hand
running in bare feet

circus of laughter
altar of piled crosses
agape lovers

tears trickle down cheeks
candle flames dance in madness
prayers drift up like smoke

hearts beat frantically
bread and wine dissolve on tongues
music flies around

dandelion hope
white roses, rust metal breath
rebellion begins

cutting starts again
blood stains clothes, ink stains fingers
purpose for the pain?

music speaks for us
when words are the most empty
tears are the most apt

the eyes, watch the eyes
sacred love within his veins
liquid agape

"Memories", "Polished Nails", "Over the Lake", "The End", "I Watch Her"

Memories
I remember when we were friends,
when I whispered secrets to you,
when I sat next to you and was warmed by your nearness.
There was that one time
when you untangled my gold chain
and i was so happy the gold wouldn't have a kink.
And that time we ran lines for my scene in theater class,
that spring when I was dumped.
And I remember, too,
when you took my virginity,
like it was your right to have.
I remember all the blood
and the pain
and having to take a shower after so no one would know.
I remember saying no
and pushing you...
but only sometimes.
Most of the time I just let it happen.
I remember every single time,
praying for it to stop
praying for you to finish so the pain would cease.
I remember when we'd stay up late and talk
about stupid stuff
that seemed so important at the time.
I remember when we were friends
before you became my sometimes rapist
and I became an always enabler.

Polished Nails
Pink and black nails
pierce the porcelain skin
draining the stream like a drought.
The Red Sea never runs dry.
Shiny metal blade
reflecting the white washed walls
of the tomb she's locked herself in.
She forces herself to see
the self crucifixion
listen to the drip drip drip
of the blood bath hit the linoleum.
Dark washed denim smears the still wet river.
Years from now,
fingertips will brush the scars
the raised white lines.

Over the Lake
She stumbles over jagged rocks
stepping stones to solace
she wants to see,
one last time,
before she leaves,
fireflies over the lake.
Like catchable stars
fallen from grace
twinkling just for her.
Lighting a cigarette
knowing she'll taste smoke on her teeth for hours
she says goodbye in her own way.

The End
Not just a statistic,
but a number with a face,
locked away in an ivory tower of thoughts,
a dungeon built of stones of fear.
The bright red screams
rip across her legs
arms
hands.
Playing mysterious and aloof to avoid getting hurt
but the loneliness she drowns in
is enough to kill God in a man.
The once upon a time princess
made to dance in a dress of ivory
is clothed instead by red
and hides behind fear
of her happily ever after.

I Watch Her
The muscles in her thighs twitch
as though they remember the feel of the blade
within easy reach
the Swiss army knife in her purse
red, of course, that's her favorite color
the color she likes to see run
the razor blade in her make-up case
tapping the lipstick tube
when she rummages for mascara
she holds the key to her cell
to keep everyone out?
to keep everyone in?
no one can come in
and she won't answer the knocking anymore
she wishes she was as far from them physically as she is emotionally
so they wouldn't see
the key she could use to save herself
become the weapon
to gouge her own flesh to pieces.

My drug of choice

This post is a compilation of multiple journal entries over the last few weeks.

I promised God (and others, later) during my church's Pentecost service in 2010 that I would let go of the anger and resentment I was holding onto that made me cut. Since then, I have cut myself on two separate occasions. The first time, this past February, I cut because I was hurt and angry and upset by fighting/tension between myself and my best friend and his fiancee concerning how much time my best friend and I were spending together. I made 4 cuts on my arm because I wanted them to be seen; I wanted my hurt to be noted, you know?
The second time was different, though. I had a bad night the night before and I reached out to a friend. I survived the night and the next day without cutting. But then I got angry at another close friend and fed up with trying to succeed with not cutting. I cut 6 lines into my thigh, knowing that no one would see them. I would have to admit to them for anyone to know.
But those cuts were done for me. In a moment of rage and sadness and hopelessness. I'm not accountable to anyone for them because they're a secret.
I am a liar. And I'm drowning.

I was--have been--thinking about whether or not to come clean about me cutting again. I don't want anyone to know I'm failing; I don't want my leadership positions to be taken away. I think I'd rather suffer alone, and have people think I'm strong, than have J. know I'm cracking, than interfere with his happiness. So the cutting will remain a secret--until he finds out on his own, or I feel like it might overwhelm me, like it did last Spring.

Maybe I'm not telling because I don't want to be rescued, or I don't think I should be rescued. Do I just want them to let me go? I'm hiding my cutting, my suicidal ponderings, my anorexia contemplations...Do I not want the rescue, the lifelines?

I cut again. I started thinking about it on Sunday, started thinking about dying--I got pretty sad in church. I ended up cutting on Monday with an attitude of anger, sadness, 'dare me not to', and 'I deserve this'. The last cut I made scared me--I was either pressing harder than usual or cutting faster than usual, because I cut deeper than I ever have before. I bled through my jeans; I actually had to use a bandage for the cuts. I bled until the next day. I wondered if I was going to need stitches. The scars will be noticeable, and they'll take a while to heal, making it hard to keep the cutting a secret.
Is this what I want?

For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing--not healing, not curing--that is a friend who cares.
Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.
-Nouwen

God the interventionist

I was watching Intervention the other night (I'm pretty much obsessed with it), and during the pre-intervention the interventionist said to the addict's mother, "You are not turning your back on your son. You are saving his life." She was faced with the ultimatum of forcing her son to go to rehab for his addiction or kicking him out of her house if he refused to go to treatment.

And it made me think of God, and His anger. Maybe His anger with us is like the anger of loved ones towards an addict at an intervention. The anger is because of the love they feel towards the addict. Our addiction is to sin, and to allow us to continue to sin would be to sentence us to death, just like allowing someone to continue a heroin addiction would be a death sentence. Though it looks like punishment, it looks like He only loves us when we are good (or sober), like we are only accepted when we jump through His hoops, if we make the point of His anger about those things, I think we are completely missing the point.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his second volume of The Prophets, writes, "Nothing is so sweet to the heart of man as love. However, for love to function, the suppression of sympathy may be necessary. A surgeon would be a failure if he indulged his natural sympathy at the sight of a bleeding wound. He must suppress his emotion to save a life, he must hurt in order to heal. Genuine love, genuine mercy, must not be taken to be indulgence of mere feeling, excess of sensibility, which is commonly called sentimentality" (page 76-77). C.S. Lewis shares a similar viewpoint in A Grief Observed when he writes, "The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed--might grow tired of his vile sport--might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't"(page 49-50).

Like a surgeon, He must hurt in order to heal. Like a parent or a friend, He can't enable us if He wants a relationship with us, a healthy and good and stable relationship that is. He wouldn't be loving us if He just let us continue in our addictions; He wouldn't be love if He didn't get angry or upset when He saw us turn to the thing that was killing us again and again.

Questioning the status quo

I’ve been attending the same church in my home town for the past 20 years, since my youngest sister was 6 months old, and it wasn’t until college that I seriously started questioning it. It’s a great church, don’t get me wrong, a lot of people love it. But to me, it’s become stifling. I changed a lot during my four years of college, and I no longer fit at my home church.

During college I started attending a church called Jacob’s Porch that encouraged it’s members to question, to wrestle with God. My college church is where I am challenged, where I find my community, where I find my strongest support and where I find unconditional love and acceptance. I don’t hide any of myself when I attend Jacob’s Porch; I don’t feel like I have to toe a line when I’m there. They know my story and I have never felt any judgment from them because of my story. My home church, though, I would never feel comfortable revealing my whole story. I think people would judge me behind my back. I’m just another face in the crowd there. I no longer share their opinions about toeing the conservative, Republican party line or accept what they say wholeheartedly. I’ve learned to question. But I like going to church, so when I’m in my hometown, I attend church and sit quietly in the attendance and I don’t make waves.

I changed that last Sunday when I threatened not to come back to the church. A couple of weeks ago, after the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, our head pastor spent a good 15 or 20 minutes talking about the tragedy. Good. Great. We should be talking about it; we should be helping the people that are suffering over there. But he has a daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren living there, and he spent the whole talking about them. He talked about how his family had been affected. Not about the hundreds of other people affected, but the four missionaries there from his own family. Look, I know he was scared for his family’s well-being, but by focusing all his attention of them, it was as if he was saying his family needed/deserved prayers more than any other affected person. The next week, our worship minister was preparing to read the first chapter of Job to the congregation, and he pulled out his iPad to do that. Fine, whatever, I support technology. But as he pulled up the chapter to read he starts talking about how great the iPad is, that you can read the Bible on it, and how great iPhones are, too because they let you do so much. I don’t need product placement during my church service–I get pissed off enough when I see it in movies. You know what else is great to read a Bible on? The Bible. We’re in a church; it’s no like we didn’t have any access to an actual Bible. I mean, is Apple now sponsoring our church services? Did he get a free iPad because he’s supposed to plug it during service?

I guess neither of those things are that big of a deal, but I don’t want to be part of a church that is becoming a business, a church that only preaches about what the pastors think is true or important, instead of being open to dialogue, a church that thinks only men should be in positions of leadership. I threatened to stop going after the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. If Japan wasn’t mentioned at my church, after spending 20 minutes talking about Christchurch and the pastor’s specific family there, after the church had made a point to say during multiple services and write in the bulletin that members could specify their tithing contributions to go to the pastor’s family in Christchurch so that family could decide where the money was most needed, if the tragedy that occurred in Japan wasn’t even mentioned, then I was out. I would not be going back. Ever. A church that is so unapologetically hypocritical is poisonous.

The church did mention Japan in our opening prayer. So I was appeased. I debated even blogging about this; I mean, I have some qualms, and one of them is badmouthing a church. But I believe that people should question their churches; we should be discussing our beliefs, not just sitting in chairs or pews, week after week, passively accepting whatever the guy at the pulpit says is fact. I do believe there are some ultimate truths, but I am wary of believing that humans can know those truths completely. My god is not a human, and I don’t think any human can know what God knows. So I don’t accept what any human says about God wholeheartedly. I agree with some preachers, and authors and musicians and artists and average, normal people about what they think about god. I believe some people more than others, I accept some viewpoints as closer to truth than others are, but no preacher is my god. And no preacher should be a god for anyone.

I think one of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned is that we should question. The only way we change and grow and live is by learning and questioning.

Surprise, The First, The Rose Giver

Surprise
And, like a child, I know
that ‘maybe’ always meant ‘no’
just like I knew their ‘discussions’
were really arguments
because Daddy had been drinking for 5 days
because the Browns lost
and decided to lay into Mom
because I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water instead of being in bed.
And, as I said those words to him,
in a half joking manner,
I watched my brother of choice turn to look at me,
and he stuttered as he asked me
if that was true.
And all I could do was say ‘yeah’ and shrug,
because that was behavior I’d come to accept.
It breaks my heart
that I still have the ability to surprise him
after everything he already knows–
there’s still an innocence I can hurt.

The First
As I lay next a fire
reading poetry
and silently congratulating myself for keeping it burning all on my own,
I wonder what the first fire was like.
What the first sparks looked like
as they fell on the brush and twigs,
what the crackle sounded like
as the fire fed and hungered for more,
and the bites of flame on fingertips
as man answered fire’s desire,
and the smell and taste of smoke
rolling across the ground
as the dawn fog rolls across the river.
Did the first fire starters see the miracle of fire,
the balance of life and death
in the flames lapping the wood?
Did they see the magic,
the magic that I see?

The Rose Giver
Two long stemmed red roses
petals still in virginal buds
floating in a sooty, sticky puddle
on the blacked, cracked pavement.
Carefully placed in the careless setting
poor lighting, in a poorer section of town
the wrong side of town if you were to ask some passing by.
Though, if you were to try and ask a passerby,
they wouldn’t look in your eyes
as they mumbled a half hearted answer.
Soon the roses will be trampled
the petals will be scattered and lost
but for now, they lay softly
silent tribute to the fallen.
The rose giver says a 30 second goodbye
once every year or so
under the poor lighting, in the even poorer section of town.
12.2.2010

What am I doing with my life?

For the past year, I’ve been planning on attending Ashland Theological Seminary this upcoming fall to obtain a Masters in clinical counseling. I want to work with teens and young adults dealing with issues like self-harm, addiction, depression, suicide, eating disorders…issues that I think a lot of young people face alone. These are the problems that are kept secret and dealt with shamefully, and I think they are a lot more common than people realize.

After telling people for the past year that I’m going to apply, and then completing the entire application process (including paying the non-refundable application fee), I am contemplating not going to ATS this fall. I know, right? Completely flaky.

The counseling program is two years long, and every week students in the counseling cohort have to spend one day on the main campus in Ashland. This fall I’ve committed to being the leader of a covenant house, which is a group of people living in intentional Christian community. I’m questioning whether or not I’ll have the time, or the means to get to campus, or the money to start classes again this year. I’ve also been seriously considering joining the Peace Corps after my year in the covenant house is finished.

I want to go out in the world and help people. I mean, that’s why I want to be a counselor, because I feel this incredible need to rescue people. I don’t just want to sit in safety and take it easy for the rest of my life–I want to go out in the world and alleviate suffering. When I hear about natural disasters, the first thing I want to do is go to that place and help people. I won’t be able to do the Peace Corps for a while if I have to be on Ashland’s main campus every week.

I can start by taking classes online and at the Columbus branch campus; that’s always an option. But I won’t be able to finish the program without the core counseling courses I have to take on the main campus.

But this is all up in the air–I haven’t even been accepted to ATS.

Everyone fights their own individual war

One of the biggest misconceptions I had (have) about cutting was that all I had to was quit. I mean, yeah it sucked while I was actively cutting multiple times a week, but I knew why I was doing it: I hated myself, I was filled with anger and resentment, I wanted a physical manifestation of the emotional pain I had dealt with for the past three years. At the time, I knew that cutting wasn’t the best way to deal with my emotions; I know that harming one’s self is not healthy. But it was the only way I could see to cope with everyday life. I couldn’t lay in bed sobbing all day, so instead I cut. It was the way I survived.

Since I knew I was using cutting as a coping mechanism, I didn’t really want to quit at the time. I knew it was unhealthy, but I also realized it was keeping me sane. I wouldn’t be cutting forever, I knew, it was just a way to get through the last months of college. I figured I would quit one day.

But when I was thinking about quitting, I never really thought of it as a process. I figured I would be cutting one day, and then stop cutting whenever I got “better”. I never really looked at cutting as an addiction, and I never thought I would have to deal with the urges to cut after I quit (and I’m assuming for the rest of my life). Dr. Steven Levenkron, author of Cutting: Understanding and Overcoming Self-Mutilation, likens cutting to OCD, in that it’s a compulsive act meant to relieve unbearable pain, and to eating disorders, in that it’s a method of seizing control. The thing is, people don’t really grow out of OCD, or eating disorders, or any addiction really. The addiction is always there, waiting for you to fall, waiting for temptation to overwhelm you, waiting at the end of a bad day.

I didn’t realize that I would miss cutting. Nor did I realize that cutting would always be the first solution my brain would turn to when I needed a problem solved. It’s surprising the way our addictions simultaneously smother us and appear to help us.

A room without books is like a body without a soul

I’ve been thinking lately about being published. I’ve been in love with books forever. I remember when I was a kid, sitting up with my sisters at night as our mom read us bedtime stories. I remember the color of the book of fairy tales, the feel of the glossy pages as she let me hold one side of the book (it made me feel important), running my finger down the table of contents to pick a story, the vivid illustrations. Once I learned how, I always wanted to read the stories out loud myself.

Now in my early twenties, after obtaining a degree in English (of course), books have ceased to be about only pleasure. Books are now studied. Images are pounced on to uncover the symbolism. The words inside not only make a world in the book but effect the world outside, the world the reader inhabits. One of the books I’m reading right now is Enchanted Hunters by Maria Tatar and it studies the power of stories in childhood–the stories aren’t just about themselves anymore; now I’m reading books that study the effect of the stories I read once upon a time.

So being published, being read by strangers, is a dream, something I want to happen before I die. I submitted three poems to Ohio State’s “The Journal” and to Bowling Green’s Mid-American Review on the advice of a friend a few weeks ago and I’m waiting to hear back from them. I’m pretty excited about it, actually. I check both sites to see if the review status has changed, but it’s only been a month since submission and it can take anywhere from one to five months. I’m a bit impatient…so people tell me.

But sometimes I daydream about an Emily Dickinson-esque rise to fame. A friend or a family member finds my journals after I’m gone and decides to publish all of them as a lasting tribute to me (that’s kind of a downer, I know). I’m nothing like Dickinson–she has a level of brilliance I will never in my life capture. I love her, she made me appreciate American writers when I had all but given up on them. But Dickinson gives hope to the authors who sit in bedrooms night after night, scratching pen across paper, wondering if their unread words will ever matter to anyone but themselves-journals full of poems, drawers full of scribbling, bound by spirals and paperclips and rubberbands.

Emily Dickinson gives us hope of an immortality, almost. A way of remaining without being alive. Humans are not immortal; our words, however, can be.

Thoughts on being alone

I say that my personal hell is being alone. Not just by myself, but I mean really alone. No music, no books, no friends, no family, no pets, no writing…just me. That terrifies me. I want the distractions. I need them. I can be away from people for very long periods of time, but I’m never away from music or noise or a phone or a computer or a book. What do I need the distractions for? Is it because I don’t want to be with me for very long? Maybe it’s just the disinclination of boredom, or maybe I’m running from my own thoughts. If there is one thing I have in spades, it’s the desire to run from myself and from expectations. Maybe when I have a distraction, it’s as though I have a purpose, something to accomplish, and that gives me worth and a purpose.

What is your story?

I imagine my story is similar to a lot of other stories. There is nothing truly remarkable about my life; many people have faced more difficult lives, and many people have faced easier lives. I think my life, and my relationship with Jesus, is typical. We–Jesus and I–have our ups and downs (mostly because I chose to make our relationship have ups and downs), but all good relationships have ups and downs. Without the darkness, how can we appreciate light? Without light, how do we understand darkness? Maybe the downs in our relationship don’t necessarily have to be looked at in a negative light…I mean, of course the up moments are great and I am certainly happier in those times, because those times are easier. But real relationships, I mean relationships with real people, the relationships we have with friends and family, all have down moments as well as up moments. So maybe my down moments with Jesus–those times when I want to give up, or break it off, or say goodbye–are there to show me that my relationship with Jesus is real. It’s genuine. I’m not always going to be happy with him, or with me, but how many of us are always happy with our friends and our families? No one. Anyone who claims to be is in serious denial, or else they are not close enough with their families to feel comfortable enough to fight with them and still know they will be accepted.

I went through a time of not talking to God. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him or turned my back on him; it’s not like I stopped loving him. I actually don’t know how to explain it. I still loved him–our separation (that’s what I call that two year period in my head)–was never about love for me. I just stopped praying. I stopped going to church, and then I stopped going to bible study, and then I stopped going to all clubs and activities associated with God. All lot of that separation had to do with the religious organizations I was involved with. I had several dealings and run ins with staff members that really turned me off of Jesus and those associated with him. There was the time one of my roommates was not allowed in the bible study I was attending because she didn’t meet the criteria the other girls met. There was the constant pressure to go on mission trips during the summer. One soon to be staff member was over heard talking to a younger girl, and when the younger girl explained she didn’t think she could go on a mission trip that summer because her mom wasn’t sure about it, the soon to be staff member replied, “Did your mother ever die on a cross for you?” Several incidences like these over several years drained me; I no longer wanted to be associated with people who preached these things. I couldn’t do it anymore.

Still, I can’t blame my relationship with God wholly on others. Those people were not God, and I know this. Man’s interpretation of God is never going to be perfect or one hundred percent accurate (and if anyone claims they understand God, you should be wary). Many of the problems I had (have) with God stem from the issues I have with trust. I have serious commitment issues. Not even just commitment with love; I’m talking about all relationships in general: I have serious commitment problems. And it stems from my problems with trust.

And so it begins

I like to write. Writing is how I understand the world. This blog is going to be combination of thoughts, maybe some poetry if I’m brave enough, random observations, probably some low level ranting. So take it or leave it, this is me.