Wayside Pulpit

The Deal

The cat hovers on the back of my chair
wanting food.
I ignore the deep purrs--
the swish of tail
the saucer eyes.

"I just can't move from this place
sweet feline.
I so want to
but these words,
of my black on white world
have bound me
here."

The cat jumps to desk
rifling through
pens, papers, and yesterday's tea.
He is an oversized duster
undoing what I've done.

"The distraction won't work!"

Human hands to furry body to hardwood floor.

"Kitty dear, an ancient set of emotions
combs through me
and I have lost
the words
right when I need them the most.

I'll tell you what,
if you can find them
I will give you food."

The cat slips
through the open door.

To Love as we are Loved

Today I moved out of my apartment. I've only been living in the one-bedroom third-floor walk-up for about a year, but it was home. Yet, even as far as homes go, it has not been my favorite. I never really embodied the space. I continually grumbled about some of its eccentricities--not enough sun, too chilly, small kitchen, lack of a breeze, and on and on and on.

As I was cleaning up the place for the last time, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the place that has held me this past year. It kept me dry, mostly warm, well-fed, and comfortable. The apartment never failed to embrace me after a difficult day, a lonely evening, or even a joyous occurrence. In a sense, it showed me unconditional love, even as I griped about its many failings.

In the process of scrubbing the stove and the rest of the kitchen, I began to clean out of a sense of honor for the place. Even the places where no one ever looks (under the bottom edge of the oven door, for example) I cleaned until white. As I cleaned, I could feel my orientation to the apartment drastically change.

It finally became mine.

Recycling Money

I bought a pint of frozen yogurt a few days back and I received 0.73 US cents in return.  I had this wild hair idea of leaving it somewhere on the sidewalk. Then a thought occurred, why just .73 cents? Why not something a bit bigger?  I had a crumpled up one dollar bill in my pocket, and knew that I could part with it.  

I walked along the sidewalk looking for the right place.  Finding this right place was a game of intuition; a waiting for that tug of gut string that says, "This is it!" The tug happened under an old street lamp and I let the dollar go.  It settled in some leaves that had wrapped themselves around the lamp's base.  I stood for a minute and stared at it feeling a strange sense of excitement. Who would find it? Who would get that small rush of pleasure that happens when finding a dollar?  

The next morning the dollar was gone.

Yesterday, in the early morning, I repeated the task along a different street. A few blocks after dropping the money a woman passed me walking in the opposite direction.  I turned and watched her head up the sidewalk in the way I had just come.  One block.  Two blocks. Three blocks. Eventually, I could barely make out her shape, and could see nothing but her blue coat bobbing away from me.  Then the spot of blue stopped, leaned over, and one arm reached toward the ground.  

I'm not sure if the dollar made her day, but I know that it made mine. 

To Run and To Jog

I stand at the window looking at the rain obliterating the parking lot below. It is a running morning, and I have planned to cover four miles before 9:00 am. I momentary hesitate and think of all the other ways I might exercise that do not involve getting wet and cold. Then the thought comes, "Are you a runner or a jogger?" I've asked myself this question for years at the bottom of steep hills, during blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, and at the almost-end of long runs. I really want to be a runner, and the vast majority of the time I own up to the title and put the next shoe forward. 

Today is no different, and I find myself running through the downpour. I begin to consider throughout the rainy run that the difference of running to jogging is a bit like spiritual to religious.  The nuance between both pairs is so small you just might miss it if you blink.  Equally, you cannot watch me jog/run down the sidewalk and decide which I am doing.  Only I know if I am running or jogging.

For me, to jog is to exercise without intentionality. It is a movement because I said I would, or always have, or someone told me this is the way it should be done. To run is to live into the challenge of existence and to move forward regardless of its folly. Spirituality is a late December run in Fairbanks, Alaska. Religion is staying home and watching the rain hit the window.

I slip in and out of both—runner and jogger. I think the slippage is part of any faithfully lived life. The spiritual nips at our heels and propels us forward, while religion binds us to what has always been. Granted, it is warm inside; the bread and wine can make all of us sleepy. Even so, more picnics in the rain are what each of us really need.

Out of all the Books in the World

It was a Monday afternoon filled-up with mamas pushing babies in prams, doorways graced with sleeping smelly bodies, and smashed 7-11 cups floating in gutters. The sun was out enough to cast the shadow of a bent stop-sign across a street.

I passed under an overpass, then walked by an empty bench waiting to be filled with bus riders. In the middle of the bench was a book. Without changing step I leaned down and scooped it up. The book was upside-down in my hand; I turned it over; then I read the title. The book was Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness. I stared at the book, then I stopped walking. I’d been trying to find The Long Loneliness in used bookstores for a few weeks without much success. It looks like the book found me instead.

Wilder-Than-This

When I think of the wilderness I am immediately turned off. I don’t know if my dislike of the “outdoors” comes from some bad outdoor experiences when I was child, or from just a more general appreciation of human creation over the “natural” way of things. As a child I was forced to like to go camping and hiking. I lived in the mountains of Colorado and being outside was something that one just did, and did it with joy. I really did despise every camping trip, ski trip, and outdoor excursion. I would much rather have been with a book, on my bed, listening to the birds through the window.

I have, as I’ve grown up, been more apt to be outside in the woods, but not really for long periods of time. I’ve gone camping at camp grounds and tent cabins where I can bring the Colman stove and take a shower down the road for a couple of bucks. I enjoy hiking for the sake of exercise and so I can eat a really high-fat dinner and feel like I earned it. All in all the wilderness remains just that to me, the wilderness; it is a place I may stick a toe or two into, but not a place I can call home.

I will tell you, however, that just because I don’t find much joy in the wilderness, doesn’t mean that I don’t like the unknown. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like to explore and be in situations that are uncomfortable. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to test my wits against forces larger than my simple human self. I feel sometimes that because I don’t want to be in the great outdoors that I am seen as having sold my soul the modernist company store. This is greatly the case in liberal religious environments where there is strong move to see God in nature. In truth I see God much more in the human ways we’ve constructed the world, than in any star or blade of grass.

This intimate truth reflects a large part of my personal theology; a belief system that knows that God is in us. Therefore, when I see the human hubbub on 96th and Broadway, a conversation between mother and son, or a high-speed train rumbling through a station, I know I am in the presence of the Holy.

A Little Red Book

A month or so back I walked into a small stationary store and I saw a little red journal. I’ve never been much for journaling or owning fancy journals, but for some reason my soul was intrigued with this particular blank book.

I started writing in it almost immediately and its purpose took a strange turn – it became what I would call, a prayer journal. I’m not sure when I made the decision to start writing prayers, but that is what would come each time my pen touched paper. I began to write openly about my feelings, my problems and my issues with god.

I think this need to be honest to god about my feelings came from a sermon I heard at Origins in New York City. The preacher spoke about taking your tough questions to god. Now, he wasn’t exactly talking about my kind of questions, but the message stuck with me. It stuck enough that the little red book became a mediator of sorts between god and I.

Sometimes I write my entries to, “God,” sometimes to, “Goddess,” sometimes to, “Compassionate Being.” Regardless of the title, the driving purpose is fundamentally the same. I want a deeper relationship with the divine and I’ll stand through whatever conversation is necessary to get there. This tenacious desire is not new for me in relation to spirituality in general; I’ve worked diligently to build a life based on spiritual practice. Yet, this has been different. I have felt it is not just me wanting a deeper relationship with god, but god wanting a deeper relationship with me.

Undiscovered Value

Recently, John Stuart over at Heaven’s Highway, featured The Wayside Pulpit in his glimpse into the world of progressive Christians bloggers. It was a quite a hoot to see the Wayside up there with such awesome sites such as, Street Prophets and Faith in Public Life.

John made an insightful comment about the spiritual loneliness that progressives seem to encounter in their journeys of faith. This is the loneliness that often comes from living a faith that is built on questioning, discovery – unknowingness. Not all those who find themselves living under the progressive label relate to this sense of chronic uncertainty, but I know many upon many that do.

What I find fascinating is that faith without certainty is often seen as something to be grieved. Those who have a faith that gives them that rock-foundation will often look at my faith with pity, the underlying, but unsaid thought being, “If you only knew what I knew then your life would be so much better.” I still feel some resentment when I get these kind of patronizing glances, but I’m learning, gradually, to let it go.

Why do we assume that faith is supposed to answer our questions, provide us with certainty and fill us with comfort? Why do we not instead believe that faith is meant to challenge, make us question and fill us with uneasiness about ourselves and the societies in which we live?

For me, there is a grief that comes with a faith that doesn’t explain it all. I am forced to face the rawness of life in all its bloody complexity. This standing as witness is hard, it is challenging, it is often lonely, it sometimes makes me want to run away.

But the truth of the matter is, there is a captivating beauty to be found in the unknown. It is a beauty revealed to all of those who stand staunchly in the midst of shifting sand regardless of the fear that may call them to bedrock. Only those whose bones have been touched by this beauty can understand why the loneliness, the uncertainty, the grief and the sickening spiritual upheavals are more than worth the price of admission.

War

I am not an insect killer. Little crawly and flying beings that I find inside, I rescue and move outside. Those that live outside I leave alone. I never spray, I never trap, I never sprinkle and, for the most part, I have never had a problem. Roaches, beetles, Black Widows, flies, bees and all the rest have lived in harmony with me. However, this spring the Earwigs have taken over. They have broken, in my mind, the nice balanced relationship we’ve shared. Yes, they have always been a bit crazy during this mating time of the year, but the population was controlled enough to live on the same piece of suburbia with them.

I noticed a problem when the new herb garden started disappearing. At sunset the Thyme, Basil, Oregano and Dill looked lovely, but by sunrise sometimes entire plants had been devoured. Then the Earwigs moved into the house; they found comfortable residences in the shower, the refrigerator, the sink and even the book cases. Going outside at night was a challenge. It was impossible not to have them fall from the door frames and end up in my hair. However, it was finding a number of them under the sheets one night that made me turn on them.

I started researching organic ways of deterring them. I whipped up a nasty concoction of Cayenne and Garlic. It made little difference. I could still go out with my flashlight in the deep of night and shine it on anything green and see mostly a swarm of black bodies munching happily away.

So, yesterday I started killing them. It was trench warfare in the sense that I simply started squashing them with my feet; dozens upon dozens. It made me feel sick, taking the life from so many “bugs” that were simply being what they were. However, after uncovering a number of their hiding places I realized that feet alone would not make a huge impact on lowering the population. Therefore, today I launched a nuclear attack. I spread diatomaceous earth over the places they were inhabiting. Though it is considered a product approved for organic gardening, it will still kill more than just the Earwigs. Ants, roaches, roly-polies and others will fall victim; exoskeletons cut open and death by dehydration will ensue.

Somehow a scale tipped and they were no longer, in my mind, part of the Kingdom of God, rather they were an “other;” something that had to be removed (or at least brought under control). Also, I was willing to offer up other life as collateral damage to accomplish this removal. Yet, even as I sit here, feeing bad about it all, I am certain there was no other option…..

Isn’t it just amazing how easy it is to justify war?

A Ring

A few days ago a small ad appeared in the Want-Ads of a local paper. The ad was simple, it said, “Ring found call to identify.” This morning when I opened the paper the front page of the local section had an article about this particular ring. Apparently the ring was a rather expensive wedding ring and the grief was quite profound to the woman who lost it. Also, the woman who found the ring was deeply concerned about returning the ring to its rightful owner. As a result, the ring was returned, much joy ensued and they made headline news.

The woman who lost her ring wrote the following, “My aunt prayed with me and told me that God loves me and knows my pain and that He has sent a Christian to find the ring and return it to me.”

It seems, from their perspective, that only a Christian would return a diamond ring. A Muslim, a Jew, an Atheist, a Buddhist, or really anyone that wasn’t Christian, wouldn’t be the type of person that would work to find the rightful owner of something precious.

The woman who returned the ring was in fact Christian (just like the overwhelming majority of people in the community), but she returned the ring because she was the kind of person who would return a ring. Did her Christianity make her more likely to find the owner of the ring? Maybe, Maybe not. Christianity doesn’t necessarily make a person good, it simply makes them a Christian.

Honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, love, compassion do not come from any religion, rather they come from the heart. Good happens in the world because people do good things, not because they follow any particular faith tradition.