Wayside Pulpit

A Broken House

I am on a bus heading through San Francisco, CA. I really miss living in the bay area. I wish I could easily go back.

My house has a foundation problem, and that has made me consider the issue of foundations in my own life. I think the ones I have are also cracking. This belief, coupled with the reality of a broken house has led me to consider that the universe is trying to tell me something.

I feel like my house is dying, and I really don't know how hard I should try to save it. I don't think I have the strength to walk away, but maybe I should. Just maybe that is the best thing to do. How long do you try before you accept that a house just can't be saved; that it isn't the house you really wanted in the first place. Or, the house just doesn't feel like home. I guess is all comes down to that last question, and the question of love.

I am

sad
lonely
unfocused
disappointed
not where I want to be
aware of what I should do
feeling the weight of that knowledge

Not to stand alone

I will miss Mass today; I do not feel sad about it, or guilty about it, more that I have missed out on something special. It is a kind of jealously for those that were able to go. I think it was better that I stayed home and worked on next weeks presentation, but I do wonder if I could just have managed the same productivity this afternoon.

It is that draw toward Mass that drew me towards Catholicism. Though, I have to say, there is not much difference from Catholicism and Mass (at least in my mind). When I was attending protestant churches there was little that actually drew me towards a Sunday service. Even when I was preaching or involved in the liturgical process (as minimal at this is in most protestant churches), I was never drawn toward Eucharist.

I think that was that draws one toward the Eucharist cannot really be explained but only experienced. This is why progressive non-Catholics are so mystified about why anyone would actually want to be Catholic. Yet, even for those of us who ignore many aspects of Catholic moral teaching, despise much of the arrangement of the church hierarchy, and are frustrated by the silence and lack of accountability regarding clergy sexual abuse, we are still drawn to the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is magical. One of its most magical properties is that it does not matter how creepy, old, conservative, misogynistic the priest who consecrates the bread and wine. The Eucharist stands, not alone, but really with the community in which it is embraced

The Closet Door

I stood in my hall today and beat on my closet door for fifteen minutes. I imagined it to be a personification of that which I believe is the cause of my anger and anxieties. The door was not a person, but stood as some real solid place to vent what I have been feeling.

Normally when I feel this way I hit myself in my head. In fact, last February I hit myself for such a frequency that I ended up with a concussion. It is strange, I don't even mind writing about this wacky behavior because one, there are very few people who read this blog, and two, it is the truth of who I am. I hit myself when I get angry or frustrated.

The greatest thing about the closet today was that I could turn my frustration and anger outward instead of toward myself. I wasn't angry at myself (at least I don't think so), I was angry at what I had projected onto two people. I really wanted to tell them both how absolutely irritating they were, how much I hated them, and that I wished they would just get out of my life. (So silly in retrospect because one was a stocker putting chocolate chips on a shelf at the store. Really, like I will ever see her again).

So, I came home and beat the crap out of the door. I screamed at the door. And, yes, I kicked the door, which proved to be a slight mistake, but hey, at least it wasn't my head that broke; equally,I did not direct my anger toward myself.

All things considered, this was all an improvement.

Time Off

The evening passes into tomorrow
I grieve the loss of the day
even though
all things expected
I will wake

Today I found myself
just briefly
not noticing myself

(This can only be appreciated
if you are one
who understands
what it means
to walk
this world being
weighed down with
the sound of
your own voice)

The freedom from my
own tyranny will not last
but the respite has embraced tonight
with softness and warmth

Stories of the story

What is a story? A story has a plot, characters and a setting. It also has readers, a writer, and some reason for its existence. Even if that reason is simply for pure entertainment.

It is beyond pedestrian (mundane actually) to talk about the gospels being "stories." Their narrative quality is so obvious that even children can tell you the story of Jesus-and-this or Jesus-and-that. So, is there really anything else to say about the fact that the gospels are stories?

I think probably not.

Yet, I do think that there is something to be said about the stories we make of stories. We hear a story (really any story) and off we go making a story about that story. In a sense we cannot ever really hold onto just a story. We are inclined to make it our own by telling something about it. This telling is an aggregation of our opinions, thoughts, feelings, and even imagination.

I am sure you see where I am going with this.

So, I really do not care much any more about the stories of Jesus and his band of not-so-merry followers. What I do find interesting are the stories today's Christians tell about the stories regarding Jesus.

If you, or I, really care about The Feeding of the Five-thousand, it makes much more sense to care about that caring than the story itself. The story never changes, I can go read it right now and guess what? The plot, the setting, and the characters will be exactly the same as it was when I was only eight. And you? If you go read it right now, you'll experience the same thing.

Yet, when I make my own story about the story, THAT is something to hang a hat on; something you and I could really dual about. We could even learn a bit about each other from our stories of that story.

I am for a new gospel: a gospel of the people that is meant to change daily, a gospel that strives to take that which is "something old" and make it "something new." I am not referring to just retelling (that happens on too many Sundays from lazy pulpits); rather, I want a recreated gospel where, us, the people of today, tell the story of the story.

Knowing Jesus?

I have a presentation in less than two weeks that I have not even started working on. The book I need to read before I can even begin to write is sitting on a bookshelf across from me. Knowing Jesus has been haunting my dreams. The haunting is for the work not done and the date approaching more than the content of the book. Though I know, as I see it taunting me from across the room, that the content has a much bigger bite than its slim profile can ever let on.

I mean, really, who knows Jesus? Can anyone? Does anyone? There are those who convincingly articulate a special relationship with Jesus, but relationship does not equate knowing. Knowing is much more than relating, it is about equal sharing of personal depth. Jesus cannot have personal depth, there is no person to be had, only a universal presence reigned in by those who help to define that universal presence. There is no uniqueness to Jesus and knowing comes through developing an awareness of individual uniqueness.

This is not to say that a relationship between "me and Jesus" is not unique, but its uniqueness is only because I am unique, not because Jesus is unique. The relationship is all me relating to an essentialized and created structure where I do the essentializing and where I do the creating. I am the uniqueness that is then projected onto Jesus. It is the projection of myself that I might claim to "know".

No, there is no knowing Jesus. Just as is there is no knowing God, or love, or hope, or fear. The best that can be gained is a relationship with such constructs and therefore a deeper knowing of oneself.

A Bell in Heaven Tolls

There are so many reasons not to write. Though, I suppose, there are just as many reasons to write. It just seems like the reasons to not write pull so much harder; their force exerts unimaginable strength. Only if you’ve ever felt this force would you understand.

After class today a student told me that she was going to do NaNoWriMo and she seemed at that moment like an angel. I had been considering it, though I have too much to do. Well, I always have too much to do. Yet, I need something to pull me out of the funk I am in. Creativity feels so far away, while it used to be so close. I have given too much to love and it has hurt me in many many ways. Though, I admit I gave it freely, the giving has come to haunt me. I don’t know where I lost myself, but I have. I don’t know where that creative thinking, being, and living went, but it is gone. It is gone and I desperately miss it. I think sometimes I sleep so much because I hope that I’ll find it in my dreams. Yet, the more I sleep and the more I love, the more I loose. And, to be perfectly honest, I don’t have much more to loose; there is very little of me left.

I have not felt like I was drowning, but I have felt stagnant water surrounding me and movement has been very difficult. The little angel voice the belled in the empty classroom today reminded me of those cheesy recordings of humpback whale songs. The voice resonated more than had meaning; I felt it more than I understood it. Yet, in the feeling I knew the desire to create something (a feeling that has been so given away for the happiness of another), even if it is a novel that no one will ever read, or really even care about. Perhaps in the writing of it something of this mess I am in will work itself out.

Becoming Catholic

I will join
at your table
because God has called
me to supper with injustice, patriarchy, and misogyny,
all the while being fed
the food of love.

So, anoint me to initiate me,
join us together--
put yourself between my lips
hear my voice whisper in your ear
and feel our consummation.

Your own oil moves
me deeply inside
your body surrenders to mine
and I am surrounded
with all that is you.

And in our joining
the change confirmed
will alter the table
and we will never
taste the same again.

Final Fingerprint

last breath -
comes
and
goes
uniquely.