Reason Breeds Insanity

It is not only the freedom of the oppressed that is at stake…but also the liberation of the oppressor. —Allan Boesak, South African Minister

I started my day today in the best way possible: by having coffee with two incredible women.

I had a coffee. We talked about writing, the past, relationships, sexuality, boundaries, history, the now, grace, and redemption. We talked about how to answer this question through writing: how can an obviously broken person help to unbreak someone else? The more I think about it, the more I think that it takes brokenness to heal people. At the very least, I think the reason some unbroken people are so good at helping others to heal is because they remember what it feels like to be broken, even though they are no longer. They remember what it feels like to heal. I think this may be why you are such a good writing midwife: you haven’t forgotten what it felt like to be broken and then to be healed.

Then I had a caramel, white hot chocolate. We talked about writing, the past, relationships, sexuality, boundaries, history, the now, grace, and redemption. And we talked about how Jesus works in all of this. We talked about how to answer this question through living: how can we live each day in Christ? What does that look like when it happens? I think this why you are a woman I look toward for spiritual camaraderie: I can see Jesus in you.

When I got home, I had a beer and two pieces of banana bread with pumpkin butter, and I had a startlingly frank conversation with a friend. We tried to answer this question: can we write a series of letter back and forth to each other about friendship and spirituality? It may end up being awkward. She may be right. But I had to say it. I couldn’t keep it anymore. I had to let it go. I think this is why we are good for each other: we can be honest and still be friends.

I think the challenge is to be all of these at once: healed and mindful of brokenness, grace-filled and redemptive, honest and accepting. Is this what it means to love Jesus? Is this what it means to love each other?

The more I read my student’s memoirs, the more I realize that we all have stories to tell and that stories are what make the world go around. Their stories are equally joyful and tragic. I thought about all the writing that I have done, all the preaching I have done, all the teaching I have done, and I realized that it is all one big story. In all of my jobs, I am a storyteller. Whether it is a biblical story or an academic story or a personal story, I just keep telling them. And, conversely, I am just part of a story.

I hope one day I wake up to to learn that I have been living in a big hard-cover picture book whose pages are slowly being turned by the Mother/Father God, telling a story to [Their] children. I am in the story with the prodigal daughter. I can stand next to the woman who washed Jesus feet. I can watch as Saul holds the coats of the Jews as they stone Stephen, but then I can turn around and watch as he is beaten and imprisoned. I can glean with Ruth and Naomi. I am all the stories I have been told, because there is nothing new under the sun, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust. I am only stepping into the middle of a story already unfolding around me. I come into the picture on page 1974, and I hope I bring grace and mercy and love and compassion. I hope I don’t bring anything but those good things. When I leave, the story won’t end. The story will only go on.

*side note*
Here is a cool website I stumbled upon on my own, not using Stumble Upon.

I am sitting in my office looking at pictures of Marilyn Monroe. They are all from a calendar. I have three reproduced photographs of her hanging on the wall behind my desk: Marilyn in a black turtle-neck leaning back, propped against something I cannot see; Marilyn in a black, lacy shirt with her head supported by her hand; and Marilyn in a sequined, nearly strapless gown, walking across the stage at a USO show. My favorite part of this last picture is the soldier who is standing right by the stage, holding his hat in his hand, and looking up with his hand on the side of his face, and I think he has never seen a woman before. I also have a black and white picture of her Hollywood Star. It’s bittersweet. I wonder. Would she still be famous if she lived today?

I look to my left and I see photographs I have taken: some pictures of Bec and I dancing at her sister’s wedding, the dead ray I saw on Venice Beach that floats endlessly in a sea of sand with a drinking-straw forever suspended next to him, the ocean with its breaking waves and the foothills I have climbed in the background, the raven that sits on the rock outside the rest stop in the middle of the Mojave desert, miscellaneous pictures of Merideth and I, and the statue of Jesus with his face in his hand, weeping over the atrocities that humans inflict on each other. I ask myself, “Why do we kill each other?” I took that picture in Oklahoma City. Right outside the memorial for the bombing. “And Jesus Wept” is the title of the sculpture. I think “And Jesus Wept” for Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. He weeps for us, too.

If I look to my right, I see Rachel’s desk. Neat, tidy. When I turn my head, I see what my students see when they enter our office: Rachel’s posters. They are an original Salvador Dali, which is the one with the long-legged elephant, a lithograph; a Picasso poster, the one from his blue period where the contorted man is playing the guitar; an old PCM advertisement; four little posters—a Matisse, a Kandinsky, a Klimt, and a Warhol that says, “the world fascinates me”—it fascinates me, too, Mr. Warhol, Andy; a bumper-sticker that says Bi-American; a magazine cover with a picture of her grandfather, who was an actor, sitting in the middle of a pile of wood holding an axe and a handful of feathers; and, a poster of two women kissing, called the “Kiss” by Tanya Chalkin. If you were to come to my office, this is what you would see.

I sit here, now, drinking from a ceramic New York deli cup that is made to look like the ones they drink from on Law and Order: SVU. I am drinking Genmaiche tea with honey in it. I would say I am happy today.

We have a cat who suddenly thinks it is funny to sneak back through the door that separates the dining room from the living room after we put them to bed for the night. We feed them each night and then close them away from us because they tend to want to sleep wherever their humans are sleeping. This particular cat, Spaz, has been pretty good about staying downstairs and leaving us alone while we sleep. However, last night I made an early morning (2:45) trip downstairs, cat in hand, because she had been kneading the comforter and ended up sleeping right on my chest next to my face.

As I hefted her down the stairs, wriggling and scratching, I thought to myself that I was never going to be able to fall back to sleep. I was right. At somewhere around 4:45 this morning, I finally dozed off again only to get back up at 6:30 to walk the dogs. My sleep schedule is a mess.

Celie, the dog we have affectionately started calling rocket dog, has started a new trick. When it is time to go out in the morning, she runs full throttle across the garage, jumps over Lily, who is standing there whoo-whooing with her blanket in her mouth, and plants her back feet against my diaphragm in order to catapult herself back to the floor. The whole move is really quite spectacular. And chest thumping.

I am still reeling from staying up last night to hear Obama’s acceptance speech. For a change, I didn’t mind the firecrackers being set off in the middle of the night. It sure beats the gunshots I had anticipated. There were a lot of sirens, but there always are where I live. I haven’t been this interested in politics since I was in high school and had hope for another change, when I voted for Ross Perot. Yes, I did just put that in print. I will say it proudly. I voted for Ross Perot. This year in the primary I voted for Hillary Clinton. I have a history of “throwing my vote away,” which is an oxymoron. How can you throw a vote away? You have to vote for someone. Yesterday, well actually Monday after standing in line for an hour and a half, I voted for Barack Obama! And I have to say that I take great pride in saying that I helped to make a difference. I found myself silently weeping last night, wishing I was in Grant Park in Chicago, cheering with the masses, and listening to our president elect graciously accept the win. The most moving television moment, one that I hope gets remembered for a long time, was watching a young undergrad at Spellman college in Atlanta fall to her knees when they made the announcement. She was wearing a green hooded sweatshirt and those ugly furry boots, but when they broke the news, she fell to the ground like a crumbled paper-doll and just wept. If nothing else, this election has brought to fruition the passion for politics in younger voters. If nothing else, this election has been the crown of blessing on the heads of all the early civil rights workers, both those who are still living and those who have passed on. Change is possible. Sometimes I can step back from my usual cynicism and realize that. I am sure I will have more to say as this proceeds, but for now. I am hopeful that at least some things can change.