Done with his morning routine (shower, shave, brush, floss) difficult with unfamiliar, borrowed tools, but they got the job done. She, the nurse with the early shift, had gone hours ago leaving him towels and toiletries, travel size and spare. He holds them, used and bundled together in the damp towel, unsure what to do with them. He looks at the tangle of folds on her bed, winces and looks away. He turns and surveys the rest of the room. He checks his watch and sees that there's time enough to make it to work.
They first met at church, of all places - an old, conservative, starchy ordeal. He started going there his senior year in high school and stayed through most of college. She started attending a few years after he started, but then he left there to attend a newer, more contemporary service - one that he thought better suited his younger, more agile faith. He went to this church for five years but hip fades as does the multi-media dazzle. He didn't know if something in this new church had changed or if something inside himself had changed, but it didn't matter because the nexus of spirit and truth that first drew him to this new style of worship wasn't there anymore. And so after he realized that he hadn't had a single experience he would call spiritual in over six months, he returned to the conservative, starchy 11:00 service. He didn't know where else to go, so he went back to the old, the familiar, the comfortable.
And that's where he saw her. Again. And the five years between them had been more than kind to her, they had refined what was fair into something more striking and profound. And most miraculous of all, he could tell by that gleam in her eye that she was more than just happy to see him again. In the time before he switched churches, they would flirt and laugh and tease. But his faith was stronger then and it was this faith that helped him see that his attraction to her was purely physical - that he did not love her beyond what she did to his hormones. And so spiritual mind enforced itself over sinful matter and all was innocent and well.
His faith then was so simple, so sure. God was a rock, a lion, a lamb, and Jesus loved him because the Bible told him so. He looked out at the world and wondered how unbelievers could be so damned evil. But complications arose, the messiness of the world found its way into cracks, fracture points, fissures of his belief system, and when push came to shove, he found his Sunday School lessons woefully inadequate to tackle the hard truths of the world.
That was no matter though. He understood that the world was larger than he was and that God was there watching over him. So long as he felt the presence of God and sensed his direction, he was assured and blissfully content. And then silence fell. The presence and the guidance faded away, dispersed into thin air like the fog at dawn. No matter what he tried, no matter how much he made himself pray and read and sing and fast, nothing tasted anything like the sweet luxurious comfort of the Holy Spirit. And really, what can one do to penetrate the ironclad silence of God?
Back now at his old, familiar church with a more fractured, fragile faith, things were different between the two of them. He sensed it the moment they met again after his years away. It was in the way she hugged a bit too hard, looked his way a bit too long, touched a few too many times. Just as time had distilled her features to the essence of what he had found beautiful about her, so it focused and honed their formerly innocent flirtations into something more serious and intentional.
In part, he had returned for just such affections. He didn't reason it this way at the time but he was seeking from her what he had lost from God. And isn't this what's been done throughout time? God goes up the mountain and his followers down below mold themselves a golden calf to commune with - something tactile, solid, and predictable. Something there. For them a calf, for him a woman after his attention.
He gave himself to her. It was far easier than he could have imagined. Effortless and effervescent, lunch gave way to a walk in the park that wound up in a movie theater which led to dinner and rather than waste their money on dessert, they went to her apartment to finish off the slice of cheesecake in the refrigerator - the slice she ("oops, I forgot") finished off the week before. But better than that was the Amaretto in the cabinet - a sip on the sofa, a sip on the bedside, a sip spilled between the sheets.
Sin is a strange thing. Truth be told, this is exactly where he wanted to be but sin knows he would not have naively followed the steps that led to her door and so sin spun it around, told him he was going back to his old church to find God and perhaps to see her again. Bait and switch executed to perfection. Innocent compromises, little white lies exchanged between want and reason. Justifications, one after another, each more outrageous than the one before. Had he started the day in her bedroom, it would have been a simple thing to forego temptation and to walk away, but their affections had been building since noon, and the law of inertia is inflexible.
And now he looks at the tangle of folds on her bed, winces and looks away. He turns and surveys the rest of the room. He checks his watch and sees that there's time enough to make it to work. But he can't. He flips open his cell phone and calls in sick. And for good reason. He feels nauseous, violently ill, deathly. Up until yesterday, he had been faithful to the Lord. He was saving himself for marriage, for one woman forever. He had been steadfast, hard headed, adamant, even arrogant - holding himself above friends with less fortitude than he. But no more.
He drops the towel in the middle of the bathroom floor, turns the lights off, locks the door and rushes out to his car, parked in the street. He fumbles for his keys, drops them, curses. He finds the car key but somehow inserts it awkward and the bundle falls to the ground again. At last in the car he guns the engine and speeds away, barely missing the car parked parallel in front of him.
On the freeway, caught in traffic, he feels something new. Behind the guilt and shame, behind the anger at his careless self, behind the soft, lustful memories of skin, sensation, and the fiery, concussive consummation, there is something else. It's been so long that it takes him a while to recognize it but when he does, he hurls it away, tries to block it out of his mind but as absent as it's been these last few months, it's here now and he knows that God's not going anywhere. And what can one do to avoid the ironclad presence of God?
He surrenders and begs for unholy forgiveness. In this moment he understands what motivates the ascetic, flailing his body, ripping skin from flesh to show the Lord you're sorry because praying it just doesn't seem anywhere near enough. But he has no whips with which to render himself. All he has is prayer and these salty, slimy tears.
Past the traffic, through the streets, up the stairs, he's back home, finally. He's had his time with God and though a part of him wants to still feel guilty, to still feel sorry, the greater part of him knows that what's done is done and that God is still full of that amazing grace made manifest most clearly in his forgiveness. And so he simply gives thanks and praise and wonder and awe. He basks in the favor of God, lost in ineffable bliss until the buzz of his cellphone brings him back. He pulls it out of his pocket and sees her name on the caller ID display. And it's clear to him now, more than ever before, that while forgiveness is free and forever, consequences remain.
Sunday, January 8, 2006
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Hospital
Stitched, bandaged, pampered in a way. Interrogated, counseled, consoled. Now alone in her bed, hospital remote in hand. Buttons for the television, for the nurse, for the bed, for the lights. She turns everything off but keeps the bed back elevated. She closes her eyes, wants to sleep but knows sleep won't come. It's quiet, still. She's tired but still too full of ideas, questions, confusion. She tries to concentrate, to focus on one thing at a time, but they all seem layered, related, cross pollenated.
If her mind were a room, her thoughts would be a floor full of clutter piled in places from floor to ceiling. But back in the far corner, something is drawing her, compelling her, beckoning her towards itself with a subtle kind of warmth. It's the one still thing in the shifting mess. She pushes aside the tangle of thoughts towards this warmth but before she's two steps in its direction, she recoils and then freezes in her tracks when she recognizes its source.
The chaos in the room presses in upon her once again but the clutter is cold and the corner is warm. And so despite all the advice against it, she leans over the side of her bed, picks up the phone and calls home.
He picks up on the third ring. "Hello?" His voice sounds so small as he says it, as if he's been hollowed out.
"Hi, baby." She hadn't intended to use a term of endearment, it just slipped out as if by accident or by reflex habit.
"Janet, I. . ." He's caught off guard. He wants to say he's sorry but the word sounds so pathetic, so inadequate, so ridiculously cliched.
Hearing his voice, she's reminded of the home, the life they've built, the comfort and the safety. Despite all that's happened tonight, despite all that's been lost, she still longs for the comfort of home.
If her mind were a room, her thoughts would be a floor full of clutter piled in places from floor to ceiling. But back in the far corner, something is drawing her, compelling her, beckoning her towards itself with a subtle kind of warmth. It's the one still thing in the shifting mess. She pushes aside the tangle of thoughts towards this warmth but before she's two steps in its direction, she recoils and then freezes in her tracks when she recognizes its source.
The chaos in the room presses in upon her once again but the clutter is cold and the corner is warm. And so despite all the advice against it, she leans over the side of her bed, picks up the phone and calls home.
He picks up on the third ring. "Hello?" His voice sounds so small as he says it, as if he's been hollowed out.
"Hi, baby." She hadn't intended to use a term of endearment, it just slipped out as if by accident or by reflex habit.
"Janet, I. . ." He's caught off guard. He wants to say he's sorry but the word sounds so pathetic, so inadequate, so ridiculously cliched.
Hearing his voice, she's reminded of the home, the life they've built, the comfort and the safety. Despite all that's happened tonight, despite all that's been lost, she still longs for the comfort of home.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Bathroom Floor
On the bathroom floor, Laura is shaking, holding a baby blue towel to her nose, blood slowly turning it purple. A million thoughts swirl like the stars that circle her head. She's seen them before, these stars. She remembers a time when she thought stars circling one's head was just a silly cartoon convention. But then there was that night four years ago, the first time he hit her, that time between her jaw and her cheekbone. The world faded to black as her vision spun around along with her head. It was a slow dissolve, she saw the floor rising to meet her before things went entirely dark. She couldn't have been out for long because he was still standing where he had been that painful instant ago. The thought of what had happened had not settled upon her yet. Her ears were ringing and she shook her head to get her senses back. And then she saw them, little points of light, bright white centers with fiery orange edges. They orbited around her like tiny neon carousel horses.
And now here they were again doing the same mad laps around her head they did all those years ago. They flare and disappear, fewer and dimmer each time. But thoughts remain, all of them vying for equal time and attention. The thoughts take the form of fearsome questions – why did he, how could he, what did I, stay or go, where could I go, is my nose broken, how will I hide or explain the bruise. And on and on and around again, amplified with each recurrence. They cycle faster than she can think about, let alone answer, them. They pass through her almost viscerally, causing her to tremble.
She can feel her grip on the present moment loosening. A crack appears in the floor, a space large enough to get her fingers between the edges. She prys the hole open and finds that it expands effortlessly. There is darkness beyond, a kind of oblivion. It calls to her, beckons her forth, offering her the blissful tranquility of a mind unhinged - the luxury of soft thoughts, blurry edges, and kaleidoscope ideas. She eyes the opening, head cocked to the side like a puppy issued an unfamiliar command. The crack is widening on its own now, she retreats away from the inching edge. She scampers to the far bathroom wall. She is afforded a margin of safety but despite its sloth-like pace, the creep draws towards her.
She looks around for anything that would serve as a kind of defense. She gathers what ammunition she can and hurls it at the void - shampoo, conditioner, skin cream, and shavers. They are all swallowed, slowly as if dissolving into tar - held, in mid-air, aloft on the viscous surface of the widening maw. Its appetite is relentless, patient, endless.
Outside the door, he hears the clatter. Still unsure of himself, he hesitates then runs to the door. He knocks softly then calls her name. More items hit the floor and he hears something shatter. He knocks louder now, calls her name again, asks what's going on, pleads for some sort of response.
She is fixated on the hole in the floor, still carrying the items she's thrown at it. A kind of terror mutes her, as if cotton balls have been stuffed into her mouth. She wants to scream the void away but she makes no sound. From somewhere beyond the black mass she hears a sound, muted and indistinct. And yet, familiar. She cocks her ear towards the sound to get a better listen. She grabs the crystal vase that sometimes holds flowers, empty today, and launches it at the void. It too is caught, stuck, it hangs in the air like an unresolved chord.
And then that sound again, louder this time. The sound becomes a voice. She tries to divide her attention between the hole and that sound but it is nearly upon her. She can reach up and grab back the things she's thrown at it. But she does not. She cowers closer into the corner and shuts her eyes tight. Now, with her eyes closed, she listens again for the sound. It's him, he's calling to her. Fear of falling into the thick of the black hole replaces her fear of his violence. She whimpers his name and asks for help. The hole, as if in retaliation, presses in upon her faster now. She calls his name again, this time with full voice.
Over the surface of the ooze, she sees the door open. His face parts the darkness like the red sea. The items held aloft come crashing to the ground. She bolts through the center of it and rushes at him. She wraps her arms around him. The unexpected impact catches him off guard and he takes a step back to absorb the inertia. He is bewildered but decides to make the best of it. He wraps his arms around her in return.
And then like a SWAT team Flash-Bang canister, like a fast-ball into a catcher's mitt, reality snaps back into place and she remembers it all - his fist, the pain, the blood. She recoils away from him, pushing him away again with a mixture of horror and revulsion. She looks back and sees the mess she's made, the broken vase. And something entirely unfamiliar, red pools of blood that she does not recognize - she bled from her nose on to her dress and into the towel but not on the floor. An awareness of a new pain comes upon her, not from her nose but from her feet. It shoots up her leg now and she crumbles. She pulls her foot around and sees three, maybe four tiny but not insignificant glass shards gleaming ruby, bloody red.
She closes her eyes and cries. She buries her face in her hands but her nose explodes with pain. She releases a yelp then returns to the business of her tears, hands at her side, palms up, resting on the floor.
"I'll call for help," he says and runs for a phone. More lost than ever, he is glad, in a way, to have this task - in the mad confusion of the last few minutes, calling for help is the only ordered thing he's been able to do. He wants to think - of her, of what to say next, of what to do, of what she was going through in there, of what's become of her, of what's become of them - but he forces himself to concentrate on these orderly steps: get the phone, call for help, get the phone, call for help. Over and over again until it's done.
He picks up the phone, looks at the dial pad, and tries to remember the number for an emergency. Get the phone, call for help. Step by step, one thing at a time. He presses the numbers: nine, one, one. He focuses on necessary details only. He stays on the line with the operator until help arrives. A fire truck, an ambulance - first responders. And then a police car. Questions are asked, reports are made, she is taken to the hospital, he is instructed to stay away the mandatory twenty-four hours following any incident of domestic violence. He does not argue with the authorities.
After everyone is gone he surveys the apartment. For all that's happened, so little has changed as far as appearances go. That seems wrong somehow, incongruous. He returns to the one place where evidence of what has transpired still remains. The blood on the bathroom floor has coagulated and dried. It looks nearly black now. He thinks to clean but then his cell phone rings. He answers it where he stands, "hello?" His manager asks him about the report due in tomorrow. He does not answer. He just keeps looking at the mess on the bathroom floor.
And now here they were again doing the same mad laps around her head they did all those years ago. They flare and disappear, fewer and dimmer each time. But thoughts remain, all of them vying for equal time and attention. The thoughts take the form of fearsome questions – why did he, how could he, what did I, stay or go, where could I go, is my nose broken, how will I hide or explain the bruise. And on and on and around again, amplified with each recurrence. They cycle faster than she can think about, let alone answer, them. They pass through her almost viscerally, causing her to tremble.
She can feel her grip on the present moment loosening. A crack appears in the floor, a space large enough to get her fingers between the edges. She prys the hole open and finds that it expands effortlessly. There is darkness beyond, a kind of oblivion. It calls to her, beckons her forth, offering her the blissful tranquility of a mind unhinged - the luxury of soft thoughts, blurry edges, and kaleidoscope ideas. She eyes the opening, head cocked to the side like a puppy issued an unfamiliar command. The crack is widening on its own now, she retreats away from the inching edge. She scampers to the far bathroom wall. She is afforded a margin of safety but despite its sloth-like pace, the creep draws towards her.
She looks around for anything that would serve as a kind of defense. She gathers what ammunition she can and hurls it at the void - shampoo, conditioner, skin cream, and shavers. They are all swallowed, slowly as if dissolving into tar - held, in mid-air, aloft on the viscous surface of the widening maw. Its appetite is relentless, patient, endless.
Outside the door, he hears the clatter. Still unsure of himself, he hesitates then runs to the door. He knocks softly then calls her name. More items hit the floor and he hears something shatter. He knocks louder now, calls her name again, asks what's going on, pleads for some sort of response.
She is fixated on the hole in the floor, still carrying the items she's thrown at it. A kind of terror mutes her, as if cotton balls have been stuffed into her mouth. She wants to scream the void away but she makes no sound. From somewhere beyond the black mass she hears a sound, muted and indistinct. And yet, familiar. She cocks her ear towards the sound to get a better listen. She grabs the crystal vase that sometimes holds flowers, empty today, and launches it at the void. It too is caught, stuck, it hangs in the air like an unresolved chord.
And then that sound again, louder this time. The sound becomes a voice. She tries to divide her attention between the hole and that sound but it is nearly upon her. She can reach up and grab back the things she's thrown at it. But she does not. She cowers closer into the corner and shuts her eyes tight. Now, with her eyes closed, she listens again for the sound. It's him, he's calling to her. Fear of falling into the thick of the black hole replaces her fear of his violence. She whimpers his name and asks for help. The hole, as if in retaliation, presses in upon her faster now. She calls his name again, this time with full voice.
Over the surface of the ooze, she sees the door open. His face parts the darkness like the red sea. The items held aloft come crashing to the ground. She bolts through the center of it and rushes at him. She wraps her arms around him. The unexpected impact catches him off guard and he takes a step back to absorb the inertia. He is bewildered but decides to make the best of it. He wraps his arms around her in return.
And then like a SWAT team Flash-Bang canister, like a fast-ball into a catcher's mitt, reality snaps back into place and she remembers it all - his fist, the pain, the blood. She recoils away from him, pushing him away again with a mixture of horror and revulsion. She looks back and sees the mess she's made, the broken vase. And something entirely unfamiliar, red pools of blood that she does not recognize - she bled from her nose on to her dress and into the towel but not on the floor. An awareness of a new pain comes upon her, not from her nose but from her feet. It shoots up her leg now and she crumbles. She pulls her foot around and sees three, maybe four tiny but not insignificant glass shards gleaming ruby, bloody red.
She closes her eyes and cries. She buries her face in her hands but her nose explodes with pain. She releases a yelp then returns to the business of her tears, hands at her side, palms up, resting on the floor.
"I'll call for help," he says and runs for a phone. More lost than ever, he is glad, in a way, to have this task - in the mad confusion of the last few minutes, calling for help is the only ordered thing he's been able to do. He wants to think - of her, of what to say next, of what to do, of what she was going through in there, of what's become of her, of what's become of them - but he forces himself to concentrate on these orderly steps: get the phone, call for help, get the phone, call for help. Over and over again until it's done.
He picks up the phone, looks at the dial pad, and tries to remember the number for an emergency. Get the phone, call for help. Step by step, one thing at a time. He presses the numbers: nine, one, one. He focuses on necessary details only. He stays on the line with the operator until help arrives. A fire truck, an ambulance - first responders. And then a police car. Questions are asked, reports are made, she is taken to the hospital, he is instructed to stay away the mandatory twenty-four hours following any incident of domestic violence. He does not argue with the authorities.
After everyone is gone he surveys the apartment. For all that's happened, so little has changed as far as appearances go. That seems wrong somehow, incongruous. He returns to the one place where evidence of what has transpired still remains. The blood on the bathroom floor has coagulated and dried. It looks nearly black now. He thinks to clean but then his cell phone rings. He answers it where he stands, "hello?" His manager asks him about the report due in tomorrow. He does not answer. He just keeps looking at the mess on the bathroom floor.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Duffel Bag
She turns her attention from the man knocking his head against the window to her duffel bag in her lap, to the task at hand. As she understands it, there are two kinds of pivotal moments in life. There are the ones that are thrust upon you, like the day a child gets killed by a drunk driver, the day a tornado splinters your house, the day the plane you're flying slams into the North Tower. And then there are the ones you thrust upon the world. Hers will be of the second sort, and what a thrust this shall be.
She runs the checklist through in her head. She opens the zipper just so, reaches in and inventories the items one by one by touch. Under normal circumstances, the whole scenario would be an impossible thing to attempt but for her, it's as natural as Darwinian evolution.
It's bitter fruit, it took time to grow, it was nurtured by good intentions gone wrong, principles imposed upon her as prison, guidelines enforced as law, opportunities to volunteer unmasked as obligations to serve. The church where she worshiped was ripe with promises - promises with a price. A lesson in service became a commitment to help out in what they called, Children's Church - a place where elementary school kids could go to learn about Jesus away from the more mature service that their parents attended. This service, she was told, would be seen by God as a seed that would reap a harvest of blessings - financial, social, spiritual, you name it. The transactional nature of the promised exchange was not spelled out in so many words but stripped to its essence, that's what it boiled down to.
And so she served in this ministry for which she had no passion, no aptitude, no experience. It was frustrating and stressful and when she made mention of leaving it became an exercise in guilt management, an exercise she was not able to win. And so she served. In the end she was only able to break free by simply not showing up. And so one Sunday morning she made the right turn to the mall instead of the left turn to the church. She turned off her cell phone and went from sale to sale and to stores whose wares were not on sale.
At home that night, there were five messages on her answering machine, thirteen on her cell phone. She deleted them all. When she finally got the call, she was not polite, she did not waste her time, she simply told them she was done, this was not a break, this was her telling them she wasn't coming back.
It wasn't like her to be so curt, but she was done placating them.
And the blessings never came. All the time, energy, and frustrations she had sowed, all the ink marks that wouldn't come out of her dress, the bruises from falling over misplaced toys, all the crow she had to swallow from parents with unreasonable demands. From all of that, she did not reap a harvest of blessings. Instead, she found she had grown a bitter tree. It reeked of disdain and scorn for the church. It was gnarled - it's limbs twisted in some awful macabre pose. There were no leaves, no flowers, no fruit save for one bright red bulb clinging to the topmost branch. She took and ate of it and the poison birthed the plans she was now carrying out. Step by step, note by note, wrong by wrong.
She runs the checklist through in her head. She opens the zipper just so, reaches in and inventories the items one by one by touch. Under normal circumstances, the whole scenario would be an impossible thing to attempt but for her, it's as natural as Darwinian evolution.
It's bitter fruit, it took time to grow, it was nurtured by good intentions gone wrong, principles imposed upon her as prison, guidelines enforced as law, opportunities to volunteer unmasked as obligations to serve. The church where she worshiped was ripe with promises - promises with a price. A lesson in service became a commitment to help out in what they called, Children's Church - a place where elementary school kids could go to learn about Jesus away from the more mature service that their parents attended. This service, she was told, would be seen by God as a seed that would reap a harvest of blessings - financial, social, spiritual, you name it. The transactional nature of the promised exchange was not spelled out in so many words but stripped to its essence, that's what it boiled down to.
And so she served in this ministry for which she had no passion, no aptitude, no experience. It was frustrating and stressful and when she made mention of leaving it became an exercise in guilt management, an exercise she was not able to win. And so she served. In the end she was only able to break free by simply not showing up. And so one Sunday morning she made the right turn to the mall instead of the left turn to the church. She turned off her cell phone and went from sale to sale and to stores whose wares were not on sale.
At home that night, there were five messages on her answering machine, thirteen on her cell phone. She deleted them all. When she finally got the call, she was not polite, she did not waste her time, she simply told them she was done, this was not a break, this was her telling them she wasn't coming back.
It wasn't like her to be so curt, but she was done placating them.
And the blessings never came. All the time, energy, and frustrations she had sowed, all the ink marks that wouldn't come out of her dress, the bruises from falling over misplaced toys, all the crow she had to swallow from parents with unreasonable demands. From all of that, she did not reap a harvest of blessings. Instead, she found she had grown a bitter tree. It reeked of disdain and scorn for the church. It was gnarled - it's limbs twisted in some awful macabre pose. There were no leaves, no flowers, no fruit save for one bright red bulb clinging to the topmost branch. She took and ate of it and the poison birthed the plans she was now carrying out. Step by step, note by note, wrong by wrong.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Prayer
At home now, Chad goes straight to his bed. He falls into the center of it, belly down, face planted in feather down pillow. Back from church, he feels as empty as ever. And he wonders what the point is. All this talk of hearing from God, all this talk about the love of Jesus, all this talk about God as a father figure. It's all theory and talk to him. It's not that the doesn't believe, even this anguish cannot separate him from his belief. But he's tired of belief. He's hungry for experience and that is what all these churches are failing to provide.
He knows better than to approach the pastor or one of the staff persons with his problems. He knows all too well that they will invite him to get more involved, to immerse himself into their "community." And it sounds appealing but without fail, an invitation to community turns out to be the first step into turning him into a cog to run the industry of the church. "Get involved," they say. "Be a part of something larger than yourself." And it sounds like something meaningful but it's a fishing expedition. They want to know what you can do and how they can use your talents to oil the machinery of the church.
As a scientist, geekery is part of his DNA and so he ends up behind some computer screen running a PowerPoint presentation of the sermon or editing ministry summary videos or worst of all, running the sound system. And it kills him because so often, he volunteered himself. He wanted to help, he wanted to be a part. He believed that this was a way to be a part of the Body of Christ as written about in the Bible. He thought this was living out the command to put others before yourself, to serve rather than be served. And he's not sure, maybe those acts did garner for him some treasure awaiting him in heaven, but he's come to understand that the Gospel is not just about good news in the life to come, it's about good news for the here and now - on earth as it is in heaven.
And it's there where he cannot reconcile surface to soul. He can understand the new life to come in the then and there but as for what to make of the here and now, he has no idea and the church is not offering any useful clues. It's frustrating because he can see the whole of it but it's the particulars that are hard to grasp. Christianity as he understands it is about ordering the world around the design that God made for it. This does not mean killing abortionists or banishing gays from our midst. It means learning how to love one another. It means understanding that no one, not one of us is any better than anybody else. We are all capable of unspeakable acts of depravity and wrath. It's the threat of consequences that haunts us, that corrals us, that makes society safe. But this is a thin veneer. We get away with what we can and test the limits. Christianity for him is about leveling the playing field, seeing everyone as one's brother and sister - a grand family living under the starry roof of the sky. It's utopian and idealistic, he knows, but he believes it's possible and true. It's easy enough to know that things are not as they should be. It's much harder to go past what shouldn't be and dare to envision things as they could.
This is the grand vision that enlivens him. As he understands it, Christians should be agents ushering in this ideal. He believes that the vision in the Bible of separating wheat from chaff is not a process of delineating between saved and unsaved (as the church is all too apt to do) but about gleaning the useful from the useless - and the standard is not a utilitarian one, it is about community and harmony and justice - the order of God's design. Put that way, he realizes he sounds like a hippy on good weed, but he doesn't care. He would rather believe that this is the aim of the Christian church than the thought that it's about getting people to pray some magical prayer, a list of words staring with sinner and ending with Jesus' name. He's seen it far too many times - Christians who will orchestrate the "salvation" of a friend, cajoling them into praying some prayer imprinted into the back of a tract, wearing them down until they capitulate and pray this thing called the sinner's prayer. Once they pull this off, they go about guilting him into getting his friends to pray this prayer. This is nothing but bullshit voodoo Christianity and he refuses to have any part of it.
But he also believes that this grossly misled church is God's agent of change - this broken, misled, institution is supposed to be the beacon, the light, the example. Instead, it's the wedge, the dividing line, the fortress that keeps the evil out in hopes of offering safety within. But it's a lie. Statistics show that life within the walls is no safer, no better, no happier than life without.
And so here, on this bed, he feels small, disconnected, misunderstood. The very church where he should find allies has become the den of thieves that Christ threw out of the temple two thousand years ago. It is so missing the point. It is blissfully, arrogantly, self-righteously passing judgment on the rest of society. What should be the source of solution has become a troubling problem. It confuses comfort with conformity and as such longs for control.
All these grand accusations. He's not above turning the mirror back on himself. He knows that he is just as much a part of the problem for not speaking up. What is he doing with his money, his talent, his resources that's so different from what the church does with theirs? He likes to believe that if he were to find a church with right vision, right heart, right understand of it's mission that he would sign on and join in the struggle, but the fact is that absence is no excuse for inaction. He sees the homeless on the street, at the intersections, on park benches. He passes them by with the same excuses, the same justifications. He sees the plight of suffering overseas but he turns the page and works on the crossword or sudoku puzzle instead.
It's an endless cycle of self-loathing. He hates the church, he hates himself. Everywhere he looks, it's all so wrong, so broken, so basically fucked up. Top to bottom, east to west. Where does one even begin. On his bed, he turns onto his back, looks at the ceiling for a second then closes his eyes. He prays for comfort, for understanding. He prays that he would know that God is there behind it all, that God is hearing him, that he is indeed loved as the Bible tells him so. He asks and he asks and he asks until they blur together, until sleep descends upon him.
In the corner of the room, the angel sits weeping into her wings. He gets it, he understands, he sees things as they should be and he feels so powerless. She wishes she could rouse him, reveal to him the potential, the power, the possibilities available to him. She weeps because she cannot, not yet, not without command. She so longs to burst the tiny bubble of love he's buried deep within his heart, buried, locked, walled, encased away. He's known so much heartache, so much disappointment, so much deception, so much misunderstanding peddled to him as truth, so much guilt heaped upon him in unwanted servings. She weeps for him. She gathers his prayers, picks them like flower petals up off the floor. And when she is sure that he is is asleep, she packs them away in the folds of her tunic. She walks out of the corner, unfurls her wings and with a rush of something like wind, something like fire, she ascends. In an instant she is gone.
He stirs for an instant, opens his eyes and sees something wispy, like the light grey smoke strands off of incense sticks. But before he can focus, before his mind can catalog the effect assigning it to meaning, it is gone. Maybe it wasn't there, maybe it was just the murk of sleep. He closes his eyes again and turns on his side. He pulls the covers up over himself with his free hand.
He knows better than to approach the pastor or one of the staff persons with his problems. He knows all too well that they will invite him to get more involved, to immerse himself into their "community." And it sounds appealing but without fail, an invitation to community turns out to be the first step into turning him into a cog to run the industry of the church. "Get involved," they say. "Be a part of something larger than yourself." And it sounds like something meaningful but it's a fishing expedition. They want to know what you can do and how they can use your talents to oil the machinery of the church.
As a scientist, geekery is part of his DNA and so he ends up behind some computer screen running a PowerPoint presentation of the sermon or editing ministry summary videos or worst of all, running the sound system. And it kills him because so often, he volunteered himself. He wanted to help, he wanted to be a part. He believed that this was a way to be a part of the Body of Christ as written about in the Bible. He thought this was living out the command to put others before yourself, to serve rather than be served. And he's not sure, maybe those acts did garner for him some treasure awaiting him in heaven, but he's come to understand that the Gospel is not just about good news in the life to come, it's about good news for the here and now - on earth as it is in heaven.
And it's there where he cannot reconcile surface to soul. He can understand the new life to come in the then and there but as for what to make of the here and now, he has no idea and the church is not offering any useful clues. It's frustrating because he can see the whole of it but it's the particulars that are hard to grasp. Christianity as he understands it is about ordering the world around the design that God made for it. This does not mean killing abortionists or banishing gays from our midst. It means learning how to love one another. It means understanding that no one, not one of us is any better than anybody else. We are all capable of unspeakable acts of depravity and wrath. It's the threat of consequences that haunts us, that corrals us, that makes society safe. But this is a thin veneer. We get away with what we can and test the limits. Christianity for him is about leveling the playing field, seeing everyone as one's brother and sister - a grand family living under the starry roof of the sky. It's utopian and idealistic, he knows, but he believes it's possible and true. It's easy enough to know that things are not as they should be. It's much harder to go past what shouldn't be and dare to envision things as they could.
This is the grand vision that enlivens him. As he understands it, Christians should be agents ushering in this ideal. He believes that the vision in the Bible of separating wheat from chaff is not a process of delineating between saved and unsaved (as the church is all too apt to do) but about gleaning the useful from the useless - and the standard is not a utilitarian one, it is about community and harmony and justice - the order of God's design. Put that way, he realizes he sounds like a hippy on good weed, but he doesn't care. He would rather believe that this is the aim of the Christian church than the thought that it's about getting people to pray some magical prayer, a list of words staring with sinner and ending with Jesus' name. He's seen it far too many times - Christians who will orchestrate the "salvation" of a friend, cajoling them into praying some prayer imprinted into the back of a tract, wearing them down until they capitulate and pray this thing called the sinner's prayer. Once they pull this off, they go about guilting him into getting his friends to pray this prayer. This is nothing but bullshit voodoo Christianity and he refuses to have any part of it.
But he also believes that this grossly misled church is God's agent of change - this broken, misled, institution is supposed to be the beacon, the light, the example. Instead, it's the wedge, the dividing line, the fortress that keeps the evil out in hopes of offering safety within. But it's a lie. Statistics show that life within the walls is no safer, no better, no happier than life without.
And so here, on this bed, he feels small, disconnected, misunderstood. The very church where he should find allies has become the den of thieves that Christ threw out of the temple two thousand years ago. It is so missing the point. It is blissfully, arrogantly, self-righteously passing judgment on the rest of society. What should be the source of solution has become a troubling problem. It confuses comfort with conformity and as such longs for control.
All these grand accusations. He's not above turning the mirror back on himself. He knows that he is just as much a part of the problem for not speaking up. What is he doing with his money, his talent, his resources that's so different from what the church does with theirs? He likes to believe that if he were to find a church with right vision, right heart, right understand of it's mission that he would sign on and join in the struggle, but the fact is that absence is no excuse for inaction. He sees the homeless on the street, at the intersections, on park benches. He passes them by with the same excuses, the same justifications. He sees the plight of suffering overseas but he turns the page and works on the crossword or sudoku puzzle instead.
It's an endless cycle of self-loathing. He hates the church, he hates himself. Everywhere he looks, it's all so wrong, so broken, so basically fucked up. Top to bottom, east to west. Where does one even begin. On his bed, he turns onto his back, looks at the ceiling for a second then closes his eyes. He prays for comfort, for understanding. He prays that he would know that God is there behind it all, that God is hearing him, that he is indeed loved as the Bible tells him so. He asks and he asks and he asks until they blur together, until sleep descends upon him.
In the corner of the room, the angel sits weeping into her wings. He gets it, he understands, he sees things as they should be and he feels so powerless. She wishes she could rouse him, reveal to him the potential, the power, the possibilities available to him. She weeps because she cannot, not yet, not without command. She so longs to burst the tiny bubble of love he's buried deep within his heart, buried, locked, walled, encased away. He's known so much heartache, so much disappointment, so much deception, so much misunderstanding peddled to him as truth, so much guilt heaped upon him in unwanted servings. She weeps for him. She gathers his prayers, picks them like flower petals up off the floor. And when she is sure that he is is asleep, she packs them away in the folds of her tunic. She walks out of the corner, unfurls her wings and with a rush of something like wind, something like fire, she ascends. In an instant she is gone.
He stirs for an instant, opens his eyes and sees something wispy, like the light grey smoke strands off of incense sticks. But before he can focus, before his mind can catalog the effect assigning it to meaning, it is gone. Maybe it wasn't there, maybe it was just the murk of sleep. He closes his eyes again and turns on his side. He pulls the covers up over himself with his free hand.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Domestic
He can't believe he's done it again. After all this time, after all these years without incident, after he finally came to understand that apologies no longer needed to be made. After all that, here he is again - his love in the bathroom, bleeding into a towel, bleeding from her nose which he broke with his hand, curled into a fist. After all this time. After all the trust had been pieced back together, bit by tiny bit, each bit pasted to the next by the glue of time and experience - words are not enough to hold these things together.
Rebuilding trust. It's like building a tower of cards with mittens on. The world changes. What was once a peaceful landscape becomes foreign soil with land-mines lurking beneath the surface. You want so much for things to be as they were but they never will be again. The best you can do is to remake the relationship in this newly reconfigured land.
It was hard work but he had done it. More accurately, they had done it together for this is not a work that can be done alone. Life had returned to routine, in a good way.
And then it happened. A conspiracy of unfortunate coincidences. First there was the deadline at work. He had written it down wrong and what he thought was due next week was due tomorrow and he didn't know how he would make up for all that lost time. And then there was the flat tire on the way home, the second one this month. Right in the heart of rush hour, right in the middle of the freeway - all those horns and the middle fingers and the "get-the-fuck-off-the-roads." He made it to the side of the freeway without damaging his rim but there was no median and so the cars behind him had to make their way around. As he was changing his tire he could seek the pile-up he was causing but what could he do? Just as he was lowering the car back down to the road, someone in a passing vehicle flung a cup of soda at him, hitting him in the back above his right shoulder. The cup exploded and the cold soaked him down to his shoes. He turned to find the culprit but all he found was a sea of pointing fingers and laughing faces.
Finally home, finally safe or so he thought. Two steps into the front door and all he wants is to change out of his clothes and get back down to his car to try and dry the seat off. Three steps into the door and his wife rounds the corner talking on the cordless. She almost knocks him over and before he can even say hello, she peppers him with complaints and unjust accusations - "you're wet, I was going to wear this dress our for our dinner tonight, what do you mean you can't go, what deadline, you're dripping on the carpet, this stain will never come out, I just bought this dress, why are you so late, when can we get the tire fixed, open your eyes, are you listening. . ."
At her request, he opened his eyes and it was as if his apartment had become a darkroom lit by red safe lights. The edges of his peripheral vision were blurry. In front of him was his wife's face, distorted, turned inside out, yelling at him through a blob of a black hole. He did not see his wife, he saw this warped face. A signal in his brain went out hurling towards a fork between two neurons, one for flight, one for fight. A tiny electrical impulse hung for an instant in the synapse space between the two. He blinked, the signal chose a course and a fist came circling round. It arced through the air, it gathered speed, force, inertia, intent. And just before it made contact her face snapped into focus, the world returned to normal, he became aware of himself and of her self and his fist but it was too late.
He remembers the sound, a squishy thud, nothing like the concussive sound foley artists made for movie fight scenes. He remembers the surprise and then the shock in her eyes. He remembers how plastic, clay-like the side of her face felt as his fist poured into her flesh. He remembers the bones in his hand compressing, the newtonian exchange of forces. He remembers the follow through and the recoil as her head turned back towards him. And then there was the sound of her scream, short, sharp, piercing him, slicing straight through the center of him. And then the blood. And then the absurd realization of what he had just done.
Fear in her eyes, fear that he had planted there. The act was over, he was back in the present - his mind clear, lucid, plain. But the train of consequences had already left the station, there was no stopping it now. She turned and ran. He followed after her wanting only to apologize, to take back what had already been delivered. She ran from him thinking that he was chasing after her to strike again. She screamed for him to stop, to leave her alone, to go away. He pursued her, wanting to hold her, to explain what could not be excused. He saw his love fleeing from him and for a moment he was close enough to grab her shoulder, to stop her from escaping. He reached for her but then let her go. He had no right to ever touch her again, he understood that much, and so he let her go.
She ran into the bathroom and he fell down on his knees, bewildered, lost, powerless, empty. His face contorted into a shape it had never held before, as if all the muscles in his face conspired against one another, twisting themselves in opposite directions. He let out a scream that was primitive, animal, unnatural. It rose from his bowels, tore through his torso and spewed forth. For a second he thought he had vomited, but only sound had exited past his lips. He buried his face in his hands and screamed again. And then there was silence. And then through the silence he heard her weeping behind the bathroom door.
Rebuilding trust. It's like building a tower of cards with mittens on. The world changes. What was once a peaceful landscape becomes foreign soil with land-mines lurking beneath the surface. You want so much for things to be as they were but they never will be again. The best you can do is to remake the relationship in this newly reconfigured land.
It was hard work but he had done it. More accurately, they had done it together for this is not a work that can be done alone. Life had returned to routine, in a good way.
And then it happened. A conspiracy of unfortunate coincidences. First there was the deadline at work. He had written it down wrong and what he thought was due next week was due tomorrow and he didn't know how he would make up for all that lost time. And then there was the flat tire on the way home, the second one this month. Right in the heart of rush hour, right in the middle of the freeway - all those horns and the middle fingers and the "get-the-fuck-off-the-roads." He made it to the side of the freeway without damaging his rim but there was no median and so the cars behind him had to make their way around. As he was changing his tire he could seek the pile-up he was causing but what could he do? Just as he was lowering the car back down to the road, someone in a passing vehicle flung a cup of soda at him, hitting him in the back above his right shoulder. The cup exploded and the cold soaked him down to his shoes. He turned to find the culprit but all he found was a sea of pointing fingers and laughing faces.
Finally home, finally safe or so he thought. Two steps into the front door and all he wants is to change out of his clothes and get back down to his car to try and dry the seat off. Three steps into the door and his wife rounds the corner talking on the cordless. She almost knocks him over and before he can even say hello, she peppers him with complaints and unjust accusations - "you're wet, I was going to wear this dress our for our dinner tonight, what do you mean you can't go, what deadline, you're dripping on the carpet, this stain will never come out, I just bought this dress, why are you so late, when can we get the tire fixed, open your eyes, are you listening. . ."
At her request, he opened his eyes and it was as if his apartment had become a darkroom lit by red safe lights. The edges of his peripheral vision were blurry. In front of him was his wife's face, distorted, turned inside out, yelling at him through a blob of a black hole. He did not see his wife, he saw this warped face. A signal in his brain went out hurling towards a fork between two neurons, one for flight, one for fight. A tiny electrical impulse hung for an instant in the synapse space between the two. He blinked, the signal chose a course and a fist came circling round. It arced through the air, it gathered speed, force, inertia, intent. And just before it made contact her face snapped into focus, the world returned to normal, he became aware of himself and of her self and his fist but it was too late.
He remembers the sound, a squishy thud, nothing like the concussive sound foley artists made for movie fight scenes. He remembers the surprise and then the shock in her eyes. He remembers how plastic, clay-like the side of her face felt as his fist poured into her flesh. He remembers the bones in his hand compressing, the newtonian exchange of forces. He remembers the follow through and the recoil as her head turned back towards him. And then there was the sound of her scream, short, sharp, piercing him, slicing straight through the center of him. And then the blood. And then the absurd realization of what he had just done.
Fear in her eyes, fear that he had planted there. The act was over, he was back in the present - his mind clear, lucid, plain. But the train of consequences had already left the station, there was no stopping it now. She turned and ran. He followed after her wanting only to apologize, to take back what had already been delivered. She ran from him thinking that he was chasing after her to strike again. She screamed for him to stop, to leave her alone, to go away. He pursued her, wanting to hold her, to explain what could not be excused. He saw his love fleeing from him and for a moment he was close enough to grab her shoulder, to stop her from escaping. He reached for her but then let her go. He had no right to ever touch her again, he understood that much, and so he let her go.
She ran into the bathroom and he fell down on his knees, bewildered, lost, powerless, empty. His face contorted into a shape it had never held before, as if all the muscles in his face conspired against one another, twisting themselves in opposite directions. He let out a scream that was primitive, animal, unnatural. It rose from his bowels, tore through his torso and spewed forth. For a second he thought he had vomited, but only sound had exited past his lips. He buried his face in his hands and screamed again. And then there was silence. And then through the silence he heard her weeping behind the bathroom door.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Agents
David remembers the hardest lesson he had to learn about generosity. He remembers Leonard, the kid genius with the mind and the manners of a machine. It's started innocently enough.He was at the helm - his pet term for his office desk. It's a modest office in the corner of his four bedroom home - one of the first things he bought with his lottery money. In front of him is a bank of three flat-screen LCD monitors. This is where he keeps track of the people he's trying to help. He'd been looking for a new prospect, something bigger, something bold and ambitious. He really wanted to turn someone's world inside out in the best way possible, but he's not sure how or with whom. And so he scrolls down the list of pending candidates.
At first, he would find his subjects himself. He would peruse various venture capital message boards or attend invention conventions and trade shows - anywhere he could think to find untapped talent, he'd be there. He always had his finger in the wind, but what he wanted was to go after people under the radar - people who had a great idea or a great talent but for reasons financial or psychological, felt that they didn't have what it took to get to the next level.
With this in mind, he went about assembling a team of researchers - people in various fields who were in a position to keep their ear to the ground, people who would beat the grass trying to ferret out undiscovered talent. These people would attend small, community art shows in search of potential genius. They worked in publishing houses and flagged authors who showed promise. He had former patent and intellectual property lawyers who made note of novel, potentially breakthrough ideas. He'd managed to assemble quite a menagerie of agents, all signed on to the task, all passionate about what they did.
He called them all together for a meeting. He wanted to get their input on his grand new pursuit and they caught the vision like a baby catches cold, like a forest catches fire. They put their feelers out, scoured their area of expertise. They were exhaustive about their search, but subtle at the same time - they didn't want it to get out that the anonymous benefactor (who was quickly going from rumor to myth, legend) was on the prowl for a new needy genius.
Every other week they'd meet in David's conference room and pass potential candidates around. The air in those meetings was delicious, electric, even volatile at times. They knew the person they chose would be granted resources beyond his or her wildest dreams. The world would open up to them and nothing would be out of reach. They were in the business of launching unknown talent into the stratosphere.
They went about the hard work of whittling down the choices. There was the man from Iowa who was had some novel ideas about a hybrid form of ethanol which had the potential to render our dependance on fossil fuels irrelevant. He had synthesized small supplies of his new fuel (code named bethanol, after his girlfriend) but it was unrefined and would clog intake valves and fuel pumps. The hope was that with the correct filtering process, the energy yield could potentially be comparable to that of gasoline. And then there was the problem of production. Lacking proper resources, the process was as much art as science and it took months to synthesize just a liter of the stuff.
There was the woman in the planes of Nebraska who'd created a brave new instrument, part bowed string, part resonating brass. The sounds was striking, part cello, part French horn. Her prototype was fragile, clumsy, awkward to play. Currently it was a single stringed instrument but she had ideas for a multi-stringed version in mind. Parts would have to be machined and the brass would have to be drawn and hammered to specific specifications. More than that, she needed a composer who could wrap this strangely beautiful new sound around compositions that would test its limits and explore its round, handsome, burnished voice.
There was the clock maker who wanted to resurrect the bell tower design. In his mind, the modern world revolved around time and as such, timepieces should be the centerpiece of any town square. Clocks should be celebrated and as such, he had designs that completely exploded the ubiquitous round face, minute and hour hand design. His clocks were marvels of function packed into entirely new forms. Though unfamiliar, they were easy to understand. Blocks, colors, contours were the new symbols of time, but this was not merely some abstraction that required one to relearn the language of time. Rather, it's central design motif was seen as a kind of map of the fourth dimension. He got the idea from Einstein who recognized that time could be seen as a spatial as well as a temporal quantity. The designs were simple, but their large scale was integral to it's success.
At first, he would find his subjects himself. He would peruse various venture capital message boards or attend invention conventions and trade shows - anywhere he could think to find untapped talent, he'd be there. He always had his finger in the wind, but what he wanted was to go after people under the radar - people who had a great idea or a great talent but for reasons financial or psychological, felt that they didn't have what it took to get to the next level.
With this in mind, he went about assembling a team of researchers - people in various fields who were in a position to keep their ear to the ground, people who would beat the grass trying to ferret out undiscovered talent. These people would attend small, community art shows in search of potential genius. They worked in publishing houses and flagged authors who showed promise. He had former patent and intellectual property lawyers who made note of novel, potentially breakthrough ideas. He'd managed to assemble quite a menagerie of agents, all signed on to the task, all passionate about what they did.
He called them all together for a meeting. He wanted to get their input on his grand new pursuit and they caught the vision like a baby catches cold, like a forest catches fire. They put their feelers out, scoured their area of expertise. They were exhaustive about their search, but subtle at the same time - they didn't want it to get out that the anonymous benefactor (who was quickly going from rumor to myth, legend) was on the prowl for a new needy genius.
Every other week they'd meet in David's conference room and pass potential candidates around. The air in those meetings was delicious, electric, even volatile at times. They knew the person they chose would be granted resources beyond his or her wildest dreams. The world would open up to them and nothing would be out of reach. They were in the business of launching unknown talent into the stratosphere.
They went about the hard work of whittling down the choices. There was the man from Iowa who was had some novel ideas about a hybrid form of ethanol which had the potential to render our dependance on fossil fuels irrelevant. He had synthesized small supplies of his new fuel (code named bethanol, after his girlfriend) but it was unrefined and would clog intake valves and fuel pumps. The hope was that with the correct filtering process, the energy yield could potentially be comparable to that of gasoline. And then there was the problem of production. Lacking proper resources, the process was as much art as science and it took months to synthesize just a liter of the stuff.
There was the woman in the planes of Nebraska who'd created a brave new instrument, part bowed string, part resonating brass. The sounds was striking, part cello, part French horn. Her prototype was fragile, clumsy, awkward to play. Currently it was a single stringed instrument but she had ideas for a multi-stringed version in mind. Parts would have to be machined and the brass would have to be drawn and hammered to specific specifications. More than that, she needed a composer who could wrap this strangely beautiful new sound around compositions that would test its limits and explore its round, handsome, burnished voice.
There was the clock maker who wanted to resurrect the bell tower design. In his mind, the modern world revolved around time and as such, timepieces should be the centerpiece of any town square. Clocks should be celebrated and as such, he had designs that completely exploded the ubiquitous round face, minute and hour hand design. His clocks were marvels of function packed into entirely new forms. Though unfamiliar, they were easy to understand. Blocks, colors, contours were the new symbols of time, but this was not merely some abstraction that required one to relearn the language of time. Rather, it's central design motif was seen as a kind of map of the fourth dimension. He got the idea from Einstein who recognized that time could be seen as a spatial as well as a temporal quantity. The designs were simple, but their large scale was integral to it's success.