starring rori.
Category: Faith
I gave up not writing. I gave up self hate, apologizing for myself, self-righteousness and self-justification. I gave up being ruled by fear. I gave up saying no, and not paying attention, and living to please other people.
What I got was words and love for myself and others. An old friend, some new friends. I got brave and humbled. I saw. I went.
Sometimes giving up is good. Really good.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1)
When I was in college, one of my favorite praise and worship songs was “Freedom” by Darrell Evans. My favorite line: “We will dance in your freedom, dance in your liberty.” I love the image of that, of “throwing off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1) and finally being able to walk and dance unfettered. I also love that Evans used “dance” and not just “walk”. There’s joy, celebration at being finally set free.
Living and growing up in this country when I did, I don’t really know a lot about being enslaved. And yet the idea of Jesus coming to “proclaim good news to the poor. . .to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isaiah 61) feels, and has always felt particularly relevant to me.
In my Bible study the other night we were talking about how the gospel has been diluted, reduced to a “get out of hell free” card. It appears we’ve forgotten that Jesus devoted a lot of time to telling us how to live. The gospel isn’t good news if we have to wait until we’re dead to reap the benefits. Jesus promises us transformation, liberation, in this life. It is for freedom now that Christ has set us free. Jesus came to release captives now not just when we get to heaven.
We might not all have physical chains binding us, but we all have things in our lives that are preventing us from being the best version of ourselves. I sometimes think my biggest hindrance is me. I get in my own way. In the words of the poet Paula Cole, “It’s me who is my enemy. Me who beats me up. Me who makes the monsters. Me who strips my confidence.” And still Jesus’ word is freedom.
This is the gospel. Freedom for captives (spoiler alert: we’re all captives to something).
Dance in it.
One of the things I’m trying to be better about is living a life of attention. Every day, every moment holds opportunities to experience the Divine, and I want to move through the world with an open heart and open eyes.
Most days I suck at this. I’m just trying to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible and with few interruptions. But I’m starting to think that that’s not really a good way to live. You miss so much wandering through life like that.
Unfortunately, this same principal of paying attention also applies to people. I’m kind of an introvert and a grumpy one at that. I don’t really like people. They scare me and confuse me and anger me beyond belief. I like the people that I like, and try to put up with everyone else. But one of my friends reminded me of something important today. That each of us, all of us are made in the image of God. We carry a bit of the Divine in us.
Every single day I have a thousand opportunities to either ignore, dismiss, or disrespect the people that surround me. And in those thousand moments I also have the opportunity to try to see the spark of divinity, also the broken humanity, the beauty, in them.
I spend a lot of my day talking to people on the phone. And after I’m done, I lament the various ways that they’re incompetent. This usually involves banging my fist or my head against my desk and using some colorful language. But these people are more than the few minute interactions that I have with them on the phone. And they are more (contrary to popular belief) than annoyances sent to earth to ruin my day. They have lives and experiences and circumstances that I have no idea about. And they, like me, bear in themselves the image of God.
It’s true that some images of God are dumber and more annoying than others (imo). But that doesn’t make them any less worthy of love and respect and kindness. It’s easy to forget that when it appears to be Stupid Question Day, and humanity seems intent on trying my last nerve. But it’s the truth.
So, I started a heretical feminist book club a couple years ago. Mostly we read books about (surprise) feminism and faith. But this month, we’re reading The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone.
This year I celebrate Black History and the road to the cross simultaneously. I remember Jesus’ sacrifice and witness the ongoing struggle for equality in this country. I’m thankful that, as the book of Hebrews tells us, we have a high priest in Jesus who sympathizes with us. Who knows what it is to be human and denied justice, to be abused, and broken. And yes, victorious. But not in a way that anyone would expect.
Today’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season in the church. Here are some things that Lent is not:
-It’s not a self-help program
-It’s not a vehicle for jump starting your new weight loss plan
-It’s not (necessarily) a time to kick addictions (i.e. coffee, chocolate, social media)
I’m tempted to say that it’s not about you at all. And yet it is. It’s another in the never ending refrain of death and resurrection that God has been singing forever. You give something up (death) so that something new and beautiful can be born in you and in the world (resurrection).
Anyone who knows me can tell you that I’m not a naturally positive person (Fact: I told someone the other day that I’m a high-functioning grump), but I am hopeful. I was listening to a podcast this morning, and one of the hosts said that wonder is the antidote to cynicism, and I really like that. So I’m trying to cultivate a sense of wonder, and in doing so hopefully putting to death my ever growing cynicism. But as my friend Libby says, this is a process.
I’m not so interested in what people are giving up during their Lenten journey. I’m more interested in what new and beautiful things will be wrought.
I’ll leave you with this, two things that are giving me life today. The most wonder-filled song I know. It fills me with hope and wrecks me every time. A Beginning Song by The Decemberists. Appropriate I think for this first day of Lent.
Secondly, this aptly titled video from Broderick Greer, theologian, minister, and Twitter specialist. Rend our hearts. Rend systems.
I Hate Getting Up Early in the Morning
At 6 o’clock
The sky, before it gets all pink and bright,
Is a beautiful indigo,
Rich and deep.
I don’t know that I knew this because I’m not usually up and out of the house so early.
But I am now, because it’s summer and too hot for afternoon walks,
Skin dripping like it’s sprung a leak,
And I’m tired of returning to my office
Sweaty and salty.
At the park the toads croak in their resonate bass, and I’m reminded of that scripture:
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
The toads are awake singing their morning hymn, the birds join their refrain,
Yet I, the Icon, can only offer complaint and lament during this early morning symphony.
I don’t feel much like singing but perhaps my gratitude at this magnificent display
Will be praise enough.
I Had A Conversation The Other Day
I had a conversation with someone the other day
In which they told me how they don’t like things that aren’t real.
Like superheroes or boy wizards and such.
And I thought:
How sad your life must be.
Sometimes I wonder if I have lost faith,
If maybe I’m a closet atheist, an agnostic at best.
Am I faking it?
Or is this numb, intellectual thing
the new normal?
Are the days of awe and wonder gone? And in their place did they leave this
skepticism
cynicism
laziness?
This seemingly dead thing
that vaguely resembles what was once
vibrant
shiny
new?
I wonder, and then I see the rain
falling in overflowing bucketfuls. I feel the thunder rumbling, grumbling like a crotchety old man.
Like my stomach.
Rain like weeping, mourning, grieving.
And I think maybe my faith is as strong as it ever was.
Older, yes.
Wiser? Yes and no.
Different.
Unmistakably so. But still mine,
Still as much a part of me as my eyes that see the rain,
my ears that hear it,
and this older, unwieldy body
that is baptized anew when she stands in the downpour.
Different, but still alive. Oh, yes. Wild and a bit untamed. Unruly.
I am talking about myself.
I got up early this morning to exercise. Which, if you know me, takes a Herculean amount of self determination. 1) Because I’m giving up precious hours of much needed (and rarely gotten) sleep and 2) because I abhor exercise. It is a tool of Satan. Amen.
But I got up this morning to go walking because, I don’t know, I’m tired of my mostly sedentary lifestyle. Also, DragonCon’s coming up, and I want to look hot in my costumes. Real talk.
I’ve been thinking a lot about mindfulness lately, about living a life of attention.
As I left the Urban Cottage, the sky threatened rain. The clouds were dark and low and looked like they were ready to dump a metric butt ton of precipitation on my face. At any moment. But I kept walking, thinking, maybe the weather will hold.
So I ignored the occasional wet droplet I felt on my skin and walked the half a mile to my park.
I hucked my tired ass around the park and as I did so I tried to pay attention. To the different color green trees that looked less vibrant against the gloomy backdrop. To the pink, purple, and white flowers in bloom. To the overwhelming fragrance of what I think is jasmine. To the lack of other humans inhabiting my park for the moment.
And I thought 1) damn, my city has a lot of trees and that’s kind of why I love it here, even though when it rains kinda hard, those trees fall in the road or on my friend’s houses and 2) I need to start walking in the mornings because I basically have this place to myself and I kinda hate people sometimes.
I continued to walk, consumed more by the incredible ordinary sights than the impending storm. And it was glorious. Selah.
Half way around my park the lyric from an old Indigo Girls hymn (their music is my church music) so randomly popped into my head that it must have been Jesus who planted it there. “If the weather holds will I miss the point?” And I didn’t know exactly what that word from God meant for me at that moment but I was pretty taken with it.
Also I love when the Holy Ghost talks to me through the Indigo Girls, which happens a lot. Ah, to be known.
I passed some folks setting up for an event. And then I got to that critical point where I had to decide to do the second lap around the park, or carry my happy ass home. But I figured, it’s still dry and I had a lot of fried food this week (also quite a bit of alcohol) so I might as well go for the gold.
And so I began lap two.
My back was hurting. My knee was hurting (my knees suck y’all). I really wanted a pot of coffee. But it was beautiful and relatively quiet so, why not?
I got to the back of the park and I saw it happening. The sky, nay, the air turned white. And then the heavens opened up.
Within minutes I was soaked. But crazy lady that I am, I did not seek shelter like some of the other park patrons, I kept walking. In the rain. And I was smiling. The event people rushing to protect their items probably thought I was insane. But it was beautiful.
It smelled like Spring. Fresh, clean. My head had been hurting because pollen and sinuses, but the more it rained the more I felt the pressure on my brain abate.
In my Bible study we’re reading the Gospel According to John, that wonderful, mystical, cosmic of texts. This week we read John 16, which is a pretty cool chapter. Jesus is basically giving his homeboys a word of warning. And per usual, they’re not quiet getting it, but I don’t get half the stuff Jesus says either, so no judgement.
JC is all doom and gloom, telling the disciples that after he’s gone and before he pulls his reappearing act, it’s pretty much gonna suck. Crying, lamenting, sorrow, pain like that of a woman giving birth. Real chipper stuff here. And yet. He tells the disciples that their “sorrow will turn into joy” (v.20 CEB). And that like a woman who gives birth, ” when the child is born, she no longer remembers her distress because of her joy that a child has been born into the world” (v.21). When he returns, Jesus tells his friends that they’ll be “overjoyed” and that “no one takes away your joy” (v.22).
One of my friends in our group pointed out how it seems like the joy only comes after the sorrow, and we all agreed how that really sucks, but that’s how life is. Joy and sorrow together. They make for strange bedfellows, I thought. But then.
In a way it makes sense. We cannot experience joy without sorrow. Would we even know, could we even appreciate life’s joys without knowing shitty times?
The rain stopped shortly after it started and I finished my walk pretty jovially. I hauled it up the last two inclines before my house. All the while my brain and my heart were working things out in the background.
If the weather holds, will I miss the point?
If life were all sunshine and no storms would we appreciate how awesome a clear and bright day is? All last week it stormed horribly. And let me tell you, when that first sunny day rolled around I was outside, face upturned to the sun like a damn sunflower. It was awesome.
The weather didn’t hold for me today, but my walk was richer for it. And that’s the thing.
Toward the end of the chapter Jesus tells his bros, “In the world you will have trouble. But take heart! For I have overcome the world.” (v.33, Rori International Version, which is basically an amalgam of every translation I’ve ever read)
That’s as true for me, for us, today as it was for those fool disciples then. The world is a crazy, scary, beautiful place. I can’t watch the news because my fragile self cannot with all of the junk that goes on everyday. But the reality is that Jesus has overcome. He has. It doesn’t seem like it, but he has. That there is beauty and joy amidst the sorrow is evidence of his victory. That there are people who hold out hope in tragedy is a tangible reminder that all is not lost.
I didn’t miss the point today. Lord, may I never again.
“I am so glad to be alive, I am so glad to be loving and loved.”
-Mary Oliver
One of the most profound things to me this Holy Week is our nature as humans alive after the death of Christ. As such, who we are -perhaps above all things- is loved. John 3:16, oft quoted and seriously misunderstood scripture, says it: “For God so loved the world”. Not “For God was so just” or “For God was so righteous” or “God was so holy”. But For. God. So. LOVED.
This redemption story told us in scripture and written for us in the stars, the very fabric of creation, is a story crafted, imagined, inspired, motivated by love. It was God’s love that compelled God to send God’s only son. It was Christ’s love that drove him to surrender to death on a cross. And we, all humans, are the object of that love. Who we are, our very essence, is loved. We are unimaginably, uncomprehendingly loved by God. All of us.
And we can talk about God’s wrath, or God’s justice, or how “sinners” are God’s enemies, as if that’s not what we all are, sinners. But that does not change the fact that we are loved by God. We are deeply, unreasonably loved by God. We are loved.
That is the most powerful and true thing I can say about any person. And knowing this, knowing how stupidly and irrationally God loves you, ME! makes me see this God differently. In light of the cross, I cannot look at the suffering in the world and flippantly call it God’s just judgment. I can’t believe that unanswered prayers for healing are unanswered because someone didn’t say the right combination of words in the right order. Oh shit, they didn’t pray it in Jesus name? Or command it? Then it won’t work.
No.
Or maybe they didn’t pray at all and that’s why they lost their loved one. I’m sorry (not sorry), but I cannot abide that. There is a reason that prayers go unanswered, to be sure. And perhaps one day I will know it. But it isn’t because God is a bean counting bastard. I refuse to believe that of a God who sent God’s own son to die out of love for us. For our sake. For the sake of the world.
I do not have all of the answers or even one. But I do know this. God loves us. Oh how God loves. Oh how God loves.
I’m not one of those New Age Hippie Dippy people who sees a miracle at every turn. But I follow Jesus and that has conditioned me to recognize divinity in the mundane. I’ve been feeling a little road weary lately. And it seems like in my weariness the universe is conspiring to be kind to me.
Instead of bringing The Hammer when I’ve been short tempered and downright awful, God has responded to my hyper extended meltdown with unabashed tenderness. And I’m grateful.
Most of the time I think human beings are pretty awful, myself totally included. But in the past week and a half, people have been inhumanly kind to me. And I can only attribute these out of the blue random kindnesses to God.
So my birthday was last week. And I intentionally planned nothing. I who typically love birthdays didn’t even want to celebrate the damn thing. But despite my bornday angst, my friends and family rallied to make me feel loved and cared for. Without my asking them to. Without even knowing that I needed that.
I love presents. Like I love them. What I love most is presents that I actually want. I love when people who get me give me incredibly thoughtful gifts. Like my BFF Kim. She sent me a Doctor Who bookmark and cookbook (and also a post card from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter). My friend Lori bought me dinner and a birthday margarita as well as sunflowers (which I LOVE) and a gift card to my fav bookstore. Because, you know, books are my favorite. And my Sarah friend got me a book of Doctor Who short stories. I could go on and on and on.
The thing about gifts is that I never expect them. I always want them, but never expect people to actually give them to me. And am frequently surprised at the people who do.
Last night after I got home from a most trying Monday at work (and an infuriating trip to the Walmart. . .hell, all trips to Walmart are infuriating IMO), there was a package waiting for me. It was a ghetto-taped Sponge Bob box of some sort from a rando person that I didn’t know. I was mildly concerned that it might be a bomb, and said a quick prayer and an apology to my housemate for potentially blowing up her house. But I opened it anyway. Because I love a good mystery.
In the box was a salvation of sorts.
It was a wine glass (a rather large one at that). Rori’s Wine Glass was printed on the side in a Lucinda Handwriting-esque font. There was a purple bow tied to the stem, and the glass was decorated with purple and pink polka dots (sidebar: I LOVE purple and pink. I LOOOVE Wine. And I LOOOOOOVE polka dots). It was beautiful.
I scoured the box for a note, for any hint of the glass’s origins, but found none. So I took to the social network to find out the benefactor of this wonderful gift. Because it had to be someone who knows me. I mean, it was perfect.
I washed my glass (that I secretly feared was coated with anthrax) and poured myself a generous serving of wine. And as I sat on my couch drinking my wine (actually my housemate’s wine. . .whatever, she was never gonna finish that bottle before it went bad), and watching The Fault in our Stars for the 20th time, I marveled at how little things like this have been happening to me lately.
Maybe it’s just because it’s my birthday. Maybe that’s why people are being so nice to me. But I dunno. My friends- and this is certainly not a knock against them- are not usually so extravagantly nice to me on my birthday. And that’s fine. I mean, I feel like my people went above and beyond the call of duty this year. And believe you me, I haven’t been any kinder to any of them. In fact as I sat there watching Gus and Hazel fall in love, I felt how completely undeserving I am of all of this love folks have lavished on me.
In my college church we were fond of singing this song- man, we sang the crap out of that song- that begins with these words:
Your love is extravagant
Your friendship intimate
And ok, so the song is talking about the love of God or whatever. But the love my friends and family have been showing me lately has had that same humbling, overwhelming weight to it. I felt bowed underneath it. I couldn’t stand. I was just so grateful.
I’ve often heard it said that all truth is God’s truth. And I believe that. But I think the same can be said for love. All love is God’s love. God is love.
After watching some more movie, finishing my big ass glass of wine and writing out some thank you cards (which I now realize was a poor choice considering the big ass glass of wine. . .my handwriting was atrocious), I took my exhausted yet cheered butt to bed. Later that night I got a text from a friend that I rarely ever talk to. A friend that I used to be very close to but who I’ve drifted apart from in recent years. A friend who is notorious for giving random (but not good random) birthday gifts. She said, “Hey, see u got my present!!!! The seller I guess didn’t put who it was from in the package!”
Mystery solved.
The gift was all the sweeter for both NOT knowing who it was from, and then discovering that it had come from a most unexpected source. And I think that’s how it is with love sometimes. It never comes in the way you expect it, but it’s always in the way that you need it.
theRorishow 