Friday, February 29, 2008

Maestra Jill

She arrived five minutes late almost every time,
her head appearing illusively small behind the front windshield
of the beige toyota corrolla she drove like a mad woman
to get where she was going
bearing coffee in a steel container which
she'd pour into little steel cups for them to
drink from as they moved like cows across the grass,
grazing and consuming along the way.
They met three times a week,
early in the morning, when dew drops held tight to blades of green,
and they, being disciplined in things like observation and reverence,
watched their shoes soak the water with ambivalence:
such beauty on the untraveled paths--oh to leave them uncharted and
somehow still arrive.
Once in a while one of them would look back
at their juxtaposed footprints which
gave clues as to their whereabouts (among the radiant rose bushes
on the east side of the park)
though no one would notice
because this park remained undiscovered
--or perhaps just ignored--in a town full of
important scholars and lawyers and upper class moms.
She arrived late because some magazine article
in Rolling Stone kept her attention for 5 minutes too long,
but her companion didn't mind because the article would
become a point of conversation, a conversation that no
matter what ended in political ranting of some kind.
People who notice the soaking of their shoes
can't help but notice the absurdity of genocide
and unbridled spending. The younger one,
who was always 5 minutes early
(which means there always existed a 10 minute gap between them)
loved to hear the old hippie preach:
the unabashed when I was your age, I considered setting
myself on fire with those Buddhist monks in Vietnam
.
So many of the hippies,
the younger one's mom included,
forgot about the desire to bear-it-all
for the sake-of-the-All,
but not this one; she still read Kerouac and
listened to Dylan and refused to take any boss' shit.
The warrior, holding the sword and shield
of empathy, lived on in her...
perhaps because she kept doing Tai Chi
long after her husband, the Tai Chi guru, died unexpectedly
leaving her alone with three teen-age,
bi-racial boys to care for in a white-washed,
dreadfully boring southern california suburb.
Once a wife, still a mother, now a teacher,
writer and friend among friends,
she entered the Circle three times a week to
transmit a legacy to this little hot-tempered,
always curious, painfully receptive,
bride of things-bigger than domesticity.
Though the coffee-stocked walks and
Rolling Stone rants taught their own relevant lessons,
it was the rise and fall, the in and out,
the breath moved back and forth between yin and yang that
erased every chalk-board theory of metaphysics in the young girl's head.
"The greatest freedom in discipline."
Lesson, legacy, love, transmitted.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

12 Things I Love This Morning

1. The Wire (just finished season three).
2. Theologies of the Body.
3. Bob Herbert of the NY Times.
4. Sweet baby James.
5. Jackets on loan. I' currently borrowing the hottest light-brown Levi courdoroy with (fake) sheep skin on the inside. Yum.
6. CBG with me on big leather chairs at CAL's graduate reading room.
7. Graduation on the horizon (3 months!).
8. Finding Dr. Sang's favorite Psalm highlighted in my old bible.
9. Obamarama.
10. Kickboxing 3 days a week (I found a new class on Sunday mornings!).
11. Youn Tae. :)
12. Living in THE BAY. No, it doesn't get old; just gets better.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

I'm On A Roll: Liturgical Reality #3

Today the Rev. Dr. Noel
came to preach at my seminary.
Black History Month.
SFTS Professor of Preaching.
Before the music began I sat in the back brooding over issues
of discernment: loyalty, role, institution, faithfulness.
Which one?
How long?

The man got up with kleenex in his hand.
I should have known right then...the humility in that prop.
We had watched a clip of Beloved--the one where Baby Suggs
calls the people into the wilderness.
Children laugh.
Men dance.
Women weep.
This was sacred text #1.
After wiping his eyes, he brought sacred text #2: The Transfiguration.
Illumination on the mountain top. Reality in the valley.

Something rocketed from his mouth
and cracked open the place between my ribs and stomach--
the place where the holy spirit lives.
I cried so hard I was afraid I might upset those sitting next to me.
The "nice white people" Lincoln hates
began to care-take in the ways they know how: hands on the shoulder,
offering of tissue, puppy dog eyes. If they understood the renewed baptismal
function of my tears, they would thank God instead of taking pity.

Sometime later over lunch with Marjorie,
as we talk about the death of putting pen to paper,
the death of speaking truth,
I realize making decisions, like getting messy in the valley,
leads to hard-wood crucifixes and empty tombs.
No matter what. You can die slow in silence
and watch your body (and friends) whither away in the process.
Or you can courageously turn it all over before heading towards
Jerusalem believing what the people witness in the valley
--commitment entailing sacrifice, not sacrifice de facto--
might spark a momentum that outlasts flesh and breath.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Liturgical Reality #2

Like satin thread held by a needle point
—acutely sharp and particularly directed—
I begin to weave apologies,
or is it just one big apology(?),
through ripped red and yellow patches,
hoping to make One
the purple shredded quilt that covers me
in trembling times like these.

Some say:
What are you talking about? You don’t need to apologize.
Others:
Are you kidding? I wasn’t even mad.
And then the kind you love/hate to hear:
Thank you. It’s okay: I forgive you.

The truth is: when my life gets hectic I hurt people.
And the awful truth is: the people I hurt tend to be those I love the most
because some stupid sense whispers “it’s okay; they can take it.”
and they can, which is what makes it all the more awful.

Clerics and clergy will often speak about forgiveness
during this season. Wrapped up somewhere in the
dying and rising of a first century Palestinian Jew
lies the secret to God’s unchanging, eternal Spirit:
grace.
But I must say, I’ve learned more about redemption
and God’s ever changing,
here today/gone tomorrow body
by way of being sorry
and undeservingly absolved.

Some wonder why I cannot kneel prostrate
in front of a God who would extend salvation
to the earth by way of substitutionary atonement.
Well I will tell you: any God who is God
must treat His or Her friends way better than
I treat mine. Unmerited favor does not have to
equal an intentionally ripped blanket.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Textual Passage

Just want to pass on an excellent resource I've been tapping into lately:
Subverting Greed: Religious Perspectives on the Global Economy
edited by Paul Knitter & Chandra Muzaffar (Orbis Books 2002)
The chapters by David Roy, Ameer Ali & Sallie McFague are particularly brilliant. Here's a passage from McFague's chapter that I find myself returning to over and over again as I write my paper:

"While there is no direct connection between believing and acting, thinking and doing, there is an implicit, deeper, and more insidious one: the worldview that persuades us that it is natural and inevitable becomes the secret partner of our decisions and actions."

Efffff determinisms. They are antithetical to the Holy Spirit. Word.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Liturgical Reality #1

Yesterday in class
some girl said she was thirsty for you
and i was annoyed at the simplicity of her statement
but today I get it
because I am emotionally famished,
intellectually tired and completely destitute
without hope of waking up tomorrow
any differently.

I have ashes and oil on my head.
Makes sense, doesn't it?