Never Over

Transferring
from your shelves to my shelves
from your drawers to my drawers
from your walls to my walls
from your kitchen to my kitchen
from your bedside to my bedside
from your closet to my closet:
books, candles, collages, cups, nipple clamps, hoodies,
traces, negotiations, scented scenes, altars.

Left wondering from your
space to mine
what material could possibly transfer itself
in all the ways we have,
what objects could possibly shift
inside and out,
flip sideways and surrender
as our bodies have
day in and day out
over years, months, days and seconds.

As I pack up, load in, and drive away
only to unpack somewhere else
you haunt me--all/ready--and I know there's
no movement
yours or mine
near or far
now or later
capable of boxing and sending this love away.

Regarding Symbolic Enactment

If you want to know the difference
between the religious heart
and the 'right' mind
think candle in the window
versus
flag in the front yard.

The Struggle for Individuation amidst Suffocating Cultural Homogeneity

All night long:
dreams of unfolded clothes
multiplying, minute to minute,
in the middle of my bed.
In order to protect my rest place,
I had to separate the clothing out,
evaluating the utility and worth of each piece,
article by article,
questioning what would be saved
and what would be carried away.
Eventually I realized
"so much material, so little value"
and I began throwing them overboard
with rapid intensity and rage
screaming "where did you all come from?!"

Wind

Theologians adopt images of G-d like construction workers utilize tools. We build houses, for ourselves, for one another. We do this because we are creative and pragmatic, expressive and yearning AND we do this because wordlessness (which is the only honest utterance of G-d) is not an option when you need a front door to enter. Right now the only image of G-d working for me is wind. Because all I have is movement and being blown about. That's divine, right?

The Politics of Recognition

No—not in the sense of identity and access,
but the instantaneous home making
that occurs on the street
(or any other random assembly place)
when wide open, yet slightly guarded gestures
without any pre-established vocabulary
spur the one glance…two glance…now not looking away way of gazing.
In it: recognition and
space to explore that which is co/incidentally familiar
and wholly other,
where in hearing t/his story,
the mortar (a.k.a “my” body) of past time pain seems translatable
and the potential of passion futuristically redeemed.

Deeply personal, and not, this politic.
A relationship.
A refuge--
one that welcomes in
and pushes back out
any wilderness fearing/seeking wanderer.

eternal funeral

yesterday
"love has no restrictions"
today
"make it my own and it cannot harm me"

i walk, exhausted, through the cemetery
in my neighborhood, canonizing his utterance,
heeding his hope, re-calling his love while
searching the honor rituals of the living,
how they keep loving their dead,
knowing my ritual concretizes
a sentiment in line with his suggestions.

these corporeal remains,
deeply buried, mostly unknown and untended,
resourcefully transformed over time
signify my greatest fear: forgetfulness.
these seasonal flowers, small waving flags,
sacred marble inscriptions
and angel figurines over-looking it all
signify my greatest hope: that in the act of remembering
something goes from grey to green,
that in making the death my own,
our loss will no longer
harm me.

Future Passage

Years from now
someone will be reading
"The History of the 21st century of America"
and they will underline this passage:
during a time of relentless wars
and widespread poverty which included
inadequate health care, home foreclosures,
and job losses of unparalleled proportion,
America elected its first woman Speaker of the House,
its first African American President
and its first Latina Justice of the Supreme Court.
On the margin of that text
the reader will scribble something like this:
why must we horrify ourselves
into doing the right thing/s
over and over
again?

Quantum Entanglement

A skeptical scientist says
"corollary, not causal"
to describe the phenomenon
of lovers' prayers impacting health
on a molecular level despite miles
and miles between them.

This brilliant and necessary man,
with his lab coat and
theories of mechanics
which will probably save the world,
this man of hypothesis and proof
does not know my G-d.
And clearly does not know my lovers.

Dr. Singh Diagnosing Hypocrisy

I've been spending most of my last two days at the Marriott Oakland City Center where the Mental Health and Spirituality Initiative hosted a conference on the intersection of Mental Health and Spirituality in crises, intervention and recovery for consumers, families of consumers and service providers. Apparently the committee members are traveling to southern California to host round two of the conference in Los Angeles later this week. Glad to see my state getting its act together on this front. Overall I'd give the conference a B+: the space and food couldn't have been better but some of the sharing bordered on repetitive, too personal and overly drawn out. I also found the apparent mistrust between those investigating "researched based practices" and those promoting "organic/authentic spiritual practices" to be unhelpful and ultimately not in the interest of building bio-psycho-social-spiritual models of care.

The committee put together a packed schedule of key note speakers and break-out sessions. Yesterday (Monday June 1st) LeAnn and I were lucky to witness a plenary session that consisted of an Interfaith Panel reflecting on mental health and spirituality from various religious traditions. I was particularly impressed by Rabbi Elliot Kukla who works at the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center in San Francisco and Dr. Meji Singh, a practicing Sikh and Chief Psychologist at the Portia Bell Hume Behavioral Health and Training Center in Concord. Dr. Singh spoke last of the 7 panelists but he got my attention when he read certain definitions of "mental disorders" from the DSM-IV and asked us to evaluate the behavior of our government according to those criterion. Seriously, check this definition for Antisocial Personality Disorder out and tell me this couldn't/wouldn't apply to U.S. socio/political behavior at home and abroad.

...

Diagnostic criteria for 301.7 Antisocial Personality Disorder
A. There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

(1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
(2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
(3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
(4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
(5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others
(6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
(7) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

B. The individual is at least age 18 years.
C. There is evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 years.
D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode.

...

So, Dr. Singh, gets me thinking, again, about the exegetical and hermeneutical exercises at the heart of diagnosis and how such diagnoses reveal the hypocrisy of U.S. political philosophy. Why is it that when some people exhibit the behaviors/symptoms listed above we will observe, perceive, interpret and label them "crazy" (and thereby allow the "system" to lock them up or do worse things to them) but when other people with power and prestige exhibit similar behaviors/symptoms on a much larger scale (which result in dead bodies, lost jobs and fiscal debt of magnanimous proportions) we call it "heroic," and even vote them into office?? Talk about cognitive dissonance. The Bush Administration gives the CIA freedom to torture and murder civilians of foreign countries (against the Geneva Convention) and Obama refuses to a) investigate and/or b) press charges but someone can go to jail for years for getting caught selling weed multiple times? Now that's symptomatology of ass-backwardness if you ask me.

Christology

I find it strange that I haven't posted anything on the blog lately given how much of my life has been spent writing. So here's a (small) portion of my Ordination Paper. These are my reflections on Jesus. Your thoughts??

I’ve heard that at some point in the ordination examination process I’ll be asked whether or not Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I’d like to answer that now so we can discuss other things later. While this question can often inspire the greatest internal revolt possible within my gut when asked by strangers, I must confess it’s a good question to address in this space. The question of Jesus’ lordship is foremost a question of power. Power is always constructed, in context, in relation and what is considered power/full changes over and through time. Hence, any honest discussion of power will include information about particular social relations formed by ideology, culture, and history. “Lord” became a signifier of and title for Roman emperors as Pax Romana extended its power geographically and politically up to and after the 1st century CE. These lords were objects of the “emperor cult:” they were worshipped and venerated as saviors who would heal, transform and restore the conditions of the people worshipping them. The basic notion informing this veneration is that political power is supreme power, the most efficacious power, the power upon which lives could be changed/saved. This notion of lordship rests on the assumption that any power at all is power over something else. The logic of this lordship sets up paradigms of sovereignty and dependency and perhaps what’s most destructive is that it requires people to surrender their own power with one another to maintain a top down system of ‘salvation.’ This kind of power was responsible for Jesus’ death. However… Jesus flipped this power script completely. He so radically over-turned imperial power that people began using the title “Lord” in reference to him. This wasn’t just a syntax transfer; it was a taking back of language, a signifying practice of dissent and resistance. By calling Jesus “Lord,” his people were deconstructing the prevailing political power of empire and proposing a new and better form of power. They were, in essence, saying no to top-down, power-over strategies of control and yes to the power of mutual relation. Jesus’ power came in the form of solidarity and “self-emptying.” He flexed his power by inviting his friends to journey with him, by feeding people, teaching compassion and forgiveness, healing hemorrhaging/out-cast women and smelly/dead men. He told silly stories and liked to party at a table full of rebels and radicals. He found his power in making old scriptures relevant to new circumstances. He found his power in long periods of prayer and meditation in nature. His ministry was one of power because it was not a solo enterprise: Jesus was able to accomplish the aims of agape because of his disciples’ willingness to engage with him in acts of gracious hospitality, acts of challenge, acts of reverent worship. His was a power with, a power of relationship, a power of love and it was in “diametrical opposition to the power of the emperor.” I revere and worship the embodiment of power made known in Jesus of Nazareth. Certainly any saving power I’ve known in my own life has taken the form of service, relationship and love. Would I call Jesus my Lord? Yes: if it meant saying no to military power, patriarchal power, white power, or economic power as the driver of my life. I must say though, the imperial connotations of the word “Lord” make it difficult for me to pronounce in any casual way, especially given my country of origin and its current strategies of foreign policy. “Savior” is a bit easier (though not effortless), especially as I understand it related to sin. Jesus saves me from “a life of aimlessness” by providing me with spiritual clues to the great ontological question how shall I live? There’s a different question I like much better than the “lord and savior” question, a question that’s more important to me. It’s what John Caputo calls the “question of the unhinged” and it descends from St. Augustine: What do I love when I love my God?