Taking the Journey

The other night I was invited to take a journey.

In the light of a flickering candle, I sat and listened to the song of prayers sung in Hebrew. We had a plate of ceremonial foods, wine, a bowl of salt water, and the good company of each other.

I had never attended Passover Seder before. Of course, not being Jewish, this is hardly surprising, although I had attended a Purim celebration before, and I felt very enriched by the experience.

Many things were moving about the experience the other night, not the least of which was the singing of the prayers, some sung in different tunes than others, the mixture of voices overlapping in a tapestry of various traditions—all unified in praise and thankfulness.

Passover is the celebration of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. As many people know, Moses went before Pharaoh many times and asked for the release of the Israelites. Pharaoh’s heart had been hardened by God. This resulted in the ten plagues of Egypt—the most severe of which was the death of the firstborn son. I’m sure many people have seen the version with a noble Charlton Heston as Moses, his voice deep and masculine, confident, robust. In the movie, he stands before a bare-chested Yul Brynner and commands, “Let my people go.”

Of course, this is not the version the Bible speaks of, nor is it what I learned in Sunday School. From some accounts, Moses was a stutterer, who was too timid to speak before Pharaoh, so he bargained with God to let his brother Aaron do the talking. But, I guess that isn’t sexy enough for Hollywood.

There is a part of the Passover Seder celebration that I found especially touching. Everybody dips their finger into their wine and allows ten drops to fall. This signifies the blood that was shed for the salvation of their people. This commemorates the deaths that resulted from the ten plagues of Egypt. This is in remembrance of all of the firstborn sons who died.

In the Bible, we learn that the Israelites had to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood over their door frames, as a signal to the Angel of Death. When the Angel saw the blood, it would “pass over” that house and spare the family the deepest grief: the loss of a child.

Even as I write this, I am still touched by it. I cannot help but think about all of those firstborn sons and what their lives had been up until that moment. I wonder why God saw fit to release his most menacing Angel and claim those souls for no other purpose than to show his glory.

People look at our world today—the disease, the famine, the senseless killings, and we wonder—why would God allow it to happen?

How many times have you asked, “Why would a God who created and love us allow such things to happen?”

My last post was about prayer. All of this reminds me of a story. My mother is a very spiritual woman—for good and for bad. My brother suffered for many years, a bipolar disorder, a deeply unhappy person, who could seemingly never find any calm within himself.

It was a morning in 1994, St. Patrick’s Day to be exact. She was in her office as the school secretary at an elementary school, and for some reason, she felt the need to pray for my brother. She prayed that he would find peace and the comfort of which he was so desperately in need. More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. She would later learn that she had prayed this prayer for my brother four hours after he had already taken his own life. An answered prayer? Certainly, the loss of a firstborn son.

As I watched the wine drip from my friend’s finger, I thought it so humbling to take a moment and remember the lives we each touch. Our actions affect other people. We are, often, truly like pebbles pitched into a pond. There are ripples.

The Israelites were free, able to escape into the desert, through the Red Sea, on their way to an even harder journey than the years they had been enslaved in Egypt. But, they were free.

I think, sometimes, we misunderstand the word “perfect.” We think flawless. We think beautiful and unblemished. I do not think this is God’s idea of perfect. In our human minds, we get it so wrong. The crooked path, the lowly servant sacrificing himself—unrecognized as a king, the sins of prophets, all of our missteps, are entirely perfect.

During Passover Seder, it is customary to contemplate what your particular bondage is, to take a spiritual journey through the celebration, and come to a realization on the other side.

We were told that it was also the night of questions. In my questioning, I decided that perfection is in our flaws—perhaps this is why we are not supposed to judge one another.

At end of my journey the other night, I realized that there is no end and that questioning brings us closer to each other, not to conclusive answers, but maybe to the ability to ask better questions.

This is why I write this blog, often—to raise questions, contemplate things, revel in the gray shadows between the black and the white, and to in each entry, try to take a journey.

Why else are we here, if not to open ourselves up and ask each other questions?

The Last Time I Prayed

One of my favorite quotes actually comes from the movie Anne of Green Gables. Anne is forced to memorize a prayer, a “punishment” for acting like a "heathen." She feels that memorizing a prayer is inadequate. She claims that if she truly wanted to pray, she would go into a meadow and just feel a prayer.

I don’t know the last time I prayed using words. When I do pray, it is not a recitation. I do not have any prayers memorized. I respect that many religions and various denominations believe in repeating poetic words of praise and exaltation.

But, my soul does not speak in words, especially someone else's.

I know I prayed a year ago. The time was a difficult one, and I spent many nights having long conversations with God. Maybe they were monologues. I have no evidence that anyone was listening. We always say that God answers your prayers—sometimes the answer is “no.” Perhaps.

I have had prayers come true. Not the prayers you might expect.

In a different forum, I would tell you more specifically about which prayers they were. Suffice to say, the answer resulted in a situation that many people in my life could not understand. But, I prayed hard about the issues, and at that time, I received what seemed to be otherwise impossible. And, yes, impossible is probably exactly the word for it. The answer seemed to be “yes.” For a good part of three years, I had to struggle with the emotional turmoil of that particular answered prayer.

I do not know who probably said the words first. Perhaps it was Truman Capote; it is he who is most associated with the words these days. They were the epigraph of his unfinished novel.

He said, “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”

I can attest to such a claim.

But, did I experience an answer to a prayer? Or, was it a “test”? We have all learned that we face tests and challenges. The story of Job is familiar to many. I don’t know if it was a test. If so, I suppose I completely failed it, and I am still failing it.

It seems to me, though, that the learning curve might be higher without the murkiness. Was I tempted? Was I tested? I thought it was an answered prayer. Something about the last idea gives me more comfort, that maybe God is paying attention and gave me a "yes" answer knowing that it would not be an easy path to walk, and that he truly does know and care more about this particular child than those people who wear designer clothes on Sunday mornings and pronounce their judgments on everyone who is already marginalized by society. I know how bitter it sounds.

I still pray these days. Most of the time, I don’t bother with words. They feel too inadequate. I have to say that words can seem a little ridiculous if I am speaking to an omniscient being who already knows my future. And, words can turn into rants.

Words are too simplistic for the complexity I feel, especially when approaching the ear of a deity who understands the fabric of my soul better than I will ever be able to comprehend.

How do you know if your prayer was even heard?

I wonder how many of mine are still floating in the corners of my ceiling, caught in the cobwebs.

I’ve never liked group prayers, not particularly. I always think that I will pray on my own, thank you. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with giving praise or thanks in groups. But, prayer, to me, feels like it should be more than showing you can speak an archaic form of English (“thee,” “thou,” “thine”). This was something I admit I always found so curious. If that’s how a person feels closer to God, then I cannot judge. I just think that prayers are best spoken in private.

Maybe I pray most when I want something. I know that I do that. I also pray most when I am having regrets and a mistake seems hard to erase. Maybe these prayers are just an exercise in wrestling with my own conscience and demons.

The story of Jacob wrestling God is one of the most fascinating in the Bible. All night long, Jacob wrestles an anonymous man. Finally, at day break, when the man sees he can’t win, he touches the “socket of [Jacob’s] thigh.” Of course, it’s a sure win, then. This is when Jacob is given the name Israel. It says that his name was changed because he had “striven” with God and man and prevailed. Jacob names the spot in honor of the fact that he saw God face to face and still lived.

It’s one of those interesting moments in the Bible. Why did Jacob just start wrestling some random guy? Did Jacob wonder if he was dreaming? Was it violent grappling, or more for sport? The Bible does not say.

Did Jacob know it was a test?

I have wrestled a lot in my prayers—I’m not always sure who.

But, in the middle of a quiet night, maybe out of habit, maybe out of conscience, maybe out of need, I still take a moment to rise, fall to my knees, and give voice to the deepest parts of heart. Maybe, for that sake alone, I will never stop praying.

Amen.

Embracing the Winds...

Two nights ago, I had a dream about tornadoes.

I could see them. Their ominous parallel swirls lurked in the distance somewhere between the clouds and the decidedly urban skyline. These funnels swiveled closely to each other then spun away—lethal belly-dancers.

The dream felt real. My heart throbbed. My eyes were wide. I had to get to safety.

Tornadoes twist into my dreams every now and then. I wouldn’t call them frequent dreams, but they are certainly a reoccurring image. Part of this could be that I grew up in Northwest Ohio—the weather in March and April is volatile, and forget the euphemisms (In like a lion, out like a lamb…April showers bring May flowers); the weather in Northwest Ohio, especially out in the rural areas, is hungry. I don’t know how else to say it. There is an appetite to that weather that feels voracious. Those storms and winds will consume whatever they want—hungry, angry monsters.

Growing up, there was a thrill to hearing those tornado sirens go off around town, the high pitched, blaring groan. The land is so flat. In the country, you could see for miles and miles; tornadoes spawning and disintegrating. In town, all you could see were the trees limbs tossed by high winds and the green tint in the clouds.

Of course, instead of the sirens driving everyone indoors, the entire neighbor stepped out onto their porches, stood peering up into the sky, offering each other waves. During a typical warning, at least three people would venture outside and say a few words to each other.

I have never experienced a tornado, and I have no desire to; however, my subconscious likes to put me front and center every now and then.

The dreams are made even more interesting given the fact that last night dangerous tornadoes ripped through parts of Iowa. The thunderstorms where I live were so strong that my power blipped off and on at least once.

These May flowers must be animals to require these kinds of showers…

There have been tornado drills, towns sounding their sirens, and someone mentioned these tests in an email. Maybe this is why?

I looked up the dream imagery of tornadoes. What do they mean? I found that they often symbolize upheaval, instability, unpredictability. Sometimes, it could be that there is someone in your life who represents these things. My cats do get a little wild at night.

They also symbolize change. One source claimed that “wind” in dreams can often mean a change is coming. The winds of fate, I suppose.

This last option seems most likely. Whenever I dream of tornadoes, it is because I am experiencing a change on some level.

In my dream, I was not “frightened” by the tornadoes. But, I did seek shelter in my parents’ basement—which was decidedly not the small, dank “dungeon”-like space that it really is. They actually had tenants down there. A young couple. The woman was afraid of her boyfriend. In the end, when I finally met him, he explained that it was the woman who suffered from some emotional problems. I believed him. Lord knows what they represent.

I do not know why I had dual tornadoes in the dream. Maybe two changes are coming. I would like to leave Iowa, and lately, I have been engaging certain sides of myself more fully, in some ways putting the past behind. Emotional upheaval?

Perhaps I should not seek shelter from the winds that are coming. Perhaps I should step outside the comfort and safety of my front door, peer up into those murky clouds, open myself up, and let it sweep me all away…

Wrestling Angels...

I have things I'd like to say, but I'm not ready to say them yet. In the meanwhile, I decided to post my all-time favorite poem.

St. Judas

by James Wright

When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

I like the primal aspects of this poem. Flesh and blood responding to flesh and blood. As a human being, I feel what you feel. There is no hope for Judas--no reward, no motive, nothing--and, yet, he holds this man in his arms. Empathy? Love? What reason could there be?

Judas is misread and misunderstood. Perhaps that is another reason why I appreciate this poem. I cannot judge Judas. The Bible does not. I do not believe that Judas is a villain.

We are human beings, and we are so delicate and flawed. Maybe it's the fact that Judas has given up hope and intends to kill himself. I am touched by this. I had a brother who was too fragile, much too fragile; maybe I see Judas as a brother.

All I know is that when I read this poem, I am deeply affected. Maybe because Judas himself is like the man in the poem, and I just want to hold him in my arms, like so many others who have been cast aside and disregarded and perceived as something they are not.

Somehow, I think, this is what Jesus would do.

I get so tired of reading my Bible and not hearing its words in Church. Church pews are cold; the stories too rote.

The only way to hear God, these days it seems, is to wrestle with His angels...

Exorcise

Poets, novelists, philosophers, men and women of all shapes and sizes have spent millenniums contemplating one central question:

What is love?

Today, the question will finally be answered.

Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Often, after a day spent alone, with the sky bleak and overcast, I am not so sure. You cannot miss what you’ve never had. You can’t crave chocolate if you’ve never tasted it. For many years, I was used to being alone. I wanted something, but I didn’t always know what. These days, for good or bad, I know what I am missing.

It’s a rare thing in life to know that pulse-pounding, stomach-jolting love and to be able to say, “I love you” without it being a reflex or a cliché. I remember that whenever I said those words, they were the truest things I had ever said.

But, those feelings are not always returned, are they?

I love you; you just really like me. Ah, cue the violins.

That’s when love is not all flowers and rainbows. It’s the shadowy side of love—the aspect you don’t often find in the movies. You really only hear about in the blues.

Oh, my friend and I lived together for two years, dating for a little over three. But, you can only love one-way for so long, even when you’re supposed to be in a relationship. I sacrificed many of my dreams and goals for the sake of love and then walked away so that this person could pursue their own dreams and goals (the vague pronouns feel so wearying at times). In both cases, I did what I did because I was in love.

Love can feel like a catch-22. Sometimes, the only way to love someone is to let them go, even if they don’t come back. And, I know the mistakes I made—it takes two after all. I am not that person anymore—too insecure, too afraid of losing the person, holding on too tightly. I am unlikely to be such person ever again. I gave too much; I was not respected—something I tend to value more than love these days.

Love can harden you.

I live in a state I never wanted to return to, for the sake of love. Whenever I tell this to people, they smile and sigh and tell their own “love” stories. It seems everybody is “a fool for love” at some point or another—displaced, able to bond over the heartache with a laugh and a cold beer.

I think my parents feel that pulse-pounding love for each other. Neither of them had dated before. They made their mistakes with each other, and it only made their connection stronger. They have been married for 40 years.

And, we all have that first love. The one people sing about in all the songs. The first cut is the deepest. People wistfully say that you never forget your first love and that, deep inside, you never really stop loving them.

I wonder why that is. People also say that you rarely have “great loves” in your life—maybe only one or two.

I think that there might be more, but it takes awhile to recover from the one or two that you lost.

Do we have soul mates? Do you believe in love at first sight? Can we find “happily ever after”? I think how you answer these questions determines if you believe these things are true.

So, what is love? I can tell you. It is reaching out and clasping someone else’s hand—not because it’s expected, not because it’s the only opened palm available, not because your own hand has been cold too long. You reach out and clasp that hand and walk beside each other. No one walking farther ahead. No one allowed to walk a few paces back. You walk side by side.

And, when you clasp that hand, weave your fingers together with that other person’s, you know it’s love because it feels like something more than a throbbing heart or a stomach-ache, something more solid and lasting than simple desire.

The warmth of the hand, feel of the skin, the firm grip of recognition can be summed up in one word for the ages, perhaps a word as cryptic as love has ever been: it feels like home.

I'm a hopeless romantic--but a pragmatic idealist.

The word love is empty. These days, I would rather not even hear it.

This is why I can tell you what love is:

Love is the word that, when it truly is love, does not have to be spoken. Love is said best by saying nothing more than clasping a hand and walking side by side down whatever path you've chosen.

The Footsteps Above Me

I hear her footsteps—light at first. She paces up and down the hallway, closes cabinets in the kitchen with a casual bang, cleans her litter box with a definitive “tap, tap, tap” on the side of her trashcan. She listens to the radio while she works out on her treadmill. She always exercises in the morning, possibly before work.

She paces. She never seems at rest. Always walking up and down, back and forth. I hear each of her footsteps and wonder what keeps her in such constant motion.

I promise myself that one day I will go upstairs, knock on her front door, and introduce myself as her downstairs neighbor. We only have four units in my apartment. She is my most intimate neighbor.

Downstairs apartments have the luxury of not knowing how noisy they are. I can walk as heavily as I want. I can ride my exercise bike as late as I want, and there is no one beneath me counting the minutes until I stop.

I try to be a conscientious neighbor. I do not listen to my television very loudly.

I do not know what she thinks about having me as a neighbor. I’m sure she’s been adequately entertained by some of the things she’s seen or heard. Maybe she’s been irritated or annoyed. Some of it has to be expected of having a young and active neighbor.

She rarely has visitors. I’ve only glimpsed her once as she was climbing up her front steps to her apartment. I know that she is probably in her 50s or older. She and I watched the Democrat debates in January together—a slight delay in our television sets.

I know her habits. I know she paces.

What stops me from walking up those steps with a plate of cookies? It would help if I baked. But, what if I took something else? Or, I could just take myself. We are neighbors after all.

I grew up on a neighborhood so rare these days. All of the families had lived there for over twenty years. Several families had children, and we were all about the same age—closer than most cousins, knowing each other as intimately as siblings. I was one of the youngest.

On a good day, we could rustle up as many as 20 children—wild, sweaty on humid summer nights, competitive. There were sprawling games of Capture the Flag. There were endless games of Swedish, my parents’ front porch serving as the place where everyone who was “out” sat and chanted the name of the person they needed “out” to get back in. Flashlight Tag, Ghost in the Graveyard, Spud, the games on those summer nights were infinite.

When one of our neighbors passed away (her name was Nancy—she was 10 years older than I. She had a heart condition and was never supposed to graduate high school. I wanted to be just like her), all of us gathered around our next door neighbors' brick patio and shared stories about Nancy. We grieved together. I was 8 years old. Most of the other kids were 14, 11, 9. I don’t remember how many of us were there that day. But, it was our impromptu moment of grief. We felt strikingly adult, maturity starting to take early root.

I knew all of their parents like aunts and uncles. We had block parties. We had private dinners together. We walked in and out of each other’s houses as if the entire neighbor was one big connected home.

Being a neighbor meant something. I don’t know if neighborhoods exist like that anymore. And, the irony is—I can make it sound as romantic as I want and it still will not adequately capture what it was like.

And, there was nothing as heart-stopping as having an ambulance screech down that little avenue, as it has done at three significant times in my history with the street. Each time tragic and sad—all of us gathering around each other’s families, stepping out front doors, coming to put an arm around the people left behind.

Who are our neighbors now? Who are my friends? Are the people I befriend online “neighbors”? We peek out our curtains at each other. We read those status updates on Facebook the way I used to catch glimpses inside my next door neighbors’ opened windows. When someone has a bad day, we make a post like a friendly wave. We poke each other as if to say, “I was thinking of you.” This is not unlike that neighborhood on Byall Ave in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Maybe this is why I listen so intently to those footsteps above me. Maybe this is why I take comfort in each pacing footstep of my upstairs neighbor. And, yet, she is farther away from me than many people who are miles away.

I do not know who lives in the other two apartments. We live separately together.

One day I hope to find the courage to greet my neighbor and introduce myself. Maybe then we can share a stroll outside in the sunlight, down the sidewalk we both recognize, and finally acknowledge each other as neighbors.