sheep, treasure, & negative spaces

Psychologically speaking, I am a statistic.

I was abused as a child. I acted out as a teen/college kid. I still wrestle with boundaries and healthy relationship as an adult.

I have an addiction. It's messy and I don't talk about it because it's painful and humiliating. I wrestle with it almost every day, and it's worse some parts of the year than it is others.

There's a pattern; I fit it. I'm a statistic.

And wow, does that ever bruise the ego of a thoroughly American post-modernist Gen-Me'er.

According to the culture I was raised in, everyone is supposed to like everyone else; all of our feelings are valid because they're ours; you are beautiful, and so am I, each in our own way.

We are not mere numbers. We certainly are not statistics.

Spiritually speaking, I am lost.

I don't go to church regularly - in fact, I just missed a month of Sundays. I don't talk to God because most of the time I just yell at Him, and then I get tired of yelling questions that don't get answered, so I just stop talking. And anyone that called me pious or faithful, well, that's better than calling me a Republican, but they'd still get a look.

I'm that lost sheep everyone knows from the story that got lost or distracted or addicted and never made it back to the pen with the good little rams and ewes. But because I look like a sheep and I talk like a sheep, all the sheep think I must be just fine as I am.

There's a definition, and I fit it. So I be a statistical, lost sheep.

I dragged myself out of bed today and made it to church. The sermon was part of a sermon called "Stuff God <3s" and today, God loves treasure. There was a Scripture (about a sheep), and then the pastor talked about how the God he serves actively, passionately pursues what He finds beautiful.

Here's what my version of the Bible said:

Make sure you do not look down on the little ones, on those who struggle, on those who are further behind you on the path of righteousness. For I tell you: they are watched over by those most beloved messengers who are always in the company of My Father in heaven. [The Son of Man has come to save all those who are lost.] A shepherd in charge of 100 sheep notices that one of his sheep has gone astray. What do you think he should do? Should the shepherd leave the flock on the hills unguarded to search for the lost sheep? God's shepherd goes to look for that one lost sheep, and when he finds her, he is happier about her return than he is about the 99 who stayed put. Your Father in heaven does not want a single one of the tripped, waylaid, stumbling little ones to be lost.

Then the pastor, Paul, made a few comments that really got me thinking. 

He said the kept sheep know the other sheep is lost; they can hear it crying and they probably saw it wander - but they had a pen to get to, where they were safe and fed and content.

He continued with we all know it says somewhere in the Bible.... in some book towards the back that we shouldn't judge; that we don't know everything going on in someone's life, and we should really just not get involved with something that's not really our business in the first place.

So out comes the cliche "we'll pray for you" and the conversation becomes something like this:

Person with Problem: Hey, I need to talk to you about something.
Person who Could Help: Cool, let's grab a mocha.
Person with Problem: Yeah, I can't afford Starbucks, and it's kinda personal.
Person who Could Have Helped: Oh... well, I don't really have a lot of time. What if I just pray that God helps you with whatever it is? He's, y'know, big and powerful and cares... and stuff.

Paul then baldly stated: We say we'll pray, hoping God will send someone else to deal with the mess we don't want to acknowledge exists.

And so, we close our eyes to the problems, fold our hands in complacency, and wonder why nothing ever changes.

There seems to be this perception (read: big ugly lie) that if you sit on a pew, you're somehow ok or better or healthier than those that don't; that by making an effort, God sees you as a little cleaner, a bit closer to the pen.

I call Bull. Where your butt happens to be doesn't dictate where your soul is going, nor where your treasure lies. We all wander. We all get scared. We all live in a dark world, far from our souls' home.

Redemption doesn't depend on practice, and Jesus loves me in the pretty church on the corner as much as He loves me when I am in the dark places where my addiction festers. But I need a flock. I need people I know will notice when I wander, and who will ask why. I need to know where good, rich soul food is, and I need to be able to tell others about it, too.


I know my Shepherd is good, but He is not safe... and I need to be able to baa about it sometimes.


I am a statistical sheep. I serve a Shepherd enamored with the beauty created by tension in the negative spaces. I am His wandering treasure, and He is my hope.

morning coffee

sipping my too-hot coffee
i thought of you as
morning sun breaking
through clouds
blinds me to things
of solid earth

the thought of you
lingers like the scent
of storms the day after


and i am caught

between bright
bitter morning

and dark luscious
night memories

so i take a bit more dark
my eyes oh, so slowly
adjusting to the light

scars

I had my weekly Asian and chat meeting with my best friend this past Thursday night. She had read my blog and just asked why there seemed to be a reoccurring theme of scars in my work. I said, ‘because I have them.” And she sort of rolled her eyes, replying, “well, we all do…”

And I smiled wryly, and nodded. I mean, my best friend, a family lawyer, and I, a generic white-looking chick, are sitting in Pei Wei, in an upper-middle class neighborhood. The most we would appear to have would be, as the fabulous Susan Isaacs would say, would be middle class white girl problems.

But I was one of those kids you read about in the paper. The ones that didn’t eat, or didn’t get medical treatment because their parents were crazy or just didn’t care. And when I say my dad was crazy, I’m not being dramatic. He was certifiable.

I didn’t wear lace as a little girl not because it was too girly, but because lace would let the demons in. And I know that, given the option between tuna with mustard and tuna with ketchup, you go with the ketchup because the mustard’ll scratch your throat after a few bites. And I know that there’s a certain smell that means Daddy’s talked to God again, and you should hide, hide fast, hide now.

The kindest  thing my dad ever did for me was to marry my stepmother, and decide that day to never talk to me again. She, it turns out, is a lovely woman, and made him a halfway decent human. Now that he's gone, she mourns him. A good-hearted, Catholic woman who sings in the choir and teaches teachers to teach kids cried when she told me my dad was dead.

And I sat there, disquieted by her tears and unsure what to say or offer other than a Kleenex.

Scars? I have a few.

day 368

I’m not pretty.

People who love me say I am, but that’s only because they love me. I’m really not.

Never have been.

When I was a kid and things like that didn’t matter to most, they did to me. My dad preferred blondes. The closest I ever came to blonde was lemon-juiced lighter brunette. He loved me in his way, but we both knew he didn’t ever really think I was pretty.

Later, when I really, really would have done anything to be pretty, I was fat. It was my own fault, having spent the summer between 11 and 12 stuffing the pain I didn’t have words for with potato chips. And if I’d known I’d want so desperately to be pretty at the end of that summer, I’d’ve found some other way to deal with the pain. But I didn’t, and I ate, and I was fat.

In high school, I was diagnosed with a genetic heart disorder, and worse yet, I was a brain. Freshman year was all honors and Latin as my elective – yeah, that kind of brain. And I was still fat. Not the cute, pleasantly plump fat. No, no. The so-fat-I-couldn’t-fit-in-the-desk fat. The started-panting-after-a-single-case-of-stairs fat. The most unpretty, my-grandmother-would-compliment-my-strong-shoulders-because-that-was-all-that-wasn’t-fat fat girl in Latin class.

And then…. I found the Internet and roleplay. Before webcams and digital cameras. It was the most pretty, wrong of paradise, and I didn’t care. My avatar was gorgeous. My brain with that form kicked ass, and that’s all anyone had to see or know.

I didn’t have to worry about being safe; I was pretty. A smile opened doors, and a wink got me the world. I didn’t have to try, didn’t have to think. All I had do to was log in, find a group, and poof! Insta-oblivion.

Years disappeared, and I have very little to show for them. College was less fun than my RP, so it slipped away easily. Friends who weren’t online were annoying. I told myself I didn’t care, that it was their fault for not understanding.

I’m older now, and have white hair to compliment my white, less-bloated skin.

I ran into a former RP acquaintance today. He offered the same game in a different place. And although the faces had changed, it all felt very much the same, stilted, like a tilted mirror.

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to go sign up for classes at the college where it all started. And parts of me are terrified. I’ll have to face what I was, and what I am and what I could have been if I’d been someone else. Or just accepted that being pretty wasn’t worth the price.

Tonight, I accept that I am not pretty. Tomorrow, I’ll aim for strong.

bothered

a pale, old reflection
surrounded by shiny steel
stares out into Dallas spring rain

and

I feel recycled
like all my best parts are somewhere else
like there's more i could have been, maybe
like my present passed by me somewhere
in the past

lightning flares
thunder bellows

and

i sit
tethered by dirty devices
safe in my insular cube-world
bothered by furious love