chocolate prayer

our Chocolate,
who art in boxes,
hallowed be your label.
Your melting come,
Your dipping be done;
on fondue as it is in Hershey.
Give us today our daily truffles,
and forgive us our calories,
as we forgive those who...
don't know the difference between white and dark.
Lead us not into cocoa butter
but deliver us from sugar free.
For yours is the syrup,
and the kisses
and the fudge forever.
Amen.

Pharisee easy

Hi, my name is Amber, and I wrestle with the idea I'm not really pro-gay enough to self-identify as a straight ally.

A while back, I wrote about maybe being an evangelical. Or that I was trying to be one, by my own definition. Recently, though, while talking about how societal expectations rubs against faith and how all of us crave some sort of ceremony in our lives, a friend pointed out the logical limits of my love, my graciousness towards others.

The first person who came out to be me as a friend was Taylor. Two years after high school graduation, back when no one talked about things like preference or being different, Taylor came out. He backed away from his friends for weeks before. It was hard, confusing time for all of us, fueled by fear, hormones and wrestling with who we, as this group of friends, were away from our parents and safe suburbs.

Taylor was impressively brave. He asked to attend church with me a bit before coming out; my only friend to ever do so. My youth pastor at the time sensed an otherness about Taylor, and told me I could only be friends with Taylor. Or with the youth group.

It made the choice easy. I left the church.

When Taylor needed a job not too long later, I told him about an opportunity where I was working. After that, every company I worked with, I researched their stance on human rights first. If Taylor and his boyfriend weren't treated like my partner and I would be, it wasn't a company worth my work ethic.

Taylor and I drifted, but remain FB friends. And somewhere between college and 30, Taylor stopped being the face of human rights for me.

Human rights issues broke into smaller pieces - gay marriage, women's rights, universal health care. And those pieces became ideas with little to any actual relevance to my intimates or me. Careers mattered, deadlines, mundane things like bills and car maintenance. My friends found partners, some mourned the loss of partners. Friends started having babies. Priorities shifted, and college, with its idealism and bright eyes, faded.

Issues with no direct relevance to my life became interesting dinner conversation, something to entertain with cocktails and not a lot more.

During a heated conversation with a friend recently, I actually made the statement: marriages happen in church.

And I didn't realize the words coming out of my mouth.

The silence after my statement deafened. I meant to say weddings happen in church, but that doesn't alter the truth I spoke. My friend, currently processing a divorce, responded with what we in the South call “righteous anger.”

And he had a point.

Because civil ceremonies fulfill some of the legal standards of a wedding, the assumption implied is they are the same; only the location of the ritual differs. And I bought that. I even argued the difference between marriages and civil ceremonies are an issue of faith, and for me, faith trumps everything else.

Except faith requires more. Being a person of faith requires following teaching – and not blindly. It means wrestling with fear – what I don’t want to be true – and pride – what I think should be true just because I think it should be so.

It’s that last one which pricks. I realized if I saw all gay and lesbian couples like Taylor and his partner, they would have the right to stand before God and community if they wished to, and express their commitment however they felt truest. It wouldn't be a discussion or debate. I’d’ve at already been at the wedding (if Taylor had any say).

Instead I saw gay marriage, the concept, wanted by gays and lesbians, a faceless group of people. I saw my faith tradition challenged by a group of outsiders, my fear painting an image of a world where faith had no relevance, and the church had no power.

I was no ally. I was a Pharisee.

And now, I wrestle with the idea I’m not as authentically invested in the agenda of the LGBT community to self-identify as a straight ally.

But I’ve acknowledged my fear. And my pride.

And that’s a good first step towards being a better friend to the stranger and the outsider. 

critical thinking and dragon scales

Flipping through the movie options recently, looking for something not Christmas, I found Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Sea serpents, wizards, and a painting run amok definitely rank as not Yuletide-y, so I watched, mesmerized as a ship of sea salty sailors and misfits rowed, sailed and fought their way to an island-sized heart of darkness.

Before they could get there, though, a selfish, fear-saturated, vitriol-spewing boy had to steal from a dragon. And become one. His name was Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and in one of the best introductions in literature, C.S. Lewis says, he almost deserved the name.

I do, I have, I will always hold Eustace in a special place. I loved him as a brat (and Dear Lord. Was he. Miley Cyrus could take lessons.) I loved him as he journaled his selcouth experiences through cynical, cowardly glasses. He was charming and perfectly logical to me when he talked to a seagull. I loved him on a boat, swatting a bad guy with an oar into the moat (by accident) and hoping he hadn't just knocked the British Consul into the drink.

I empathized with him as a dragon, breaking the mast of the ship with clumsy, powerful claws. 

But here's a secret: I couldn't understand why no one else liked Eustace.

He plays pivotal roles in two Narnian books (Treader and The Silver Chair), and is more than mere background in the grand finale/rebirth-of-all-things, The Last Battle. He speaks his mind, no matter what others think, and he knows how to react to keep himself safe in a battle (even if it is just to run away like something small and woodland).  Even later, being open and vulnerable, Edmund, his cousin tells him, "you were only an ass, but I was a traitor."

What did it matter when he changed or why? Why did it matter, given the story was written and it was all going to work out anyway, that he change at all?

Yeah. Looking back, even my own arrogance and apathy (which reads worse than ignorance and apathy) is, well, blinding.

If Eustace never changed as a character, he wouldn't have seen Aslan's country, made friends with Jill Pole, or been at the grand, epic, world-ending battle (which everyone knows is the entire point of any story).

His story, instead, would have wrapped with an unfinished boy rambling around the space of a dragon's body, claws lashing harshly; tears falling, drowning out the wisdom of a noble mouse offering comfort during his dark night of the soul.

He would have been background. Spending the word count he existed, looking through beauty to see flaw, things weighed, measured, and found wanting. Things would break around him, he would wonder why, not knowing how to fix them. And eventually, he'd convince himself it doesn't matter anyway.

Worse, maybe, after grace returned him back to a body which fit, he'd've clung to the ideas of a dragon. Blustering, blowing fiery criticism and spewing bitterness, he may have continued just as he had before, allowing arrogance to bind his ability to speak good into any situation.

Toying with this idea brought me back to reality - to songs about elves, ads for chocolate, and jingling bells on my dog's ruffled, furred red & green collar. And the hope a baby born to an unwed mother in a barn on the opposite side of the world thousands of years ago could save my soul.

Eustace and I are dragons of the same flight. Things like the P in psychology and the truth in theology bother us. We prefer the order of things, rather than the way of things. But such a structured existence disallows the power of wonder and whimsy. Such a life leads to winter, but never Christmas.

So although there's a certain, familiar protection in dragon skin, it must be scraped away. And in those scratches may be found glimmers of hope, of a far, greater country. And I want to meet Eustace there.

somewhere differently unexpected

i thought i'd be farther along
maybe on a different road
with more lights, fewer forks

i'd be a princess or
an astronaut
with kids and a prince charming
minding the horses and castle

life was supposed to be something else
you see, not something that
happened to me

but here i am again
caught between
vocation and avocation
and all the things inbetween

astride a restless horse or
gunning the engine of
a cranky old coupe

waiting for the light to
change
so i can pick a road
a street or highway
and end up

somewhere differently
unexpected

elephants and sacraments

Sneaking into the back of a darkened room, I didn't belong. I was late, my phone refused to work, unfamiliar faces surrounded me. I lumbered and glowed like a white elephant.

Up at the front and from the overhead screens, someone with kind eyes spoke of how we become  so blinded by the things we have trained ourselves to ignore, we speak nothing but mischief and deceit. The habits we don’t surrender or confess grow into things which grow fat and useless, suck the air from our homes, our loves, our souls. 

And we deny this thing we feed takes anything from us.

In our arrogance, we deny our elephants.

Driving along darkened city streets with a friend later that week, elephants wandered into the conversation. “The problem with humans is we’re creatures of habit,” he said. “We do what’s familiar because it’s familiar.” 

"We choose to not choose to do something different," he continued, "until we don’t realize we could do anything different. And we wonder why so much of the world’s crazy."

It made me think back to that dark room where I felt tusked and pale. The kind-eyed person said sacraments pry pachyderms from our private spaces. Being vulnerable, confessing imperfection and lesser-ness makes us weigh less, opens our eyes.

I like that thought. It makes me think of having my feet washed by strangers.


There's a story Bob Goff tells. He's the consulate for Uganda, and was the first person to ever successfully have a witch doctor convicted. Every year or so, he invites all the witch doctors in the country to meet him, then tells them they have to stop killing and maiming kids.

He says if they don't, he'll go after them. And will not stop.

Then he kneels before them and washes their feet.

It's a powerful, powerful thing to experience, even as a white-looking chick who gets semi-regular pedicures. Sitting there, while time becomes hushed and reverent. Sounds mute, air filling with intimacy so thick it smells of incense.

And you may not feel dirty before. But somewhere between this now-friend-then-was-stranger of yours undoing and removing your shoes, resting your feet on a towel, things clung to slip, walls wisp away.

Even if it's just a slow, intentional rinse and dry, it feels like love. Free, unexpected; simply offered, given. It reads as lavish because somehow we all think there should be a price for the experience.

But.. There's just not. It's just water, and a towel. And.. an unexpected glimpse of something fuller. In that moment, glimpses of the other shimmer. It's like you see where life began. Where elephants roam free.

give thanks

for Thor and chai
and a challenged brother who's becoming a cool dude
for chocolate and healing
and the right to pursue joy
for more than I deserve
and sunsets and ice days in the South
for friends and enemies to love
and tomorrow always being a new day

for the freedom to choose
and not being free from the consequences of those choices
for a life not as hard as some
but one still worth considering
for bubble bath and girly things
and people who provide shelter and dignity for others
for art and speaking for those who have no words
and those who understand

for hope and whimsy to hold back the dark
and a mom who is slowly, gracefully fading
for twinkle lights and ceremony
and the comfort of a good conversation
for the space to scream and cry and hurt
and the knowledge that's not where I live
for today
for tomorrow
for all the times I forgot to say it

I give thanks.

'til death

When does a marriage end

When the papers are signed

When the bed’s grown cold

When apologies are offered for a brush of a hand

When not wearing the ring feels more right

When it stops being true

When you’re happier apart

When kisses tastes frustration-cold

When a little apology seems like too much work

When convenience matters more

When do you disengage

When’s it enough

When does the door close

                And you relearn how to breathe

love letter to fall

today 
can't decide if 
it is chillingly rain-laden
or if it wishes to be 
intoxicated by the sun

moody
filled with old movies 
and stars
keenly bright 
before i was born

fallen leaves in the yard
cling
to the in-between
of frozen sugar, hot sun
and small lights on trees
pushing back the dark

dear shane

Dear Shane,

You were born on June 14th, 2003. Your mom was a lady, certified and beautiful. She gave you your beautiful brown eyes, and classic frame. Your dad, unknown and a bit of a rascal, gave you your smile, blond roots, and the spots on your tongue.

You found Grams at the Main Street Arts festival in Fort Worth. We were there to find an art piece, ideally the size of the couch, but took home a 7 pd. Rottweiler mutt puppy instead. She said you curled into her hand, fitting just over her heart as you rested your head on her shoulder. A man there also wanted to take you home, to guard his space and stuff. Mom just wanted you.

You first met me, and neither one of us knew what to make of the other. You were all ears and paws, and I had been told I was only supposed to deliver you back to Grams. After I put you on your leash and led you back to the car, you curled into the front seat like a soft puddle of dark night. I remember your yawn, the flash of tiny teeth and rush of sweet puppy breath. My heart was lost then.

I thought you would sleep on the way home, but you quietly crept into my lap each time I tried to return you to your spot. Looking out the window, your nose pointed and twitched, and I saw the beautiful, strong frame you’d eventually grow into.

Scout, the cat, hunted you when we got home. One morning, I skipped into the backyard and you tumble-trotted after. Scout, grey, stripped and so curious, stalked after like a lost raincloud on the green grass. She taught you to respect those smaller than you, and how to play with things sleeker and more skilled with claws.

Your first seizure terrified me. I was at work, and Grams called. She said you grew still, then dizzy. I came in the door to see you, snarling silently, back bowing. And I rushed to try to ease you to the floor as you lost consciousness. I stroked your lush fur, singing You Are My Sunshine as we waited for you to come back to us. I’d’ve followed you, if I’d known where you went then.

Grams and I searched for information about seizures and big dogs and other things which might hurt you in the future as if we could save you just by knowing more. Dr. Pipes gave you small, white pills in copper colored plastic bottles. And they helped; you were back with us.

You grew barrel-chested, bow-legged and dignified. One of your favorite spots became the doorway to the media room, with your paws stretched out, freshly groomed and cleaned, the way Scout taught you. Your head raised and ears perked, you looked like the dogs in paintings too dignified and pretty for modern life. You were such a gentleman.

Your face grew grey, then whiter as time passed. Your eyes, still clearly brown and so dark, seemed richer as you aged. More bowlegged as arthritis bit at your hips, you moved slower, and less, with more intention. I grumbled as you started taking up the doorway. But secretly, your big shoulders looked like gentler Rocky Mountains, and there was a comfort in climbing over you.

I came home yesterday morning to find you hadn’t moved the entire time I’d been at work. Your full, bushy tail dusted the floor almost absently when I stroked your face, asking what was going on. Dr. Pipes thought the rain may have made your bones ache.

You got up to get a drink and fell last night. And I cried inside my head when I noticed you couldn’t move your back legs at all. You coughed, sounding like a cat with a hairball. And although the rain eased this morning, you didn’t move. Or eat.

We went to see Dr. Pipes. You’re so big now, I had to have help lifting you into your spot in the trunk of our PT Cruiser. I wrapped the blankets we used as slings around you, trying not to notice your eyes differently dilated or how the smell of sick, wrong-ness clung to your fur.

You've spent most of the week there now. They took X-rays and blood. You were drugged and slept on a mat. And I prayed you could come home with me, able to walk again and sit for your cheese and cookies. But as time passed, the more I prayed you'd hurt less.

I suspect you knew how hard it would be for me to let you go. Ever the gentleman, you closed your eyes and went where I could not follow about an hour ago.

Because you were, are, shall be my sunshine and my therapy.

and if your love

if your love were new
it'd be something growing and tender
not as frail as new life
but unfurling

and if your love were a color
it'd be morning light
or a flavor
Curry
full of surprises and
things i can't identify
but crave

if your love were a smell
something robust and fresh
and haunting
holding the weight of beauty
chopped wood or air before
a fierce storm

but your love
is better
worth nurturing
and being gentle with
because it keeps me warm

and because it's you

mission statement

A friend asked during a recent conversation if I'd ever written a mission statement. I hadn't, purposefully avoided the tension the mere idea created for me - for years - until I attended a conference recently. There was a moment, sitting in a sunlight-washed room, I could see where how my life had a theme and how what had happened to me could be used to do something big and worthy. And the words to convey that popped in my head.

To return dignity to the violated however, wherever, whenever it is needed so there are more survivors and fewer victims; To not tell people what to think or how, but to show why they should; And live to such a robust, affecting life it's obvious I couldn't have done it on my own.

Or, to convey faith alone in Christ alone, for His glory alone. And to really enjoy chocolate.

It was originally supposed to be a blog-only mission statement, but it's sort of become a life mission statement. Trying to view it through the lens of my writing morphs it a bit:

To write so a person who doesn't know me or have a vested interest in my life would appreciate the word choices, the idea presented, and gain something worthy from the experience.

I'm no Scott Harrison or Jenna Lee Nardella, but there're plans for my life, a theme, a reason.

And now, a mission statement.

shamefully distracted

The first time I felt what I could identify as shame, where I felt on display to disadvantage happened at the opening of a Dale Chiluly exhibit at the major art museum in Dallas. A beautiful gathering in a light-splashed, sleek space filled with beautiful people murmuring appropriate words of beauty about clean, well-turned pieces. 

And then, me. 

Dad had actually made it by to pick me up for a weekend (of sorts). Less than an hour before, I'd been a kid, running around in a sweatshirt and culottes. My hair carefully braided by my mom's nimble fingers that morning sticking amok, sweaty, unraveling. 

Then, he was there. Mom asked if I could shower and change, said I wasn't fit for something fancy as I was. Dad got cold and angry. I was in the car as soon as I could move so they only yelled, so we wouldn't need help cleaning up the aftermath. The sweat from my sweatshirt seeped into his fine leather seats, but he chirped debonairly as he wove his car through the steel maze of downtown.

And we were there.

Thirsty and looking for something to do with my hands, I moved towards a pretty blonde girl near a table with cheese and fruit. She had a braid like me, a red-and-white dress, and she looked like my friend Tabby. I smiled, quick and unsure. 

Her eyes went flat and she moved away. I wasn't fit company.

I wondered if I had tracked all the dust of my life behind me like Pig Pen. Tucking behind a nearby pillar, I sipped something liquid and cold. My cheeks burned, I knew I smelled. My clothes were torn, my sneakers permanently scarring the pretty white floor.

Turning my head, I looked for my dad and found him smoothly sipping something bubbly, his eyes roaming a tall, tastefully black-clad blonde. Feeling me look at him, he sighed, his shoulders subtly hunched and cheeks colored.

I'd embarrassed him.

I leaned back behind the pillar, rolling my eyes. Two choices loomed: I could not move from that spot. The floor could eat me, the pillar could suck me into cool stone nothingness.

Or I could walk away from him.

I put my cup on the table and walked, keeping the pillar between us. Inside the room, color burst, lush like oceans. Things made of glass slithered and uncurled tentacles above my head, like giant, welcoming jelly fish. Some pieces just sat, splashing puddles of color on me as light shone through them.

My company didn't matter. I fit.

Roaming the rooms felt like entering undiscovered worlds, and I still don't know how long I wandered. I fell into hope and color and beauty so sharp it felt keen on my eyes. I was free.

Sometime later, my dad found me. His eyes glacially furious, a white line around his lips. It seems the blonde had seen me, asked if I was his. When he shared I was my mother's child, but had gone to find me, he was shocked and saddened to not find me where I'd been.

I embarrassed you, I remember saying, so there was no reason for me to stay.

It was a quiet ride home in the cooling night. Stars winked like lights along the edges of the glass I'd just seen. I dreamed of swirls of color teasing the stars, clouds hugging the moon like family.

He returned me to my mom's, and drove off with a punch of gas. 

A few years later, he met and fell in love with a fabulous tall, slender woman. The day of the wedding, he asked if I was planning to attend. My brother was with me for the weekend, so I said I'd have to bring him if I came.

Dad didn't understand why I should have that need. I said I didn't see why, if he couldn't admit he had two children, he should need to have any. It was the last time we spoke.

I found out about his death from my cousin on Facebook. 

While I read a book about the fatherlessness epidemic in America, my angry father rode his motorcycle into a long, good night.

At his funeral, I couldn't reach his wife's side to offer my condolences for her pain. My thoughts slid cool in my head, as I tried to classify the absolute lack of feeling. Not tasting of shock or bitter-copper like pain, it wasn't something easily named. No color burned hot like regret or clingish grey-green like unrequited hope.

I felt clean, like stars and lights along the edges of the glass. I mourned the passing of a hurt man so angry, life passed him while he was shamefully distracted.

my life as a vampire

So, hi. My name's Amber, and I'm a vampire. I've, uh, not always been a vampire. Had a mom, dad, cat, dog, brother, the usual. It's just this most recent job which, you know, turned me.

I started out a daywalker, sort of human like everyone else. But there was this "transition", and poof! Going on about three years now, I'm a vamp. Not the typical- chocolate's more my lifeblood. And the whole holy objects thing burning me - meh. They might, but I'm Methodist. A recently warmed covered dish'd burn anyone.

What I'd really like to be is a zombie, though. I see them, shambling off the trains as they arrive. Each 15 minutes or so, at odd times new loads delivered. Plugged into tech, squinting at the sun, the siren song of Starbuck's green mermaid calling them back to a relative state of humanity. I see them. I'd like to join them, but there are layers of office building glass and expectation between us. Plus, it's really hard to suck life from the half-dead.

Right now, the powers-that-be decided to transition me again. I'm a in-between vampire. Cross-trained, they call it. Since the introduction to straight sunlight after three years of denial would cause anyone to burst into flames, the powers placed me in the in-between. Sort of a halfway house for the lunarally enchanted.

Now, some people see me, and some still don't. Work gets done, I wander the halls like a ghost with a more professional intent. Sort of a zombie, sort of a vamp, I guess that makes me an.. apparition. My agenda's transparent, my intent's pure.. if not horrifically corporately-minded.

I heard a new group of headhunters started their way through the ranks. It'd be petty and vindictive of me to approach them, flirt a little, see if I get a nibble. It'd irk the powers, of course, but... the idea makes me just lick my incisors, I have to admit.

Either way, sometime hopefully soon... I'll leave the nights of aloneness and step into morning light, meandering towards the ever-hopeful Finned Lady, finding my soul in the bottom of a sea of chai.

bui-doi no longer: survivors' guilt

A friend, a Marine, texted early in the morning, speaking of guilt. He served his time; it wasn't enough. When he asked for an extension, wanted to return to duty and was told no, the sinister-looks-like-shame whispered into his ear: said none of his training, time, sacrifice meant anything since he didn't die with the rest of his unit in Afghanistan. 

After all, if you are trained to take lives, shouldn't you give yours as payment? If not, did you really complete your mission?

A solider. A survivor. A shushed guilt.

Someone else I know lost his marriage. He tried; she tried. Time passed, and one decided it was easier to be roommates rather than lovers. One thought about working on a marriage; eventually, they settled on divorce instead. Packing up boxes in an Indian summer, he stopped, found a chair. Talked about the mourning of a relationship, wondering why they even did it. What good is a marriage if it ends with a signature and separated CDs?

A geek. A mourner. A socially acceptable failing.

A kid, hormonal and angry, yelled as clothes fell out of an overstuffed closet. Dresses, jackets, coats, waves struck, stifled, beat back by the hanger still in hand. Growling in frustration, she asked why leave a house with closets which actually hold clothes to live in one without locks on the doors. Why make it through the bruises, the nosebleeds at school, and anger just to face this blinding light of life? How is this better?

A child. A remainder. A stifled stigma.


Something coats guilt in darker, slippier things. It's hard to name, to claim, to own. And the coating camouflages this healthy thing until it looks sinister like shame.

But at the core, shame requires some sort of death payment - death of innocence, joy, physical life. A noble idea, to be able to right a wrong with a life; except these wrongs require something more than powerful than death: a life.

The Armed Forces train to preserve life. Marriages begin to solidify, express committed love. And abuse, well, the only good which can come from that is surviving it.

Surviving any traumatic event can be its own bloody battle. Choosing to carry the beautiful weight of memory of lives lost, or homes no long whole, requires a quieter, less obvious glory; a taciturn strength harder, too, as the dead can't speak. And the living have to trust broken others with their pain.

Modern medication and therapy offer to take the edge off these sharp memories, the still-searing, haunting hope it didn't happen, or somehow ended differently. But the survivor still has to do the work; to deal with the bitterness, anger (hurt left to fester) or one of three things happen.

1. You kill yourself. The story ends; your pain wins. Period.

2. You keep needing more and more of the same meds to maintain the same level of sort-of-kind-of-if-you-squint functional.

3. You'll need harder, more and different meds, more, rougher, harsher therapy. All of the meds will require more meds for the side effects; the supports who could hold your pain before will stop, then disappear, all ending in a point of medicated, technically-not-labeled-yet,-but-certainly-not-living denial-controlled zombiehood.

Eventually, option 3 will cycle back to option 1, as shame will choke whatever life still seeps from the drug-haze of swirled emotions when you realize you've purposefully chosen to place those you love in their own mourning cycle.

The best - and no question, hardest, most painful - option to this story is to stand in the pain and sing the stories you had the privilege to be part of. 

Because that's what survivors do.

That's why we need them. And why they must be saved.

To paraphrase Miss Saigon, survivors are the living reminders of all the good we have left to do.

flight from Nashville

You are seductive, and you are bad.

The white-haired man across the room in Nashville continued down the list of what voices say. "An immature boy in a locker room may feel shame, and hear from that - even years later - "You are small. They are large." A girl, molested, learns from that experience shame, and hears, "You are seductive. And. you. are. bad."


Something resonated, deep, shattering in that moment. And my soul was free.

I don't know why I thought I didn't need to hear it. My inner cynic argued my abuser was forgiven. I'd processed, he died; I'd evolved beyond this. Logically, I am 35 years old, and it's been decades. I am free, can defend myself. My job helps many, is unsexy-boring and requires responsibility. It's a grown-up job. I am a grown-up, a functioning, contributing member of society. I'm a lady, dammit.

You are seductive, and you are bad.

In that space, though, filled with hipsters, artists, grandmothers, I sat alone, bared, scared, held.

Men had always watched me - when I ate, while I walked, even sitting and reading. I felt their eyes roam, cling like weights with knife-sharp edges. 

Meeting those eyes meant staring them down. Showing every man he couldn't hurt me. Angry, wounded hazel eyes dared them to make a move. Do something so I can use this new-found power to call others to my aid. Do it. Do it so you can be punished for wanting me.

Or... my eyes lowered from theirs.

A quick smile meant I was friendly, harmless, something soft. Lowered eyes, folded-in shoulders conveyed I am small, won't fight. The quick, nervous movements translated soul messages: Please, please hurt me. I'm not your wife, your girlfriend. Bring on the leather, the anger. Lose those things which restrain you, like responsibility or ethics. Ignore what you've been told an enlightened, acceptable male does.

Be dirty with me. And angry. And hard. I won't tell. I want you to.

I am seductive. And I am a very, very bad girl.

Staring at my Crocs-covered, navy-nailed feet, the man, Al,'s voice echoed like the leftovers of a gong; quieting, exotic-but-familiar. And answering back was someone else in my voice.

You are beautiful. You. are. not. seductive.

You. are. not. bad.

Not a breathless, desperate prayer from a locked closet. Not the angry, empowered shell-person I'd worn since college.

Someone new. More vulnerable and more strong. Less protected and less unfinished. It was a quiet birth, unseen and unrecorded.

The next day, I boarded a plane for my homestate. Job, bills, family waited on the other side. Flight delayed, I ate BBQ and watched people roam halls. Artists, soldiers, fathers strolled into tubes leading to sleek, flying beast airplanes. Professionals Blackberried. Gazes caught, I smiled.

And didn't flick my gaze away.

When he blankly smiled, returning to something more attention-demanding on his screen, I blinked, stunned by the moment. 

No anger, no burn, no anything; but a hazel-eyed, brown-haired chick in an airport.

Not striking, not seducing, but not bad.

Differently beautiful. New.

September Day

that day was bright
pretty with promise
sky blue
puffy, random clouds
I ran late for work
and wondered if anyone would notice
but that was before
black smoke filled the skies
of Gotham

two planes flew into steel and concrete 
and two towers fell
slowly
like giants dying
another flew
striking the heart of war and secrets
and yet another went down
in a field of green, green grass

it was a quiet
dream of a morning
before

12 years later
flags rest at half-mast
in a clear blue sky
no wind blows
even still
media scrolls
somber, weighty
images of firefighters
and flags
rubble and
remnants of
reverent rage

we remember
we who can never forget
friends, coworkers, heroic strangers
gone
like a dream of a 
could've-been-pretty day
of blue sky
filled with black smoke

Jesus Isn't A Dick

Note: This entry is not appropriate for children, immature adults, or those with short attention spans. Be at least over 18 mentally before continuing.

Austin caught the nation's attention with a pair of pink tennis shoes and an ongoing ethical-political debate. Protesters, hoopla, and a woman willing to stand up for an idea: Lifetime couldn't write a better chick-lit movie plot. Frankly, my dear, I give a damn... but I've been trying to purposely ignore all of it.

Quite a feat since I live in Texas.

A recent Facebook post put up by a friend blew that attempt to smithereens. A picture made its way online of a 14 yr. old protesting the current Texas legal stance on abortion. She'd holding a sign baldly stating, "Jesus isn't a dick, so keep him out of MY VAGINA!" The post caught my attention, and the story attached, well-presented, very fair.

Photo courtesy of XOJane.com

Even as a left-of-the-middle Christian, that statement felt like absorbing the impact of a sideswipe car wreck. 

My first response was knee-jerk and childish; I balked at a 14 year old being at a this kind of protest. Where are her parents? Why is a child being exposed to such an adult, weighty topic? Does she even understand the words she's written on that glaringly pink piece of poster?!

My second response was to breathe.

After talking with God and thinking about it, a few points solidified:

• This has happened. I cannot change it; I can only decide how I will respond to it. This is true because I was given the choice. It's my responsibility to make wise choices.

• A fourteen year old future-woman attended a political protest - with her parents. Her dad stands beside her, encouraging her right to voice her concerns and doubt of the political system - contrary to what resonates as overwhelmingly popular. That should thrill every fair-minded individual everywhere. 

• But although she's 14, she may not be a child. I don't know her story, her experiences. From the picture and the quotes, there is no way to know why she has a passion for this particular cause.

• Finally... Jesus isn't a dick. Literally or figuratively. (Obvious as it seems.) As offensive as it is to minimize a holy figure to a single body part, how much more would He, as a Teacher, be hurt one of His followers called a child a whore in response?

Pretty sure that's not what He meant with the "turn the cheek" thing.

But now that His name's been evoked... where is Jesus in all this?

Right in the middle, trying to get the two extremes to remember souls housed in bodies exist on every side of the debate.

Stances on abortion tend to run a spectrum, but generally group into three: 

• A woman should have the right to control her own body.
• Abortion is an appropriate option to safely end a pregnancy in cases of rape, sexual abuse, and/or incest.
• The fetus' right to life should be honored. Always.

This political cause appears to be about control and convenience, but rests weightily on people: their choices, pain, needs. Exceptions can't reasonably be made for cases of rape, abuse, and/or incest without a conversation about the causes of rape, abuse, and/or incest happening, too.

As a former fetus, survivor of rape/incest, and a Christian woman, I feel I have a unique voice to add to this conversation, as well as the right and responsibility to do so.

My abuser preferred oral, and the abuse happened before I was old enough to have kids. I was lucky - I know I am. Had I been older before I finally escaped, or had my abuser been differently sadistic, I may have been one of those young ladies entering the clinic, praying for God to understand and for His followers to stop calling me names.

Being raised in an especially conservative faith among rather unforgiving congregations wouldn't have helped. At that point, I was the only person in 5 congregations of hundreds who came from a family who divorced while in church. 

I cannot imagine how being faced with real, undeniable evidence of incest rather than just the academic idea would give that community of faith an entirely new depth to the idea of wishing to have full control over one's body.

Which raises the point: if a woman has been raped or sexually abused, how does any community give her the power of choice, control of her body back to her? How does a community of faith especially do that, while honoring the fetus' right to live?

The answer ideally is the same: Provide information, options. Check in, be present. Help her see where she came from so she doesn't have to go back. Love her. Be the proverbial village.

Acknowledge and internalize the fact 1 in 3 people - male and female - are currently victims of sexual abuse, which means that grey area of exception will only grow. Work that problem.


Be the friend and lover she deserved to have had in the first place.

Even those outside the community of faith passionately debating the right of choice over the sanctity of life acknowledge Jesus isn't a dick. Perhaps if the Church dealt with people more holistically, less as individual body parts, with dignity and respect, they wouldn't think we are.

Hannah

The story of Hannah haunts me. 

She's recorded as the mother of Samuel, the prophet. She's known for wanting a child so much, each morning, she'd take herself off to a sacred space and weep from wanting. One morning, her grief, her lack of what she wanted overwhelmed her to the point, a priest thought she was drunk.

She was an emotional mess, driven more by what she didn't have than what she did.

Hannah married a man who loved her. He was married to two women, but gave Hannah twice as much as the woman who had bore him sons. In a household where she could have been discarded, Hannah was highly regarded.

And it wasn't enough. She chose something else.

Choice seems all the rage right now, hidden in different phrasing. From ads online to the clothes one wears, the implication permeates that by choice, I rule my world. Nothing here remains untouched, unaffected by me.

By choice.

Stalker or lover. Obsession or fascination. Victim or survivor.

Hannah bothers me because I don't understand her choice. I know women like her. I have friends who spent more on getting pregnant than I earn in two years; who scoured Scripture looking for that one verse blessing barren women. With homes and devoted lovers, careers and such sweet freedom to choose their lives and paths, these women still chose to long for children.

I've tried. I just don't get it.

Kids would be great, and I'd like to have one. Later. After I marry. Maybe. But the idea's not going to keep me up at night.

What keeps me up at night? The world those kids will come into, the future of the Church. The continued right of people everywhere to choose something different.

I am no Hannah. There's not a single thing I do every day to show where my heart rests. My life is small, compared to hers. I'd've been happy with a husband who loved me, and no kids.

But then, I'd not be the best mom for Samuel. And without Samuel, there'd've been more Philistines in the world. No King David. Solomon probably would have been renamed Sheldon, and have far too many cats.

The world would be different. Because Hannah made a choice.

I don't get it. I wouldn't do the same thing in her situation.

But I can respect her right to choose something different.

foggy light

like fog in morning light
ethereal and hope-tinged
my thoughts wander towards You

everything you want waits on the other side of fear

I was dumped.

Not a grand announcement, I didn't even change my FB status. But still. 35 and unceremoniously, completely-caught-off-guard dumped.

It was nauseatingly civil: the reasons explained, divvying up the stuff, the friends, who does what going forward.

It's been a while since this happened to me, so it feels sharper and keener. But I've tried at the end of every relationship (my choice or not) to see where to go with the rest of my life. If this didn't work, what would? What do I want to try now  might not have before?

What do I have to do to be the person I want to be when I grow up? How do I get there?

The idea of doing something different in life distracts me from the pain. But I still know it's been 13 days, 23 hours since I was... released.

Weird things have been happening to me for the last few weeks, surrounding the release period. The day before it happened, I was in the shower talking with God. The water pounded, I was in a confined space, and there was nothing else I had to do for the time it took me to take a shower.

I talked to God about this thing that bothered me. See, I've had a crush on someone so far outside the realm of possibility for so long, I don't know how to have a crush on anyone else.

It felt disloyal since I was seeing someone else. And you don't leave a relationship where needs are met and life is good to walk up to someone you've met through friends of friends and say, Hi. I've thought you were cool since before the second Matrix movie was released. I'm not a stalker (usually), but what're you doing for the rest of your life?

Seriously.

I started tapping my head against the tile. 'Cause I must have had a psychotic break, and this is a sign. Well, at least I'll be clean and smell good when the nice, nice men in the white, white suits coming knocking.

I started rinsing off, and one line from one song I can't stand from the 80s stuck in my head. From one singer whose voice makes me twitch. From one song of the dozens she wrote.

One line. Over. And over. And again. 

Love will make a way.

Seriously.

I come to You in a sacred moment of authenticity, with this thing bothering me I can't talk about with anyone else, and the answer is... Amy Grant.

Ok.... psychotic break sign #2. Got it. Great.

The shower had a reason - a friend needed a ride to the airport. At her place, she admitted (since it was our first time) she hates being driven to the airport. Time restraints, questions about routes, security, work stuff, home things, all the details flood her brain on the way to the plane.

So she asked me to ramble.

I had God, Amy Grant and Psychotic Breaks 1 and 2. Rambling - covered. 

45 minutes later, she asked if it was Ok if she cut in with feedback. She started with if God was using Amy Grant, I must have ignored everything else. Ow. 

And then it got personal, starting with if you can't share faith, everything else will suffer for it. So what if he's an atheist and I'm a Christian? He still gets a stocking at Christmas and eggs at Easter... and I don't get razzed if I miss service. Win. Win.

She... somehow didn't agree, and said I needed to break it off. I had no idea how I would do that.

We pulled into the designated traveler drop-off not too long later, and off she went. I was alone in the car with my thoughts, deafening silence, and my friend's words lingering in the air.

The next day... I was dumped.

Now, I have to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. And who I'd like to do it with.

It's not a big deal, won't even affect my FB status.

But still. 35 and not psychotic. Single and wandering, befuddled but free.

Where the hell do I go from here?

distraction

I've been wrestling with distraction recently, or maybe it's wrestling me. It wraps around everything, blurring edges, stickifying piddly games and petty people.

I blink, years wisp away. My time spent, life.. blurred. Things and people I want to pour time and love into disappear; I don't even notice.

I'm distracted.

The usual suspects could be blamed - Facebook, texting, some favorite tv program. I like that idea, on the surface. Adding to the list makes me happy, too - work, taking care of my mom, family, the pets.

Maybe there's justification. I love my mom, the dog's on a schedule and needs meds. Maybe that project has a timeline, my career means providing better, more.

But the fact remains, I am the one surrendering to distraction. 

I choose it first.

And that's not ok. See, I made a commitment before I knew what the word meant and the world looked like. I said I'd have one love, one first among many, one response to distraction. I knew even then I wouldn't follow through, because I was young enough to be lose thought when I saw a pretty flower. But I said I'd try.

And that's the problem with distraction - it takes away my want to try. I settle, with my preferred things around me in my preferred life. I don't have to see what I don't want to, do what I don't want to. Those things pull away from my preferences and wants, so they stay and I choose to wander.

But there's no weight of beauty in distraction. To rephrase C. S. Lewis, distraction is the joke worthy happiness and wonder doesn't bother with. 

Distraction pales. It blinds.

And eventually, I don't care to see the difference between the pale and the worthy.

There's a conference this October I could actually attend for the first time since it was created 5 years ago. It's free to attend. And actually in a state below the Mason-Dixon. It's in a month when I need to eat vacation time, but before the big push at work. The founder speaks good into the world, empowers the fatherless generation towards hope.

But my distracted brain muddles through the oppressive questions of worth. 

Should I really go to a city I've never visited before *just* to hear an attractive man talk about things I would like to listen to anyway? The money spent on travel and hotel and a car could buy me a new laptop; buy my mom a new one. (My brother can buy his own. :P) Why should I go spend 5 days away from my house, my beautiful cable connected wireless network (and bed!) to go to a conference which will make me question the worth of a quiet, small life? Small and quiet can be powerful, like iPods and vials of nitrogen glycerin; why should I deal with the guilt of feeling I should be doing something bigger or braver?

How much of my questioning comes from fear distracting me from the worth of a struggle and new experience?

How do I figure out what path to take when my life (filled with socially acceptable responsibilities like work and an aging, seizuring mother) distracted me from the community primarily responsible for giving me a place to wrestle with questions and distraction in the first place?

How do I disengage a sticky wrestle with distraction when I crave to be distracted?

Jean Twenge wrote her doctoral thesis about the dissatisfaction driving modern world citizens living in America to distraction. It morphed into a book called Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - And More Miserable Than Ever Before. 

An except from the author's site encapsulates my apathy and ambivalence:

GenMe's focus on the needs of the individual is not necessarily self-absorbed or isolationist: instead, it's a way of moving through the world beholden to few social rules and with the unshakable belief that you're important. It's also not the same as being "spoiled," which implies that we always get what we want; though this probably does describe some kids, it's not the essence of the trend (as I argue in Chapter 4, GenMe's expectations are so great and our reality so challenging that we will probably get less of what we want than any previous generation). We simply take it for granted that we should all feel good about ourselves, we are all special, and we all deserve to follow our dreams. GenMe is straightforward and unapologetic about our self-focus.

I hate that clinical voice condescendingly saying wanting what I want when I want it isn't spoiled but social expectation writhing through my head.

Especially when I know it's not true. 

Nothing de-stickifies distraction quite like an ego bruised by the truth. 

Going to the conference or not won't dictate how strong a pull distraction has in the future. It's not even really the point. 

The choice to be distracted, to choose anything before what I committed to first is.

Which means I can go to a city to see a wise, attractive man and explore beauty, feeding my soul. Then I can go to back my grown-up job and live a responsible life.

I can return to my love, and ask forgiveness (again) for being distracted into not losing thought and giving thanks when I see pretty flowers.

nameless

what if tonight
you don't talk about you
and i won't talk about me

you won't toss around things
that matter like they don't
and i won't feel like i
should point out they do

what if tonight
you were my friend
and i were brave
you didn't distract
from my pain and aches
and neither of us consider it

a silly tragedy

a story happening to other people

a trivial something

to be bandy about
at parties
as if it were
sparkling conversation
between sparkling people

what if tonight
i just finally cry
and you created a space
to let me?

memory

i saw someone who looked
like you today
something about the eyes
or lips
read as you-but-not

and suddenly
you were there
again

a not-memory
haunting and solid
i thought had dissolved

standing carefree
oblivious
touchable
unknown

in a blink
i was lost

because someone sort of
kind of
looked like you

fading pretty

Wanting a change
I dyed my hair
Pinned the pic online
and got distracted

by images of
fading pretty things

hobbling together bits
of conveniently offered
recycled people
i think I have friends

In the room over
mom whimpers in
too quiet sleep
and real life
slices

we don't know what we don't see

I got a new cell phone two weekends ago. My friends had razzed me pretty royally about not having one for a while, because they couldn't understand… why I didn't just go get one.

They didn't understand because they didn't know.

A few years ago, I had a decidedly unhealthy relationship implode. Epically. Right after the big boom, clean-up attempts started. I tried to keep my phone, to just change the number. But the first call I received after the number change was the ex, and thanks to caller ID, the new number just appeared under my name.

After 6 months of running-away-but-not-escaping; receiving a $600 cell phone bill in a single month; I was happy to give it up if it meant I was free.

Then, I just stayed unreachable. It was safer in the beginning, and eventually just became familiar.

Hiding is a form of dying, though, and I didn't see life kept on living without me.

Last month, sitting at a ladies’ retreat so far in the country rope and crosses are acceptable decoration choices, I listened to an AME pastor talk about the last class she attended in seminary called God and the Excluded. In her powerful voice and way, she stumbled for words to describe the Modernist movement.

Researching to write about the topic she’d never heard about, Rev. Ella McDonald struggled to find fellow African-American thinkers or writers discussing the topic. No one she knew, no resource she knew spoke to this thing she faced.

She hadn't seen it, so she didn't know it.

And no one she knew could show her anything different.

So what does a neurotic, (now) wired self-identifying Post-Modernist white girl have in common with an African-American preacher born Southern poor?

Questions. Wrestling with fear. Love of bacon.

We both know we don’t know what we don’t see. And we both know we don’t see a lot.

But somewhere between me wrestling this new fangled social media/Internet thing, and Ella digging through the idea of technology being the conveyor of truth, we see something better and fuller.

We see hope.  

Hope connects two people with only gender in common.

Hope shaves away fear, making the odd whimsical.

Hope encourages friendship.

And that hope unseen does not disappoint.