Cliché of the Day: Tattooing "Abide"

I never thought I’d get a tattoo. Especially not one easily mistaken for having Christian connotations. They’re expensive and permanent, and that's obnoxious. Three things I try to avoid. It’s why I like piercings. (Especially in Michigan: inexpensive and healable.) But one word has not left my mind for the last year: abide. And I like words. A lot. 

In response to my expressing surprise at its presence, my friend wrote:

I’m amazed at the confluence of “abides” in your life all at once. Wow. Sounds like some sort of message to me. I always think of that word as very comforting and peaceful. So maybe “hang in there” is the word, or “I’m here with you,” or both. Something like that?

I was/am amazed too. Looking back, that’s what I needed, to hang in there. It’s what I needed to hear: I’m here with you. She wrote that January 20^th of 2014, January of what would become the most fucked up year of my life. I know, that probably comes across as dramatic, and it is vulgar. But the year was both dramatic and vulgar. Someday I’ll express the vulgarity of 2014 in a book that I’ll probably never sell. Until then, perhaps “abiding” belongs not only in my mind and soul but on my body.

I probably won’t get a tattoo. I’m too cheap and too scared of permanence. But I’ll keep abiding. I’ll keep hanging in there, listening for and trusting that someone will always say, “I’m here with you.”

An Ode to Crosswords

Crosswords. They are a kind of complete that I am not and a type of disorganized that I am. The words don’t necessarily go together. In fact, they usually don’t. My inner workings don’t seem to go together all too well either. If they did, I wouldn’t be bipolar II. And of course, although the crossword’s complete, I’m not. Of course. None of us are. Some of us have more words spelled out and connected than others, sure, but we all have rogue tiles and mystery tiles. Real philosophical . . . I know.

I guess I hate being incomplete and disorganized, but the crossword’s disorganization mirrors my own disorganization and its completeness gives me hope.

Words. I like words. I like crosswords. I organize myself when organizing those tiles. But it’s no Ouija board. It doesn’t tell my future—and it doesn’t need to. It just needs to complete itself, for in that, somehow, it helps to complete me.

The Nutty Ones

It's been a good while since I've put anything on this blog. So here's something. I wrote it a couple of years ago, but it's a start--perhaps sharing a little will inspire something to flow out of my pen that I might "publish" here.

The Nutty Ones

Forrest Gump’s mama was dead wrong. Life ain’t like a box a chocolates, it is a box of chocolates. The days can be god-knows-what type of truffles—overwhelming and sickening—you wonder what sick bastard would place that in your path. Or when the caramel stretches for miles and miles and you question: is this ever going to end? You are glued to the never-ending day that started pleasurably but is now growing denser between your teeth, tighter around your tongue, closer to a gag than a gulp. And then, amidst the terrifying truffles, there are the turtles. The nutty ones. As if you weren’t nutty enough. As if you weren’t pokey enough. The chocolate can never simply be left plain, as God (seeing as you are God) intended. Yet, from the antsy race through the ick, to this pokey, this crunchy, this condoned before the start, yes, this silly turtle, allowing for the noting of the deep, dark chocolate, this is the one that has most surprised you. 

Priorities

I wrote this piece last year on Easter for my senior project. For the first time in over three years I attended a church(y) service today--Mount Hermon's Sunrise service. Churchy because the message is a telling of the Easter story mostly. (Which I appreciate. I'd rather not a full sermon.) However, this piece still rings quite true for me on the Easter Sunday.

31 March 2013

Holy week. The naming of the days preceding Easter is much more reasonable in the Romance languages. Viernes Santo. Not “Good,” but rather Holy Friday. The days are considered holy. Good, especially in modern English, is quite out of place, so far as I’m concerned.

Church. “Cr-easter Christians.” That term is insulting. As is “Nominal Catholics.” To each her own. Allow that she labels herself according to that with which she most identifies, whether or not her habits are up to the “standards” of said community.

Lapsed Christian that I am, there is a remnant of tradition that pulls me toward the Church on Holy days, paired with a dose of self-inflicted guilt. Yet I do not go. Besides, Jesus didn’t go to Church on what we call Easter. My sin, if I can use such language, my sin is that I am not with others, among friends. That’s what Jesus did. When Jesus rose from the dead, he went and hung out with his friends, after enjoying some gardening. 

Of this World

There has been a (welcome) decrease over the last ten years of the 90s' hit Jesus-fish phenomenon in the religious pockets of Santa Cruz County. However, replacing the dwindling fish population, a new form of bumper-sticker evangelicalism has emerged:

The HE>i decals and the “not of this world” decals.

I thought the HE>i decal represented some faux-hipster charity or clothing brand. (How would one even say that? “Hay-kai?”) But apparently, one should connect the “HE” to God and the i to I and then to the driver.

Jesus/God is bigger, and presumably more important, than the I. Which is why “I” is expressed with a grammatically incorrect, lowercase vowel. Even though the sticker does draw attention to the driver. But then again, most all evangelism struggles with to whom it points when the day is over. So I’ll forgive the ungrammatical HE>i. Even though it is huge and confusing. Maybe since the driver knows what it stands for, it is meant to be a reminder to her, not an announcement to the world?

As for the “now” stickers. Does it mean “Jesus, come now?” I figured. But then I saw it paired with “not of this world.” Ah. So the cross is also a “t.” Hm. There is something rotten in Denmark. Arrogance, perhaps? Pride? I know the sticker bearers mean no harm.

If this Jesus was FULLY God and also FULLY human, I think (perhaps wrongly) that he became and was and is part of this world. Don’t forget John 3:17, my Biblical friends: He came not to condemn the world . . .

He ate fish and drank wine and pooped and peed and bled and sweat and stunk and touched dirty feet. 

Yes. Of this world. We are all of this world. And it is good. 

Someone in Genesis said, “it is good.” 

The Evolution of the Tree Fort

Not a Through Street

Our tree fort--on the neighbor’s property--was and is a castle: real shingles, a climbable rope swing, a trap-door, a real cabinet, a pulley connected to the house, and a zip-line. We used to climb over the railing and down the rope, or vice-versa. Eric broke his arm on that zip-line; Rachel told him to let go at the end and he’d fly. (She failed to mention that Dad caught her.)

During the fall and winter seasons, we would slide down the hill on the pine needles—not always intentionally—and straight into the stunted, bush-like oaks and other unidentifiable, shrubs. And the occasional poison oak.

Inside of the cabinet we stored pinecones and other projectiles. By means of the pulley, we received our nourishment: apples, oranges, muffins. (Thanks, Mom.)

We prepared for battles, conquered our foes, and celebrated the victories from that tree fort; indeed, it fostered imagination, conflict, reconciliation, and many, many memories.

The fort leans a little funny now. A supporting board is cracked. The zip-line is gone. The pulley is gone. The bar to which the zip was attached leans precariously across the trail that is no longer well-trodden. Soon it will no longer stare forlornly into my window, dancing with the ghosts of the grown children of its youth. We’ll have to say goodbye.

Perhaps I’ll keep a piece of wood. Or that sign: not a through street. It’ll be a good reminder.