I used to pray for good parking spots, and HALLELUJAH in praise, as holy-rolled into my divine space at Target. Obviously, I’m super spiritual.
Why, just last week I won $5 on a scratch-off lotto ticket AND I caught that clearance sale at Kohls and the dress was just my size!
*Shaking my head.*
That was my theology… “I can do ALL things through Christ, who – before the foundation of the universe – willed me to receive shallow, trivial things to prove his majesty to me.
God is eithera benevolent dude who puts his pants on one leg at a time like all the rest of us and is moving heaven and earth to make sure you get that good parking space,
OR
God is a cosmic force who knows all like omnipotent Santa Clause, spinning celestial bodies in perfect orbit, and from his mighty throne, waits to call you out on your peasant misdeeds.
Or maybe,
God is like Jesus.
Passing out grace in scandalously copious fashion, all sweet and willy-nilly. Like honey, it sticks to everything and the sweetness cuts the bitterness of everything else in life.
Maybe God isn’t a “sky daddy,” reigning from a throne in there heavens. Perhaps he sits on the actual thrones that we know as our human hearts.
And if that’s true (and I know it is because my soul keeps elbowing me in the ribs to make sure I’m paying attention,) that changes EVERYTHING.
I’m not sure I believe God cares which parking spot I get anymore, and that can seem like a loss of faith when you’ve been begging God for things all your life – from parking spots to healing my illness which has no cure, to fixing my despair.
But it’s not a loss. I’ve learned God is just like Jesus. And Jesus is Love. By association, we are Love too.
And this is how 1 Corinthians 13 has revealed itself to me:
Love never gives up, not even when you can imagine no way out of the pain.
Love cares more for others than for self, and shows it.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. It in itself is plenty.
Love doesn’t have a swelled head, it is a pouring out, not a showing-off.
Love doesn’t strut; it’s prowess doesn’t say “look at me!” but reflects in a humbling contemplation.
Love doesn’t force itself on others, spreading the dry-bone, legalistic “gospel” for the sake of evangelizing.
It is rarely “me first,” but rather “how can I be of service?”
Love doesn’t fly off the handle, but keeps its calm.
Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, even when we are really sure someone deserves their comeuppance.
Love doesn’t revel when others grovel, it shall always be preeminent.
Love is pleasure in the flowering of truth.
It puts up with anything,
Love trusts its Source.
Love never looks back, it lives in h the now.
Love looks for the best, especially when nobody else can seem to find it.
Love keeps going to the end;
Way past the parking lot.
Long after our Earth Suits are finally healed.
Continuing until we are one with the celestial bodies in perfect orbit…
I’ve been wanting to write this one for a while. Last year, I had sent a Facebook friend request to a long-lost uncle.
I have been no contact with my family of origin for over ten years now. It was either my sobriety, or the emotional f*ckwittage, and I chose the former. I still have so love for my family, but not at the expense of love for myself. And from a distance. I am finally FINALLY at peace with this decision, having had much therapy and lots of grieving the living, which is so much harder than grieving the dead.
I heard nothing back, and that’s okay. I knew he led a life as a Buddhist monk in the part of the country I was raised in, and that he too had much family bitterness.
Now let me just say that I’ve been doing some light study of Buddhism, and I find it to be a LOVELY belief system. Beautiful in its simplicity, practical in its application. I really enjoy the teachings.
So I sent this uncle the request because I was curious – he is only 8 years older than me, and I lived with him with my grandparents in early childhood. As anyone who is estranged from family will tell you, you get pangs. You are homesick for something which never was, which makes no sense, and it’s all very confusing.
Fast forward to several months ago. I had found his YouTube channel, where he talks about the Buddha and how it is the only religion he has ever really loved.
And he should know from religion! Raised Southern Baptist, he also built a literal altar to Satan in his bedroom when I was six. “Oh, that’s just him being weird,” my grandparents said. I heard inhuman noises at night coming from his room, and sometimes I’d wake with his dark shadow in my doorway. Still, I always felt bad for him. He was a seeker in a time and place where seekers were heretics and people on the spectrum were treated awfully.
In due time, he tried Hinduism, atheism – everything from Norse Mythology to Pentecostal.
I received a lot of love from my grandparents. They passed many years ago, but I truly loved them. But they had NO idea what to do with a weird kid worshipping the devil in their home where even dancing wasn’t allowed.
So they beat him. A lot. He took the “short bus” to school, because of behavioral problems, even though he was plenty bright. In those days, the “short bus” was a rolling can of stigmata. Other children wouldn’t play with him. He had no friends. And he was an outcast, in his own family, and I DO love me an underdog, so I always tried to be kind to him.
I guess that’s why I looked him up on that glorious new opiate of the masses – the internet.
What I found both broke my heart and finalized the peace.
One of his videos – a pretty nasty one – was about me.
Keep in mind, the last time I saw him I was 16 years old. A child.
And this Buddhist monk – who purports to seek peace and find the good in people – lambasted me, first for “not helping him” forty years ago, and again for reaching out to him. He sneered and snarled for what seemed an eternity about “supposed family members” and “I don’t even want to call her a niece. She is dead to me.”
He wants nothing to do with me. Take a number, Buddy.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been told to F*CK OFF by a monk, but I have! It’s quite the experience!
“I got a FB request from a someone in my family,” he says on the video through seething vitriol, betraying his uber-serene countenance. ” I don’t even want to call her family. She wasn’t there for me when I was young.”
My first reaction was pain, because I thought every possible nail had been put in the coffin that is my upbringing, but no – here’s a spare, one – because LOOK! There is a tiny opening where I had hope. Better nail that shut.
I DID need to see it, though, to make that final seal.
“I read her bio,” he continued. “And she calls herself a ‘Jesus Freak.” His lips scowl. “JESUS.” Ah. There it is. Because even though I do not align with the evangelical church anymore and don’t associate with fundamentalism on any level, I will ALWAYS love Jesus, and just having the word “Jesus” in my bio pissed him off.
But see, he doesn’t know I’m not a fundamentalist anymore, because he couldn’t even get past my bio.
And it occurred to me that nobody in my family gets past my bio. I have been on this crazy, amazing, passionate journey of discovery for a dozen years, but they don’t know me. At all.
What was my next reaction to the video?
RELIEF, to be honest.
I was a little girl when I knew him. And I was a deeply hurt little, girl walloped by trauma from the beginning. I already felt like I had to “take care” of all the adults in the family. So even as a child, I’d try to make sure everyone was okay, when in reality – NO ONE was okay. Not a soul in that dysfunction was alright on any level.
Nothing was ever resolved because “Well, no family is perfect,” which is about the most invalidating thing you can say to someone who has undergone years of trauma.
My childhood was dark, I can’t explain it any other way. There was emotional abuse, constant screaming and fighting. Physical abuse. It was a sick way to grow up, so when I myself became a teenager, I (God I hate to use this terminology,) “found Jesus.” Mind you, I didn’t, because he has already found all of us and is not playing hide and seek.
I took all the pain and darkness and decided that I would just be a super good girl and not upset the precariously full apple cart.
And I don’t think this uncle ever forgave me for clinging onto a religion that had used as weaponry against him. So, for that, I have compassion.
But I’m not a “good girl.” I’m a regular girl. And at sixteen years old, I couldn’t save a 24-year-old man. I could barely save myself. I mired myself in the Bible and was determined to undo all the damage done to me. But the Bible never undid the damage in me.
But do you know what DID?
It’s not religion, of any sort. It’s LOVE.
And love? He won’t let that in.
I feel very sad that he has never experienced the kind of love that heals. He has so much to heal from, and is so bitter. He spoke about me with such disdain, because to him, I am just another family member who let him down. Just another Christian full of it.
I decided to show him grace by not contacting him any further. And as painful as it was to lose the last possible link to my family, here is my post-fundamentalist take on it:
Good.
I don’t feel like an orphan anymore.
Something CLICKED in me when I saw it and took in all the hurtful words.
I feel like I escaped the CRAZY.
I got OUT.
I got OUT!
Not only did I get out, but I am also thriving in so many ways.
I chose to break cycles for my daughters.
And I needed to be told off by a Buddhist monk to come to terms with that. I needed that final blow to have utter peace about letting go.
Because…
You can wear a habit. You can shave your head for religious reasons or wear it shikha. You can be modest as a polygamist bride or as proper as an Episcopal priest. Call yourself an atheist. Consider yourself a Child of God. Refer to yourself as Holy. Identify as a Jesus Freak.
Heck, you can even ride in the Popemobile and make people believe you have the power to absolve their sins.
But if you have NOT love…
And I have LOVE now. In my life, in my heart, overflowing abundantly.
I wish light and love on them all, in the meantime.
Where’s the BOOM? There is supposed to be an earth-shattering KABOOM!
By: JANA GREENE
Day eleventy-seven of The Pestilence, Novembuary 213th, in the year of our Lord, twenty-two-thrice. Or is it just Two-thousand-twenty, on its third round. Nobody knows.
Remember the Heaven’s Gate Cult, where they all donned Orange jumpsuits and Nike shoes? Rememeber how they hitched a ride on that big ol space rodeo bull in the sky, the Hale Bopp comet? They’re prolly just a’whizzin around like Major Tom, living their best well-shod, androgynous lives in their matching outfits and heeding the teachings of DOE, their leader.
I was really hoping for Aliens, y’all. Aliens selling travel packages to destinations beyond, aliens sharing recipes with us, aliens gathering us all around a campfire to regale us with stories of going through Wormholes, aliens that look like Marvin the Martian and are inept and neurotic, just like us. (Hey, it’s my fantasy, don’t try to slip any violence into my fantasy. I’m sure there are lots of dire War of the Worlds fans who blog about DOOM. I’ll be right over here dressing up ET in wigs and having tea with him, before helping him phone home. (Take me with you! This place is NUTS.)
Keep in mind I am writing this with a Covid-addled brain, raw from watching the news all week – you know … the news that I said I wasn’t going to watch anymore.? The fever is frying my brain like an egg.
Ok hear me out. Perhaps all the recent UFO activity is just a bunch of nice, big-headed Grays, who came here to try get us outta here? Chinese weather balloon? Or last-ditch effort to spring us from this planet by benevolent, if not terrifying looking, Guardian of the Galaxy.
And of course I’m joking, silly.
They are probably just Russian military crafts carrying payloads of WMD so HAHA jokes on us!
WHEW! We thought it was ALIENS! But no. It’s just the same old schmuck world leaders with psychosis, messiah complexes, and burning hatred, living THEIR best lives, so that the quality of the other 99% of us suffer, and often die for THEIR cause, and ultimately run out of toilet paper.
But I guess as long as the 1% get to live (and wipe their asses, that’s all that matters.
I’ll take Marvin’s Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator ANYDAY over the terrorizing warmongers of my own species.
Besides, didn’t Marvin have a SPACE DOG?? Yes, PLEASE.
Thanks to my Source for this beautiful reminder that spectacular things often take time.
By: JANA GREENE
The evolution of a rainbow.
It developed before our eyes, but slowly, like a Polaroid.
So often, I want instant rainbow.
I want whatever haunts or hurts me to resolve in a brilliant display from broken pieces, right away.
Don’t tarry, God. Dazzle me!
But God tarries. He tarries what seems like a lot.
All the most beautiful things in my life have been via a slow burn. And I’ve been impatient with most of it.
The prism forms before I can see it, so I wallow in the grayness in a sullen pout. Everything is swallowed up in gray.
But the light is always there. Think about that miracle! Can you imagine?
The colors of the rainbow are really always surrounding us, we just can’t predict the refraction that bends light in a technicolor display.
The chemical makeup of the atmosphere doesn’t change, only our perception of it.
I believe all of Heaven is refracted light, comprised of love so pure, there are colors we cannot conceive of in this realm at all.
We cannot even imagine a color that doesn’t exist – go ahead and try! – but they will envelop us one day.
It gives me comfort that people I love are walking in that brilliance.
It reminds me to trust the process.
If I stop my worries long enough to appreciate the process, the process has merits all its own.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – each have their turn.
We And when at it’s peak, and I’ll try to remember that lovely things – like this big, bold voluptuous rainbow – come out of a storm over the ocean, so vast.
What a thoughtful thing for God to do, give us a little glimpse.
And as we watched it fade into the aquamarine sky,
I am watching “Intervention,” which is a great series, but very heavy subject matter. I watch a lot of TV when I’m having a high-pain day. I used to feel guilty about watching TV in the middle of the day, because AYYYYYY! If I can feel guilty about something, I’m going to glom on to that shit. It’s familiar to me. But I’m learning to go easier on myself.
I watch Intervention because I admire interventionists, recovery is an incredible journey, and I’m a huge fan of observing “what makes people tick.” Psychology fascinates me. And mostly, I love the show because some folks rise from the ashes like a phoenix, and that stuff is inspiring.
Intervention hits especially hard because I’m an alcoholic. It’s been 22 years since my last drink.
When I got sober, I didn’t think it would “stick” but I just kept NOT having a drink that day. And then the next day, always eternally promising myself I would not drink today.
I now have 8,066 days alcohol-free. That’s a miracle.
I wish everyone got their miracle. I truly believe it’s possible for everyone. Not on the other side of this life, but IN this one. And I don’t know why I made it out of active alcoholism while many do not. It’s easy to feel survivor’s guilt about it. But that’s a blog post for another day.
On January 2, 2001, I took my last drink. I was turning yellow. My body was demanding alcohol by every day’s end. But when I would drink, my body would also reject the alcohol, in a most unpleasant and projectile manner.
And nobody knew how much I was drinking. I mean, NO one. So the shame factor was tremendous.
I was trying to drown Trauma that knew how to swim like Michael Phelps, without even knowing that’s what I was doing.
When I first got sober, it was on this brand new technology – the INTERNET! The support group was “Alcoholism in Women” AOL. Yep. America Online, people.
I’d like to write about that experience (maybe later this week?) Recovery puts you in a vulnerable place. One of those ladies is still a dear friend to this day. But some of them didn’t make it out.
Some of those precious, strong, beautiful souls lost their lives to alcohol. It’s heartbreaking.
As far as I can tell, the purpose for making it through something hard is to help someone else get through something hard. That’s why I’m open about why I don’t drink.
At the end of each episode of Intervention, there is a segment that shows whether or not the addict chooses to get help, and usually includes a short follow up. Some refuse help outright. Some go but don’t take advantage fully of the help.
But some of them – many – get their new start. They grab onto it with both hands, with the same passion they had for their drug (which is what it takes,) and it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. Makes my heart soar!
That’s what I wish for every addict and alcoholic. It’s possible for all of us, but we have to be willing to do anything to keep healthy.
If you are drinking more than anyone knows, If you feel hopeless and full of shame, If you cannot imagine your life improving vastly, If you think you’ve really blown it this time, If your heart is raw from a lifetime of trauma, If you wonder if you’re worth it…
You’re in the PERFECT place to claim a new life.
If you’re at the end of your rope, grab on to the knot – help and support – and it will become a ladder that leads you into a new life.
Recovery is so flippin’ Beautiful and REAL. And it’s perfect for YOU. It’s not for other people, it’s for you. So that you can have the life you deserve.
I think of my AOL sisters from time to time; the ones who didn’t make it out. I wonder where they would be now, if they just didn’t pick up a drink that day. I suspect at the heart of it, they didn’t believe they were worthy of a better, sober life.
So I’m just writing this today to tell you that you’re worth it.
Please out resources and help. There is no shame in asking for help. And do whatever it takes to live the recovery life. Glom onto it, obsess about recovery just as you have the drink.
We already know how to be obsessed; find out what switching obsessions can do for you (and the people who love you.)
Find out what truly makes YOU tick, because I guarantee you’re fascinating in ways you don’t even know yet. I’ll bet you’ve forgotten who you truly are, while in your addiction. Life is hard, but also so good. I promise. You can do this.
Musings of a Gypsy Soul 