Part VIIII

Listening to Adele. Playing Gears. Drinking iced-tea. Unsweet. Wearing paintclothes for no particular reason but I'm ready dear friend, for the day.

Happy Anniversary.

It's been 9 years of words exchanged over this enchanted device. And in the midst of having friends that make me think why even bother having enemies, I have you, and I wanted to remind you Narnia is real in the midst of pain and elusive gmail archiving problems. Don't cease to believe. It is the one tragic thing I could not bear in this life, and

If encouraging you is one of my sole purposii in life I am happy to do it. Because you my dear one, are priceless.

It's been a few weeks since I heard from you, and though you can't feel it, there is magic humming at your fingertips- that table is a series of molecules moving at a rate we can't perceive- we run our fingers over the smooth and cool of the surface. It seems so ordinary and we look out- the way the wind whips right now through the sky into the tree, trouncing the leaves they twist shudder and unfurl. They bend but don't break. They fly off and out and the tree won't forget them. The way my cat's whiskers arch and twitch as he yawns. The way the light dances through the eye, the way our muscles move into smiles. The breath, deep in a sigh our whole body responds aching for peace. Rest be with us this day. God be faithful. Bring unity to our hearts and bodies. Bring us to wholeness.

Can I understand the miracle of my hands?
To be silent and let it pass without an exclamation?
To leave you there disbelieving in your extraordinary life?
When look how you are and how much God must love you.
My heart beats fast at the thought.

Let me run into the yard and disappear into space.
And I just went to try but the hose needed to be moved and Twist was mewing at me and I picked her up. That green of her eyes staring wide at me and the pincing of her claws as she wonders why the water is disturbing her rest. She mews. She mews. Her fur a midnight with streaking stars. And the morning glory blooming that ostentatious purple mocking me and the weeds taking over the orderly roses. And the warmth of my flipflops against the sun. And I heard no need to fall away up and out and into because I am right here. You haven't far to go. Sit beside me.

I will, always and forever Penelope,
m.


 

Hallo,

It has been many days since our last communique. I'm soaking my feet in cold water to lower my core temperature. Necessary things without a/c. I did get a free sb drink today. They're card machine/reader was malfunctioning- maybe melting because of the heat. And so not only do i still have my freedrink on the card but my venti soy extra shot latte was on them. Total score. Jesus must love me sort of moment. I can't say I managed anything else today but yard work for Marge my preschool teacher and I did superglue the stone on my ring and set about to watering everything. Weeping obviously at the abysmal state of the garden.

I am obsessed with things like, where do I put the book case? Do I mask the nook or set the bookcase back- oh ok and I did spend a soul sucking hour at home depot buying paint and bits- and that leads to more questions like well do I want a 2nd drape set or maybe I just go with blinds and take back the café curtain rods. I'm sure if people whoever they are go back to read this - or any of a stack of missives, they might draw a knife or a gun at themselves at the mundanity of it all- but they'll know the minutia and then it'll be up to 'them' to draw the broader stroke of singleness, life with cats, the obsessive way she writes about home renovation must have something behind it. And why over the last 9 years of blogging has she brought up missing cabinet doors and why did she paint her living room like a cave? Possibly, probably no one will care. And someone will chuck everything into a dumpster as some ironic turn and insult to my entire life. Not sure why i'm thinking of these things. I was dismantling some of my albums-- making chaos, decluttering in order to make streamlined memory remembered. Which strikes me as pointless and a little sad, these batches of life photographed and how lots of them just pass from existence. Although I went to a wedding shower on sunday and I was around a handful of people I've known off and on for 18 years because of the co-op. You never know what you do or learn or love or obsess over or grieve will crop back up into your life. Not unlike pending 20 year reunions.

As I was writing this I received your letter. And then I had a video chat with jeju sarah. And so let it rest.

The day started with my senile marley yowling into the echoing hall, and the dawn breaking over the mountains and clouds coming from the north east to an overcast morning. To my indulgence of two English muffins with all their nooks, crannies, butter and fruitspread, plus 1 egg. Salt and peppered.

Last night I watched this documentary called girl27. Sort of horrifying. And had some annoying unresolved story threads- but it was good. It was about this girl that was raped at an MGM function back in 1937 and the lengths that they went to cover it up-- the mother bought off, the witness bought off (his kids traumatized because of it), the doctor, the lawyer!, the DA!. And besides that yes, some vindication65 years later, but really, the power unforgiveness and unacknowledged trauma- what it can do to a person- how it didn't just devastate their lives and rob them of their gifts and dreams, but the culture of secrets and pain pervaded and infected their kids too- and their kids kids. Yikes. And the documentarian though he brought those things up didn't want to comment further but let it lie. A good/bad thing. For instance this crazy fact- Clarke Gable had an affair with one of his leading ladies. She was catholic and deeply shamed I suppose. She hid herself away until she gave birth, gave her baby UP for 18months!!!! into an orphanage!!! and then adopted her back! And would not relent about this secret everyone knew about until much past her daughters wedding- AND actually went so far as to ask that her daughter tell her granddaughter she was adopted! THE HELL! Talk about bondage.

Anyway the trash people came and though the automated arm slowed considerably, the 100+ carpet is out of our lives for good. Just like secrets if you give them up and over. They're not lying their stinking and getting eaten by moths and then soaked by sprinkler runoff and let to mildew in a driveway for 2 weeks. There you have it.

Now back to antiques roadshow and mustering the strength to finish medieval forest.



 

Penolin,

Hello, it is my turn to write you. I received your last letter. I love the rose and the keys. Enclosed you'll find updates to the house, badly captured but there they are, etc.

Let's talk God. Obviously I'm being baited on both sides and i finally feel mentally cogent enough to address it. (not baited in a badway, as i feel God is His own best defender) Nevermind that yesterday, unrelated, I had this idea to have breaded chicken strips for breakfast and 2 pieces of frenchbread as toast. I threw up the chicken like a cat that overate within 1minute of the exchange. Trauma. I was out due to weirdness for the rest of the day. So it's not that we can't argue inexplicable things happen to people. And on the otherside LL's movie tithes 10% of whatever donations they receive to random people. And everyone takes a turn. When i saw LL on Saturday she gave me a small bundle of $20 notes. And she went on to explain, as i recalled what they do with God's money. And she says its not often they have it, but that she felt she was to give it to me. I had an overdue student loan bill for $119.76. They gave me $120.00.

I'm reminded of this conversation I had with Matt, like myself was inundated with legalism and religion from VCS but likewise had an opening to the spiritual side of life- so it's not that your and bruckners Catholic baggage is vastly different then our conservative evangelical non-denom baggage. It is specific though. It does carry certain things. He, like I once did, shares the same reticence of overt-God talk. The context always being judgment, condemnation, an inablility to communicate what is profound and personal. Believe this or else. But I believe, you believe whatever you want. But his brother and sister went to an even hoightier non-religious school and have no experience of overt God talk- as i tried to explain to him. And that sharing who Jesus is, is not a slap in the face that we can sometimes think it is. Jesus is radical. There is no other religion on earth that has what He has. It is not LOVE in the air-fairy sense. It is forgiveness. The concept of forgiveness so familiar to us is only because of our Christian heritage. You won't find it anywhere else. We take it for granted.

It goes to the core of who we think Jesus is. It's in your relationship with Him- that's where the power lies. The trappings of religiousness aside. Since hypocrisy is a crimson and too easy excuse to keep people out of the church. It should be to everyones great relief that belief in Jesus is not a pass toward perfection. It is an acknowledgment of being his, and being his by grace and mercy and choice and that we aren't from acceptance onward on some golden ladder upward to goodness in spite and because of the false things we do cling to. Except that being His we seek to be good but only through and by him- but its not an error free pass. From a personal place, most people who've encountered Jesus, think of Him as having saved them. That they don't have to carry their burdens anymore. That they are free. They can go from a place of desperate and clinging (trying to be 'good'/better people) to joy and freedom (being who they are, honest, broken, and wholly accepted and claimed by Him).

The arguments of the beautiful lost soul of Bruckner are common. Not less valid- but here knowledge of the Bible would go far to help walk with him in his observations. The people and stories of the bible say the same thing. They shout the same grief and tension of living in this world. Psalms for instance. Parts of Romans etc. Book after book infact. Brilliant wisdom in the heros of the stories- but glaring faults. Because i'm not arguing in the strict sense my answer is that nature itself is out of alignment, just like we ourselves are fallen. And while evil is allowed, i dont think God causes it. Can i easily explain this no, so i humbly submit we aren't arguing from an intellectual or theological base but experientally- which is why we'll return to Jesus. And a conversation that always starts from a lack of experience, and a very serious need to have experience. We are all looking for Him.

I am hesitant to believe Bruckner has had no experience of God though. But if he hasn't then i would say to ask God to prove He's there. And ask specifically how He could show up. It's an opening. It's a start. And the church as an institution is prone to corruption because we are prone and start from a place of corruption. Which is why it starts with Jesus. And ends with him.

The girl in laung namtha asked if she really had to forgive people- a basic, one of the most profound tenants of Christianity. A struggle. A journey. All of those words. Of the hows and whys. But still not less powerful because of it. It's not a debasement. Grudges, anger, hate, fear, anxiety- all of those are words of bondage. But then this is a language and a story that is familiar to me. And can our need to forgive actually be placed toward God-- i think so. and toward ourselves, definitely.

And it's not that my relationship to Jesus isn't constantly undergoing change- there was something there in this scripture for me-- And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” ²¹ In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. ²² And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers^[e] are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. ²³ And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

As i said, it had me weeping with relief. Some part of  me needed to know even now that Jesus is who he says he is. That like John the Baptist- in prison at the time, at the point of death- to know that all he proclaimed and heralded had come to pass and wasn't a lie. I think to reach out to God is an act of vulnerability. And to share the struggle or absence equally so. And to be in an honest place is the best one. I can say, more so now, that for me it's not proving a for or against- but that Jesus is who he says he is. And it is powerful and it is full of love.

And it's ok to not be at that point of speaking it out- but i do feel it's a worthy goal to walk toward- the concept of proclamation, and to ask God what that might look like- in a one day sort of way. Because it acknowledges who we are without him. I know we have natural capacities of 'good' just as we have capacities for certain 'evils'-- but to be assured in faith, in Christ- its not so much a phew i'm relieved, i dodged the hell bullet. And i got the heaven ticket- it is who he is for me right now, in the depth of my struggle. And who i am with him, and where i'd be without him. it's THEE STORY> your voice. A constant unending journey. I get what you say about showing vs. telling. And what you're cultivating in that, and it's true-- but it is also a protection against, if i fail, if i am this or that- then you won't blame it on me being christian kind of thing also. Or hold me to some impossible standard that we do and will fall short on-- but that's where being honest and humble come in, and where in our brokeness Jesus is allowed to enter in. The dark places-- to shed light in. To reveal. Allows people to breathe out their own darkness. Their own secrets. Their own chains they don't want to acknowledge or tell anyone about or ones they think by sheer will they can manage and fight their way through. Those places aren't of God you know, but it's where He needs to be. The power of being able to say THIS happened to me, and look where i am now. Look how God redeemed that wound. I was HERE and I met God and he slowly moved me to this place... That's no effort of will. It's a different kind of fight. It's his pleasure. It's his Glory- to free us.

He saves. I am forgiven. No struggle. No burden. He is with me. I am His. I try to pick them all up again. To examine the ugliness of myself and all around. He calls me back. He says set it down. He says I love you.

All this talk excites me. I am infact happy to be baited. Because I can once again and over and over revisit how great His love for me is. And in turn reflect, whether you feel it or not how great His love is for you and for Bruckner. And how excited i am when people discover it and know it for themselves. There is a freedom in declaring it. The waters are abundant. Unceasing. Neverending.

let's keep talking... but for now we may return for a small reprieve to the changes in my living room. the toxic furniture is gone-- note the tv is staying along with the xbox. to which i will refer to as  my dowry should i ever have a husband.... the picture is there just because i like it. joannas couch is covered in red-- but a lush dark leather underneath that's gone a bit wonky because of some sealant melting and whatnot. how do we fix that?! my table, the one the parents made for my grandma... etc etc. the chest is going though- and the wall color will be something else as well. we'll see.

my bedroom waiting for a queensized bed... sanding, restaining, repainting...  oh and my 19 yr old cat marley.

 home- is a meditation that home is where the heart is, and my heart is with God as he is in mine... i need to put sealant on the floor to help with the staining dirt traffic problem. to the left is the tea corner- totally new and exciting. as well as recycling. that's where dad is convinced a dishwasher should go. to which i shrug my shoulders. note the light blue on the wall is new too. and in the far bg the curtains hanging over the pantry-- until i get cabinets? one day? and the plaid floor... i'd like to remove the carpets but that's not until i seal the floor. etc etc. so glad to have a picture taking device again.

my love to you from over here, m.