This is true religion

I remember when we'd wake up, shivering and tired, so tired--all I wanted was a few more hours, and maybe I'd get about forty minutes if I skipped my shower--throwing on someone else's hoodie, flip flops, and whatever cut off jean shorts were semi-clean. Then to the kitchen for a cup of hot cocoa; over the years changing from being hidden out back to being made from scratch to Marni's extra black coffee in the end days. And being downstairs you could already hear the creaking of the floor above from all the staff. Then upstairs, onto a couch or a spot on the floor, and you'd start your morning with singing.

But this wasn't any singing, this is the best there ever was. In no way shape or form can I sing on tune. In fact I'm really self-conscious about it. But all of us--a strange group of teens and young adults, in tshirts and mostly without makeup--would just absolutely become part of a choir I've never experienced either before or afterwards. There was an energy, a power behind the hymns, and we all knew it. No matter how tired we all were, we sang. And the good voices carried the tunes enough that I could sing to the point that it wasn't about singing anymore, but really about becoming the hymns, the words. The writing in the old hymns is beautiful and when we lose that power behind them we lose so much poetry, so much beauty. Religion was not created to be a captivating force, but rather it was created for the beauty of God. For the poetry of God. For the love of God. For the knowledge and power of God. When I think about religion, I think about those days, dusty dirty tired beyond belief--and happy. I genuinely believe that's what He created it to be like. I believe that when we get to heaven, it will be much simpler than we think. It will be beauty. It will be like those songs we sang so long ago, the smell of breakfast floating through the floorboards. The feeling of support you'd get from looking around the room, just knowing that everyone else is on your side, on your team. Knowing too that everyone else was willing to work just as hard as you were so that the mission could be accomplished, could be met.

This is true religion: to help the widows and the orphans. To help. A linking verb. What are we linking? Religion and help? Religion and the poor? To understand what it is to have resources--because different challenges are met and are accomplished. The kitchen is clean. The dishes are done. No matter how tired I am, I will still wash the dishes, because I know that if the dishes are clean then others can be out doing their part. It's so small, so simple. I want that time back. I want that feeling back. I have been searching for that all of my adult life. It's so hard to find the simplicity of that place. It's so hard to clearly define what all it did in my life. It's so hard to convince other people that that's the only way to work together. How do you keep love alive

There is no you there is only

So I was just reading KBK's journal thingy and was thinking I ought to be reading more, and I ought to have a recommended reading list. Here is what I'd like to be reading right now:

The Chronicles of Narnia--recapture the magic of childhood, of first love (God), and of believing again.

Julie Orringer's short story collection--beauty. I want to write like her.

Lori Moore--Hillarious.

Bret Ellis--he actually knows how to take words and construct a world out of them. How can I do that? It's so drawing though that you ought to be reading another book alongside his just to temper the crazy drugssex lifestyle it tells.

Hmm what else should I be reading? Probably texts for school.

I wonder about that, about school. There's a part of me who just wants to leave everything, just pack up and go far far away from all of this and all of you and just live out in the woods somewhere learning about God... learning about myself. I don't know. I don't know what's holding me back, if it's just myself, or if it's the fact that cold and dark do not please me.

From strength to strength

The split and seiving of a mind, a thousand memories, ten years you try to go back, try to fix things. But they don't tell you that it can't be fixed. There are some things you can't put back together. The dismissal of all of this--the shock and acceptance that it's over, that it was never real, that you are not and I am not and this is not--to let all that go.... What is now strength was once weakness. You must build on your pains, build on your trials in order to become more.......

I don't know anymore. I am through with trying to fix things. There are some who cannot be fixed. There are some who refuse to be fixed. And there are others who don't even know that they need to be fixed.








How much of all of this was true and how much of it was not? How much of you is what you've invented for everyone, for all of your friends, and how much of it is genuine? "You do not do and you do not do" but maybe this is what you need. Maybe you will find your peace. I don't want you to think though that this is easier. Like death you are unreachable to me, and so like death I have to let you go. Until you break your demons I cannot help you.