The prodigal Son, Revisited

I woke up in bed at home at about the time the opening in hymn was being sung at church. Oops! I jumped into clothes, grabbed a snack, and headed off on the 45 minute drive. In case I haven't mentioned it before, the fact that others frequently arrive after the beginning of the two-hour service helps me feel more welcome there--just as I am, imperfect. Better late than never. If nothing else, the weekly drive through rolling Kansas hills uplifts me with awe at the progression of the seasons, the diversity of plants and wildlife, etc. I see neat rows of corn and soybeans, home gardens, woodlands, wetlands, pastures kempt and unkempt, hayfields.

Thus I walked in as the minister was in the middle of expounding on the parable of the Prodigal Son. One of my all-time favorites, maybe because I've been such a wayward child of God all my life. It was a series on this parable that drew me back to Peace Mennonite months after the first time I left, after being publicly humiliated by the pastor during a service...that pastor left, and the interim pastor made room for this lost sheep to return to the fold. (That time was made easier by the outreach I felt from numerous people in the congregation. During that absence, I received several cards and calls from people who understood why I chose to stay away, who expressed appreciation for the spiritual gifts that I had brought to the church, who kept me in touch with church activities. Oddly, few of those folks are still with the church. This time, no one has tried to encourage me to come back.)

But the beauty of scripture is that it is always new. There is always something more to see in it, as in a mirror. There is always a new insight, a new lesson, a new juxtaposition of the verses with each other, or with my daily life.

Thus:

...As I struggle through a time of chafing at the isolation of my daily life...

...Having yesterday found myself in yet another seemingly pointless discussion of Peace Mennonite's bizarre shunning of me for the past 5 years...

...Remembering two single women of about my age who committed suicide in recent years and understanding from my own experience how easily one could come to feel too lonely to go on...

...Having very recently chided someone's stereotypical disdain for Pollyanna as an unrealistic optimist, where in fact she is courageously honoring her minister father's love for the bible's many, many "rejoicing texts" by struggling to find something to rejoice about no matter what horrible things befall her...

...What caught my mind today was the centrality of rejoicing with others in this and the two preceding parables. The three parables are perfectly parallel: Something valuable is lost; it is found (through diligent searching in the case of the sheep and the silver talent, diligent hope and patience in the third parable); and rejoicing naturally ensues...rejoicing with relatives, friends and neighbors.

How have I overlooked, in these parables, the theme of rejoicing in community as a scriptural, spiritually important activity, all these years? I knew that celebrating--rejoicing--was important, and I've lived my life accordingly for a long time, but I never really "got" its spiritual significance until now. Possibly because there is no immediate family or community in my life at this time, to rejoice with or to mourn with.

Modern life co-opts the spiritual need of humans to celebrate and rejoice together, and trivializes it in many different ways. We are encouraged to celebrate "Hallmark holidays" like Mother's Day by purchasing unneeded gifts and eating unneeded food. We are encouraged to celebrate annual milestones like birthdays and anniversaries in the same manner. We are encouraged to make sports teams our idols, and celebrate their activities. We are supposed to celebrate "hump day" and "TGIF".

These are the kind of celebrating that the elder son resented not having been offered--the opportunity to make merry with his friends. A kind of meaningless celebration that is not about the successful hard work of mending of something broken, not about gratitude for a miracle, but simply about glorifying things that we take for granted. The eldest son, like today's culture, does not recognize the difference between revelry and true thanksgiving.

This kind of celebrating is simply so many excuses to indulge in excess, to spend money, to lose our souls in meaningless frenzies of spending and indulging. The economic system loves these sorts of celebrations. They are predictable. Commerce can tell us when and how to celebrate them, produce special foods and media bits and attire and memorabilia. Commerce can make it easy to "rejoice" because we can purchase everything we need.

In the end there is hardly a moment that we aren't supposed to be celebrating some pre-ordained "special day". Every day is special, according to the calendar. They blur together. Celebrating becomes a way of life. Any true miracles worthy of rejoicing are lost in the bustle of day-in, day-out celebrating. We become immune to rejoicing, numb to wonder.

What is lost is something precious. There is no room left to celebrate the little personal victories in our lives. Our neighbors are too busy to rejoice with us over the finding of our lost sheep, because it's Superbowl Sunday. They are too busy to join us in celebrating that we've found our lost coin, because they are out shopping for Halloween costumes and candy. They are too busy to join us in celebrating our reconciliation with a long-estranged loved one because they are taking all of the neighbor kids to the pool to celebrate someone's birthday with swimming and cake and ice cream and pizza and pop after which everyone is exhausted and strung out on sugar and broke.

It is not just that we are too busy celebrating to rejoice. We've also become a culture where these real causes of rejoicing could never be admitted in the first place. It's a shame to admit losing something (only a bad shepherd would lose a sheep--call the humane society! And why didn't she have those silver talents deposited in an FDIC insured account?) We don't talk about our family problems (unless we're rich enough that the media talks about them for us); if we haven't been able to share our heart-wrenching parental agony over Junior's running away with our credit card and not calling home, how can we explain our joy to the neighbors upon his chastened, repentant return?

Understanding that, these scriptures take on an even deeper meaning. Not only do these people--this culture we have sadly lost--have close relationships with families and neighbors so that they rejoice together over personal milestones, rather than empty conventional occasions, but they also are close enough that they can admit to one another the misfortunes and errors that have laid the grounds for the situation calling for rejoicing.

For nothing can be found unless we have somehow managed to lose it.

But a further sad coda on the theme. What do these parables become, when the rejoicing in community is stripped away? They are empty, nothing is left of them. There are a hundred sheep in the pen, ten coins in the purse, two sons working in the field. The journey of the human emotions and effort to attain these things is negated. A tree falling in the forest with no one to hear. Meaning is stripped away.

At some point, the unacknowledged struggle isn't simply worth it anymore. I wonder if this is what my departed friends discovered, and sought an end.

People need others to rejoice with, real rejoicing, the rejoicing of personal struggle and achievement.

Coming to Christ

Some people are born into a Christian life, raised on it as well as the bread on their table. At some point they are asked to claim a deeper commitment to it, as a formal stage in their life journey.

Some people wander around for decades without any religion. In some cases, their lives become unmanageable, they hit rock bottom, and in the depths of brokenness they reach out to God as a last resort, and thus are led to give their lives to Christ.

It's plain to anyone that my life hasn't followed the first plan. So it's perfectly reasonable to think that there must have been some awful crisis that prompted my conversion. And it's probably human nature to look at my definitely non-bible-approved sexual/relational history, and come to the conclusion that the crippling burden of my carnal sins drove me to cry out to God for relief.

In fact, this doesn't seem to have been the case. In not one crisis did I ever think God would be any help whatsoever. I might have cried and screamed and thrown temper tantrums, but I certainly wasn't going to ASK for help from something that didn't exist, anyway.

God had to be sneakier with me. God courted me patiently during all those years I didn't even believe He existed. And when I finally started noticing Him, He wooed me. All that time, He was protecting me, fitting me for the work he had for me through the diverse experiences of my life, preparing me to be his servant. Whenever I decided to make that commitment.

The not-so-straight-and-narrow sexual history was (in hindsight) clearly part of that preparation.

For the occasion of Baptism at Peace Mennonite Church, it was the custom for the one being baptized and admitted to membership in the church to give a brief statement of their faith as part of the service. On February 25, 2001, I read these words to the congregation:

What I'm about to read won't make much sense. That's OK. It doesn't have to. I'm rummaging through a backpack I've been wearing all my life: some stuff I don't even remember, or know how it got there. Some of you will recognize bits and pieces and see that they are out of context or broken or inside out. That's ok, too--just how it is in a bag you've carried a long time. The cough drops come unwrapped and stick to the Kleenex and grocery store receipts, and there's some pennies, and magic beans a little kid gave me, some rocks, a dirty sock, some nuts and bolts and raisins and birdseed--well, YOU KNOW!

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A parable: A child watches a parade in a foreign city, surrounded by strangers whose ways make no sense. Her parents stand over her, hovering, keeping her safe from alien influences. The Emperor of that world walks by, wearing nothing. Her parents bend to whisper, "He's got nothing on." She is puzzled, then listens to the crowd around her describe the rare beauty of his garments to one another. "but He HAS GOT NOTHING ON!" she cries aloud. The foreign children throw sticks and stones at her. She clings to her parents.

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Childhood values: family values. Homemade dresses, saddle shoes. No cartoons, no bubble gum, no soda pop, no Barbie dolls, no paint-by-numbers, no movies, no social groups or activities, no church. No explanations that made sense. Everything scientific and educational.

In grade school, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, hymns. Tis a gift to be simple. Hiking the wonders of nature, identifying birds and flowers, rocks and fossils. Living in tents in Canada for a month every summer. Sailing; watching fish in their strange watery world under the docks. Tidepools; turning over rocks in the streams. Searching for living mysteries to unfold.

In high school, In Manhattan, Kansas, seeking to unfold mysteries of the spirit. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the Tao Teh Ching; for the first time in my life, the Bible. Unitarian Fellowship: taped classical music, lectures on social issues. It's all about coffee, which I never drink. The youth group, which hides itself from me, does drugs. A few wise elders inspire me to a long life of service.

Tentative friendships with peers in the foreign city: pot-smoking Hippies, vicious Born-Agains, treacherous Charismatics, suicidal Lesbian Feminists, crazy Artists, shy Poets, condemning Baptists, hypocritical Preacher's Kids. Where to I fit? How CAN I fit when I still can't make sense of their ways, and can't articulate my own? I have a dream.

Independence hits like a brick wall. an unplanned child, a brutal marriage, divorce, homelessness. No work or living skills. A few friends hold hands through the storm of early adulthood, each similarly desperate for unique reasons. The dream, unattainable, is abandoned.

A life of fragments, pieces from different puzzles, ends that don't meet. Waling the void's edg, three years of celibacy, lesbian lovers, drunken old men, two-timing young ones. Women of the Heartlands, Women's Festival, the I Ching, the Wander Game, The Manhattan Mercury, in slipstream time, cycles into a dark night, spiraling down a twisted tortured mile. None of this is sustainable. Who tempts me to walk away?

Only years later, I realize that over those troubled waters there came a quiet bridge, a bridge to gently lead me to a new way of thinking, living, loving. It came so ordinarily that it's taken 20 years to see it: the More With Less Cookbook. Not another issue of the Watchtower, not a visit from the Sister Missionaries, not people on the street corner selling roses. I bought it at the local food Co-op. i knew I had "less", I wanted to know what to do with it. The stains document its centrality to my life: a toddler's scribbles, Whole Wheat Orange Bread, Fruit Crumble, Mini Pizzas, Tangerine Peels. Gather up the fragments.

I walk away from the castle: a retreat into the wilderness. No child now; she's in my parents' care. Vision quest. Sitting zazen twice a week. Chopping wood, carrying water. Walking to the mailbox. meeting my self for the first time. A wise woman guides me through dark nights, helping me learn to heal and love myself. How can we meet the gods face to face till we have faces? I remember that once I had a dream.

A voice emerges from the wilderness. A new life, a new job, another marriage. Still in a foreign country, but learning the language. K-State, then Friends University; Vegetable Crop Production, then Business Ethics.

Time and again I realize I've strayed from the path. I boldly abandon each wayward trail and strike out cross-country in the right direction. I don't know what the path is or where it's going; I only know it exists because I am learning to know when I am not on it. I remember fragments of a dream. I buy a house from a Mennonite family; and old hippy friend turned Mennonite repairs the stair rail.

A divorce, a job loss, another job, another marriage. Lawrence. The Episcopal Church calls me a child of God but denies me bread at His table--even the crumbs. Hundred dollar floral arrangements with South American flowers, while we pray for the poor. An old lady I've never seen before, with too much perfume, tell me to move from HER family's pew on Easter sunday. Does the Emperor have clothes?

I retreat again: church in the garden. I consider the lilies. A friend comes to gather wildflowers for his church; the third time I follow them. Here! The upper room is full of windows and sky, faces I danced with on Saturday, friends I'll dine with on Sunday. Sunday school discusses stewardship: sustainable agriculture, not a pledge drive.

Thanks to a dog, a farm falls in my lap, I lose the job. The dream! The path! God calls me to follow. He sends a flock of Quaker sheep--I listen--a flock of Mennonite sheep--I act. Mennonite hay. One good dog leads to another. A llama. I don't need a sailboat any more, I'm in charge of an ark! I begin to know how Noah felt.

Who tempts me to walk away? I spend one Lent in silent retreat, being the Lord's shepherd through lambing time. At midnight, by moonlight, I walk to the flock pastured by a stream, I move silently among them, I rest on the ground where they lie chewing their cuds. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. It is good. I consider the lilies.

Who tempts me to walk away? We spend another Lent studying TREK. Puzzle peices begin to fit. Tis a gift to be simple. Everything that is not of the farm and church fall away from me like an old skin: pieces from some other puzzle. Some are people I love; I have been transformed into something new that I have always already been, and they don't know how to follow. I'm sad, but without self-doubt. Chop water, carry wood. Tis a gift to be free. At church, each service holds some special, surprising message for me. Mandy's dad preached on teh Kingdom of God. Imagination caps! I come to the little children; I'm a child. There's room for me at the table, whenever I'm hungry. Weren't we supposed to remember Him EVERY time we shared bread with one another? Dream becomes vision. Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.

Who tempts me to walk away? Separation and sin, a season of stress and strife. Misunderstanding, regrouping. For others, great good fortune far, far away. For me, eventually, the prodigal daughter returns. What is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good--need we anyone to tell us?

The Emperor has no clothes; He's given them all away. He tempts me to walk away, and welcomes me to His table. Actions speak louder than words. I wash my face with tears, time and again. This water will be fresh and sweet!

Congregational response: And when we find ourselves in the place just right we will be in the valley of love and delight.

Steps or Stops?

A couple weeks ago, one of the ministers at the Old German Baptist meeting began with Psalm 37:23: The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. He went on to note that "stops" as well as "steps" may order our lives, by turning us in another direction.

I made a suggestion to a new friend the other day, and received a gentle, graceful "no" as an answer. It hit me far harder than reasonable considering the situation. A "stop" for sure.

Hearing "no" used to be much harder for me, before I had done a lot of work on myself in Alanon, a 12-step program for friends and relatives of alcoholics...which I'm eligible for through ancestors, friends, friends' ancestors; mine and others' former significant others, employers, customers, coworkers, etc.; etc.). And also before my Canadian adventure a few years back (the point in my life where I REALLY learned to depend on God in daily affairs, like "where am I going to sleep tonight?").

Now I know to...duh...STOP when I run into a "stop", and really look inside, when I receive "no". Sometimes I do just shrug it off...and then I know either it really DIDN'T matter or I really AM trusting God. Yay! Sign of a healthy, balanced life in the program and in my Christian journey.

Sometimes I feel relief...and then I know I really didn't want "yes" anyhow, so why did I even bring it up? Better take the time to figure that out. Note to self, don't do that next time.

Sometimes, I find a lot of feelings roiling around in me: maybe hurt, anger, resent, disappointment, loss.... Then I know to stay stopped, take a deep breath, pray, and wait for God to clue me in on what HIS plan is (since obviously it's different than mine).

Slowly I'm unravelling this current "stop." In my daily life, it's totally inconsequential. But it is an important "stop" to honor in my spiritual life.

New friendships are difficult, esp. because I'm out of practice. In fact, I've pretty well given up on finding new friends in daily life. The ambient culture has changed a lot in the last five years, with the explosion of electronic networking in all its many forms. And my journey has led me further and further from the mainstream of the ambient culture, in many ways, through immersion in the non-human Community of Life at the farm, through dabbling in the Plain culture of the River Brethren and Old German Baptists, through mingling with the world of homelessness as I go about my bus driving.

But it was always hard. I've never felt comfortable in ANY subset of the ambient culture. "In the world but not of the world" is not a remote, abstract ideal for me; it's the reality I've pretty much always lived in. The dilemma is to make sure, if I'm not OF the world, that I'm OF something REAL and HOLY. As a consequence, I don't really belong ANYWHERE. I'm ALWAYS stumbling around blindly, bumping into walls I don't see and making faux pas that no one has the heart to tell me about.

Gradually, as I continue about my routine daily tasks, the muddied water from the "no" begins to clear.

Just as expectations are premeditated resentments, I think anticipation is premeditated disappointment. So I know now to look at what I was anticipating, that I am disappointed about not having. It shows me an unfulfilled deep desire in my life, a need perhaps.

In this case, I realize that one of the biggest gaps in the cast of characters in my life is any sort of ongoing fellow traveler on this Christian journey. No matter how intimate my relationships with God and Christ and the Holy Spirit are, they just aren't human relationships, and that's something I think most people need. Healthy ones. And for a Christian journey, Christian ones.

It is partly a wish for simple, mild companionship on this spiritual journey: the kind of friendship to help smooth over the moments of discouragement so that they don't bog me down and throw me off track. Sometimes I just need another human to say "mmhmmmm" and nod or shake their head appropriately while I give myself the luxury of a rare few minutes on the "pity pot". And who will then gently remind me to get OFF the pity pot. The dog listens attentively, but just doesn't "get" my petty trials and triumphs. Not even when she could hear.

It is also, strangely, a wish for someone to hold me accountable on behalf of God. It is very easy to justify to myself my various strayings from what I think is the path God has set me on. Maybe I am entirely deluded as to what the path is and where it is going? There is no one to tell me, "Hey, you're hallucinating! Get it together!" There is no one to have to explain it to. For me, explaining things to another human being is a key way of working them out in my mind. I fall into the gaping holes that I can't even see when I'm just pondering on my own. It's esp. nice to have someone around to help me out of those holes after they help me see them and I fall in! Then they can brainstorm with me how to patch those holes. Furthermore, it keeps me humble.

The novelty here is that I actually encountered someone whom I instinctively trust enough to want to be accountable to them...to be willing and able to say, "Here is what happened, what do YOU think about it, what would YOU do, what are some options for things I could do?" with regard to ethical/spiritual issues, and to not just out-of-hand reject that person's response.

Part of that trust is founded, I think, on feeling that they would not: want power over me for any reason; want to control me or give me advice; want me to depend on them in any way. That there is nothing particular in it for them. I can take or leave their suggestions. Someone who doesn't seem to have a vested interest in me becoming MORE saved or baptized than I already am. Detachment. This is appealing. One of my key life lessons has been to NOT put my faith in any one person, or in any human institution: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" to paraphrase the Mennonite Confession of Faith. It seems prudent to remain a bit detached from any one person or church.

In this person, I glimpse a level of integrity that resonates with mine, an intentional choice to do the right thing as much as humanly possible. I want to tag along a little while, to measure that integrity, to learn from it, to relax in its safety! Aside from Plain folks, I've met very few Christian folks who demonstrate a certain sort of integrity throughout their daily life. I find this sort of approach to life more among Buddhists...which I resonate with a lot, but those folks are not really interested in my Christian journey. We're all hypocrits to some extent, but at least there are a few rare people who a) realize they are and b) try to be less so. My respect for those few is immeasurable. My hunger to have them for companions on this journey is ravenous, the hunger that comes from starvation.

Such trust is also grounded in the humility (an extremely rare commodity) to admit their own errors and shortcomings in a way that is simple and straightforward, not overwhelmingly self-deprecating. It's the kind of humility that I admire so much in the Old Order ministers I've listened to. It makes it easy to hear things that would otherwise be very hard for me to hear, indeed...and to hear them in a way that I can consider them prayerfully and thoughtfully, in my own time.

It would seem so natural to turn to Plain friends for such fellowship! But the companionship I crave is limited to the members of the church; a more bland friendship is offered to outsiders like me. Plain culture doesn't apparently have a mechanism for such companionship with outsiders, esp. not across gender lines. Virtually all adults "of a certain age" are married...and a married person would not engage in ongoing deep one-on-one discussions with a single person apparently of the "opposite" gender. Yet my perspective and experience more closely resonates with a traditional male perspective, though my body disqualifies me from those circles. To make things more complicated, it would also be questionable to become too close with any particular person apparently of the "same" gender.

When I ate Easter dinner at the home of some OGB friends last year, I ended up literally standing with one foot in the living room engaging in a conversation about bus driving while having the other foot in the kitchen with my attention on making sure I was available should something need chopped or set on the table: an amusing but poignant symbol of my place in their community.

Sigh. New friend "stops" me with a friendly "no." Here I am. A forest of thoughts springs up around this "stop." It's bound to be slow going here as I struggle to unravel the difference between the godly feeling of spiritual loneliness, and the simple human "fleshly lust" of wishing to not live and work so much alone, with no end in sight and so many disappointments behind me. But, God willing, this struggle in the dark forest will eventually be fruitful...

Unless they are nut trees. Then I guess I'm simply nuts....

Progress not perfection

Sometimes I really struggle with THE Christian religion, though rarely do I struggle so with MY Christian faith.

I got to church rather late today, which no one seems to mind...one thing that makes the Old German Baptist church a good fit for me, even if it is an unlikely fellowship and full membership is unreasonable.

When that happens (frequently) it tends to highlight whatever the minister-of-the-moment is saying in the first few minutes I'm there. I like to think that God gets me there just in time to hear what I need to hear.

This morning, there was a series of questions: "Are YOU part of the light of the world? Are YOU part of the faithful? Are YOU the salt of the earth?" I try to honestly answer these in my head as he goes along: "I TRY to be; I'm as faithful as I CAN be; I HOPE I am." I relax into reflection on my way of life, my daily actions, my thousands of little choices and efforts that are the fruit of my attention to Jesus' commandments and examples. I think about these questions a lot...in Alanon, it's part of the program to keep "taking my inventory" on a daily basis to make sure I don't fall back into crazy, self-destructive ways of thinking. I don't always act the way I want to, but I do know that I am committed to being a light for others, to living out my faith in every aspect of my daily life, to being "salt of the earth". I think I generally do a pretty good job. I feel generally pretty good about my Christian practice these days. I know I have a long way to go, and will have a lot of opportunities to practice what I believe...that's kind of the whole point of living, to my way of thinking!

And then an iron-hard statement blasts out from the minister's tongue: "If someone is living a life of sin, they aren't really a Christian."

My feeling of resting in God's merciful love, safe in the fellowship of gentle Christian souls who, like me, strive to live out their faith "in the world but not of the world," shatters. I know I sin. I lead a life of sin--though many Christians might disagree with me on the exact nature and severity of my sins.

I start picking up the pieces.

• How much I've grown in my program and in my faith! Instead of reacting in hurt, anger, or resistance, I felt calm. Here is a statement that challenges me. But I know I AM a faithful Christian. This man is not my judge...no man is my judge. God, and God alone, will judge whether I am enough of a Christian to satisfy Him. And God isn't done with teaching me yet.
• In times past, I might have felt personally attacked by this. Maybe I SHOULD feel personally attacked by this, because I think this is the same minister that seemed to repeatedly weave apparently irrelevant "anti-gay" texts into his closing comments the first few times I visited.
• Being personally attacked doesn't mean I have to accept that attack. I don't agree with this statement, and I don't have to agree with it. According to my understanding of Mennonite doctrine, as set forth in our Confession of Faith, baptism marks the beginning of a Christian's journey. We will spend our whole lifetime on that journey. God isn't done with me yet...but He DID call me to follow Christ, and I've been doing that as faithfully as I know how for more than 10 years.
• Man is imperfect. We all sin...in thought, word, and deed...daily. It's the human condition. So we ALL "lead lives of sin". Therefore no one is a Christian?
• Jesus is very clear about many sins...especially judging others; love of money/possessions/fame (or anything else) more than God; adultery.... Some of these are very easy to measure: a person is having sex with someone else's significant other, or they aren't. Period. But some of them are difficult to nail down. How can someone else know whether you love your car "too much"? Where's the line between giving someone friendly feedback and passing judgement on them?
• If "living a life of sin" refers to homosexuality, Jesus was pretty quiet on the matter. He also demonstrated enough particular affection for one particular disciple that several of the gospels mention "the disciple that Jesus loved". I'm not convinced anyone really knows what Jesus felt about the kind of love I have felt for other women...and I don't think we ever will.

My thought settle on a Quaker friend's strong, soothing words when a mutual friend was rejected by someone who accused him of living a sinful life: "Any house where people live is a house of sin. AND a house of grace. Too bad he couldn't see that. Come to think of it, failing to see grace is a pretty major sin."

I want to live life as gracefully as I can. Sin will always be there, too, but I can't let it be my entire focus. Staring at sin begets fear; fear eats away at faith. I want to keep my life focused on God's grace, to feed my faith. Then faith will triumph over fear. I want to keep running towards God. If I just try to run away from sin, I am lost.

It would be easy to let a comment like this sway my decision every Sunday whether or not to drive an hour or more (round trip) to attend the Old German Baptist service. After all, I'm not a member and don't expect to be one. But I keep going. Because I want to. Because I crave the fellowship and the insights of other Christians...whether they are "really" Christian or not.

Jesus made it pretty clear: We need one another. We need to gather in His name to follow in His Way.

Somewhere the scriptures speak of one strand being weak, while a cord of several strands is not easily broken (maybe someone can hunt that chapter and verse down and add a comment? I don't have a real concordance since my Canadian adventure (one of the few things I regret letting go of), and I've never figured out anything on-line.)

And long before that, right at the very beginning, God said "It is not good for Man to be alone." We need companionship on our faith journeys, for better AND for worse. Would Adam have eaten the forbidden fruit if Eve hadn't suggested it? Perhaps not. And likely Eve would not have eaten it on her own, either. Sometimes two heads are NOT better than one, when we put our weaknesses together instead of our strengths. Ask any two 7 year olds after a misadventure, when they are busily blaming each other.

Of course, that gives us lots of learning opportunities. "Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of experience comes from bad judgement."

Another woman in a covering

For several weeks now, I have noticed a tall, slender woman wearing an inky black abaya and pushing a stroller--first walking downtown, while I was driving the bus, and then at Farmer's Market the past couple weeks. Every portion of her frame was covered by flowing black fabric, except just her face. Thus robed, it was unclear even what her genetic heritage was.

This week at market she strolled by unaccompanied, at a time when my booth wasn't very busy. So I took a risk and stepped out to flag her down as she passed.

"Hi," I said. "I just wanted to let you know that I always feel happy when I see another woman dressing according to her faith rather than fashion."

She was puzzled when I first approached her, but when I made that awkward statement she visibly relaxed and smiled. "Yes," she replied. "I've noticed you, too. I feel the same."

We smiled at one another in silence for a few moments. It was still awkward. After all, in other parts of the globe people are killing people who wear different religious dress than their own. But I wanted to show my friendliness. Even this many years after 9/11, I imagine she gets more than her fair share of hatefulness because of her religious dress. Every moment of being in public must be a certain act of courage for her, in this country...especially in the full-length abaya. Other Muslim women in town mostly just wear the hijab with more modern slacks and shirts.

She continued after a few moments. With a little laugh, she said, "People don't understand. Sometimes they think I'm a nun." I shrugged that shrug that says, in some cultures, "Well, what can you do? Ignorance knows no bounds." As I stand close to her and hear her speak, I realize that she is probably a melting-pot American like myself, not a foreigner. My respect for her grows. For an American woman to wear the abaya is very unusual; I had expected her to have been raised in a strict foreign country.

"I came to it late in life," she said. "So it's especially meaningful to me." "Me, too," I replied, nodding. We understand each other in a way others can't possibly. We know nothing of one another's stories, but we know them none-the-less. We were each raised some other way, a different faith or no faith at all...certainly no deep religious practice involving anti-fashion statements, modesty or anything like that. Somehow we have each been led on a unique spiritual journey, drawing closer to a Deity that has claimed us for his own, and we have each answered "YES" to that Almighty. I imagine she, like me, has had the experience of reading our scriptures for the first time as an adult, and puzzling over them, and eventually coming to those "ah-hah" moments that, like bricks, have gradually formed a strong foundation for the practice of our faith in a largely faithless world. It's a very different journey than that of someone who was raised in either faith, learning it as the language of daily life from the moment of birth.

I struggle to put all this, and more, into words to this total stranger who is in some odd way a spiritual sister. "I guess it's about faith. It's wonderful to see other people who are willing to put their faith above fashion. In this world [I roll my eyes around at the scantily clad, tatooed, pierced, high-heeled, coifed, heavily booted, crudely t-shirted, etc. crowd passing us on both sides as if we do not exist] I think ANY faith at all is so important. So many people don't believe anything." She agreed, smiling again. We smiled a few moments longer and I excused myself to return to my booth.

Meeting other kindred spirits at Market, I always offer my contact information. But somehow it was not important to keep in touch with her through worldly means. We did not even ask one another's names.

We will see each other when Allah and Christ see fit. And the merest glimpse of the other will enrich our day and encourage us in our faith.

For Goodness' Sake

A friend has undertaken an inquiry into the nature of goodness (www.insearchofgoodness.wordpress.com). In the midst of busy times and transitions at the farm recently, I have only been aware of this in a perfunctory manner...noticing her facebook updates, and nothing more. But today's status made me stop and take notice:

"Something weird is going on with my soul."

Been there. Done that. Here's where it got me. It's a good thing...but profoundly surprising, if I stop and think about it. I'm not the least bit surprised other people think I'm nuts.

Not that she will end up anywhere remotely close to where I appear to be, from the outside. Or she might. I'm just saying there's no correlation to any outward result. Heck, I don't even know where I'll end up, just a little of where I've been and where I am now.

Skimming her blog brings cascades of recognitions, memories, understandings of my own journey. This blog was begun to tell the story of the rainbow covering that I wear daily, to explain it to others, to help myself to understand it better. But it is also the current chapter of a lifelong journey. And so she has reminded me that after starting in the middle of the story, it's only fair to spend some time, now and then, going back and filling in some of the history.

****

Where did my own journey start? The foundation was laid in family values: beauty (real beauty, like a lawn studded with thousands of dazzling dandelions), truth (like the little child saying, "but the Emporer HAS GOT NOTHING ON!"), education (like having Audubon guides read to me instead of bedtime stories when I was a toddler), etc.

But I can (at least at this moment, from this perspective) trace the actually intentional quest to a season in high school. Finding the Witter Bynner translation of The Way of Life [Tao Teh Ching] while taking inventory of the high school library one summer. NOTICING the shimmer of sunlight on autumn grasses. Reading and discussing Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM) with my best friend. Was that also the year I learned to spin yarn, and realized I needed to raise my own sheep someday? It well could have been.

From ZMM: "And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good: need we anyone to show us these things?" Those words have been faithful guides on my journey. ZMM tells of several, interwoven journeys: spiritual, psychological, physical. The complex, non-linear telling of these inseparable tales foreshadows my own convoluted sense of time in my own life...a non-linearity that sometimes puzzles others. The past is current here in the present; the future is embodied here as well; now is all there is but the past and future are both enfolded here. When someone says, "oh, forget that, it was all in the past"...well, how can I do that when it is part of the present?

Circularity. The poem Miracle tells about one seed, that of my baptism: a truly momentous event in my life, in hindsight. Getting there was 40 years of the journey--40 years of other, generally more subtle miracles.

But before my deliberate commitment to God (baptism), I simply didn't have the language to describe the previous miracles, the steadfast guidance I received from God in my daily living, the love and care that nurtured me whether I believed in it or not. I didn't believe in it, in fact. Not a passive lack of considering believing, but an active, "informed" denial of any such thing. It is very difficult to be aware--in any detailed sort of way--of something for which we do not have language. About the most we can say is--as Diane so well put it--"Something weird is going on". And then we can hope that someday we will stumble on the words with which to explore it.

Silly me. God was here/there all along. This I know from the depth of my heart and soul and mind and spirit. Yet back then I "knew" the exact opposite: that God was a ridiculous myth, an intellectual construction by and for those who were too stupid to live without some sort of SuperParent making up rules and punishing those who broke them.

I can't prove it either way. Neither can anyone else. Perhaps it's simply a symptom of mental illness that I'm wearing this "little piece of spiritual cloth" on my head.

But for goodness' sake, for God's sake, I can't imagine not wearing it, now.

For God's sake, because it is one little thing I CAN do that is following scripture (obedience R-not-me)...and...(because I am not as nice as I think I'd like to be yet) it asks the Emperor's-new-clothes question of all biblical literalists, "so why aren't YOU taking that scripture literally, if you claim to be taking all these other really vague scriptures literally?"

For goodness' sake, because it reminds me to be good. Now. Today. Always. Whenever God or anyone else is watching.

Good. Good day. Good night. Good bye. Good grief!

For goodness' sake, it's WAY past my bedtime.

Archeological fragment: Miracle

From time to time, I'll throw in bits of my old writings, especially poems and songs, that hold clues of the long, meandering faith journey I've been on. This one was written in late 2004, during the period of "invisible homelessness" between the time I left the farm and the time I was called to Winnipeg to begin my term of voluntary service with Mennonite Central Committee. Since I did not begin the tradition of dating each poem with the location (including the nearest river) until sometime during my Canadian adventure, I have no record of where I was staying at the time it was written.

MIRACLE

It was such a small seed,

just a tiny speck of faith

watered in with a mere sprinkle of water

that wintery Sunday morning.

I did plant it in earnest--

even seeds that probably won't grow

deserve a decent burial, right?

At least I gave it a chance.

Even if it germinated,

there would be weeds crowding it out;

there would be ravaging rabbits and stomping boots:

all manners of evil in a sprout's world.

It would probably die,

but I went ahead and put it in earth.

Maybe the soil was sour; I didn't know.

Maybe there was poison and pestilence there;

I didn't know much about such seeds or soil.

Yes, there were weeds

and farmhands with boots and machetes,

slashing at random.

There were stray sheep with greedy teeth and sharp hooves.

There were crows.

There was drought, and wind, and frost,

and fierce summer sun.

It was such a small seed;

it was so hard to have hope that I didn't,

and for a long time nothing happened.

Then, suddenly, it seemed to take root.

Every time I looked it was bigger, and growing--

as big as a tree!

But--it's crowding out everything:

not just the weeds I hated, but wildflowers, too,

and other things I'd planted.

Now I'm afraid;

it's so big, and so fast,

I can't reach to prune it all;

it's so tough it defies the knife;

it's seeding itself far and wide;

it's out of control.

I mean, I sort of knew God could work miracles,

and all He wanted me to plant was a tiny seed,

but I didn't know

it was out of my control.

A Starting Point

After a lifetime of fascination with the Amish, "simple" living, etc., I "serendipitously" wandered in to the liberal Mennonite church in middle age. This was a profound turning point in my long and circuitous faith journey.

Here I found, after a long journey through many spiritual practices, a Christian church that professed the same things I saw when I read the Gospels: Simplicity, non-violence, honesty, separation of church and state, priesthood of all believers, adult baptism, radical faith in a loving God. I was baptized, I became a member.

Before long, I found my path leading right back out the other side of the Mennonite Church--from "not a Christian" to "conservative fringe" in something just a few years. I gradually found my way along a path my liberal church wouldn't follow...something I sometimes describe as "urban stealth Plain"...or in lighter moments, "MennAnaQuak" (I sojourned with the Religious Society of Friends, a.k.a. Quakers, for a few years).

Searching for an outward sign of this inward journey, I began wearing a traditional Anabaptist "prayer covering" in not-so-traditional rainbow colors, to signify one of my other essential core identities: not conventionally heterosexual, according to either Plain or "English" culture.

This blog invites others to join me in exploring, sharing, reflecting, and encouraging one another in our personal explorations of what it means to be "Plain" and "Queer", "In the world but not of the world", all at the same time.