Covenant Member

I covenanted with (i.e. seriously joined) my church tonight. A covenanter is expected to say a few words about how he or she got here, and why he or she is covenanting.

Most people ad lib their way through it, and everybody's basically on your side, so it's about as big a deal as you want to make it. I wanted to make it a sufficiently large deal. This wasn't a silly formality to join a club for me. I read and considered and chose to covenant -- to commit, to promise -- to be with a group of people. There were things I wanted to be sure I said, and I wanted to do it well.

Here's the transcript:

I came here two years ago, to Philadelphia, to Circle of Hope, pursuing a relationship. Unfortunately, the relationship has not turned out the way I wanted it to. But note that I’m still pursuing it. This is a useful metaphor. I’ll come back to it.

I have called myself feral, and preferred to stay out in the dark rather than come into the light by the house. Because in the light you have to look at the people who are beating you up, people who you thought were your friends, bloodying your lip, sometimes in the name of Christ.

People who seem to take “You hurt the ones you love” as a command rather than a rueful observation. At least out in the dark it’s not a betrayal when you get hurt.

I tend to wander. I started wandering out of curiosity, out of joy, but somewhere wandering also turned into flight from things that aren’t joyful. I still love wandering, but after a lot of it, I’m ready to rest. I’m ready to come in out of the dark.

I know I’m screwed up. I want to come home. So I’m leaving the dark and the feralness, and I’m going to come into the house and put on clothes and sit by the fire.

Some of you may still beat me up, some of you might still be mean to me, and the relationships I pursue may stay out of my reach. But I want to stay in the house this time because I am loved and wanted. I’ve learned that coming inside and pursuing relationships is better than wandering away from them.

In addition to the feel-goods, I also want to challenge you. Now that I’m coming into the house, now that I’m committing to you, I hope you will take as seriously your commitment to me. Do not be mean to me. Do not ignore me. And for the love of God, if I start to wander again, do not let me disappear.

Thanks for your love and friendship. I look forward to being in the house with you.

Loose Truth

There was a girl in college with whom I was stupidly in love. I mean skipping class, ignoring friends, staying up all night in love. She named her cat Buechner after Fredrick Buechner, the theologian.

I read some of Buechner’s stuff in college because of her, and it threatened my religion. I knew that was a dance with heresy, and I was neither sure-footed enough in my orthodoxy nor carefree or desperate enough in my rebellion to step on that floor.

The girl was a deeper, more troubled person than I was, and she meant to use her dance card. She read Buechner and wondered and wandered and eventually became a missionary in Russia. The Baptists didn't think she was ready to be one of their missionaries, so she raised money and went her own damn self.

I remained safe, which has its own rewards, but I've learned that precariousness in the name of Christ is so much more worthwhile. Now I'm digging like fuck, trying to remember where I buried that talent.

So maybe I'm deep and troubled enough now. This all comes up because I read Buechner recently, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairytale, and that guy blew through the back of my head. I would be a slightly better man if I had read more of him earlier.

He points to John 18:38. Right after Jesus says, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” And Pilate says, “What is truth?”

I don’t know why I keep being surprised that the Bible keeps surprising me. I had Bible drilled into my marrow as a kid. But bits of that thing keep surprising me, things I did not know were there.

Jesus says something sublime, which those of my religious ilk have taken down and stuffed into our own mouths and repeat with the comprehension of parrots.

This is not a boast, what Jesus says. This is a metaphysical fact. If you align with truth, then you’re listening to Jesus. Jesus followers tend to invert this, and think that because they listen to Jesus they are on the side of truth... which is true, but not how Jesus puts it. You don’t choose Jesus and get truth as a side order. When you choose to side with truth, you are inescapably listening to Jesus.

Whether you know Jesus, whether you like Jesus, you are listening to him. This association makes truth and Jesus nearly indistinguishable. When I think about him that way, I slough layers of dead religious tradition. In addition to being the Way and the Life, he is, notably the Truth.

And then Pilate comes back with existentialism modern as toasters, yet apparently, old as carnivores. “What is truth?”

Cynicism or questing? Can’t it be both? I guess that Pilate wasn’t seriously asking the question, because if he had, maybe he would have had a shot at seeing Truth damn near incarnate.

The Bible doesn’t say that Jesus answered that question. But he stood there, being the answer.

This is all stuff Buechner brings up. And there’s more.

Drunk Think Tank

A couple of weeks ago for the first time in my life, I went out on Friday night with intent to get drunk.

A friend remarked, on hearing this story, that I was still responsible enough to hand my keys over to let someone else drive. Which is true. But I didn’t want to get drunk and stupid. I wanted to get drunk and obliterated.

I’ve been drunk before, of course, but always accidentally, at parties, never as a mission. However, a series of events which I will not relate here drove me to think that I would like to not be me for a while.

I have the alcohol tolerance of a spider monkey, so it’s not a long trip from sober to blotto. About 30 ounces of beer later (on a completely empty stomach) and I was weaving to the bathroom.

I had a girlfriend who I loved in Seattle, and who I guess I still love a little, who spent her 20s getting smashed with impunity. When I knew her, I had no mental frame for this behavior. I’ve been plenty miserable in life, but I never medicated.

I asked the Seattle girlfriend one time, “Why do people do this? Why get drunk when it doesn’t make things better, and it really only hurts you in the long run?”

Seattle girlfriend was beautiful and smart, but not a verbal person, so explanations came hard to her. She said, “You can just not be yourself for a while.”

When explains jack to someone looking in from the outside. Now that I’ve been inside though, I ken it. It is beautiful. I was raised to fear alcohol. Now I know better.

A couple of weeks ago I went out to not have to be myself for a while. For a few hours rejection and aimlessness -- companions so close I should carry wallet photos -- took a walk. I didn’t feel good, but I didn’t feel bad. For a night, I call it a win. And the next day, I put away some childish things. That I call a victory.

Frustrated Mess

About 10 years ago I told a therapist I was depressed. He wanted to know why.

"It's genetic," I said. "There doesn't have to be a why."

"Well, we don't know that depression is genetic," he said, "We know it runs in families."

That was a useful distinction to keep me from thinking like a victim.

But lo, scientists in modern-day Canadia deliver up new news: Depression has a genetic component after all.

"The actual gene, known as P2RX7, is found in humans and animals and is responsible for depression. It has taken many years to find," said Barden.

The mood disorder has often been associated with the serotonin system in the brain, because serotonin-boosting drugs are effective anti-depressants. "What is particularly exciting is that P2RX7 has nothing to do with serotonin," said Barden.

P2RX7 plays an important role in the brain's response to inflammation, which is known to be part of many neuropsychiatric disorders. The activity of the gene is also affected by stress hormones, suggesting a relationship between depression and severe stress.

You don't need professional scientists to tell you that stress and depression have each other on speed dial. I just got off a six month bender of it that started with two strong shots of stress.

However, I don't take anti-depressants. I'm not opposed to the idea; it's just that current methods of anti-depressant prescription appear to involve a roulette wheel and squinting. Then once you've been prescribed a particular medicine, it takes several weeks to kick in, brings an entourage of side effects, and oh, by the way, might not work. Ha ha! You rock, big pharm!

I don't need an all-new way to be a victim, and since nobody knows what they're doing anyway, I can be miserable, blind, and hopeful on my own, thanks.

But if these Canadanians have their science on straight, the current dartboard methodology of anti-depressant prescriptions might be explained because... they're aiming at the wrong thing. The article goes on to say that animal testing also demonstrates immediate, effective anti-depressant action.

Anti-depressants that work... too bad Jimi didn't live to see it.

Populism Always Wins

A big list of Non-Errors in English grammar and usage. Things that some people think are important, but really? Not so much.

Fresh out of college, I was an editor for a start-up children's magazine that you've never heard of and doesn't still exist. We were at a trade show or something, and a large-ish promotional piece said something about "raising children." I had written those words, since I was the staff copywriter. (I was the staff everythingwriter.)

During a lull, a smugly smarmy gentleman selling children's dictionaries crossed the aisle to inform me that the proper phrase was "rearing children."

"Yeah, but nobody talks that way," I said. It's a legitimate rebuttal, but secretly I felt chastised.

The pang of that public shame combined with my fondness for the mongrel nature of English has led me, as a professional, to loathe language snobbery.

I tend to practice the "correct" version of many of these non-errors even though I'm usually the only person in the room who knows or cares what they are. But if someone bundled them into a sack and dropped them down a well, I'd hold the bucket out of the way.

Never Worth Fightin' Over

I was scrolling through my variegated pictures folder today looking for an authorial headshot for Seek, the o-fish-l magazine for Brethren in Christ, which I seem to be one of these days. So the next issue will feature a little ditty by me, for the completists among you.

The Point: Whipping through the folder, I discovered a picture I loved so much that I saved it in case the internet breaks. I want to share it.

If ever you browse my links, you'll note one to Scarygoround, a web comic I pretty much adore. Scarygoround is a M-F comic about people in England who live in a town where supernatural and mildly horrific things happen a lot. I love the writing, I love the art, and John Allison draws fetching young women -- always lovely, but never cheesecake.

Here's the setup. The guy in this comic, Ryan, a career slacker, has decided to venture to the land of the dead to visit his deceased ex-girlfriend. He has just arrived.

Normally, an SGR comic ends with a quirky turn of phrase that sets up the next day's offering. This day was different. This day was suddenly, unexpectedly poignant. It makes you want to call someone you love. If I had a refrigerator I would put this on it. I wanted to share it with you, whoever you are.

The Mind Killer

I hear in the performance biz, that it’s good to feel a little scared before stepping onto stage, that if you don’t feel a little scared, you’re doing it wrong. I don’t think that’s true. I think people generally find fear an effective motive, and never find anything else to be motivated by, so they just use that one every time they’re about to take the stage – metaphor or not.

I hate this idea. I'm exhausted by fear. I'm annoyed by fear. I'm burdened by it way more than goaded. Like kudzu of the heart, despite scorched-earth efforts to kill it, I still have plenty. Every time I discover a new crop, I throw up my hands and scream. On the inside, I mean.

This is probably not a healthy way to look at it. I know the psychology line for this one: Fear is an emotion. Emotions aren't good or bad. They're just you. When you fight, you're just fighting yourself. When you accept the thing is when it begins to take its rightful place in your mind and heart.

Which is both true and oversimplified. But see, I don't want to sit still and practice breathing and find my center. I just want to be fearless.

There's more in time and space to motivate you. And way better.

Electric Mayhem Solo Album

Dude, we can totally grow new teeth now. Available to the public in two years. Reasonably affordable in maybe five to ten years.

Can You Picture That?

Groovy's New Tats

My car's name is Groovy. Very slowly -- like, glacier slow -- I've been painting designs on Groovy over the last few months. I have no overarcing plan. I wish I did, but the throes of this particular idea brooked no waiting.

Here are some pictures.





This is the roof. My main aesthetic is: circles. I like the happy accident of the house reflected. I am less fond of the bird crap I didn't bother to wipe off before taking the picture.

I've actually done more since I took this picture, adding a rectangle of all the scandalous things.





I think this is going to be ghosts in a rock band on a trippy yellow stage. However, it was going to be three other things before that, so caveat custodes. Here's a closer shot.




The paint I used for the ghosts was on sale. When I opened it, I found out why: The stuff was more putty than liquid. It congealed on my brush as I worked, so eventually I just started finger painting with it. For once watching paint dry wasn't boring -- it was a race against time.

Several minutes later, when it dried, it looked like I'd gobbed Play-Doh onto the side of my car. Yesterday, I sanded some of the thickness (and my fingerprints) off. The fullness of drying (not pictured here) has caused the paint to crack, so my ghosts have the yellow background peeking through cracks in their green bodies. I can't tell whether I like this yet.