Fragments

“Jesus calls us, planks and all, to do some great work.”

*

I already miss you. I already crave the place where we will never be parted. But it brings no comfort to us yet.

*

If you can’t speak it, can you write it? Paint it? Paint me? Can you draw it to me? Can you draw me to it? Please.
Please.

*

“I have to admit, this is my first intercultural worship experience. And I felt at home.”
“I know what you mean!You being here is like, before I was eating some really great chili, and I was like, man, this is some fucking great chili, but now you’re here, and it’s like someone put some cheese on the chili, and now I’m like, SHIT, I’m never eating chili without cheese again!”
“Well, I think you all were pretty cheesy before I got here.”

*

The teakettle whistled. Then the doorbell buzzed. Then the wind blew something over and it smashed. Each time you jumped up to take care of it. As the rest of us talked, I heard you sweeping up shards of glass in the bathroom, and I felt like you were sweeping up shards of me, toenails, snips and balls of hair, peels of skin, broken pieces of me turned to glass, and I thought, My goodness, is it always going to be like this? I wonder when he’s going to get tired of it?

*

Needing to take your own advice. Needing to hear the truth you speak to other people. Are you starting to see it yet? Are you starting to see the beauty growing in you, the beautiful you growing?
He is growing it.
It is being done. He said so; do you believe him?

A heaven worth while.

*

You say you can’t have me missing you.
Who would I be if I didn’t miss you?
Who would I be if I didn’t cry?

*

“Daddy, if I wasn’t me, who would I be?”
“Well, you’d be someone else.”

*

“If I could show you anything,
I would show you what you do for your friends.”

*

I went to bed and burrowed into you, and you folded over me, and I pushed deeper into your warm spice like I was looking for something, like I could hide myself in you, like the onion-layers of heaven.

A whole lot of fish

“When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”

LUKE 5:4-11

Simon was a man who, days before, had seen Jesus speak in synagogues with a power and authority that was totally new. He’d watched Jesus heal crowds of people, including his own mother-in-law. He had watched Jesus throw out demons with a word. Miracles he’d seen. But this is the one that that overwhelmed him. A net overflowing with fish is the miracle that brought Simon to his knees. It’s hilarious! It makes me think of all the fishermen I’ve known, all the fish I’ve ever caught.

But it’s Simon’s response that really kills me. This is like your spouse giving you a gift that’s so rich and wonderful that you immediately divorce them out of pure shame. As I.B. said, he was afraid that Jesus was making a mistake. I remember feeling that way when I first fell in love with B, that such a man deserved someone so much stronger and more together than I was. Like, what’s wrong with you? Can’t you see how crazy I am? And he’d just look at me, and smile, “Rachel…”

Then E really nailed it. Not that I can do any justice to what he said, let alone remember it well enough to quote, but he said that Simon had an idea of who he was: a sinner, and his response was to tell Jesus that that’s who he is, he can’t be anyone else, he can’t change his path and live up to this gift he’s been given. He was afraid. He felt he could never deserve it (E, please comment with what you actually said. My paraphrase is not nearly as good.).

(Remember, this is Simon PETER. As in the apostle Peter, the rock of the church. The first Pope, if you go that way.)

At the end of our meeting I talked about the groups I had yesterday. I told them that when girls connect as strongly as this, I doubt just as much as when they don’t. I told them that I was afraid to face these girls again.

What the hell am I doing here? Holy fucking shit. Why do I have this job? Maybe someone else should have it. This is too much. I’ve opened them and I don’t know how to sew them back up. I have empty hands, I have nothing to offer. I’ve got a lot of chutzpah, white liberal guilty suburban that I am…

And I.B. said, “Kind of like catching a whole lot of fish?”

That’s it, right there. I’m so afraid of letting them down. I’m so afraid that I don’t deserve the trust they’ve given me.

No, it’s more than that. I’m afraid that I will fail in my gifts. That God’s talking to the wrong girl.

I have such high hopes

for this meeting we’re having tonight. I see it as a refuge for people who love Jesus, or are at least interested in Jesus, but hate going to church, or are afraid to, or just can’t seem to wake up on time. So far, most of us fit that bill.

I also see this as a place to invite people that is less intimidating and more friendly than church, somewhere they don’t have to think about what they’re going to wear. Or bite their tongues. (Consider that your invitation, friends. I promise you we won’t baptise you in the bathtub or assume anything.)

I mean, I go to church. I shuffle in the door every month or so, although I always intend to make it more often. I’ve been out of town on weekends a lot (here come the excuses) and it’s just so BIG and ORGANIZED. It’s a great place, though. I actually really love it. The man who’s likely to be the new pastor is brilliant, absolutely a gift. His teaching cuts right to my heart. But there’s all this other stuff involved.

The other day, there was a Congregational Meeting to start deciding on a PROCESS to decide who the new head pastor would be, because the old head pastor is stepping down. I was standing outside with a group of AWESOME girls from this church, who are all painters and, oddly enough, about exactly my age, all of them. I said, “Aren’t you all going to the meeting?” They said, “Oh, no, we’re not members.” I laughed and said, “Me, neither! But I thought for sure you all were.” There’s a process for that too.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing ridiculous. You either go to a couple classes, or you attend the church for a while, and when you feel like being a member, you meet with a pastor. There’s some stuff you agree to; I can’t remember what it is.

This is boring me already.

—

The other night, I apologized to ER for calling him out about waffling about going to church the next day. I was actually mad at BJ, and it kinda spilled on ER a bit, so I called to apologize. He said, no need. He said he looks for that in a friend; someone who’s willing to call him out when needed.

—

My mom told me breathlessly on the phone, “Oh, I wish I could just be a fly on the wall at that meeting!” She thinks my friends are really cool, and she knows my difficulties with this kind of thing.

I see this meeting as a lot of things, when in reality, it’s nothing yet. It’s just an appointment. I-am-trying-not-to-get-my-hopes-up. Because I tried to do this in San Diego and it flopped. Like a big dead smelly fish. We had one meeting that was magical, where we prayed together and it was like music, and it was like Romans 8:26 happening in front of us (here are two different translations):

“And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.”
-New Living translation

“…we do not know how to pray worthily as sons of God, but his Spirit within us is actually praying for us in those agonising longings which never find words. And God who knows the heart’s secrets understands, of course, the Spirit’s intention as he prays for those who love God.”
-JB Philips translation

But then it just fizzled. I don’t think that’s going to happen this time, I really don’t, based on the people involved, and the ways that I’ve grown since then, and the rightness of this moment.

I used to have a really traditional, transactional way of looking at reading the Bible with a group of people. I used to think that there had to be a teacher, a wise man, a scholar. And how could I ever be that? I couldn’t, but I tried, and so I reckon I undermined the group in some ways. Now, my profession is to get groups of difficult people to talk about what they’ve read and relate it to their lives, and to sidestep the traditional relationship between adult:group of teenagers. It applies. Surprise, surprise.