I am known
for using strong words
like fuck
to carry my message.
And
I am known
for holding the Word
of God
in the highest esteem.
So
you should know
when I use the word
Jesus
to curse what is awful,
no,
I do not
take the Lord’s name in vain;
it is
the strongest word I know.
I wrote a post for A Deeper Story a couple months ago and was asked in the comments if I’d write more about the walk to the mailbox that I mentioned. The commenter said, “Oh, how we all need a trip like that.” And that stuck with me, because I know it’s true. It was a road-to-Damascus moment, except that for me, it was a walk-to-the-mailbox moment. But it made all the difference in my walk.
So today, please come join me at A Deeper Story. I’d love to tell you a little more about When He Met Me at the Mailbox.
Wearing a cross is like wearing an electric chair. I’ve heard it smugly snickered, tinged with disgust. As if I don’t know about Roman torture and death penalty. As if I think a cross is a charm.
But I do know. I know a cross is death, and I know death. I know the trembling darkness and the wrenching despair, the inconceivable wrongness and the profound isolation.
And this I know, too. I know the Cross is life, and I know life. I know the light of a new moment and the breath rushed into a hollow space, the restoration of what is good and the warmth of closeness.
I have many crosses. Some hang from antique necklaces with a body affixed to the beams– these I run my fingers over because it helps to feel the human form. The Cross is real. Some are smooth stone or wood, no embellishment, no body– these I turn over and over in my palm because their bareness is striking. The Cross is not magical, but it is mystical. And one is inked into my flesh with loops of infinity– this I bare when I am asked, but mostly I tuck it away because it is mine to keep forever. The Cross is personal and eternal.
I know what a cross means, and I know what the Cross means. So let me tell you why I wear a cross, wear it light around my neck, wear it deep in my skin:
It is both the symbol and the essence of my faith– real and mystical, personal and eternal.
What does your tattoo mean to you? Join the link-up hosted by my fellow Deeper Story writer, Kelley Nikondeha!
I’m sharing some of my most intimate, terrifying, beautiful moments with you today at A Deeper Story. Because birth is something we all experience at least once; more, if we’re lucky.
(Also, pictures of my five adorable newborns, including identical twins. So. Click for matching babies!)
I have a new post up at A Deeper Story today! Please join me for A Conversation Between Friends.
My friend Stephen says that the internet hates Valentine’s Day. I think this is a hilarious thing to say because it is so entirely true. As an individual person, I don’t really care one way or the other about the holiday, but as a part of the collective consciousness that is The Internet, I am inclined to agree that it is a disagreeable day of saccharine sentiment, thanks almost wholly to– you guessed it– The Dang Internet. Moreover, I maintain a fierce aversion to the word lover, and this, not as a part of any nebulous “we,” but as a very individuated, very opinionated “me.” It’s a gross word, and that’s the end of it.
I think lover is a weird word to say because it automatically makes me picture people having sex. If you say someone is your lover, I am not going to picture you and this person on a lovely seashore picnic, stemware brimming with Dom Perignon; I am going to picture you two nasty-sweaty in your bed, cowgirl style. I am also not going to want to visit your home any time in the near future.
But whether The Internet and/or I like it or not, Valentine’s Day is today, and I am scheduled to post at A Deeper Story for Valentine’s Day, and Valentine’s Day is a day for lovers. So I am going to go with it. I am going to momentarily set aside my wildly inappropriate mental images and focus on lover at its simplest meaning: one who loves.
Because when you write for a site that tells stories of Christ and culture, there’s really just no way around it. One way or another, Valentine’s Day or not, you’re going to need to talk about your Lover.
Join me at a Deeper Story today? Love ya.
Tara is perched half-stool, one black high heel to the floor, ready to get up and go as far as her small stage allows when the Stonewall spirit moves. She’s on about history like I’ve never seen even the most enthused civics professor get, and we can feel the vibration in our hearts if not in our media center chairs, because this story of drag queens and broken bottles and fuck the police is personal for Tara. They were her friends, and this is the story of her people; and she means it.
She has a thick, 63-year-old face, delicately made up, reading glasses tipped down at the end of her broad nose; she’s got ample breasts, not much in the way of hips, but then, hell, neither do I, and ain’t I a woman. Her voice is Jersey baritone and it is all passion, words cut off only when age forces her to go retrieve them, and then it’s back to the story, to the dozen tangents she seems to need to follow out loud because we are listening. And if you don’t tell your stories, they die with you, gone. And Tara needs telling.
Please join me at A Deeper Story for the continuation of today’s post!
Please join me at A Deeper Story today for my monthly contribution, Like Flowers in Winter.
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