Help!

Your Brain is 46.67% Female, 53.33% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

So THAT'S what's wrong with me!!!

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/27/2005 05:30:00 PM | (0) comments

A Weird Thing

My story...
Part 1 Part 2
Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6
Part 7 Part 8 (Addendum) Part 9 Part 10


The story of the next three years is the story of two friends. The first friend was quite and contemplative and we spent many hours together talking and thinking about God and our place in the world. The second friend was outgoing and opinionated and we spent many hours together talking (loudly with wild gesturing) and thinking about God and our place in the world.

As if I didn't already think enough.

But what we were asking, with all of our questions, was...

Who are you, God?

And this is what so many people don't understand about me. I ask questions all the time -

I ask if Buddhists go to heaven. I ask how airplanes fly. I ask if systems have morality. I ask how much animals think. I ask why "preacher" is an occupation and "encourager" is not. I ask why I'm here...or here...or here. I ask if there is life beyond that on our planet. I ask about free will and predestination. I ask about immortality and death. I ask if I can eat chocolate all day long without gaining a pound.

But what I'm really asking, with each and every question, is Who Are You God??

So many folks think I ask questions because I like to be full of factoids. Hardly. I don't give a damn about trivia questions. Other folks think I ask questions because I don't know the answers. They're right about that - I don't know the answers - but what they don't realize is that they don't know the answers either. Some folks think I ask questions because I need to know the answers - to be right and in charge. They must be crazy. The more I know how little I know, the more I tremble at the thought of misleading others with my haphazard guesses.

So that's why these two friends were such great friends. They knew, and were asking also, the real question behind all the other questions is the question that draws us into intimacy...it is the question of lovers and friends...

Who are you?

And every question is a prayer.

And though I could not find a church, and though I bounced around from graduate degree to graduate degree, and though I went from full time work to part time work to 80 hours a week to no job at all - I would not trade this time for anything.

I wouldn't stay stuck in this time for anything either.

It was that period of time when you test out all your theories against the real world. You ask, "Is this the Truth?" (who are you God?) and then you wait. Not to find out if the world will blow a hole in your theory - because that's inevitable - but instead you wait to see what's still standing when the dust clears.

Despite the holes...despite your theories.

And what I found was this very odd reality...

Faith.

Faith is a weird thing.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/24/2005 08:04:00 PM | (0) comments

On The Way

My story...
Part 1 Part 2
Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6
Part 7 Part 8 (Addendum) Part 9

Phil told me "the Mission Waco thing" didn't happen anywhere else after he had been gone for a year.

I haven't seen Phil in five years. I know he finished his Ph.D. He's a real doctor - like the kind that you'd want to see if you were having a heart attack - as opposed to one of us Doctors of Bull...well, you know.

Anyhow, I hope he doesn't believe what he told me anymore.

The "Mission Waco thing" essentially was the Church - a small piece of it, colored in our own way, but nonetheless it was the Church, living and breathing.

I've tried to make a list of what I think constitutes the Church. I can't. At Mission Waco, there was a huge emphasis on serving the poor - complete with the occasion piece of bad theology here and there, but whatever, you can't win 'em all.

Anyway, not every gathering of the Church emphasizes serving the poor. Some gatherings of the church emphasize freedom from sin and a life of holiness. Some gatherings emphasize the spiritual forces that surround us. Some gatherings pull away from society and stand as a stark contrast to the rest of us - but they help us see another side of God. Some gatherings are right in the middle of it all - politics, business, culture, and they give us insight into how God walks in those halls.

There is no list.

All I can tell you is that in the Church - universal, unfettered by space and time - is defined by love.

And oh, how that word begs to be unpacked.

Love.

There is no list.

When I moved to Michigan, I began immediately looking for the Church. You can't always find it in buildings. You can't necessarily find it on the Christian Radio Station.

As an aside, I no longer listen to the popular Christian station here in town. They lost my ear after two of their DJ's carried on and on for at least 30 minutes about the Jewish Festival of Lights, which occurs near Christmas time, that they repeatedly pronounced "Cha-new-ka." Imagine me driving down the rode, banging on the steering wheel, screaming "Hanukkah! Hanukkah! (What can I say? I'm a snob...)"

The folks I moved here with quickly settled in a Baptist church. I wasn't all that comfortable in the Sunday service - mostly because it was too comfortable for me - but the people were nice and they soon became part of my life.

There was a married couple that became friends of mine. They are great people - wonderful, really. But theirs was not the gift of discernment. And apparently, neither was mine at that time.

They wanted me to go out with some guy they knew. He was great - drummer in a Christian band, worked with the youth at his church, yadda yadda yadda.

So I went out on a date with him. I have never met anyone so completely self-absorbed - bless his heart. He had the social IQ of an 8 year old. All he thought about was himself and how cool this car or that video game was.

It was amazing. I had never dated an 8 year old before...

Anyway, I smiled and laughed. I had no intentions of going out with him again, BUT...

There wasn't anyone else around - I mean, like ANYONE. Not just guys - I mean girls too. There were no people who were anywhere near my age that I could hang out with. Lots of married people my age - married with children - but no one who could just go to a movie on a Saturday night.

Ok, I know. Boohoo! Poor me!

But it was a big deal then. I was lonely! So...

So when Mr. 21-going-on-8 called again, I said yes.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Apparently, he wasn't completely 8 years old because he was quite familiar with sex. So we were watching a video and, like I did with all my friends in college, we were laying on the floor. Suddenly...

Yeah - suddenly he was all over me.

I really think that I went into shock. I remember there being a (seemingly) long period of time when I wasn't thinking anything. I was just laying there. The first thought I remember having was, "Maybe this is what people mean by making-out..."

My second thought was, "This isn't really as fun as they say it is..."

Anyway, he might have been One Really Big Walking Hormone and he might have been 8 years old in his mind, but there still was some sense of decency about him because he didn't move past the fully-clothed stage - at least that night.

But this is how naive I was - I wasn't sure if I had had sex or not. I never listened to any sex education information or watched anything "bad" on TV, so I really was clueless.

My conclusion? I thought I had. And here's where I got really sick. I thought I had had sex and therefore, I was suppose to marry him. You know, there's this rule that God has about only have sex with the man you're married to, so I thought I could make it right by marrying him.

God save us all from such terrible thinking.

God save the Church from such damaging simplicity.

So I continued to date him for about a month, and he spent the whole time manipulating my emotions. He'd say things like, "If you don't marry me, I won't be able to take it. I won't even try again." I was horribly miserable. I did not want to marry him AT ALL or at anytime, but I was sure that I had to - God said so, you know? And besides, I didn't want him to never get a chance to marry...

Anyway, the night came when he had definitely decided it was time to have sex. I don't know what happened. Something snapped.

I just sorta kinda...knocked him across the room. Ha! It's kinda funny now, remembering how he even got some air...!

So anyway, after a month of dating a Big Hormone, I dusted my hands of the whole thing and walked away - relatively unscathed compared to what could have happened.

I just want to pause here and tell you why I say these things outloud - where anyone can read them. I am convinced that those things which are hidden by our shame have amazing powers to control us. I am convinced that the gathering of the Church in America covers sexuality in shame. I believe that this gives sexuality the amazing power it has in our culture and I believe that for freedom - freedom for the captives - we must talk about sexuality and sex openly and honestly - denying it the right to rule us anymore. And so I tell my story - to myself, yes. But to you as well. And I stand firmly on this truth - all that I have done well is girded by God's grace, and all that I have failed in is covered by God's mercy. Simply little me, I have known the Truth and the Truth has set me free.

So, anyway, that was my social welcome to Michigan - yuk. Quite depressing, but don't lose heart! There are good things on the Way!

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/20/2005 01:38:00 PM | (0) comments

Hoping For You

My story...
Part 1 Part 2
Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6
Part 7 Part 8 (Addendum)

The day I left Texas, it was 112 degrees and we hadn't had rain in a month. Huge oak trees that had been around forever were withering and dying. The grass was scorched brown. Animals and people languished in the heat and retreated to air conditioning or shade as soon as possible. Earlier that month, I drove my old car with broken A/C to an interview at 8:45 in the morning. By the time I had driven the 14 miles from our house to town, my white shirt had huge sweat rings under my arms and my entire back was soaking wet.

Needless to say, I didn't get the job...as a bank teller.

Which set me up nicely to come to Michigan..."This damn heat! I'll never get a job in the state of Texas unless "Wet T-Shirt Model" is an occupation! I can't breathe! I don't have air conditioning! And I want to see some cotton-pickin' SNOW!"

So we loaded up our cars and left.

It was late evening July 3oth when we reached South Haven, Michigan. I remember how the fading sunset blushed the growing darkness while the silhouettes of the "Tall Ships" bobbed against the sky. The sound of the waves lapping against the wooden hulls and the sound of the fabric of the sails seemed ghostly - like whispers from the ancient world. I remember the sand of the beach - how it was soft and cool - and I remember the water of Lake Michigan - unbelievably cold! I remember the moon and how it hung with the promise of romance, and how the pier offered to take me closer to the heart of the lake.

And I remember the town, and how the old people wandered slowly and the teenagers jostled about laughing loudly. I remember the blueberries and how we celebrated them and the wooden planks that lead from one shop to another and the flowers - so many flowers still living! Not brown and dead, but full and vibrant!

And I remember having to wear a sweatshirt in July.

I remember hoping.

I was hoping for you.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/07/2005 09:14:00 PM | (1) comments

I'm Not Sure I'm Proud Of This

Summer Wheatley
(Please rate my quiz)


Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/06/2005 04:50:00 PM | (3) comments

Words

My story...
Part 1 Part 2
Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6
Part 7 Part 8


It's funny how the really important things are hard to talk about. Not in the sense that I don't want to talk about them, but that in order to talk about them, I have to use words.

You're thinking, "ahh...yeah!"

What I mean is that you live this life and you have this experience and it IS... It is this thing - like when you make eye contact across the room with the one you love and the one you hope loves you back and...

BAM!

You know what I'm talking about - that LOOK. That's life - no words, just living. Only later (if you're very foolish like I have been) you will use words to talk about the look. You'll say "it was deep and revealing and longing and hopeful and vulnerable and..." And if you're like me, it will fall very short of actually describing what happened.

What's really weird is that it also affects what happened. At least in my world it does. The memory of the experience becomes colored with the words used to describe it. And the memory is no longer as sweet as it was before...before I scribbled all over it.

Not everything is that way. And words aren't bad - in fact they're very, very good.

But this is the dance I was dancing as I talked about my life at Baylor. I never really told you about my friends and how each of them drew out from me colors I never knew I had. I didn't tell you the deep things I learned from living life with them.

I kept looking for the right words.

But I never found them, so instead I described experiences and places and such. It's not that I don't want to tell you. It's that I can't...no matter how many and how great the words I use.

So, I'm sorry.

I guess I just need to remind myself that the primary purpose of me telling my story (in this case) was to tell myself the story. And I can still do that for myself without words.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/06/2005 04:09:00 PM | (2) comments

How'd She Get So Smart?

My smart sister!"

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/04/2005 11:22:00 AM | (0) comments

I Said Sure

My story...
Part 1 Part 2
Part 3 Part 4
Part 5 Part 6
Part 7

I remember Phil saying, after he had lived in Boston for a year, "Headless, cherish what you've got here at Mission Waco, cause it doesn't happen anywhere else."

I thought that was perhaps the most depressing thing I had ever heard.

Mission Waco is a ministry to the innercity of Waco, Texas. When I was in my first year at Baylor, Mission Waco had birthed a Sunday morning Bible study that would soon become Church Under The Bridge. They would all gather under the interstate bridge of I-35 and the 4th & 5th Street exits and share coffee and bagels and laughs and the Bible with homeless guys.

Unlike a lot of Christian ministries, the men under the bridge did not need to become Christians to receive food and drink - (dripping with sarcasm...) a novel idea! Instead, those who gathered there became a group - a being... Dang it! I hate overused words! Fine, we became community.

When I began going a year later - no longer a Bible-study but now a church - our community consisted of drunks and druggies and prostitutes and rich kids from Baylor and motorcycle riders and delusional, mentally ill folks and international students. Now, you would imagine that the "together" people would have ran the service and all the "messed up" people would have sat a listened. You would be wrong.

We went ahead and did scary things like let Jim join the worship team and Kevin take the offering and Ed greet people and Carla pass out bulletins. Speaking of passing out, Henry would pass out almost every Sunday (we had a "ministry" to try to catch him). The sermons were interrupted by just about anything you can imagine - from a burning car on the bridge above, to homeless man's filibuster, to abortion trucks circling and honking, to a donkey braying.

You imagine it. We had it.

But we laughed our heads off at it. And there was so much grace. And everyone knew that at the end of the day, whether we were "together" or not, we all just fell on God's mercy. And we all had a responsibility to each other to protect and provide. My community made a safe place for me.

When you first get to Baylor, everyone tells you: "NEVER GO OUT ALONE AT NIGHT!" Never jog at night! Never do anything at night, particularly if you are a girl. But I did. Because the people everyone was so afraid of - homeless men, black men, poor men - they knew me. And they took care of me. I am part of their family.

Sometimes, all someone needs is to be trusted.

And the rich kids who intimidated me so, turned out to just be people with different experiences. They knew what mountains looked like. I knew what a water moccasin looked (and smelled) like. They could ski. I could ride a horse. They had money to give. I had empathy to give. They knew how to play the "school game." I knew how to think.

And we taught each other.

I escaped the prison I made for myself by unlatching the cell and walking out.

*****
Here are some fun stories from my Mission Waco days.

1) We would have weddings under the bridge (for those who dared). These weddings were so amazingly exciting for the guys who lived there! For days, they would "pick up" the place and fuss and yell if anyone threw any trash out of their car windows. And they would go to the Thrift Store and buy the most amazingly hideous outfits. And they would bathe and shave and, inevitably one of them would get a hold of some really, really stinky cologne and they would all smell terrible on the day of the wedding! One wonderful guy who was quite mentally ill would bring a smashed up, broken video camera and would "film" the whole wedding - even to the extent of getting right up there with the bride and groom as they exchanged vows!

And we would all laugh until we cried.

2) Every Palm Sunday, we would line up in two rows and wave palm branches while "Jesus" rode a donkey through the crowd. "Jesus" was a Baylor student one year, but most years he was one of the guys who lived under the bridge. One particular year, a combination of events led to the donkey's absolute refusal to participate, so one of the motorcycle guys threw Jesus on the back of his bike! We waved our palm branches and screamed at the top of our lungs, "HOSANNA! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF LORD!!" cause how else could you hear with that Harley sputtering like they do?

*****
In the end, almost everyone of my Baylor friends went to the mission field. I struggled for awhile with what it meant to be "called to missions" and concluded that because I was not certain of my call, I was free to do whatever until God decided to clarify. One couple that didn't go to the mission field decided to move to Michigan. They said, "Hey, why don't you come with us?"

I'd never seen snow before.

So I said sure.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/02/2005 08:00:00 PM | (0) comments

Holy Moly

I am Moly. Not Molly.
And I will spend a lifetime getting to know me.





YOU ARE MOLY

What herb are you?
brought to you by quizilla



Thanks to Emerging Sideways for the Herbal Entertainment...

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/02/2005 06:34:00 PM | (0) comments