All the holy I need

9/28

After a long, too long, too painful day at a presbytery meeting I stop by the Gate and am surprised to find RL there so late. Thatcher is there as well, and I divert myself by talking web site details awhile. 

Then retreat to RL’s studio for conversation. Carefully circumscribed, of course, carefully avoiding issues under negotiation.

In short, presbytery accepted one of our proposals while rejecting the other which has the effect of negating what they did accept. Tiamat raises her ugly head from the sea of chaos again. The feeling of betrayal by one's own tribe. 

While I’d like to sail off on RL’s Barqu barque, he presses me.

Who are you?

A man,

OK, given, so what?

A father, I did that well. A husband. Not so well. A minister..

What’s that mean?

I’ve chosen a certain path to follow.A certain language with certain words to describe the path, what it means, what it demands.  And an absolute commitment to stay on it. And it has something  to do with the margins, the people who feel excluded,outsiders, those who we wish would be invisible...

Are you doing what you are supposed to be doing.

Yes. Absolutely.

So?

I love people. In all our confused, imperfect reality.

So we fuck up and we all get fucked...

Calvin couldn’t have said it better.

And he laughs. And says that if he could have one superpower it would be to be able to understand every language and dialect.

I remember the weekend I spent where the bride was  deaf. All the bridesmaids deaf. The night before party. Wine flowing. hands moving rapidly. Silent laughter. And profound beauty. Or hanging with Zoran at the Serbian bar on the lower east side while the cover band played ’80’s-’90’s Balkan pop and people got up to dance on the tables and Serbo-Croatian flowed like Jelen beer and shots of homemade rakia. Human. So many ways of normal. Beautiful .Diverse. And sacred. All I need for holy.

That’s where we, Yakima shaman and French-Scots-Irish Presbyterian  minister meet. The rush hour subway contains the world. And is all the holy I need.