Body & Blood...and one flesh to reconcile

Rebellion is a very serious sin. If you disobey your husband, you are indirectly shaking your fist at God. …When you rebel against your husband’s authority, you are grieviously sinning. It is a frightening thing." Martha Peace

I posted this quote on Facebook last night and received some really funny responses. But it became a little serious when it lodged in my think-space, though.  I have been chewing on it all night.  It's disturbing to me, and I haven't been able to understand why. At first, I thought it was because it so clearly crosses the meridian into that familiar "Authority of the Husband" territory that has so addled me these many years. But that's not it. 

When I wrote about that topic before, I received e-mails from concerned people. They say things like "I feel sad for you." And "You don't believe the Bible."  Some say that I've got two conflicting philosophies that I'm trying to reconcile and that's what's causing my angst—"one foot in the world" so to speak. All of my life some folks have been labeling me as rebellious and pig-headed. For me, they've been labels with tangible life-altering consequences. I'm not going to put a shine on the fact that it's been painful.  Finally, after all these years, all of those hurts became hard to carry, so Jesus came. They did that to me, too. He said. And if you are going to be any use to me, you're going to have to endure it. But I know you. And you know me. And that's all that matters.  (If perchance, you're reading this blog and you aren't a Christian, I'll tell you a secret. People don't convert to Christianity because it makes sense. People don't convert because they're scared of hell. People follow Jesus because Jesus steps right down out of heaven and speaks to them. I'm not speaking metaphorically. I'm not making some kind of allusion. It's just like it is in the Bible. It's shocking and exposing and sweet. Jesus is winsome and beautiful. The secret of the Eucharist is that Jesus is present in that wine and bread. And not only symbolically.)

Back to the matter at hand: The reality of this quote is that it's elementally irrelevant. I think that most marriages are true partnerships. My husband isn't inclined to do something that I'm completely opposed to. And vice versa. Because we're friends. So if you find yourself in the kind of polarizing situation that would incite a fist-shaking, nose-thumbing rebellion, you've got to wonder if "submitting to your husband's authority" is your only problem.  And isn't all sin a fundamental rebellion against God? I believe that to boil sin down to its fundamental elements is to see that all sin is unbelief. Unbelief that God tells the truth and unbelief that God is good. And you see what kind of problem that unbelief is? It's the kind of problem that only unravels under the merciful hand of Jesus.  

And that's all I have to say about that.

Easter in the Curling Flower Spaces

There's a scene in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury that I love more than any other. Benjy is peering out on to a golf course from a safe and green little cubby of weeds and flowers. All of the action he sees occurs "between the curling flower spaces." Between the Curling Flower Spaces. I love the juxtaposition of silence and fluid action. I love that Benjy's whole world is framed by a kind of haphazard twirling of nature.  It's the serene safety of an eternal child. Nothing is brewing under the surface. Nothing is weighed down by connotation.  It's just quiet and it Is, simply, what it Is.  And he looks through the flower spaces not with fear or frustration at being separated but with an innocent anticipation of impending discovery.  He knows that eventually, he's going to push right through those spaces and join the game.  And maybe that's what I like.

There's a bridge that runs over the Cahaba River just as it bends. It runs silver (and green) under an ancient canopy of Sycamore trees. And I've never seen what lies up around the bend. But I once had a dream that it was a kind of crucible of red and orange and pink light with mosquito hawks darting off the surface of the water and green moss blanketing the rocks that lead right up to the edge. And lilies, of course. I can't explain it, but something primal says this is what happens when you die. And I think of those who have gone ahead who I can't touch and those who are going now (even as I type!) and wonder if maybe my sorrow isn't a little bit of jealous after all.

I feel myself falling backward into infancy. Into the darkness of what was Before. And yet something entirely atavistic and strong moves forward. Not with fear or fury, but with great anticipation as if the veil between Heaven and Earth is—right at this moment— thinner than the surface tension on the Cahaba River. I feel the plans he has for me. And when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

This year, as the stone rolls away from the tomb, I come forth with Christ. I can't explain it other than to say I have been made alive in a way I can't explain with a power I can't explain. And I don't feel hurt over things that used to hurt and I don't feel bound by things that used to bind. All of the Shut Up! voices are still and murmuring and planted somewhere as deep as time and I can't really make them out anymore. I see the faces, but I can't hear the words. The Dead Marshes no longer woo. And I'm free.

Watershed

Well, I've had a Watershed Moment.  As I look back over my journals, I'll see an inviolable barrier between the Then and the Now. A religious experience, an epiphany. A psychotic break?  Either way, can't go back.  Someday, I'll elucidate what happened. But not just yet.  Looking for the Old? Look no further.

Last night, the wind kicked up around the house like some kind of Oklahoma fancy dance. I felt (more than heard) it wrap around the house like a bullwhip from the west to the east and back across the mountain. And then, followed the thunder—a fracture in the sky. A deep rumble of...discontent? No. A cleansing. The Holy Spirit rumbling deep and primal. A weeping. A lament. The babes cried out in the night. Mama! I went. 

Four police cars turned off their lights and moved up the street. The ambulance was long gone. I hung up the phone with my neighbor and new friend. Two doors down, a young man shot himself in the face. A moment of blackness and despair. As I made the dinner and drew the bathwater. He died. This is the fourth time I've been here to see an untimely death. Each time, I've been shaken by the sheer logistics of it. Ambulance (always with firetruck) maybe police. Maybe not. I'm not talking about violence or drug use or anything else you might mistakenly associate with this neighborhood. Just a cycle of life. But there's something profoundly disturbing and unnatural about the business (not of being born) but of dying. There's a system, you know. The wheels don't fall off the bus of civilization like they should. 

All day, I've been gripped with a profound sadness that has the potential to change my heart forever.  And it's not for one man, it's for all of the men. I guess that's another precipice we negotiate when something like this happens. Do I let the suffering come in and settle or do I sweep it out the door with a new straw broom?