Fire and Skies

A terrible forest fire is burning about 30 miles north of us, in the mountains just west of Ft. Collins. For days, my FC friends have been posting apocalyptic photos of skies filled with black smoke, too-orange sunsets, and dying red suns. Two days ago we could see the flames from the brewery's patio where we sat drinking pilsner. It was hazy all the way to Denver, but by evening the wind changed, granting us clear views and a flame-tinted sunset, marvelous and awe-striking to behold. Today I wake to the scent of the earth burned and ravaged like the end, the ground smoldering in the dawn. The smoke is thick enough in my backyard that the bees are hesitant to leave their hive. They dart nervously around the lip, those inside possibly gorging on honey by instinct. Over 41,000 acres have burned. My sister-in-law Sophie has been evacuated from her mountain home.

Yesterday Mr. V and I sat in downtown Denver drinking mojitos and talking about god. I care about things that happen in the world, but I don't read the news. I don't assign the divine too much blame, nor too much credit. Cheryl Strayed writes in Wild that "god is not a granter of wishes", which both goes straight to the heart of what I believe and only skims the surface at once. It is in the same spirit I tell you that I wasn't too worried about this fire until I woke up and found it arriving in my own back yard. I tried to explain to my husband how I agree with what Cheryl wrote, but that there's more to it than that. I got teary, it might have been the rum. The fire burned, and I couldn't find the words. The winds will change. Everything will.

Spiritual D.N.A.

Exhibit A (1)

I was baptized on All Saint's Day or Reformation Sunday (depending who you ask) as an infant, in an Episcopalian church. My parents were not regular church-goers at the time.

Reformation day celebrates the day Luther challenged the Catholic church. The origins of All Saint's Day skew more Catholic than Protestant. It celebrates those who have attained a beatific vision of heaven--which isn't, really, very Lutheran--and originally was meant to celebrate the prayerful bond between those in heaven, those in purgatory, and those on earth. Decidedly un-Lutheran.

The Episcopalian church ordains women. I happen to believe that women should be ordained. My mother, last time I checked, does not.

Exhibit B (1)

When my mother was young, her own mother dropped her off in front of a church on Sundays, offering money in her hand. My mother would wait until my grandmother drove away, then walk in her church shoes to the drug store and spend the offering money on candy or at the soda fountain.

I like this story about my mother.

Exhibit C (1)

When I was a baby, my mother was approached by Jehovah's Witnesses. She was young and, I imagine, hungry for a spiritual tradition. My father, who had been raised Lutheran, called bullshit and they began attending a Lutheran church. I'm grateful for this, as I would have made a terrible Jehovah's Witness. It is far more difficult to be a bad Lutheran; I still don't know if I've accomplished it.

My father's people were Swedish and German and Lutheran by tradition.

Exhibit D (1)

Three years after me, my infant sister would be baptized in a Lutheran church. She identifies as Lutheran to this day.

Exhibit A (2)

By the time Ayla was born, I had left the Lutheran church and was dabbling briefly in non-denominational Protestantism at a very large church. Around the time Ayla was one, I stopped going to church altogether. To this day, I very much enjoy not going to church. My free Sunday mornings still feel like a gift. Like hitching up my petticoats to wade in a cool river.

I have developed other ways of nurturing my spirituality. Ways that fit my frequency. They are gentle and grateful. They scorn guilt. They focus on love.

Exhibit B (2)

Neither of my daughters have been baptized.

This was difficult for my mother.

Exhibit C (2)

"If you think God is a boy, he's a boy," says Indy. "If you think God is a girl, he's a girl. That's it." She shrugs. What's the big deal? "I think God wears lipstick," she adds. She tells me the most fantastic things. She wants to be Catholic but "daddy never lets her". (Not true). God lives in the stars but also in the flowers. God has a face like a tree but does not have blonde hair, just the picture has blonde hair.

"I think God is a boy," says Ayla.

Her world view has always skewed patriarchal.

It is possible I've given birth to a conservative.

Exhbit D (2)

Indy seems particularly spiritually inclined. She has a lot of questions and talks about her dual-gendered version of God often.

But both girls agree that church (their grandmother takes them on occasion) is boring.

Exhibit A (3)

I spend a lot of time wondering what things are passed to us through blood. Some things are easy: from my ancestors I've inherited fair skin, small eyes, a creative drive, a dramatic flair. But what about other things? What about the way I view the world, my ease in it, in my own skin, with others? My parents raised two daughters in one spiritual tradition. One left, the other stayed. It was painful for some members of my family. I know this.

Studies on identical twins suggest that our propensity to believe in a higher power has a genetic component. So do our political leanings.

Exhibit B (3)

I didn't leave the Lutheran church because it was a bad church. I left it because it wasn't right for me. My spirit craved a different tradition. It asked to be separated from the routine, the creeds and recitations and lessons I'd learned by rote, that I practiced without meaning or celebration or any earnest yearning for the Divine.

I think these very things that left me feeling dry and alienated from my spirit are the same things that bring others comfort and peace.

I believe there are an infinite number of ways to celebrate the infinite Divine and I believe in a Divine that smiles on all of them.

So then: which was in my blood--the Lutheran, or the leaving?

I believe it's both.

International Women's Day

A 12-year-old female welder working for the Australian Air Force in 1943.

The Russian Night Witches, a bad ass female bomb squadron that fought in WWII and are worth reading about.

A female Shaman of a Native American people, specific tribe unstated or unknown. By Edward S. Curtis

Mother and child in Vietnam

Simone De Beauvoir

Goat herders, Dijibouti, Africa. From National Geographic

Georgia O'Keeffe

A soldier returning from her tour of duty.

Buddhist nun Pema Chodron

Frida Kahlo

Firefighters in a training activity during WWII.

A girl of the Dogon people in Mali.

Circus Performer, 1950. Image from retronaut.com

Camille Claudel

Amy Poehloer

Annie Oakley

From National Geographic: A woman is riding between the railway carriages of a local train heading north from Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital. Her luggage is tucked under the carriage in front of her. It is the month of Ramadan, a fast that culminates in Eid-ul-Fitr, a three-day celebration. Tens of thousands of people leave the city to go to their home village and celebrate with their families. Trains are packed and many who fail to get tickets before they sell out or can’t afford buying them at the black market ride on the roof of the train or, like this woman, finds a quiet spot between the carriages.

Balinese Women. Image by Brandon Hoover.

The singer/songwriter Amanda Palmer

Belarussian girls wearing homemade grass skirts dance in a river while celebrating Ivan Kupala Night, a traditional Slavic holiday, in Turov. Image from telegraph.co.uk.

All Images taken from Pinterest.

A Story Of My Life

Until I was nearly eleven, I was sent to St. John's Lutheran church and school in Denver. The sanctuary had a high vaulted ceiling speckled with lights like stars which I would lay back and count during sermons. The narthex included a living-room sized coat closet, and I recall hiding among the coats, the furs soft against my face, and quiet, and whispering Narnia. Secret doors opened to a hidden passageway, stone-walled and spiraled, exactly like in a castle. There was a basement full of costumes and props, old Renaissance gowns and fake swords, and in the balcony was a marvelous pipe organ, hundreds of pipes arranged descending by height, all glittering and imposing and pleasing to my young eye, which liked order and magic and shine.

My classmates and I often passed between the school and the church, which were connected by a corridor. On the wall of the hallway we traveled was a sculpture, which was mysterious and frightening and commanded my attention every time I passed it. It was a simple wooden cross, with hundreds of nails pounded in to different degrees, so that the surface was not smooth but jagged. It looked like by running your hand across it, you could catch your skin and bleed.

The most arresting feature, however, was the at the top. Around the place where the head should have been, silver iron contorted into the shape of a headscarf. The scarf enshrouded not a face, but a pool of black. Many years later, when I would see the Lord of The Rings movie, the ring wraiths would look startlingly familiar to me and it would take me a moment to figure out why: their voided faces looked almost exactly like the sculpture.

Not long ago, my dad told me that this particular sculpture was the focus of some controversy among the church members. An unintended result, I'm sure, but for years, this strange black void with the hood obscuring its face was what I pictured when people said the word God.

Image by Joseph Easterbrook.

*****

I am writing at home today. I drove to Starbucks, but my unwanted companion was there. I know his car, noted it so I could avoid going in when he's there. He is there almost every day. He sits alone for hours and watches people, occasionally attempting to strike up conversation. He doesn't read. He sets a large digital clock on the table, it has the temperature displayed on it, and he watches that. He is a misfit. I know this sad. Sometimes I feel I ought to indulge him, make conversation back. Occasionally I have. I feel I should develop compassion for this man. The sight of his car makes me angry. He makes me feel self-conscious, noted. When the morning rush clears, he and I are there alone. I prefer anonymity. I wish to be unknown.

He makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel him watching me.

*****

I collect images of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I have her on rings, necklaces, pink candles from Wal-Mart. I love the looks of her. Her brown face, her blue or green robe with all its glittering stars. For me she represents not a human woman, but a female face of divinity. I love that she is likely an incarnation of the Corn Mother, or the Aztec Tonantzin, which speaks to the fact that across the ages, nearly every culture has recognized a divine presence and has bestowed upon one thing many names. As I got older, I chose to stop believing some of the things I'd been taught and one of the things I abandoned was the idea of an exclusively male god. I choose to believe in feminine images of the divine, and I love seeing her as depicted in the images of Guadalupe: infinitely loving, deeply compassionate, present in the earth and stars, maternal and divine.

**I was inspired this week by this post by Elizabeth at the lovely a moon, worn as if it had been a shell, on Our Lady of the Dry Tree**

Things People Say About God

One of the great perks of my life is that I spend a lot of time sitting at Starbucks.

People come to Starbucks to talk to their girlfriends while their kids run around--hey, I've done it too--or to type forcefully on their laptops, or sometimes to sit with a mystery novel.

The old men come to sit and read the newspapers, and the friendlier baristas, the ones from Colombia and Venezuela and Brazil, stop to chat with them.

The old ladies come to do the crosswords or to stare out the window together and pepper the long silences with afterthought comments on the weather, or their children, or the deteriorating health of their friends.

Teenagers come to be really loud and self-conscious and buy Venti frappucino's with their parent's money. (Hey. I did it too.)

And then, some people come to Starbucks to talk about God.

My first creative writing class in college was taught by a poet named Cactus May.

He's the one that taught me to do this.

So if you don't like it, you can blame him.



This conversation was held between a man and a woman, both in their late twenties. I can't write as fast as they talk. I can't make out every word. I don't fill in any blanks.


Man: You just get it in you, because if it's not in you, there's nothing to enlighten. . .. .I'm ready to move forward and I'm graciously trying to help you get on to the same page. . . . if something hurts your ego, what does that mean? And what does God do with that?

(The woman replies, I can't hear her)

Man: We'll check in, just see how they're doing, ok it's going well thus far. . . what you have to do is you have to clear yourself. . . waiting on God frees you from having to do anything. .. . just start to listen. That's what listening used to mean. . . . new season. Sitting down cleaning all that desire empty I'm going to be used for your service. . . his goal. . . . empty out of you that's how much God wants to fill you up you have to give him that. The cup he had to drink was death. . . . Would going back to school make you more righteous?. . . We can go to Wal-mart and look for some skin product for this guy. .. . we all have plans for our lives but is he coming into this what is god doing. .. . exactly. . . attempting to get back on that page but together. . . ministry. . . headed towards getting a house and we're gonna get comfortable. Honey it's on Christ. . . laid down his. . . all I'm doing is because this stuff comes but it has to come in God's. . .seek ye first the kingdom of god so I don't even wanna think about a house. I don't wanna think about kids all I wanna think about is god's will for our lives when you seek it on your own it gets crazy so you gotta be willing to put down all that stuff thank you for the treats honey god told us to give you that gift card.

Then they got up, and left.

Presumably for Wal-mart.

Feminine Divine

"I've always loved strong women, which is lucky for me because once you're over about twenty-five there is no other kind. Women blow my mind. The stuff that routinely gets done to them would make most men curl up and die, but women turn to steel and keep on coming. Any man who claims he's not into strong women is fooling himself mindless: he's into strong women who know how to pout prettily and put on baby voices, and who will end up keeping his balls in their makeup bags." --Tana French, Faithful Place.




*****


I have this memory of gazing down at baby Indy, all fat-cheeked and sweet smelling, deeply peaceful in her sleep, and saying to her, "You are a reflection of the Divine."

I had been reading--here she is again--Sue Monk Kidd's "The Dance of The Dissident Daughter". It felt like healing. Like balm on a raw soul-wound.

This was during the pregnancy when more than one person saw my swollen belly, my little daughter, and said to me: "This next one's a boy, I hope!"

The pregnancy of seeing the slight hitch of disappointment in strangers faces when they asked what this one was and I said, "A girl".

A time when I almost--almost--learned to say it apologetically.

"Another girl." Sorry.

Strangers faces saying: Too bad.

Then there was Sue, telling me that if the Divine could be male, it could be female too. That women are as capable of understanding, comprehending, interpreting, and communicating with the Divine as men are.

And then I looked down into my female child's face and saw Her: Divine.

*****

I am in awe of the women around me. Women who are incredibly, divinely strong. By 'incredibly', I mean they are strong through times and situations they should not possibly be strong through. Things that rightly should make any person crumble. It might take a woman years to find her voice but once she does, I don't think she ever stops listening.

That's what I can't get over. These women I know, or know about, who find themselves in terrible situations: terrible marriages, terrible poverty, terrible illness or violence or circumstances--and somehow find it within themselves not just to keep going, but to evolve. To start over. To reach down to the bottoms of their very selves, take stock of what's there, and then leave things in the dust: Parental expectations. Societal expectations. Bad husbands, bad jobs. Bad turns of luck.

They go into a sort of hibernation and then they emerge: beautiful winged creatures. Free and lovely things. Things that show me what sorts of strength I may be capable of, if I had to be.

I am so honored to watch.

I had a friend tell me lately she went through a number of turns that left her, as she put it, reduced to her core. And there she was, just her and her center. Not ravished like a wind stripped tree, but raw like a thing just starting to bloom. Such pretty wings, flapping slowly. Waiting to sense what's on the breeze.

I had a friend tell me "I'm a proponent of marriage, but I'm not a proponent of amazing women being stuck with shitty husbands." This woman who works, raises children alone, goes to school, dreams beautiful dreams of making life better for others.

I had a friend tell me that one day a switch turned off and she couldn't stay in her old life another minute. A woman whose core has proven to be built of stronger stuff than her sweet demeanor would ever betray.

I thought I was a strong woman. And then I see these people. Adversity hits, and what do they do? They push back their sleeves. Dirty their hands and scrape their nails against the absolute bottom of the well.

Their hands come up clutching bounties of stars.

****

I was thinking of this last night as I fell asleep. In the Bible, the wisdom of the Divine is personified as female.

They call it Sophia.

That girl-child in whom I recognized the presence of God: her middle name is Sophie.

When I tried to conjure up a symbolic image for this point in my life, I kept seeing darkness all around. But I was holding a little light. I could see more in the distance.

Last night, thinking about these people, I finally saw what was beneath me.

Wild waters. An ancient, living ship. Carrying me home.



I am Vesuvius, and I was afraid but I wrote this anyway.

**Credit for the above photo goes to Lady Cierra Lorenzen, who probably needs a website; to "the timer on her camera"; and to the general awesomeness of all the Lorenzens for probably generations back, but specifically to Kiah, Cierra and Lucy.