Dear Church of the Holy Abstraction:
I can't see you. I'm beginning to think I never will.
The thing is, I don't think you quite understand where I'm coming from--that I have, either by my own unwitting design or not, placed myself between worlds. Basically, regarding you and my prospected participation in your congregation, I will always sound elitist and prideful. Which will then cause me to act in 'humility' and say the opposite of what I just thought/said.
But is that really humility? Am I being humble when I first think that I would go to a church if they had a book club dedicated to reading Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, but then say, no, that's asking too much--the church should be shaping my ideas of it, not me shaping my ideas of the church? It seems that, in order to be humble, you have to expose your pride first.
Don't go turning that into an anecdote in your next sermon.
But really, though: is it possible to be humble when you are constantly aware of this fact? And further, how am I supposed to know the difference between humbling myself and selling myself short? When I catch myself daydreaming about a book tour, I immediately feel that if I'm daydreaming about it, it means I don't deserve it. Then I lament the fact that I'd never be able to sit through another office job whose duty to society was as some intermediary service to something else that may or may not be useful to anyone. Then I think about how egotistical it is to put myself above 60% of the American workforce. Then I feel awful that 60% of the American workforce is working to work. Then I think, who am I?
Then: I don't stop asking that last question.
So: at the end of these thought cycles, what am I left with? Where have I gone--or, have I already disappeared years ago, and when I thought I was humbling myself, it was my spine cracking as I shoveled sand over my head?
Waiting, Always,
a sleeper
Monday, June 7, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Fleshword
Essay in Embryo #7
Every few months I start thinking about what I would want as a tattoo. I go through the same litany of pros and cons, be they cliche (what would you want on you forever?) or guilt-induced by my upbringing in a generally tat-unfriendly culture (don't you know that your body is a temple?).
In the beginning was the Word
A few months ago, I had a dream that I actually made the leap and went to a tattoo parlor. I didn't tell the artist what to draw, so, he/she drew a rose on my arm, and wrote "Rose" underneath it. Image and text, married, but not happy about the union. "No! That's so obvious!" I yelled, and had them remove it. I then had an epiphany: I wanted a tea plant drawn on my shoulder blade, with the scientific name underneath it (Camellia Sinensis). Why this was any different than the previous rose is a Rose, I don't know.
And the Word was with God
In high school, I learned about Nazarite vows, the most famous exemplar being Samson. He was bound to God by strict adherence to certain dos/do-nots, namely, not cutting his hair or drinking alcohol. Even though things don't go so well for him, I took the idea of binding yourself to God as something I should do, and came up with my own version: I wouldn't dye my hair, pierce my ears, or get a tattoo. It was a ridiculous thing that wasn't officially vowed before anyone, and I saw it mostly as a reaction to the trend of dying your hair with Kool-Aid that was popular in the 90s. As a junior in college though, I had my ear pierced. It never healed, and when I gave up and removed it, it left a nodule scar of cartilage on the top of my ear. "Be careful of vows, no matter how idiotic," my soon-to-be father-in-law said.
And the Word was God
I had the idea today of getting something that used the idea from the opening of the Gospel of John, where he describes the coming of the messiah as a word being turned into flesh. While I doubt I'd ever actual do it (though, maybe in Latin? viscus vox? Doesn't Latin=Cool?) it made me wonder. As a writer, I'm constantly trying to turn words into flesh, via the imagination of my perceived readers. So, in one sense, are writers in general doing the work of messiah-bringers? But, then, I pull my content from the past--from preexisting flesh. So, really, am I turning dead-flesh into word, hoping it will re-flesh itself? Resurrect it into something restorative, transcendent? If that's the case, then something that was truly word first would be nothing short of word-world-warping. It would also explain why prophets are perceived as crazy: they're acting as if their words have already grown legs.
I am a voice shouting in the wilderness
Just that: a voice in search of an image, a body, a future.
*Italicized portions pulled from John 1, New Living Translation
Every few months I start thinking about what I would want as a tattoo. I go through the same litany of pros and cons, be they cliche (what would you want on you forever?) or guilt-induced by my upbringing in a generally tat-unfriendly culture (don't you know that your body is a temple?).
In the beginning was the Word
A few months ago, I had a dream that I actually made the leap and went to a tattoo parlor. I didn't tell the artist what to draw, so, he/she drew a rose on my arm, and wrote "Rose" underneath it. Image and text, married, but not happy about the union. "No! That's so obvious!" I yelled, and had them remove it. I then had an epiphany: I wanted a tea plant drawn on my shoulder blade, with the scientific name underneath it (Camellia Sinensis). Why this was any different than the previous rose is a Rose, I don't know.
And the Word was with God
In high school, I learned about Nazarite vows, the most famous exemplar being Samson. He was bound to God by strict adherence to certain dos/do-nots, namely, not cutting his hair or drinking alcohol. Even though things don't go so well for him, I took the idea of binding yourself to God as something I should do, and came up with my own version: I wouldn't dye my hair, pierce my ears, or get a tattoo. It was a ridiculous thing that wasn't officially vowed before anyone, and I saw it mostly as a reaction to the trend of dying your hair with Kool-Aid that was popular in the 90s. As a junior in college though, I had my ear pierced. It never healed, and when I gave up and removed it, it left a nodule scar of cartilage on the top of my ear. "Be careful of vows, no matter how idiotic," my soon-to-be father-in-law said.
And the Word was God
I had the idea today of getting something that used the idea from the opening of the Gospel of John, where he describes the coming of the messiah as a word being turned into flesh. While I doubt I'd ever actual do it (though, maybe in Latin? viscus vox? Doesn't Latin=Cool?) it made me wonder. As a writer, I'm constantly trying to turn words into flesh, via the imagination of my perceived readers. So, in one sense, are writers in general doing the work of messiah-bringers? But, then, I pull my content from the past--from preexisting flesh. So, really, am I turning dead-flesh into word, hoping it will re-flesh itself? Resurrect it into something restorative, transcendent? If that's the case, then something that was truly word first would be nothing short of word-world-warping. It would also explain why prophets are perceived as crazy: they're acting as if their words have already grown legs.
I am a voice shouting in the wilderness
Just that: a voice in search of an image, a body, a future.
*Italicized portions pulled from John 1, New Living Translation
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Drafting, pt. 7
Time: 10:27 a.m.
Music: "Sparks" | Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam Band with Tim and Sam
Mood: distanced
Being that these notes are so linked to my process in writing a book, I am depressed rather than upset with myself that the date between posts is so long. It means that it is has been over a month since I had any real time to pay any close attention to revision.
I've said earlier that sitting and writing involves a lot of self-manipulation. First drafts are easier because the only real hope is that you'll get an idea or at least an image out of the nomadic scribble. Revisions have a lot more at stake. You're faced with the decision that it's either worth it or it's not.
A friend of mine recently lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. The first time N and I visited him, we were nervous. Would he be tethered to a chair, drooling with pain killers? Would comments like what's the point fall out of the ethered silence? Rather, he bounded out on his crutches faster and fitter than I'd ever seen him. He'd barely slowed down before expertly leading the charge into a hug, the confident weight of which was joyous, and not, 'please keep me from falling.'
He knew what our gluey surprised eyes were asking, and he said: You either give up, or you don't. And why would you give up?
It seems simplistic at first, almost cheesy even, like some re-hashing of Shawshank. But I've been reading Albert Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus"--an essay solely concerned with the absurdity of living and the oddly logical path of suicide. In a sense, asking why would you give up is the only important question, and if I could say this without sounding cleverly cliche, the yes to continuing is already coiled inside that fetal query, an embryonic intuition that will become an idea, then an image, then something we can't live without.
So: my revisions leaned on a crutch this morning. It is small, but at least it is a yes, and so, for what it's worth: [from Chapter 1, in a section about being a paperboy at age 6]
Music: "Sparks" | Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam Band with Tim and Sam
Mood: distanced
Being that these notes are so linked to my process in writing a book, I am depressed rather than upset with myself that the date between posts is so long. It means that it is has been over a month since I had any real time to pay any close attention to revision.
I've said earlier that sitting and writing involves a lot of self-manipulation. First drafts are easier because the only real hope is that you'll get an idea or at least an image out of the nomadic scribble. Revisions have a lot more at stake. You're faced with the decision that it's either worth it or it's not.
A friend of mine recently lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. The first time N and I visited him, we were nervous. Would he be tethered to a chair, drooling with pain killers? Would comments like what's the point fall out of the ethered silence? Rather, he bounded out on his crutches faster and fitter than I'd ever seen him. He'd barely slowed down before expertly leading the charge into a hug, the confident weight of which was joyous, and not, 'please keep me from falling.'
He knew what our gluey surprised eyes were asking, and he said: You either give up, or you don't. And why would you give up?
It seems simplistic at first, almost cheesy even, like some re-hashing of Shawshank. But I've been reading Albert Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus"--an essay solely concerned with the absurdity of living and the oddly logical path of suicide. In a sense, asking why would you give up is the only important question, and if I could say this without sounding cleverly cliche, the yes to continuing is already coiled inside that fetal query, an embryonic intuition that will become an idea, then an image, then something we can't live without.
So: my revisions leaned on a crutch this morning. It is small, but at least it is a yes, and so, for what it's worth: [from Chapter 1, in a section about being a paperboy at age 6]
I am terrified of knocking on doors. When anyone answers, their faces always suggest that they don’t owe me anything. We didn’t sign up for this part of the deal it looks like. Sometimes I stand on the steps for ten minutes, my hand raised but motionless. When I knock it feels like a kind of unwanted divination—that I’m always interrupting something grave. I listen for movement, for the placing, or dropping of something metallic, a click like hitting a pause button, and hear the muted slap of slippers on linoleum onto the stunted shag of the living room, getting closer, closer. On the occasions when no one answers, I think that it is my fault. It is as if they are waiting for the right person to call them back to the world, but it will never be the one who brings them the news. Still, when I hear no sound from the other side, a great weight leaves my chest. I run down and hop on my scooter before they realize that perhaps that noise that was haunting them was someone knocking.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
100 Minutes of Solitude
Essay in Embryo #6
Prelude
In Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, the author takes mescalin under supervision to see what it would do to his brain. It leads him to requote Pascal:
When I read Doors, it is unexpected. Living in a rented, furnished house in Rockport, Mass., N and I are lounging like tabby cats on a Sunday afternoon. I scan the owner's bookshelf and land on Huxley, settle down on the floor next to the record player, strap on big headphones, and listen to the following fugues:
1. Space 2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack)
2. Days of Future Passed (The Moody Blues)
3. Ben Hur (soundtrack)
4. Four Polonaises (Chopin)
I am unfamiliar with each record, and by the time I finish with Chopin, I've finished Doors. A series of new, disparate sounds clamoring for space in the canals of my brain. Despite the long periods of voiceless sound, I am filled with voices that are, somehow, also shapes--a talking geometry that makes my organs itch.
Fugue
is discussed as: voices; textures; a form of composition; a strict discipline described as boring, laborious; borne out of improvisation and thus the basis of idea; contrapuntal, or, "point against point"--things that appear as opposite, independent, but when paired, create something complex, inexorably human.
Postlude
There is great space in minimalism, but when I cram my mind full of expansive, voiceless music, my first instinct is to write something down. I do not become the voice the music has left out, but just one that falls out of a cloud, trying to gather to the biggest drop I can before hitting the sidewalk, or, perhaps, striking an animal's tongue just as it gathers a whoop--silence a liquid in search of a voice.
Prelude
In Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, the author takes mescalin under supervision to see what it would do to his brain. It leads him to requote Pascal:
"The sum of evil," Pascal remarked, would be much diminished if men could only sit quietly in their rooms.
When I read Doors, it is unexpected. Living in a rented, furnished house in Rockport, Mass., N and I are lounging like tabby cats on a Sunday afternoon. I scan the owner's bookshelf and land on Huxley, settle down on the floor next to the record player, strap on big headphones, and listen to the following fugues:
1. Space 2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack)
2. Days of Future Passed (The Moody Blues)
3. Ben Hur (soundtrack)
4. Four Polonaises (Chopin)
I am unfamiliar with each record, and by the time I finish with Chopin, I've finished Doors. A series of new, disparate sounds clamoring for space in the canals of my brain. Despite the long periods of voiceless sound, I am filled with voices that are, somehow, also shapes--a talking geometry that makes my organs itch.
Fugue
is discussed as: voices; textures; a form of composition; a strict discipline described as boring, laborious; borne out of improvisation and thus the basis of idea; contrapuntal, or, "point against point"--things that appear as opposite, independent, but when paired, create something complex, inexorably human.
Postlude
There is great space in minimalism, but when I cram my mind full of expansive, voiceless music, my first instinct is to write something down. I do not become the voice the music has left out, but just one that falls out of a cloud, trying to gather to the biggest drop I can before hitting the sidewalk, or, perhaps, striking an animal's tongue just as it gathers a whoop--silence a liquid in search of a voice.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Drafting, pt. 6
Time: 10:16 a.m.
Music: A Process in the Weather of the Heart | Radere
Mood: turned-in, turned-over, overturned
I have just sent out what will officially be the final version of my thesis, and it's not all that fulfilling (akin to being asked what it's like to "be 25" on your 25th birthday). The understanding this whole semester is that Thesis does not equal Book. And while this has made the process of revision far less scary, as there was never really any threat of failing, it has made the idea of finishing anything, ever, seem like a red herring sipping ambrosia from a holy grail.
While I made significant changes in the structure for this revision, changed some endings, and in one case wrote a new chapter, the main thing I took away from the experience is that there is much work to be done. With teaching and being in a fiction class this semester, the real revisions I need to make seem impossible to tackle. When revising a draft of a book--where the 'anything goes' style of original creation is no longer allowed--it takes a significant amount of time to get back into the book's voice. You have to sort of hypnotize yourself, casting the spell that you're not at your computer wearing PJ pants at two in the afternoon, but that you're actually an important writer with something worth showing an audience. Getting over the self-consciousness of this idea takes at least an hour of staring into space.
In order to auto-hypnotize, my process often involves: listening to incredibly long experimental songs, the more ambient the better, through big headphones--in this case, earbuds would be like a dutch boy's fingers trying to dam an exploding aqueduct. Then, I often find myself overcome by the speed of thought, so I turn everything off and plant my face in the couch. N has walked in on this a number of times. "What are you doing?" she asks. "Duh. I'm writing."
It can take hours for me to beat to papyrus pulp that self-conscious voice that loops, "I'm writing. A book. I'm writing a book," over and over. When I do, it will most likely take another few hours for a paragraph to emerge. It won't be until the next day that I can start expanding beyond that. So, even though I'm still in an MFA program, doing what I love, and being able to work from home for a majority of my week, it is not a schedule that allows for uninterrupted workweeks where I can manacle my mind with heady music or, stuff my face into a cushion.
Music: A Process in the Weather of the Heart | Radere
Mood: turned-in, turned-over, overturned
I have just sent out what will officially be the final version of my thesis, and it's not all that fulfilling (akin to being asked what it's like to "be 25" on your 25th birthday). The understanding this whole semester is that Thesis does not equal Book. And while this has made the process of revision far less scary, as there was never really any threat of failing, it has made the idea of finishing anything, ever, seem like a red herring sipping ambrosia from a holy grail.
While I made significant changes in the structure for this revision, changed some endings, and in one case wrote a new chapter, the main thing I took away from the experience is that there is much work to be done. With teaching and being in a fiction class this semester, the real revisions I need to make seem impossible to tackle. When revising a draft of a book--where the 'anything goes' style of original creation is no longer allowed--it takes a significant amount of time to get back into the book's voice. You have to sort of hypnotize yourself, casting the spell that you're not at your computer wearing PJ pants at two in the afternoon, but that you're actually an important writer with something worth showing an audience. Getting over the self-consciousness of this idea takes at least an hour of staring into space.
In order to auto-hypnotize, my process often involves: listening to incredibly long experimental songs, the more ambient the better, through big headphones--in this case, earbuds would be like a dutch boy's fingers trying to dam an exploding aqueduct. Then, I often find myself overcome by the speed of thought, so I turn everything off and plant my face in the couch. N has walked in on this a number of times. "What are you doing?" she asks. "Duh. I'm writing."
It can take hours for me to beat to papyrus pulp that self-conscious voice that loops, "I'm writing. A book. I'm writing a book," over and over. When I do, it will most likely take another few hours for a paragraph to emerge. It won't be until the next day that I can start expanding beyond that. So, even though I'm still in an MFA program, doing what I love, and being able to work from home for a majority of my week, it is not a schedule that allows for uninterrupted workweeks where I can manacle my mind with heady music or, stuff my face into a cushion.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Drafting, pt. 5
Time: 9:46 a.m.
Music: "Traversing the Fourth" | EloiSing
Mood: oatmealy
In keeping with the (self)conversation I started in the post All My People, I've been thinking a lot about this question of 'audience' and why I'm having such a hard time coming up with a clear answer as to who I hope reads this book (beyond the fantastical answer: everyone). As I'm slated to turn in my 2nd/final thesis draft in less than a week, I've written up a letter to my committee discussing the changes I've made. I go into the question of audience a bit, and so here it is in all its almost-makes-sense-ness:
Music: "Traversing the Fourth" | EloiSing
Mood: oatmealy
In keeping with the (self)conversation I started in the post All My People, I've been thinking a lot about this question of 'audience' and why I'm having such a hard time coming up with a clear answer as to who I hope reads this book (beyond the fantastical answer: everyone). As I'm slated to turn in my 2nd/final thesis draft in less than a week, I've written up a letter to my committee discussing the changes I've made. I go into the question of audience a bit, and so here it is in all its almost-makes-sense-ness:
A word on audience: S [a committee member] has been concerned, for a while now, whether or not this is a ‘religious’ or, for lack of a better word, ‘secular’ book. She mentioned that she was often uncomfortable with the use of Bible verses, and even the names God, Jesus, etc. Obviously, this is something I’ve been wrestling with for years. In my mind, this is a work of literature that I want everyone to read, regardless if they're atheists, Catholics, or satan-worshippers. I see my use of religious concepts as no different than Eula Biss’ use of research on telephone poles in No Man’s Land, or John McPhee’s research on, well, everything in the world (how does he do it?). The simple answer then, is to make sure I’m explaining things enough to let ‘outsiders’ in.
But there’s a bigger problem here. To get a bit philosophical, I think that my audience is defined by the book’s title. My audience are ‘Sleepers,’ for a number of reasons. In one sense, it is for the people who have had any amount of religious exposure, and have thus been left wondering what it all meant, and even more, how to begin talking about it. In another sense, it is my opinion that America’s capacity to parse religion has fallen asleep. Culturally, you’re either a Falwell or you’re an atheist, and heaven help you if you try to talk about God in any sense beyond the very broad, unassuming higher-power-however-you-choose-to-define-it manner. It is my belief that Christianity, from Catholicism, to Mormonism, and all the other wacky permutations, is the only allowable prejudice left in American culture. And no, I’m not saying that racism, sexism, etc. don’t exist anymore, but they’ve moved into a more disturbing latent form, rather than something professed openly in conversation, media, the classroom. It’s cool to hate Christianity, and laugh at its feeble-mindedness. We’ve gotten hung up on terms, on words that every individual reads their own experience into. To me, this renders the word “Christian” moot and useless. But, what I’ve learned from the few instances where people have indulged in the content of my book is that we’re actually dying to talk about the search for meaning, and not just in the relativistic post-modern sense. So, the title, Wake, Sleeper is a call to myself to start dealing with these issues head-on, as well as, I hope, the same thing for anyone who has ever wondered what happens after death.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Call It What It Is(n't)
Essay in Embryo #5
The dialogue between my waking and dreaming mind seems to have moved from calling across canyons to chatting at a coffee shop. As in, my dream-stuff often sheds direct light on what I'm puzzling over when I'm awake (or, more likely, while I'm trying to sleep). Perhaps the mania of mild insomnia over the last three years has been building a bridge between the two worlds. Or, maybe it's like I've written the word create, and then smudged it with a dirty eraser until text and abstraction are a leaden swath of existence.
Ex.: I've been trying to think of a new idea for a short story for a fiction workshop. I contemplated writing something about someone (read: me) who has never punched anyone before. That night, in a dream, I somehow wrote a first line, and when I woke up, I decided it was actually worth pursuing. The line: "Tracy Billideaux swings and misses."
Your sons and daughters will prophesy
A common phrase I often heard in church was, "I felt the LORD telling me..." or, "The LORD gave me a vision about..." How were they so sure? What if they were misguided a bit? The consequences for putting words in God's mouth seemed steep. I also felt guilty, because, why couldn't I hear/see this stuff/Stuff?
your old men will dream dreams
Last week, at a party where there was much local beer and tea-infused gin, N and I headed upstairs to crash at the host's house. In a reversal of home-life, I was out in seconds, but N, despite the gin and Malibu, couldn't drift into dream. Then, amidst her buzz, she felt that she saw a pot in front of her, with maybe-God saying, Fill the pot. Fill the pot. In her state, this seemed logical enough, so she did. And slowly, as the pot filled, she fell asleep. "I don't know if it was God, or just me being drunk," she said. And in her admission of uncertainty, it seemed like the most believable Sacred Talk instance I'd ever heard of. She couldn't claim that she was a Holy Receptacle, and it was that humility that felt convincing.
your young men will see visions.*
A few nights later, back home and back to our normal sleep/sleepless roles, I couldn't make the sleep-leap. I was stuck in the drifting, just a touch too aware of the fact that I was falling asleep, and thus rendering the final nod impossible. Amidst the thought-parade, I saw a pot, and I was like, oh yeah; I guess I'm supposed to fill this. So I started pouring water from what was apparently 'my' pot into what was presumably God's pot (who, as it turns out, has the same copper-bottomed Revere ware as I do. It's just a lot more polished). But, instead of it staying there, the Pot kept pouring it back into my pot. But it wasn't water--it was an opaque golden syrup, or, maybe white wine--a sauvignon blanc, perhaps. Sweetening the pot, I thought, for reasons I'm still not clear on. Though, despite the lack of clarity, I felt rested by the whole ordeal. And that maybe going around convincing ourselves, and others, that God is always in the borders of sleep, could be soul-destroying. Something is lost in the telling, the writing, that reduces it to crazy or holy, David Koresh or King David.
*Joel 2:28
The dialogue between my waking and dreaming mind seems to have moved from calling across canyons to chatting at a coffee shop. As in, my dream-stuff often sheds direct light on what I'm puzzling over when I'm awake (or, more likely, while I'm trying to sleep). Perhaps the mania of mild insomnia over the last three years has been building a bridge between the two worlds. Or, maybe it's like I've written the word create, and then smudged it with a dirty eraser until text and abstraction are a leaden swath of existence.
Ex.: I've been trying to think of a new idea for a short story for a fiction workshop. I contemplated writing something about someone (read: me) who has never punched anyone before. That night, in a dream, I somehow wrote a first line, and when I woke up, I decided it was actually worth pursuing. The line: "Tracy Billideaux swings and misses."
Your sons and daughters will prophesy
A common phrase I often heard in church was, "I felt the LORD telling me..." or, "The LORD gave me a vision about..." How were they so sure? What if they were misguided a bit? The consequences for putting words in God's mouth seemed steep. I also felt guilty, because, why couldn't I hear/see this stuff/Stuff?
your old men will dream dreams
Last week, at a party where there was much local beer and tea-infused gin, N and I headed upstairs to crash at the host's house. In a reversal of home-life, I was out in seconds, but N, despite the gin and Malibu, couldn't drift into dream. Then, amidst her buzz, she felt that she saw a pot in front of her, with maybe-God saying, Fill the pot. Fill the pot. In her state, this seemed logical enough, so she did. And slowly, as the pot filled, she fell asleep. "I don't know if it was God, or just me being drunk," she said. And in her admission of uncertainty, it seemed like the most believable Sacred Talk instance I'd ever heard of. She couldn't claim that she was a Holy Receptacle, and it was that humility that felt convincing.
your young men will see visions.*
A few nights later, back home and back to our normal sleep/sleepless roles, I couldn't make the sleep-leap. I was stuck in the drifting, just a touch too aware of the fact that I was falling asleep, and thus rendering the final nod impossible. Amidst the thought-parade, I saw a pot, and I was like, oh yeah; I guess I'm supposed to fill this. So I started pouring water from what was apparently 'my' pot into what was presumably God's pot (who, as it turns out, has the same copper-bottomed Revere ware as I do. It's just a lot more polished). But, instead of it staying there, the Pot kept pouring it back into my pot. But it wasn't water--it was an opaque golden syrup, or, maybe white wine--a sauvignon blanc, perhaps. Sweetening the pot, I thought, for reasons I'm still not clear on. Though, despite the lack of clarity, I felt rested by the whole ordeal. And that maybe going around convincing ourselves, and others, that God is always in the borders of sleep, could be soul-destroying. Something is lost in the telling, the writing, that reduces it to crazy or holy, David Koresh or King David.
*Joel 2:28
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