Rif On Sunday

Hi I'm at starbucks sunday afternoon. I went to st mary's library for a book and it was closed. My mistake for not knowing the date. I was wanting to learn about the notion of “Our citizenship is in heaven... He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the powner that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.” There is so much there: the metaschematize/ transformation from “the body of our humiliation” to be conformed to the “body of his glory.” The body of our humiliation is “naked” it is like a bear naked seed that fall to the ground, it is weak, frail, overcome easliy, it is dishonored, it is mortal, and cursed to face that mortality in stark awareness. I wanted to get out from under that inner bodily felt sense. I had been so thrilled to host the, but when the spirit rested upon me, it was so revealing. I awoke from my dream and felt like shit. Christ may have been the ulitmeat source, but it was by the intermediation of a heavenly angel assigned specifically to dwell in me. That was the reas on fro its journey down from heaven. It was a journey of discovery for the angle. Maybe the question was rhetorical, and for my benefit, but it really seemed to be wondering, “why am i in this place at this time?” Of course I was wandering the same thing, so the coincidence was a little too uncanny. As if the angel was telling me what I wanted to say. I am getting into the dream. There was this angel sent to dwell in me as one with me, and in so doing, to transform me from my body of humiliation to be conformed to an angelic body of glory. I did not think of my body as being so humiliating until i saw it from the vantage point of hosting an angel. I did not feel worthy. Before that mement, mortality didn't seem like a great problem, but in that moment it was a great problem indeed. The transformation required that i face my body of humiliation in all its mortality and dishonor and weakness. It requried that i die. Becoming one with a holy angel is no small task. Wehn I saw the body of my humiliation, I wanted out of the deal. It all seemed impossible, like a fantasy. I just wanted to get back to ordinary consciousness which does not seem humilating at all. I live with a lot of respect, and I have come to enjoy that. Maybe it isn't authentic respect, but it is at least an attempt. People shouldnlt be allowed to humiliate one another that way. It has to be a divine perogative. But when god does it, it is thurough. The ulitmate symbol of humiliation is the cross of Jesus. The punishment of the world that rejected him was to strip him, and kill him. I f they had known what they were doing, they wouldn't have done it, they would have seen how unwise it was. But that is the way with wisdom and foolishness through all history. Wisdom

gets ridiculed by the foolish. I did not understand what I was resisting. It was the wisdom of God that made me feel my weakness, my mortality, my dishonor so starkly. It was a relelation of weakness. I had to become weak for the power of God to work. But i did not know that yet. All i knew is that i didn't like feeling that way. It horrified me. I was still young, 33, and in good health. There was not reason to expect sudden death. I was not doing anything dangerous, just sleeping in bed as usual. But here i was facing the horror of my mortality. Enough. I wanted out. Henri nouwen was a bit of a holy fool: moving from teaching at Harvard to tending a man who could not do anything for himself. I was impressed. I had wanted to do that too. But I did not have htat much prestige to step down from. Still I could work with disabled adults. So that is what I did. I didn't fit in. i got cut from my main asignment all at once. Not goodbyes. I was in tears when I left. I needed an angle to comfort me, and that is what i got: it got to follow my bliss. So i followed my bliss right back to the story of my ancestor who wore all white and built a chair for jesus and who believed that jesus had made him special. I studied his life. He wrote about how the mystery of god was being revealed in him. Quoting paul. Nouwen was a fine guide. He was open to things angelic. He seemed serious about it somewhat, but also playful. Agony is nouwen's term, loneliness, abandoment. This is the sense of that moment in the body of my humiliation. I didn't want to accept it. And i didn't think i needed to. But this time it did not depend on my consent. It was going to happen whether I welcomed it or not. I fought it. When an exploseion happened within me, i tried to flail and sit up. That was my last attemt to fight, and it did not take long to learn that it was not wroking. I gave up fighting for myself. But i did fight for one last message to my wife. A good bye. An explanation of sorts. And acknowledgemtn of her place in my life. I tried to call out her name. That was my last definate connection to the body of my humiliation: I felt my jaw drop. My jaw dropped. I was just trying to scream, but noting came out. So my jaw dropped. Welcome to my museum notes. Here is the house Gregory lived in with his wife Cynthia. They called one another Greg and Cindy. The day is Saturday. The date January 1995. In the refigerator, there are peeled baby carrots. It was the begining of the fresh salad market. These carrots were shipped in from california where they had been cut short, peeled and polished. Nice little orange torpedos.

And here we have the four black metal folding chairs Gregory's mother had given them as a house-warming gift. They were guest chairs. G kept one in the closedin front porch and occasionaly used it when a guest arrived out there. Onec he did so with his neighbor shirley. She was so gentle. She let me put my prayer hands in hers. She had black hair and white skin, but not as black or as white as the character in my dream. And outsede the house we have their tilled vegetable garden. It was tilled and ready for planting in the spring. But it being winter, it was cold and fallow. Gregory kept a blank hard backed journal book at the head of his bed to write in. the next morning, he wrote about his dream. “I thought i was one with a heavenly angel,” he wrote, “ I thought i was being translated into heaven...” at that point he said, “I thought” because he “thought” it was a one way ticket. Being back on earth had come as a surpise. So he was surprised to be alive that morning. That was the only time in his life that he actuall thought he was dying and beyond the point of no return. Yes there was some consciousness left, but he did't expect it to last. That was ok with him. Death had lost its sting. Time was no longer something to cling to. And suffering was so very distant. This was the good pleasure at its distilled essence. Better even than sex. This is the stuff that monks are made of. They want this finer pleasure. It is the pleasure of the “other.” it is distant and unattainable. It is what makes the lovers of the most beautiful women in the world take another lover. The “other” is always better: what they are longing for is real, but it is not in the “other” woman – she is just a symbol. The true other is within and above. And to discover the true other is to discover the unending source of happiness. Women and other women, are wonderful. Don't get me wrong. The key is that she was to choose you. When that happens, go for the ride. So it was with the nameless blond of Phoenix. The most fun time of my whole life was saying yes to her invitation to go with her to Vegas. What made that so wonderful as perhaps the ultimate earthly pleasure? Not her sanity. She was not sane in the way we think of sanity. Blank died that weeked and she kept saying that she was her airis. It was obviously not true. When she asked if i bleived ehr. I told her that she and blank are alike both are beautiful and make their living pleasing male admiers. Tbut it isn't fare: ana nicole was rich and she was homeless. Not fare at all. So yes, she diserved some of the anna nicole estate. That seemed to comfort her. That is the only time i traveled with a woman who turned heads. She word a denum mini-mini skirt and it worked for her. It didn't look at all uncomfortable –

her legs were that fine. And she wore cowboy boots and a tank top. But she was broken too. She had a missing tooth. And while her eyes had a youthful beauty, there was an ageed something about her jaw. She shared with me her brokenness. That was what I was there for. Not as a taker but as a friend. Not as a pimp, but as someone to retrun to after the hook up. I think I enjoyed it so much because I was so completely clear that she was not a long term travel partner. And then there was the mennonite connection. You can't plan stuff like that. So is this the body of my humiliation? Hers is. I thank her for her confession. I am like her. Homelessness was never so sweet: not at home in the world, and at the same time, more at home than ever. Not in need of a special place to lay my head. I asked for water, and she remembered. If I told you it was sleep paralysis, would you reduce it to a diseased body? Your mother... yeah...