Grilled Cheese Vocation

While lying in my bed reading Anne Lamott's new book, Plan B, this morning, I ran into the reason I want to be a priest. Anne was talking about a friend of hers speaking on a trip to a prison. This friend reached the prisoners with the story she told. They stood and applauded her. Anne says the reason for this is that she said to them, "I'm human. You're human. Let me greet you in your humanness. Let's get together and be people for awhile". Hot tears wet my cheeks because that is just it. I have not been able to tell people when they ask why I want to be a priest. I could not tell them, "I want to lead God's people" or "It is all I have ever wanted to do" not even "I think I'm right for the job". I have felt like a fraud some days, not having a concrete answer for what I'm doing here. But Lamott is exactly right.
I want to be a person with people. That realization freed me from my own little prison, where I was knocking my head against the wall, saying What the fuck does God want with me? I am thinking now that it might be that I was really making an attempt to live in this world just like I am, to hug my humanness. That is what Jesus was talking about in those two greatest commandments. He said something like, "Come here and let me love you." It is a message of radical acceptance of God's beautiful, flawed creation. Not "let me change you" or "let me choose the prettiest of you". Jesus sat down on the couch and said to the whole world, "Here. Want half of my sandwich?" Perhaps this is it, the heart of God. So, that's why I want to become a priest. Neato.

leaks

my little car is a piece of shit...a spongebob squarepants aqua green color...square and outdated...it sputters and farts...the window tint is peeling...is tempermental about starting...overheats when i run the air conditioning...leaks fluids...makes me sick...

and i am kinda sad to have a new one. my dad is driving up a different car for me sometime this week. not new by any means, but better. different. and i will have to watch my little piece of shit car go. i guess the truth is that i love this car just like i hate it. it is worn and tired and unapologetic about sometimes not wanting to move. it holds smells like memories of better days. it has problems, like me. when i drive this car, it understands me. we jerk along together, stopping and starting and trying to cover ground. this car forgives me. it knows that neither of us is perfect, but that if we keep at it we may both get to wherever the hell we are going. some days this car teaches me to scream, to be the bad example of a lady that poet Staceyann Chin aspires to be. this car teaches me to get mad, to expect better from my life, from the world. this car teaches me the honesty in imperfection. it teaches me that i cannot fix everything, that sometimes life damages us, time...all of it...you have to work with that. this car, this little piece of shit car, invites me to relax a little about my own sputterings and leaks. it tells me to sit down some days, that i am not going anywhere but back to the couch. and this car will teach me to release it when it goes.

The Day After Graduation

i hope i am brave, to move when it's time to--
me. unadorned. staring into some face like mine. searching for something better than truth. happy with what i have found. imperfect. able.
writhing in my skin to change. not knowing what the answers are. screaming the answers/questions in my sleep. dreamless, wandering dreamer.
golden like nothing gold could be.
becoming myself. afraid. erupting.
some sort of writer. some kind of beautiful. something like moonlight. too soon to tell. secretive. honest. a fucking hypocrite. contained. enormous.
cliche like "all my heart".
inhabiting the cloud. staring into some face like mine. loving me, horrified...worshipful. praying. muted by the passage of time.
furious.
unadorned. like a fist in the belly. a shortness of breath.
writhing in my skin to change.
breast to breast with the goddess. imperfect. happy with what i have found.
disciple. dust. vessel. of love.
something like moonlight.
wandering. contained.
i hope i am brave, to move when it's time to.
i hope i am brave, to move when it's time to.