breathtaking brides; whores and hellions.

One of the expressions of patriarchy that I'm having a really hard time with lately:

I have a hard time with men characterizing the church as female and talking about her in terms of her redemption.

It's the ultimate Madonna/whore complex.

I understand why we use the language. The Bride of Christ, and all that. I get it. I'm not saying it's wrong. I know it wouldn't really matter if I did consider it "wrong." And no, not all men, and yes, some women, too, and yes, I get it. Promise.

But I still don't like it.

I don't like the times I've sat in groups among wide-eyed and wide-smiled women eager to claim a place at a glass tabletop spread open with pink-covered Bibles, working so hard, so alone, to believe "wholeness" and "purity" and "joy in the travails of women" for themselves, on their own behalves - attending a bride so maligned, frantically self-talking against the current in which they were swept along without ever asking themselves why it was so hard to believe these things for themselves in this context. Because why ask? What answers would they expect? and what would those answers, if they ever came, demand of them? What did they stand to lose?

I never really had thoughts to share with them; never notes to add to the pile; never did much more than observe. Never swept up in the rapture of telling myself this Church, this Mother of this Father, affirms me, Lisa, girl, woman, female, half-dead wounded, questioner, skeptic, believer, dying for room to move. Never a bride. Never blushing, timid, virginally hopeful; never virtuously, breathlessly, femininely devoted, and so, a defector of this game: helpless, speaking or silent, against the discomfort in these women's eyes, which saw me as the outsider I was.

I don't like it - the way patriarchy steers discussions of the Church's shortcomings toward degradation and, specifically, feminine (dare I say sexual?) degradation.

I don't like how patriarchy subjugates this feminine Church, It's all very telling, to me.

It's telling, the way that patriarchy makes no room to speak of these things in masculine terms.

It's telling, that I always read things like they shamed, maligned, underestimated her, but one day they'll stand in awe of her. It's telling that I never read things like he played the arrogant puff-chest and the predator; now he stands as one with the victimized, humbled by the weight of their pain and his own dearth of ability in its wake, his inability to do anything other than breathe Jesus over their wounds and listen to the Spirit as she weeps through him.  

That I always read things like she played the hellion and the whore; now she stands new, washed, adorned, breathtaking; that I never read things like once, the skulls of the broken crunched under his feet as he marched toward ideas of entitled glory; now, he is low to the ground awash in the grief-spirit of Mother God which swells among the broken, so that Her searing glory might rush forth from his brokenness in rivers. 

That I always read things like once, she stood disgraced and dirty; now she walks without spot or wrinkle; that I never read about how he stumbled to the ground, disrespected, devalued, demeaned, but he found God was there, too, and always had been, and always will be, and that this stumbling block is, perhaps, the rock upon which God would build him, that this shadowed company of brokenness is, perhaps, where the glory of Christ's bride imbues its very essence to those who live and move among her, who drink living water from this rock, who seek after the light in the dark. 

So much more, that I don't even have words for, and I need to go to bed, but I just keep thinking: oh, the irony, that in order to discuss these things in masculine terms we might have to know them in feminine terms first.

I wish we were willing to do this.
I wish we were less eager to feminize the church's shortcomings.
I wish men* were as quick to defend actual women in their actual subjugation as they are quick to defend the ways in which they subjugate the Gospel in order to justify it.

I wish.


*again: no, not all men, and I'm really tired of having to say that. If you get really pissed about reading that, it probably applies to you, so deal with it; if it doesn't, don't get pissed.

take off your pants and have some grits.

Sometimes, I hate cooking at home.

The it's hot in here. The my house smells like onions now. The dishes. I am spoiled completely rotten by having a dishwasher at work - not the machine which I must load with scraped-nearly-naked dishes, but the actual human upon whom I can foist stuff that still needs to be scraped clean.

And the chopping. The only time my favorite teacher in culinary school ever got really irritated with me (as far as I know) was during my final exit practical (a combination of knife skills assessment and preparing a full menu solo) when I purposely chose the tiniest bunch of parsley and the tiniest garlic cloves I could find in each pile, in order to minimize my mincing time. He picked up pinches of each and flicked them disgustedly at me, looked at me deadpan, cocked his head to the side, and said.... really? I grinned and nodded. He remained unamused.

Anyway.

I know alllll the things when you don't want to cook, but you need to have food in your house.

Plan ahead, Lisa! - pffft. Cute.

Lisa, make a few dishes, portion them out, and freeze them! - nah, mayne. 

Lisa, if you just make a ton of marinara to freeze, if you just use the food processor to chop the onions and garlic, it'll take you no more than LONGER THAN I WANT TO SPEND AND THEN I GOTTA WASH THE FOOD PROCESSOR TOO AND THE CUTTING BOARD ALREADY FITS AWKWARDLY IN THE DRAINBOARD JUST BY ITSELF AND I ALREADY SMELL LIKE ONIONS AND I JUST GOT HOME AND I JUST WANT TO TAKE MY PANTS OFF IN A COLD ROOM AND BE UN-HUNGRY. 

"Cooking ahead" is rarely going to happen, and, when it does happen, it just kinda sits there because I'm just so over it by the time I'm done making it. Is this a byproduct of making food for people all day long? Is there some switch in chef-brain that flips as soon as the food is prepared, and that switch is labeled FOOD IS NOT FOR EATING SEND IT OUT SEND IT OUT WHERE ARE THE SERVERS WHY IS IT STILL SITTING THERE? I don't know.

So heck. Given my propensity to either go hungry or just go to bed rather than cook, I resign myself to doing Whatever Gets Healthy Food Inside My Person. I, the knife-skills nerd, with my storebought-sliced mushrooms and pre-cut bagged kale (keep it in the freezer, crumble it directly into the pan. perfect). And maybe you, with your own version of semi-homemade whatever. It's hard enough coming up with meals, sometimes, let alone healthy meals, let alone healthy meals that don't require much of you when you're tired, let alone healthy, easy meals that don't trash your kitchen. We need all the quickie recipes we can get.

So here is a nonfancy quickie recipe which was probably already presented to accolades by someone else, photographed with an iPad and I swear someday I'm gonna get a new battery charger for my real camera, but I never remember it until I need it, so until then, I'll be draping my lacy kitchen curtain over my head in order to get enough light by which to photograph, and I'll think for a second what if I never get married and, suddenly, for the first time, the possibility seems very real and sort of grief-y, so if that happens to you, just tell yourself I could throw some cheese in my grits if I wanted to. 

Ha ha.

Huh.

Grits and Stuff with an Egg
(serves probably 3-4 moderately-hungry adults, maybe. I don't know how much you eat. I have leftovers.)

1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups water or broth/stock
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
3/4 cup grits

Eggs.

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 bell pepper (I used half a red and half a yeller 'cause I can)
1/2 onion (or more)
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 clove garlic (or more)
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
Kale.. probably three aforementioned frozen handfuls
Salt and pepper

GRITS: Bring the liquids to a boil with the salt. Whisk in the grits. Cook and whisk over medium heat for a minute or two. Toss in some cheese, if you're single - no, wait, I mean if you want to. Adjust the liquid if you prefer your grits more firm or soft. Set aside.

VEGGIES: Heat the oil in a skillet. Add the pepper, onion, and mushrooms; cook until they're as cooked as you like them. Add the garlic and vinegar, and cook another minute or so. Stir in the kale and cook until kale is tender, about 10-ish minutes. Season with salt and pepper.


Cook some eggs. Cook 'em nice. Not like this dude's wife. Otherwise who knows what will happen. 

[On second thought.. maybe I'm better off single.]

Grits: in the bowl.
Veggies: on the grits
Eggs: on the veggies
Hot sauce: all over everything in the world.

The grits, they are creamy and perfect. The veggies, they are tangy and salty and fragrant. The egg yolk, its richness with the tangy veggies and creamy grits, and the hot sauce perking everything up. Yes.

And not a food processor in sight.

forward, fingertips, fetal faith, and flea bites.

I don't think I've ever told any one person the major events of my life.

Maybe this is a more common thing than I realize. After all, why would it ever be necessary to tell a person every major event that's happened to you, especially the bad ones? Other than a spouse (which I do not have), I really don't know in whom I would've confided, and for what reason... except that for having spent a number of years in therapy, you would think I would've spilled all my secrets. That's the place to do it, right?

I spent a good year of therapy sitting almost silently in a leather chair while a short, kind, rotund man talked to me, at me, past me, and I don't say that as a criticism, because I could not speak, and I didn't know why, but the terror seized up in my throat and all I could do was listen and exist in a space where it would be okay for me to speak if I could. And what is a well-meaning therapist to do with a client who won't speak? Sometimes I wonder what he thought, if it ever drove him nuts as I sat there nodding and sometimes eeking out a few words and flinching at the sound of my own voice in that close, cluttered office. I wonder if he understood my silence better than I did, if he understood that he was up against years of "home training," as it's called, in telling-as-sin; I wonder if he understood that the sound of my voice in the air was dangerous, that darkness hovered in that room with me, tumbled over itself like eager stormclouds, to strike me dead if the truth hung in the air too long.

________

I think I might be done with all that now. Older, more lived, perhaps more tired, more realistic, and less afraid. All good things. And I wish I could tell you my stories, unfurl them like a dusty attic quilt, trace the stories of each square to you with a fingertip that no longer trembles.

I wish I could tell you, without feeling the need to fumble around with I'm not trying to be dramatic please believe me please just stand here with me about how the only real word for the traumas of my life is deaths, because after each one, the person I'd been simply could not continue to be; I wish I could tell you how I became a different person after each, whether by will or circumstance, and I buried their corpses deep. How I am only just grieving all of my deaths now, reverently, carefully, silently carrying them toward home, and how I need you to bear witness, and how I am thankful that you do.

I wish I could articulate the ways in which the truth of my deaths informs the fetal faith in me

I wish I had words for trust; I don't. I wish I could articulate the struggle of responsibility and blame and wronged and self-wronged; I can't. I wish I knew if I were being one of those people who drift toward death with all the deaths they've suffered still bitter in their throats; sometimes, I wonder. I wish so many things were not such blistered sacred space; I wish I weren't still so terrified of so many answers to so many questions I'm afraid to ask.

But I wish I could tell you about how the Truth flows, and that these questions are alive if unformed; I wish I could tell you about the burdens that hang heavy around my neck, and the ways in which I know I am meant to speak, and although I feel so very far away from the otherworldy and powerful grace to which I know I'm called as a writer, I wish I could tell you how enchanted is the writer in me, that the Truth is alive in me, and it flows from my lips and fingers in a momentum I couldn't curb or rearrange if I tried, and that, for the first time in my life, when I sit down to write, I am chasing after the Truth to where it leads, and I know that this is what I was made to do (and, you know, I'm sorry that it probably doesn't always make sense to people who are lucky enough to live outside of my own head; you should read the stuff I DON'T share. ha).

I wish I could tell you these things, because the only way I can tell you of how they no longer threaten to devour me is to tell you what they are; I wish I were in such company that I could bestow on myself the gift of sharing not as expository or as absolution, without hating my own need, but as benevolent and forward in being known.

There's more, too. But there is an enormous flea bite on the sole of my foot, and I wish I could tell you how it's seriously derailing my Truth-train (omg so bad, it's embarrassing; I'm totally leaving it there) and ruining my night.