This is Your Brain on Drugs: A Public Service Announcement

     She came to suddenly, shivering in the dark, her right foot icy and grass itching the back of her neck. Stumbling to her feet, she nearly pitched down the root-tangled cliffside that edged the burbling river. Her bracelet was dirty and mud-caked on her bruised forearm. One of her shoes was gone. What had happened? Across the water and high up on the facing bank spread some structures from which shone the meager illumination of a dozen scattered lit windows. Was she at school? A dorm then. Why wasn't she safe and warm inside, and why was her memory so foggy? 

     There had been an argument, she recalled, someone telling her that she'd been slipped angel dust, this said as she ran alongside someone, away from a house of angry men, strangers. Oh Christ, they'd drugged her, her life reduced to a Lifetime tv movie of the week in an instant. But why, why would some frat guys secretly give her drugs? Glancing down at herself in the moonlight, she took in the unfastened, muddy shorts, ripped blouse, and her naked right foot. And it clicked, clear as crystal: she'd been raped. She heard the wail before she realized she was crying, and she went to seek help.

     Limping, she made her way to a paved asphalt path and figured it had to lead back to her dorm room. Up ahead in the distance, a car slowly cruised across the horizon, and from it a moving searchlight reached vaguely towards her in jerky movements but still came nowhere near lighting her up. Campus police! It hurt but she picked up her pace, jogging, now running and sobbing and waving her arms in the air and shouting out  to them. "Help me! Oh God please help", she shrieked hoarsely, but they didn't seem to slow. Panicking, she saw a sherbet-orange street lamp off to the side and ran under it, hoping to make herself visible. Lit in sickly monochrome, she jumped up and down, shouting, then remembered her ripped shirt.

     She clutched the fabric to her chest and felt- hair. And a complete absence of breasts. Puzzled, she looked at herself and tried to make sense of it. And then it hit me- I was on crystal meth, possibly pcp too. I had been awake far too long, several days, and was completely out of my mind. I wasn't some college coed, and I certainly hadn't been raped, but I had nearly been jumped by some tweakers who had burned me in a drug deal. How had I forgotten? And, crap, I was newly homeless. And so was my husband- where was my husband? I had left him sleeping by Dry Creek Park's riverbank under my peacoat! And I was standing there, clearly off my rocker, trying to get the attention of the police making their nightly sweep of the park. I jumped behind the nearest tree and prayed for them to pass me by, and then, when the coast was clear, I limped off to find my husband, and hopefully my boot.

     Now, you'd think any sensible person would have woken up the next day and looked at this experience and said, "I obviously have a major problem. I surrender, Lord, I give up." But not me. I laughed about it. You have to laugh, it's so absurd. But it's sad, too. And I didn't see that. I saw a close call, a crisis averted. This was at the start of my year of homeless tweakerdom, and though I wish I could say that this terrifying ordeal had some sort of sobering impact on my life, it was all downhill from there. True story.

Limelight

     "Look what I can do!" I might not ever say those words, and I may not have worn my tap shoes in well over a decade, but the windmilling, jazz-hands, shuffle-ball-changing glory hog in me is by no means dead. It's just living under an assumed name. I, my friends, am a closet megalomaniac. No, seriously. There are few things I ever do without an absurd amount of consideration about, what else, how it will make me look. And half the time it doesn't even matter how it makes me look, so long as it makes you look at me. How else could I enjoy my weekly Lip-Sync for Liberty? Why else would I have a blog? And that seems innocuous enough, right? But it isn't harmless, not really. When I stop to take a real close look at myself (and what self-obsessed person doesn't enjoy looking at themselves?), I find that the varied manifestations of this need for top billing often have a way of cutting me off from the world around me. 

     Do you know what my stepson does that absolutely drives me up the wall? He corrects me. All the time. Me and anyone else he finds in error, be it grammatical, factual, trivial... it doesn't matter. And do you know why I find it the single most irksome quality he possesses? Because I do the same damn thing. I always have, because I have always found it necessary to be right, or, when I could manage it, superior. And when he corrects me there's a moment where some strange ID-like structure deep inside me is angry at being challenged. As if that's what matters. It doesn't matter to him, not like it does to that bit of me, which is, let's face it, not the prettiest truth to acknowledge about oneself. 

     In school, I'm truly ridiculous in my quest to find favor with my instructors. My friend Tina is in the honors program at MJC, and this semester I'm taking a course with the director, Eva Mo. Now, knowing the effort Tina has poured into her honors courses, I have no time for that much extra energy, and as I'm going to attend University locally I don't even need any competitive edge. But still, I did my best to impress, and in doing so drove a wedge between myself and the other students and made out that I knew what I was doing in that incredibly tough class when I clearly don't. Because I needed her to ask me to join, so I can turn it down but know that I could have done it. And now that she has, I can relax. Isn't that insane?

     And I'm no better in church. This past Sunday I went to my first bible study at Saint Paul's where we discussed Psalm 27. The man who was informally leading the group (Nick?) incisively pointed out the beautiful human tension of doubt and faith and second-guessing God and ultimately advising patience from the writer's experience. I love the Psalms, and when asked how I found the community at St. Paul's I answered that reading a book about the Benedictines and their reading of the daily office led me to get a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. And reading the daily office stirred a yearning for a spiritual community with a strong scriptural presence and a nurturing atmosphere, which I do think I've found there. As the conversation went on, it became clear that these folks were analytical powerhouses, though not in any sort of showy or detached way, and I got intimidated. Briefly. Very briefly. But enough that I tried to tie the Episcopal church's participation in the ecumenical movement to something said about community and it didn't make any  sense, though they kindly didn't point this out. More than that, it wasn't genuine, which is the important thing. It was something said to mark me as in the know or brilliant. I said it to set me apart, when I was trying to be a part of. 

     For some reason, I need you to look at me as an object of wonder. I need you to walk away from our interactions impressed by my sharp wit, stunned at the breadth of knowledge I command. I need you to marvel at the insurmountable obstacles I've vaulted over, admire the perseverance with which I pursue my ambitions. I need you to note my warm heart and generosity, praise my saintly virtue. I need you to love me.

The Steeplechase

     Let me make a few things clear right off the bat. One- I was raised in born-again, nominally baptist churches that never explained the differences between the denominations and stressed inviting Jesus into your heart like a Motel 6. Leave the light on for him. Two- I've been on something of a spiritual quest ever since I became suddenly convinced that I didn't need to inject the syringe full of crystal meth that I was holding then or ever again and found $100 the next day in what then seemed, and still does, a moment of divine intervention that kicked off my emergence from homelessness. Three- I'm not particularly devout or full of belief, but I feel called to seek a closer relationship with God through Christ in a spiritual tugging that I'm at a loss to explain. Four- I'm kind of a dick, and my critical observations on other people or institutions should be seen as reflections of my own flawed, flippant self. 

     Making the commitment to join the United Church of Christ congregation was a big decision. So big that, after the day I was baptized and became a member of that church, I had a spiritual panic attack about it and didn't come back for over a year. It just seemed so very, very important and I doubted my readiness and my intellect threw temper tantrums and so I ran and hid like my nickname, Jonah. But I still felt called, and I sought God through all sorts of things: pouring over spiritual books, dabbling in other religions, even trying to make my own personal quasi-spirituality out of what I know to be true, which is little enough. And I applaud those who can find peace or God doing that, but I felt like I was lost in a foreign land. I couldn't speak the language. More to the point, it didn't speak to me, which is important, even if it's only because of my Christian upbringing. Anyway I came back eventually, after learning a little about myself, and threw myself into the church with gusto. Also, Jeff and I thought it a good idea for Tristan to have some sort of spiritual upbringing. And since I'm a Christian and Jeff is a Buddhist and Tristan finds a lot about organized religion nonsensical, we began to attend the Unitarian Universalist church on the weekends we had Tristan, while I'd go to the United Church of Christ on my solo Sundays. 

     How do I explain the difference between the churches? I can't, because there isn't any, save for a tendency of some UU congregants to flinch if someone mentions Jesus. Other than that the main thrusts are much the same: social justice, worthwhile political activism, and plenty of time volunteered for great causes whose ties to religion are tenuous at best. They tend to draw from the same crowd and when either church hemorrhages members, it is usually to the other. And this is no surprise historically speaking, as they split from each other in the 19th century. I have befriended plenty of people at both congregations and have grown to love the sister communities I have joined myself with. Still, I often felt unfulfilled, let down somehow by specifics that only hint at a larger yearning for ...something more. I can't quite put what I want into words, but can only point to what's lacking.

     Somehow, my church life at the UCC congregation has devolved into a social gathering. Oh sure, it's not the only reason my friends and I are there, but gossiping, pointing out scandalous attire, all that good stuff doesn't even wait til after the service. I have the attention span of a gnat and the integrity of a blind goat in heat. The last thing I need is someone helping to point out distractions, or to laugh at the same inappropriate stuff I do. Especially if they're sitting in the pew next to me, and most definitely if we aren't teenagers. Which I haven't been for quite some time now. But it's not just my friends that distract me, I regularly take stock of what to me seems amiss all on my own.

     For instance, at my UCC congregation, we don't have any sort of regular bible study. I know better than to ask for one at the UU, but really, how does a Christian church not have any kind of bible study? Am I old-fashioned? Also, half the time I feel like they're just making it up, "it" being our call and response readings and the majority of our liturgy. Pulled out of a hat, it seems. And the UU church is almost stuck in that 1990's "embrace diversity, save the planet, recycle" thing that's a beautiful and important sentiment but, unfortunately, has been carried on the same banners by these same old, white, NPR-listening, tofurkey-chomping souls for the last twenty years. There's plenty of folks there toting rainbow flags, but I can't recall the last time I saw anyone sporting skin that wasn't lily white. Which isn't for lack of trying. I heard that a black family once arrived and a congregant greeted them and praised their "exotic beauty", to which the family answered with an about-face. Good intentions, but somehow out-of-touch with how to bring them about. That, or my perception is hypercritical on both counts, but either way I want something deeper and, weirdly enough, more traditional when it comes to my spiritual life. And I think I might have found it.

     I went to the Ash Wednesday service at St. Paul's Episcopal church earlier this week, after much deliberation. Even though I'm in love with Catholic iconography, I always thought the ritualism of either camp would sail over my head or strike me as absurd. I also feared that my questions would not be welcome in a church with roots so deep. Thankfully, life is not without its surprises. And here I should thank Michael for the invite, and my grandfather for telling me last week that  he and his family were Episcopalian. You see, I had purchased the Book of Common Prayer recently out of frustration with the lack of bible study to look at the daily office and liturgy that's been handed down since the 17th century. Reading the psalter and the other readings every morning and night at home is an experience. It's beautiful, just beautiful, and actually taking part in this ritual that was somehow timeless was so very moving. There was a sense of unity with everyone in the pews, and more than just the poetry speaking to me, I was present. Even when my eyes strayed to the altar or the beautiful stained glass, my mind was kept focused on the sacred mysteries. But the words, oh, and antiphonal recitation... I've never experienced that sort of thing before. The Episcopal liturgy doesn't give one the opportunity to get distracted, it keeps you on your toes. And your knees. And kneeling, wow, it has been years since I knelt to pray and it felt right, and proper, and oh so humbling. I am so very small, and could do with being reminded of that.