...in celebration of passing the 4000 subscriber milestone.

Like green growing things need rain and sunlight, I need your whispers, your touch. Divinity made flesh, you are my living prayer, my heart, my everything. I love you.

It is raining. With rain, comes cleansing. Sweet baptism of the world.

In the café, where once a “friend” tore out my heart over you and laid it on the checkerboard table, I sit now and laugh. Extended dinner break from work, our mutual true friend (a sister in Christ) laughs with me. “Well, they don’t *know* you...” and she inflects a perfect talk-show guest accent, complete with head bob and street attitude. “Maybe they should worry that their daughter is dating a pastor. That’s a big responsibility. I mean, she’ll always have to come second to Christ.” And I look down, a hot blush flooding my brown cheeks.

And Christ turned to His apostles, and His body was not quite the flesh it once was. This was risen flesh. This was form held between Earth and Heaven. Marked by the evil of man, wounds at His side and feet and palms of hands. His brow still marred by their mockery of thorns. Yet to look upon Him was transcendent. They knew He was not long for their world. He had given enough.

“What shall we do? Where shall we go?”

They were voices of fear, tangible and terrified, and this was their moment of truth. He looked at them. They already looked so alone.

“We belong to the light.
We belong to the thunder.
We belong to the sound of the words.”

There is power in numbers. Power in hands, voices, votes, belief, all joined in union so strong and unshakable that they become blind to opposition only aware of attack and survival. There is power in numbers. Binary. Prime numbers. Factual truths that are the foundation of science and the proof of my Christ. There is a golden thread between us that thrums with the certainty that our path is not accepted by the blind masses in the same way that Christ’s path and the path of His own were not accepted.

There are palm boughs. There are rocks thrown. There is a silver web that connects all true Christians, Christianos, that allows us to share truths instantly, across time and space and ignorance. This is web is often called: faith

The Terrapyres and Celestials aren’t the only ones with racial knowledge. Our bloodline is His bloodline. The blood He shed for us is our lineage. Our inheritance.

What do you say in His name? What do you do in His name?

A true Christian is found not in words, man’s rituals or dictates, but in his actions. Does he live as Christ did? Or does he wrap himself in the drama of man’s world, the egocentric construct of the church? Pedestals are for fine art. Ignorance is not pretty.

And I realize, looking up into His sky, feeling His baptism on my face, that I am still... very… angry.

Or is it hurt?

No.

I prefer anger. My heart is yours. It cannot be wounded except by your hand.

Christ looked at them. His eyes were that maelstrom of gentleness and strength that they had seen so many times before. “You will not be alone,” and His voice was benediction, was truth, was Living Word. “As you hear my voice now, you will hear my voice again. I will speak directly and divinely. I will find you, touch you, hold you, wherever you are, wherever you are lost or found. You will write my stories and make them your own, but the truth will be passed to each of you, to each of them, forever, revelation to your own hearts alone. For only then is the word alive.”

Whether I am here or there. Close or far. Whether the distance is two thousand miles or a single breath, I stand with you. Perhaps the first trial you felt alone because I had never given you the words. I had never verbalized this truth, this promise, this reality. They cannot strip you down because I will not let them near you. Let them step close. They may not see me, golden armor wrapped around you, but I will be there. And their darkness with strike me and shatter away from you like glass. Close your eyes. Just breathe easy. We will fight together.

It is raining. The rain falls from low clouds that limit my world, encasing it in something safe and manageable. Life happens around me while I pray for you. How I dread and love Sundays. My Sabbath with Him. Your Sabbath in what I have come to see as a den of lions. There is great faith there, where you walk, but I believe it resides in you alone. All else is laid there by man. Such clarity you possess when you speak with me of Christ. In the last month alone we spoke for 84 hours. In those hours we spoke of Christ, said His name, 115 times.

“I hope she knows what she’s getting into.”

Yes. It’s called service. Praise the Lord she’s found it. My heart breaks that she can’t share it with you.

“There is one mission. One goal. One path. Bring the people to Christ.”
“This is the path I walk with you.”
“This is our path.”
“Come what may.”
“Amen, my love.”
“Amen.”

My father, before he died, lived with me in a home in Washington that was up on a cliff, looking out over the Puget Sound and the ferry lines. On Sundays, before we went walking and spoke of Christ, before we went trekking about town, finding others, naturally, to start up conversations with, to invite for dinner out (to mention Christ over chocolate cream pie for dessert), he would watch the preacher men on tv. My father loved all things American and that meant tv. He liked to do this with a demitasse cup of espresso with thick spices in his hand and his hair down about his shoulders. He had a gentle demeanor and a quiet voice. He never teased, was incapable of sarcasm and simply blinked his eyes when startled by anyone’s anger or rudeness. His eyes were always gentle.

“Do you see this, Eliza? Do you see how denomination always turns back to itself? It does not spin outward to reach Christ. It must fold back in to support its own survival. Denomination is a beast. It is hungry. It is business and market strength. It is the opposite of divine.”

And at my easel, my back to the tv because I truly despise tv (LOL!), I would fake a laugh or a chuckle, “I know, Dad. I hear it.” How I loved to hear his accent roll with tender inflections. He meant them – those evangelists – no harm or malice. He was amused by them. Like children playing grown up. Like scared children making up stories to stop themselves from fearing the dark.

I sometimes prayed that I could have his calm. My father’s calm. That I could stop saying “denomination” like a four-letter word. It took me twenty-seven years and falling in love with you for that prayer to be answered. So now, at least, I don’t breathe fire when someone proclaims, “The church says...”

But, babygrrl, really? Churches don’t speak.

What is the opposite of Living Word? Huh.

Christ drew His apostles to Him one raw winter night when the wind battered the humble shelter that they huddled within. He said to them, "Do not be afraid. You will weather this storm with me."

But one of the apostles said, "What if the shelter fails us, Lord?"

And Christ answered, "Then I will stand with my arms around you in the rain and wind, and we will weather the storm."

Then another apostle said, "What if we are bruised and broken by the falling trees?"

Christ answered, "Then I will lift the tree from your back and carry it for you."

A third apostle asked, "What if falling rock crushes us from the cliff above?"

Christ only smiled His most gentle smile. "Then you will be crushed and remade."

"In Heaven?" groused a doubting apostle.

Christ shook His head patiently. "No. Those who stand strong for me, shall be imbibed with my courage and filled with my light. And so should he fall, that light eternal will remake him. He will not be in Heaven. He will be on Earth. But nonetheless, he will lift the stone that crushes him."

“Whatever we deny or embrace.
For worse or for better.
We belong together.”

It is raining. My grandmother, ex-soldier, used to say: “Go stand in the rain, Eliza Jean. My Angel. Go stand and find new scripture in every rain drop.” And so I stood.

When you touch your lips to mine, do you taste divinity? Shh. Let them think we’ve never met.

“No distance, no time, no darkness, can take me from you,” and His words were benediction and His benediction was truth.

There was a pastor. A youth pastor. He ministered each Sunday to the children and teens. They gave him a chance to speak to the adult congregation. They mixed the children and adults and let Alan speak.

My dear friend, my mentor, the mother I always wanted, she was thirteen then. It would be six years until I would meet her. She sat, hair to her waist, pale blue eyes like washed denim sensitive to every light but the filtered light cast through the simple stain glass windows. She wore a robin’s egg blue cotton dress with antique white lace edging. Black patent leather shoes. A small gold cross. Her Bible, dog-eared in her lap, sat beneath still, small hands. She was already a survivor of kidnapping and rape. She was already a survivor of clapboard poverty. She was already so many things. She was not sheltered. She was not blind. She was simply alive.

Outside the small, nondenominational, nonaffiliated church, it was raining. The sound was the torrents of the world. The sound of existence. Alan spoke to forty rows of packed pews. Alan spoke to my friend:

“Why are you here? Is it because it’s raining? Is it easier to sit here, on worn smooth pews, than stand out there where it is wet and cold and dark? Do you see Christ here? Why would Christ sit in a building and huddle and pray? Why are you here? Do you see blind eyes here? Hearts that bleed for the light of truth? Get up! Go! Find Christ and walk with Him to where He can change lives with His hands -- your hands -- in His world. Go!"

And people *stood up.* Not one. Not two. Ten. Twelve. Twenty. People stood up and left. But my friend wasn’t one of them. With her grandfather’s hand firm on her arm, she stayed where she was. But her eyes burned and she never returned to that building. She spent her Sundays in service to Christ instead of sitting in a service about Him.

The church “lost” members that day when Alan preached. And they never let him preach again... until they asked him to take the pulpit as his own fifteen years later. They “lost” members (faith is *not* supposed to be a club) but how many souls did those ex-members save? More than have ever been saved from any pulpit. Because that pastor didn't care about the building. He cared about Christ.

The rain continues to fall. It is softer than it sounds. I shiver, but not from the cold, rather from the feel of Christ all around me. I thank Him for everyone in my life. Even the people I wish would wake up or shut up or look up. I sit in silent contemplation with our Christ. I wish I could record the sounds and send them to you. The wind. The city. The doves. The rainfall. I don't want to move. I want to stay in this moment. It is divine. Living transformation. And I love you.

“And I miss you.
Like the deserts miss the rain.”

Christ whispers: Look up.
Faith whispers: Look up.
You whisper: Look at me.
It’s really all the same whisper.

* * *

From: ej@email.com
To: jo@email.com
Subject: Rain like diamonds
Date: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 12:43 PM

Google says it's still raining in Port Orchard. Close your eyes a moment. Imagine shrugging into my leather jacket, which smells like my perfume, and stepping out into the rain with me. I take your hand, lead you up the path into the wood. Don't worry I'll knock down any spider webs. Half way up I won't be able to wait, I'll turn into your arms, tip my face to yours, reach up, my hands in your hair, and guide your mouth to mine. After a moment, I'll back away a tiny bit, touch your lips with my finger to hold the kiss there, then turn away, take your hand, and lead you further into the woods.

Past the little shed cabin to the right (West) and looping around the hidden trail to Owl Tree. We'll walk carefully so not to lose the path. It will take ten or fifteen minutes. By the time we reach the old lightning-struck tree, the leather jacket will shine like armor across your shoulders. Under Christ's own perfect sky, silver and heavy, I'll kiss you again, tasting rain on your lips, finding the heat of your blush with my fingertips, finding the heat of your mouth with my own. It will be enough. In His eyes. In His time. It will be enough.

I love you. I cannot help but think of you this way. Somewhere North of a letter, but Northwest of poetry. You have made me what I am today. You have taught me to be loud. You are the first to walk with me. Christ bless and keep you always. You deserve so much more than I could ever give. But I am so willing to try.

Angel

* * *

And I was on my knees and I flung the laptop out of my hands, didn’t care as it bounced off the fire escape railing. I was powerless to stop them from hurting you. And I wept and I begged and said to Christ, aloud... very loud... “Why won’t you tell her to leave me?!” Because goodness knows I was telling you to. Over and over again. Six hours... eight hours... with every possible argument I could dream up.

And He was so quiet. But just as He promised the apostles, the first apostles (and please note that the word is not capitalized), He was with me. Quiet. Still. But so there. Such a presence that I could feel His hands on my shoulders. You said: “He told me to love you. Are you asking me to turn away from Him?”

It was the first night you ever wrote Him instead of him. It meant more to me than you may ever know.

* * *

From: ej@email.com
To: jo@email.com
Subject: The rain arrives...
Date: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 3:00 AM

...and with it my passion for you rekindles and I recall your face in a dozen photos, your voice, poised and worried across the sound of an early summer day, and the feeling of my heart, pounding in my chest, flooding my cheeks with heat, when your words, live and slowly rising, first meet my eyes every Monday and Friday evening. It has, I think, been raining for you all day and into the evening.

The formations of clouds and wind and heavenly turbulence are far harder to read and decipher than the emotional punctuation you use to show me you. It is now... this is my "midnight"... these are my quiet hours when prayer is possible and probable and always so real. The power of prayer, like the power of creation, floods my chest and fills my eyes with thankful tears. The rest of the world around me has left me behind. The clock chimed twelve and they have all changed the day on their calendars and moved on. I am here, alone with my Christ, in what remains of His good day. Fools rush in. But I am content to stay and wait out the hours with my thoughts of stars and conception and salvation and conversion.

You have seen me in panic and in stress. You have comforted me. You have turned me on. You have teased, argued, cried, played, prayed, worried and fallen asleep with me. But if you messaged our mutual friends and asked, "How is she most?" their answers would be the same: She is quiet. She is thoughtful. She watches everyone and everything... she looks and *sees.*

My eyes drift closed, my prayers are done... two hours each morning, two hours each night... continual throughout the day... often more when it rains. I should sleep. My call is at 8. But I linger here. I do not want to leave the window seat. I like the feeling of the wind sheering mist off the rain drops and enfolding me in tiny sparkling gems. I close my eyes... and look up. You are standing in the doorway, the faint recessed light of the hall is behind you. You are tall and confident. You know that I like what I see. You are silent. You are asking without words if I have returned from walking with my Christ, our Christ, to stand again on your golden shores, rose petals at my feet. Am I dreaming? No, I think you are here with me. Always near.

Good night, my love.

Your Angel

* * *

Christ whispers: I am with you. I am with all of you.

Hear me.

EJ

for Wings, Meg, and Sarah

“Every now and then
I can see that I'm getting somewhere.
But where I have to go is so deep.
I was angry back then
and, you know, I still am.
I have lost so much sleep
but I'm gonna find it....”

“Wings, baby. Stop. Stop it.”

And it begins. That buzz, that voice, that thing that pegged me crazy at sixteen. That angry sound that’s my own Second Coming. Sweet Lord, how many times has Christ walked this Earth since Ascension? Three times last week... at least twice when we made love. Seven, eight hundred times in just shy of twenty-eight years. He returns in these moments, when He is needed more than the air we take in, in sharp, short gasps.

“No, Wings. No more.”

And I’m shaking my head and standing up and cocking my head to the side. And staring at her message and re-reading. “No...” And then, resounding: “NO.”

And someone wrote her back. But it wasn’t me. Because the hot tears on my face were too heavy for me to see the keys or the screen or the thick mason jar of brushes now shards of broken glass on the floor of my room. Or maybe... maybe what Dad said is true: “Women don’t see with their eyes, Eliza Jean. Women see with their hearts. Where Christ resides.” And so someone, that someone maybe me, wrote, and the words were hot and furious, tempered by the cool, crispness of the medium. Neutered by the distance between our bodies. But so full of everything... so elevated by the passion I feel in this life, for her, for everyone he touches and destroys, for every green-eyed (blue-eyed, brown-eyed) grrl who has ever been bent and almost broken. I know she heard me. Or heard Him. Whatev.

“Baby. Stop it. Just stop it. Listen to me. Hear me the way Jo hears me. My arms around you, us sitting together, fitting like two parts of a strong whole. The overheads are off and the glow of the red strip light reminds me of a club in NYC but my thoughts are with you and only you. Hear me with my cheek against yours and your eyes closed and my voice steady and warm. Just the truth. Always just the truth: You. Don't. Want. Him.

“There you were silent. There you were bent to his will. There you were alone. You are not there. You will never be there again. You are not silent. You will never be silenced again. You are not powerless to him. He does not own you. He will never own you again. No one but Christ. He is the only one. And He cannot be displaced.”

“’Cause when they own the information
Oh, they can bend it all they want.”

You know it. You are smarter than the statistics. You are not a victim. Say it. Say it, grrl. You are *not* what the newspapers say you are. You are at the other end of the bell curve. You *see.* You get it. Open those beautiful eyes for me. Look at me. You see through the smoke and break the mirrors. You don’t wanna stand around, baby, and wait for the world to change. You’re standing up beside me. You’re shouting with me. You want to wait on *him* to change? You wanna live like *that*? No *shaking head* No, baby. You can’t jump off this mountain now. You’ve climbed too far. You’ve fought too long. If I must, I’ll carry you. You haven’t been climbing alone. I’ll drag you kicking and screaming, if I have to. But I won’t let you jump. No. I won’t let you jump.

The Warren Street bridge is not that pretty. I know. I’ve been there.

“Charm is seduction. Anger is exhausting. It is easier to believe the lies. Always easier to believe the lies. Fighting is hard. Oh baby... I just wrote all this last Sunday. Don't you see? I know you do... but you're working so hard and feeling so bad that just a little bit of easy must feel *so* good. Just a little bit of easy... seems like you’ve earned it. But this ain’t the easy you want. This easy is pain all dressed up as rock candy.”

“As a little girl, I came down to the water
With a little stone in my hand.
It would shimmer and sing to me.
And we knew everything.
As a little girl, I came down...”

Here we are. Our End Times. Let me join the ranks of my fine friends, the Rapturists. Let me herald our end. Watch and I’ll call down the sky. All those nighttime clouds are flocks of End Time angels. The stars in the hilts of their swords mesmerize me. I am a little girl (grrl) again... eight or nine... standing in their gaze. The temperature drops to 60... I drop my jacket over the side of the roof. 55... I pop the buttons on my shirt, my eyes on the angels. 52... winds from the Northwest, ten miles per hour. Five storeys high, but lower than the sky. Tank top, jeans and boots. Might be chilly if I wasn’t burning with indignation.

My heads falls back. I close my eyes. It seems so easy. This, right here. Me and Christ and my thoughts of you. On the raised edge that has become my friend. I lay myself back. I own my moment beneath the angels.

“But in a little while, I got steeped in authority.
Heaven only knows what went wrong.
There is nothing so cruel than
to bury that jewel
when it was mine all along.
I'm gonna find it...”

There is glass in the carpet. There is an angel on my canvas. There is a warm stillness in the apartment that doesn’t fit my current mood. Woke up this morning with heat in my cheeks, in the pit of my belly, in thoughts of Cherry Coke. I couldn’t shake the idea that you were right around the corner of my room... you were leaning against my door frame. “Awake at last, Angel? ’Bout time.”

Awake at last.

And my earbuds turn this warm silent softness into a world that reflects my interior space. Echo on. Rolling in. Play it twice. Once again. Slower... now. Dance with me.

“Don’t take it. You make the rules. Don't let him twist up your world. I will talk with you about this every night if you need me too. I will hold you and laugh with you. Don't dream yourself there with him. Dream yourself here with me. I won't hurt you. I won't lie to you or insult you. I won't crush you except in my arms. Dream yourself laughing with any of us who love you. Dream yourself plotting and scheming and fighting and *living.* Dream yourself raving with me. Hiking. Drawing. Singing. Dream anything with anyone but not him. No. Not him.”

Alone you are so strong. I see you. I hear your words. I know you. Let me know you? We only need them when they tell us we do. In those magical moments when the alchemist turns our gold to stone and then fills our pockets and pushes us under. You think I haven’t sunk beneath that current, baby? You remember, right?

“Can’t imagine a woman being so stupid...”
“You’d be beautiful if you gained a little weight...”
“Is there anything you’re actually good at...”
“Took you long enough...”
“I love you sometimes...”
“EJ. I’m not actually listening.”

Jo says to me that anything that hurts us, that makes us miserable, is not by the hand of God. Christ doesn’t hurt us *here,* at our core. I bleed for Him, yeah. I fight. I struggle. But He doesn’t hurt me here *tapping my heart* Satan does not manifest like a horned beast with a leery glare. He struts and charms and seduces. He peer pressures and murmurs and twists the cultural dictates. He weaves magic so shiny it blinds us to the snakes that are biting us. He wraps us up in his arms of smoke so that we can’t see ourselves and our own pain... so that we’re hidden from the ones who truly love us.

But I can see you. I see you.

“You're shining. I can see you.
You're smiling. That's enough.
I'm holding on to you
like a diamond in the rough...”

He knocks. Our door is almost always open. But he can’t cross that threshold. We have to invite him in. He might be obvious. He might be less so. He might come as the stranger on my porch (why did I open the door?). He might come as a lost child. He might be brother, grandmother, lover, mother, friend. He might come as denomination, holy and structured. It is hard to realize that sometimes the people we have known the longest and love the deepest can have moments of weakness when they allow that possession to take them. When they become conduits for him. When Satan manifests in our lives (as lover, mother, friend) we have to be brave enough to turn away. No. More. We have to say, “Go. Leave me be.” We have to see past the vessel to him. We have to make the decision not to let him in.

Wings? Don't let him in.

“I'm not here for your entertainment.You don't really want to mess with me tonight.Just stop and take a second.I was fine before you walked into my life.”

This is my Sunday sermon. This cold winter air that cuts to my bones and makes my eyes bright. Here, alone, alive, my muscles taut and my breath misty with desire, I feel in control of everything I see and everything I feel. My world is here, somehow held between Rapture and Earth. Beneath this sky, I find it. That jewel, that stone that authority buried, that woman that you tried to break. I reclaim me, take back my night (which has never been silent), rediscover my truth, here, beneath my angel.

Beneath this sky of my Lord’s. I am smiling. And that’s enough.

“Thank you, terror.
Thank you, disillusionment.
Thank you, frailty.
Thank you, consequence.
Thank you, thank you, silence!”

We are born so ready. So pure. And we are broken again and again as our parents try to form us. Their hands sometimes move with love but we are impossibly fragile. Like dandelion tuffs, a million seeds on the wind, scattered just as easily to stones as to fertile ground. We are rarely witnessed, more often molded. We are hemmed in, fenced in, taken down, taken out. Even those of us who buck the system fall pray to the whispering commands of culture. We love, hate, take, give, live, die, as we are told is right, moral, expected.

Christ was rebel among the rebels. Christ was warrior-brother. Gentle man. Furious and brave. Articulate in the voice of the people. The working man’s Christ. The Christ of whores and children. The Christ of nonbelievers. A real man. A real changer. My Christ.

I am whispering to you on canvas. Fingers in feathers. My breath passes your lips, gives you life. I am praying. I am alone in the darkness. I am every where under the sky. I stand on the edge. I close my eyes. I jump.

“How about how good it feels to finally forgive you.
How about no longer being masochistic.
How about remembering your divinity.
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out.
How about not equating death with stopping.”

End Time Angels, carry me home. I am as bold as I need to be. I am stronger than I ever thought I could become. Let me walk with these apostles I love. Let us change the world. Together.

I am tired of waiting.

“Snakes in the grass
gotta step on the gas.”

EJ