Things That Have Happened To Make Us Want To Make Nice With God; A List

1. have begun reading the bible again; the first time in a while i have read it for reasons not in the let's-read-Job-and-dissect-it-with-absurdist-sartorialness vein. granted, it's a gradual process: we have read the first three chapters of the book of mark. over a three-week period. but,

1a) mark gets straight to the good shit. matthew nimbly-pimblys around with his who-begat-who-firsts and his page-long accounts of pregnant women riding donkeys; mark doesn't mess. by the end of chapter 1 jesus has already performed like 4 miracles.

1b) when asked in front of crowds just What In The F he thinks he's doing (healing people all the time & casually mentioning the fact that he can forgive sin), jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man. i love this, the way it plays down his messiahness--it's more open to interpretation than Son of God. turns out he borrowed it from daniel--when gabriel appears to him in a vision, gabes calls out, Hey, You, Son of Man: What Is Happening [sic]. i love that jesus was read enough to know this, to know that people who know daniel would know there was a precedent and not condemn him. just as much for me, though, the Son of Man factor is about the kind of presence he is -- not like i typically think of omnipresence, which has a quality of over and above-ness to it. this is down here, standing across the room, eye to eye. which leads me to,

2) being at st james, singing in latin at the friday night service, enjoying the little latinish spiritual vibe; when i remember to raise my chin so the words don't get formed in my throat -- then i am looking up at the evening light pouring in through the glass dome atop the altar space, and inscribed around the rim in thick letters are the simple words I AM IN YOUR MIDST. and i start bawling. singing loudly and bawling and the louder i sing the lighter i feel and my toes are tingly and eventually i get ahold of myself but, after it's over, i cross the sanctuary to look at the statue of peter and when i look up at the dome again i see that the other side says only, AS ONE WHO SERVES. my eyes begin to stream again. and i am so happy as i leave.

3) while it is too-often and rather glibly remarked that God Has A Sense Of Humor, such a statement is not far from the truth in our experience, which is that God Has A Borderline Absurdist Appreciation Of Juxtaposition. for, when we have collected ourselves and cruised around the sanctuary lighting the occasional candle, we exit the cathedral's side door. as we round the building's corner onto 8th ave (our toes tingly, our spirits bubbly, our mind serene), we fairly bump into 2 bedraggled and dirty hobos, one of who jumps back, sizes me up quickly and asks with a gruff earnestness, "Do you know anyone who needs some CornNuts and some ID?" not cornnuts or ID, you understand -- cornnuts AND ID. we smile. look at him with eyes that are bleary with appreciation. and move on.