A Preaching Slam

Last night I went to a poetry slam, and it was really, really cool. It was my first time in bar, which was nice, although I didn't have anything to drink because I had a huge paper to finish. And some of the slamming poets were pretty attractive and others I'm friends with, but that wasn't it, either. 
I think poetry slams can teach me something about preaching. See, a lot of the slams were laugh out loud, uproariously funny. We were guffawing at times, and yet pierced by the stinging barb of their observations. One slammer shouted fiercely: "Don't write!" and proceeded to explain in hilarious detail why everything good that will be written has already been, and if you haven't conquered Derrida, why should the likes of you bother writing a thing? Another slammer howled that his refusal to capitalize and use proper punctuation in text messaging is actually a political statement-- and went on to explain the war between grammar Nazis and commie comma splicers. I'm making it way more boring than it was!
Humor and truth go together. And they go especially nicely with performance. 
Sort of makes me think of the prophets, and the best prophet, Jesus. I think their jibes and stinging wit get a bit lost in translation sometimes, excessively softened by our sickening sentimentalism that sees Jesus as meek and mild, cosmic Santa who walks on eggshells to never offend anybody and gives us everything we want. A good poetry slam will shatter that idol, as will even a cursory glance at the gospels or prophets. Well, cognitively shatter it, anyway; these idols remain stubbornly entrenched in our hearts without the saving grace of the living God. Sometimes that grace comes through slam poetry.
Jesus insisted the only way to live is to eat his flesh and drink his blood, with the humorous hard hitting dead serious style of slam. Isaiah proclaimed our righteousness is like filthy rags. And he didn't mean the kind you use to wash your car; he meant the ones that start off clean in the feminine hygiene aisle.
I'm sorry if I offended anybody. But Isaiah isn't, I am sure. 
Some religious people take a perverse joy in offending people, and those people are really obnoxious, ironically as bad as the Pharisees whom they claim to hate. I don't think the slammers last night were like that. They were caught up in their message and would use any means possible to rattle us, but they didn't annoy for the sake of annoying. This subtle distinction was clear in their sweaty, sincere, raw faces. And the humor helped, too. It's easier to get the point when we're all laughing or stricken by the absurd. Like when Paul says he counts it all scubula compared to the all surpassing gain of Christ-- scubula is Greek for a word for excrement also beginning with "s" in English. That probably rolled a few heads... but in laughter, in clarity, towards Jesus Christ.
Does that mean I'm going to be a cussin' preacher when/if I get a pulpit? I remember being very young but old enough to know I loved to write, and my mother telling me when (for her it was always a when) I got published, she didn't want to see any swear words and would cross them out if there were any.
So don't freak, Mom, and all the surrogate mothers and grandmothers I will gain by virtue of my ordination. I won't cuss in the pulpit, not aloud, anyway. Those slammers I saw last night would do nothing to distract from their point, from their art. And I will try my utmost to do nothing to distract people from the good news. But sometimes we get the good news best when it comes through jokes, through the absurd. 
The kingdom of God is a slam poetry night. And I pray God will make me half as good a slammer in the pulpit as the folks on the Dukum stage.

Classy Quotes

Quotes from readings in my creative nonfiction, Native American lit, and Japanese religion classes that captured my attention lately:

"I also have a commanding stare, large sad brown eyes that can either be read as gentle or severe"

"Many times, my ironic smile is nothing more than a neutral stall among people who do not seem to appreciate my 'contribution.'"-- Phillip Lapote, "Portrait of My Body"

"We gather at the shore of all knowledge as peoples who were put here by a god who wanted relatives.
This god was lonely for touch, and imagined herself as a woman, with children to suckle, to sing with-- to continue the web of the terrifyingly beautiful cosmos of her womb.
This god became a father who wished for others to walk beside him in the belly of creation.
This god laughed and cried with us as a sister at the sweet tragedy of our predicament-- foolish humans
Or built a fire, as our brother to keep us warm
This god who grew to love us became our lover, sharing tables of food enough for everyone in this whole world"-- Joy Harjo, "Reconciliation, A Prayer"

"I'm not afraid of love
or its consequence of light"-- Joy Harjo, "A Creation Story"

"For Christ's purpose is not for us to fathom. His love is a hook sunk deep into our flesh, a question mark that pulls with every breath. Some can dull themselves to the barb's presence. I cannot."-- Louise Erdrich, Tracks 

"Listening to the old stories and reading books are for the purpose of sloughing off one's own discrimination and attaching oneself to that of the ancients"

"The highest Way is in discussion with others"-- Yamamoto Tsunetomo, The Book of the Samurai 

Zen and the Art of Fast Food Service

This crazy busy-ness of this semester is testing, among other things, my blogging ability. But it's okay. I keep reminding myself: It's okay. All manner of a thing shall be well, to say it the religious way.

As I've gushed to many people less religiously nerdy than myself, I'm taking Japanese Religions this semester, and it's absolutely fascinating. Right now we are studying Zen Buddhism, a tradition that especially intrigues me in part because it seems to defy the gospel and yet hint at its promises. Zen is all about discovering your real self and getting rid of your old self. Sound like a certain Jew we all know and love? "Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." As the old hymn says, quoting Hebrews (I think?), "My life is hid with Christ on high." And yet Zen dismisses notions of a personal deity, or any deity at all, obsessed with inner enlightenment and attainment of Buddha nature. 

Zen dismisses the mind body dualism, along with the Hebrew thinkers from Genesis straight down to Revelation. The idea that my body and my personality/soul/mind are separate is not a Jewish one. That's what we mean when we recite the Apostle's Creed: "I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." We profess in saying the Creed that life everlasting ultimately requires restoration of our bodies, a latter day resurrection which will come when Jesus returns to set all things right. That dualism comes from Greek, gnostic, and finally Cartesian thinking. 

Anyway, Zen says the goal is to make your mind and body one. They sit in zazen or meditation for hours on end, right foot on top of the left thigh and vice versa, spine perfectly straight. They discipline their bodies. As Paul said to the Corinthians centuries before, "I beat my body and make it my slave." You must perform zazen in the proper physical position because of the oneness of mind and body. A disciplined mind needs a disciplined body. 

Christianity can get so abstract. We are caught up in thinking about the Trinity and heaven and lots of other things, while ignoring the bodies God gave us. 

My best prayer lately has been happening at McDonalds. (Seriously.) I work there a couple nights a week, and while putting on my uniform that has permanently locked in the stench of mingled grease and old ketchup, I think of Wesley's question for candidates for ministry: "Are you in debt so as to embarrass yourself?" And then I wear my hot fudge stained pants and man's sized polo that goes down to my thighs with pride.

But as I mop, sweep, take orders, get drinks, there is a kind of calmness inside. I don't know why. I just shut out everything else. You might think you're standing in front of my counter, but really it's just me and God there, and sometimes my coworkers if they feel like chatting. I'm not thinking very much about you, though, the customer. In the act of tiring out my body by running all over the store and performing menial tasks, my body is sufficiently disciplined to get my mind to shut up. And then God and I, we talk.

I'm not bragging. Really-- for somebody who's going into the ministry, I'm not a good pray-er at all. (I know, I know: there are no bad prayers, just like there are no bad coloring book pictures and no bad Mother's Day crafts.) I struggle to concentrate, to focus. An intellectual, I snobbishly see prayer as beneath me. Or I just don't care. But when I really put my body to work, God and I connect. McDonald's is a kind of zazen. Or, to put it the Christian way, I'm like Brother Lawrence, finding the Lord in fry baskets and sauce buckets. Because he's there. 

We Christians could learn a few things from the Zen folks. Like putting our bodies to work in the great work of prayer. 

Man, Wanted

Man, wanted
Who will walk me every Sunday down the aisle.
But first you will pray for me, hold my hands, then gently
Zip up that long, black preacher's robe. 

You will have more in-laws than you ever dreamed.
My mom and dad, yes-- and the church organist and the
Patriarchs, matriarchs, old timers and youth--
All wondering if you're good enough for me
Good enough to join the family.

You know that I am wedded to another.
The Builder is my husband. First.
And my ordination-- I thought that would be
The wedding.

So I don't know quite what to do with you
And you know it. And you love it, better
Love me, love the crazy life we live
Together.

Man, I am waiting for you, but please don't 
Be hurt when I say I don't really know if you're
Out there somewhere; or just in here.

Man, I know you love me and Jesus big enough 
To know. To know first a congregation
Crowded my heart but I saved a place

For you.