unpain

my dear poet friend used this marvelous word and i had to abscond it.

it gave to me images of everything most everyone i know wishes for me. and i am grateful. my sister was talking to me and said,

we don't have to be this way, you know.

which way?

i asked

she went on to tell me we could choose joy. we could be happy if we set our minds to it. (or so she's been told.)

do i agree with this? do i want this kind of happiness? i replied,

i want the kind of happiness that wells up. the kind of joy that springs from deep within, that is abiding, not something i embrace to make others feel better about where i'm at.

you don't want fakey happy?

no, do you?

no.

square one welcomes me home.

my dear poet friend sees a great battle, a great struggle going on between two forces in me. i asked,

do you realize i am struggling with my questions on the page but i have a sure foundation?

i understand,

he said.

you see, my whole growing up life, then when i became a christian i never heard the questions. i never saw the struggles. i was presented with this facade and illusory christianity. this book of regulations that i must adhere to.

well, the fact of the matter is, i've never been good at adhering to any rules, regardless of what they are or from where they come. because i question them. i ask, who made these rules, and why? if i must submit i do, but christianity, while it is a great deal about submission, is a great deal more about relationship.

relationship for me is rolling around in the dirt trying to figure out what is going on. wrestling. struggling. grappling with what i don't understand (which is a great deal more than i do understand, admittedly).

this reminds me of my dear friends who gathered for a reading/luncheon before i left texas. they went around the room and said a blessing over me, before praying for me. more than once, it came up that we'd had rifts in our relationship. i looked around and every one of those ladies, with very few exceptions, i've struggled with. we've grappled through relationship. could it be, i ask you, any different with the Lord? i really don't see how it can. relation ship is difficult, taxing. requiring a great deal of tenacity and trust.

i don't like happily wrapped up stories. which have no loose ends. i don't like romances which are not bittersweet, because that is life as i understand it.

perhaps there'll come a day, i pray there'll come a day when i embrace unpain because my life is not painful. when i will laugh, sing, and dance unfettered by these questions.

but i hope even in that time, while i am rejoicing, that i can embrace the mourner and sit beside the downtrodden. it is so easy, i have done it myself, to get irked with people who are bummed out.

i just want to be who the Lord created me to be. and i haven't quite figured stuff out yet. that, if anything is the purpose of this blog. i make wrong choices and do not hide them. i have not seen that done much. and if i err on the side of my unwisdom too much, forgive me. i'll try to bring in more of the unpain of my life. more of the rejoicing, i do feel it is barreling down out of the sky like a celestial water balloon and shall break upon me at any moment.