Rapture: The Kingdom of God

Instead of posting this on the 21st as Elizabeth Bathhurst and I had planned it is a day late. I was busy getting ready for my party (dressing as the Whore of Babylon and being drunk). But I hope you will enjoy it anyway despite the fact I am a Class A Sinner.

I first heard about Family Radio’s May 21st predictions for Judgment day at a bar. I had not yet seen the billboards, bus signs, or internet buzz. A week later at the same bar I was talking with some friends when it was decided that I should have a “Rapture Party” and Housewarming. When I sent out the invite I invited people to dress as something out of the book of Revelations. My friends complained, “You aren’t going to make me read the Bible are you?” “What are you going as?”

I have been collecting information on the May 21st doomsday. I find it all very amusing. From pet care sites, (animals not having souls and all, which if you have met my cats I am pretty sure that is a lie), to wondering what it is to believe something so fervently. After reading more about what those who believe today is doomsday believe will happen, I have decided that there are some things I need to consider:

1. If the Pacific Rim is where it is starting, I need to check the news about 2 am EST—just to be sure.

2. What would the next few months until Sept 21st be like—do I have to go to work?

3. Should I start my party early so we can watch the good people getting raptured and thus know which houses to visit—one of the advantages of living on the edge of a prosperous neighborhood.

The realization that these are my main concerns about the rapture led me to believe that maybe I should not go to my party as “the Beast” but rather the “Whore of Babylon” which is probably a better fit anyway. This is not to say that I truly consider myself a horrible person, just that I am too skeptical to be one of the believers that gets to go to heaven. While I have come to terms with being convinced in Quaker terms, I have a real problem with believing that Jesus Christ is my personal savior. It is between God and I, no one can save me but me through my belief in God.

Like early Friends I believe the Second Coming is now. All we need to do is work towards building the Kingdom of God here on Earth, why wait for just desserts when we can build something amazing here and now? Why worry about heaven or hell, intellectual worries, when we can be building something beautiful and amazing right now with the life we have been given?

Thus, in the context of believers of the May 21st doomsday, righteous Believers, and most Christians, I guess I am just the Whore of Babylon with my cynical views, personal interpretations of Christianity, and cup of abominations and fornication. But really, I am a reluctant and radical Christian.

Conversations with God: How do you pray? Part 1

I know how to settle myself into worship. I know what it is like to be really centered and in that place of expectant worship. And I have tons of informal conversations throughout the day with my version of God. But how do you pray?


I don't even know how to ask for help or guideance in my everyday life from regular folks. How can I possibly do it in my spiritual life? At night I try to pray in a way I began imagining as a child after reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books. But I really feel that sometimes formal prayer is all about wording. Like the saying, "Becareful what you ask for." So it is with prayer. I feel that if I don't word things just right I will indeed get what I am praying for, but not in the ways I had conceived of it.


I am a big believer in the idea that we can ask all we want for something, but the steps we take to work towards that which we pray, through the way we live our lives, is equally important. As a child I used to pray for world peace...which is a really complex goal that has many intricacies, it needs a combination of prayer and personal action. Now I feel like the big stuff, like world peace and a cleaner, safer environment are the backdrop to my conversations with God. God knows my heart, perhaps better than I do, but it is up to me to address issues weighing on me with God. By asking for help and asking God to take up certain things I can let some of it go to do better Works. Granted, I have been only asking for help with two things for many weeks now. Mostly, its because I haven't gotten the wording right...I am terribly fearful at what will happen if we can't make these things work, God and I. I know I should give them over to his wisdom and powers, but the most important one is something I don't know how to give up...and that is the crux of the issue. It is something that I have little control over, yet the thought of living without it is heartbreaking. And the worst of it is, I do not know what steps I can take myself to help God's plan. But I am going to keep praying...because I am not ready to accept a life without the object of my desire.

Love. Love. Love.

This post is rather long and full of quotes. Bear with me.

Sometimes, I like to listen to mellow music while I work. This means I can listen to a lot of love songs over the course of a day. There are a lot of different kinds of love in my ipod:

"My girl, linen and curls
Lips parting like a flag'll unfurl
She's grand, the bend of her hand
Digging deep into the sweep of the sand"
-the Decemberists

"and you were no picnic
you were no prize
but you had just enough pathos
to keep me hypnotized"
-Ani Difranco

"And if I could hold on
Through the tears and the laughter
Would it be beautiful?
Or just a beautiful disaster"
-Kelly Clarkson

"I turned around
before I could run
I found you already settled down
in the back of my mind"
-Alison Krauss

"I've got doubts I can't even count.
I've got mirrors that take me apart.
I've got blues, a melting revolt.
I've got songs that stall when they start.
I've got you babe.
Diamonds and pearls, babe.
I've got you girl, that's all I need."
-The Damnwells

"If you want a father for your child
Or only want to walk with me a while
Across the sand
I'm your man"
-Leonard Cohen

"I'll love you till heaven rips the stars from his coat
and the moon rows away in a glass bottom boat."
-Peter Mayer

There are a lot of love songs out there and I know that there are a lot of kinds of love. I'm pretty comfortable with a loving parent/child relationship with my Creator, but I know that doesn't work for everyone. That's okay, because God is all kinds of love.

"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love."
1 John 4:7-8.

"Everyone who loves" is a strong statement. On the other hand, saying that knowing love and knowing God are the same thing seems overly simplistic. Especially when our culture has a great deal of trouble distinguishing between love and like:

Bianca: There's a difference between like and love. Because, I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack.
Chastity: But I love my Skechers.
Bianca: That's because you don't have a Prada backpack.
-10 things I hate about you

Is it the act of love which makes us open to the knowledge of God? Are we to believe that the capacity for love is inherently human, something which each and every one of us is born with, just as each of us is born with an inherent knowledge of God?

I don't have the answers to these questions. All I know is that I know God in an intimate and yet limited fashion, just as I know love in an intimate and yet limited fashion. I know what it is to be loved and to love, both my neighbor and my God. Oh, and I know that those feelings are pretty awesome.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

"and everywhere the world is bare"

When things inevitably go wrong and they inevitably do, I want to curl up in my bed and savor the darkest silence I can find. This is of course, not the best of choices, as it is rarely dark enough and never quiet enough and there's only so much staring at a wall I can do before my thoughts begin to spiral dangerously downward. When things look bleak and I am in need of comfort, I recall a couple of verses from Isaiah:

Comfort, O, Comfort my people!
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem
and cry to her that she has served her term,
that her penance is paid,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2)

This is the verse I use to remember the feeling I had when I first felt the overpowering glory of forgiveness. Whether I am standing on an overcrowded train, or huddled in my bed or sitting at my desk, I can recite this verse to myself and remember that although my fellow humans may fail me time and time again, He never will. I know that I can place my hope in the Lord and have my strength renewed and that is all I'll ever need.

The support of my dear friends and a little Avril seem to be helping for the moment as well:

Don't pretend, I think you know I'm damn precious
And hell yeah, I'm the motherfuckin' princess

Many thanks for the tea and sympathy,
Elizabeth Bathurst


*For those of you who will be attending NCYM-C sessions next month, I'll be covering Isaiah 40 more in depth, probably on First Day morning.
**Avril will not be covered.
***Sorry about the language, Mama.

Love is like rain, Part 2.

once again, this was written a little while ago. I apologize for the delay.

It's another dreary day in Boston. Perhaps the fourth day since we've seen the sun and everyone is getting a little cranky.

Last night, a good friend got engaged. I got word this afternoon that some college classmates are expecting their first child. It's spring and love is in the air.

I'm not immune. In a fit of foolishness, I accepted a date with a lovely man. He's wonderful and bright and everything I would look for in a man, if I were looking.

The first couple of weeks were great. He made excellent conversation and wrote me frequent witty emails. I was smiling and distracted and nothing bothered me all that much.

But last night, things changed. It became clear that things couldn't stay that way forever. It's time to start the unpleasant intimate conversations I'd rather not have. I'm spending too much time thinking about how to tell him x, y, and z when I ought to be doing ten other things. I'm already worried, terrified even of how these conversations will go. I have other things to do. It's not fair that I have to take these things into consideration.

Perhaps my reservations about relationships and love are based entirely in fear. Perhaps I just need to suck it up and hope that there's something comforting and elegant on the other side of this storm. But right now, I can only see fields of mud. I'm already cold and I have no idea if I'll ever be dry and warm again.

I've always taken comfort in the teachings of Christ about marriage:

"Not everyone who can accept this teaching but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so since birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can". (Matthew 19:10-12)

It's okay not to be married. It is not an affront to God to forgo this sacrament. It might bother my grandmother, but really, Jesus matters more.

Paul takes it a little further (as always.) It's not just okay for people to go through life without marriage, it's prefereable. After all, there's more time to focus on living an obidient Christian life when you don't have to worry about maintaining a marriage relationship or support a family.

You might as well get married if you can't keep it in your pants.

Being single is pretty easy for me. I really only have moments of wanting romantic moments in my life. I'm comforted in those moments by the Bible and by my relationship with Christ.

But now there's the young man in my life and already everything is complicated. I'm worried that already I'm being less attentive to the movement of the Spirit. I'm more interested in seeing if he's emailed me.

But I also can't wait to see him on Monday.

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

Love is like rain, part one

I wrote this back in June, but it still applies. Except that the deary today is snow and not rain.

It's a dreary day in Boston. We're having a wimpy little thunderstorm at the moment and it reminded me of a quote from the book "Breath, Eyes, Memory":

"Love is like rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you aren't careful it will drown you." -Edwidge Danicat

Love is a dangerous thing, binding us to one another. It's what holds us together but it can hurt like hell. I know that some people like falling in love, but I am not one of them.

I am at an age where many of my friends are cohabitating, getting married and/or reproducing. I love watching their babies grow. I'm happy for them when they have relationships that are healthy and fulfilling. But it's not what I want for myself. Definitely not now, and maybe not ever.

I should clarify this a little. I'd like to have children, but mostly in a biological clock kind of way. I'm pretty sure I don't want to raise a child alone and I really don't think I'd make a good partner.

While I occasionally have those wistful moments of wouldn't-it-be-nice-if-I-had-someone-to-hold-my-hand-and-buy-me-flowers, those moments are far outweighed by my deep and sincere love of privacy, solitude and independence.

More later...

Love,
Elizabeth Bathurst

The Nunnery, Part II: Living with an aching heart

I have loved. That I suppose is better than having never loved. I am not talking the love I have for my family or my friends or God, nature and creation. I mean the love of lovers. And just when I was ready to tell you, you go away. I still don't know your reasons. I miss you, I love you. But its been a month since I heard your vioce. Our last conversation gave no hint that you were leaving me.

for you
i would no longer pick
my so-pickable nose
or bite my delicious nails

for you i would fix my teeth
and buy a mattress

for you
i'd kill my favorite roach
that lives in the woodwork
by the drawing table*

I never let myself dare to love before. But you...You made me feel ways I had never dared to hope for. With you I am comfortable and safe. I feel secure and unashamed when we are intimate. I loved that though you drank Budweiser, we could take about politics, social justice, and making the world better than we found it. With you I dared to hope that I had found someone who could love me, even with all of my neuroses and scary damaged places.

Yeah that was
once in a lifetime
baby

you gotta be clean and
with new shoes
to love like I loved you.

I think it won't happen again.*

But even though I love you so "ten dollar bill," you can't just disappear on me for a month--with only a vague email. Maybe if I were doing my research in Italy or if you were home in Kenya, I could understand going so long with such sparce communication. But as far as I can tell we are 30 minutes apart on opposite sides of the same city. And really it is indicitive of how you have always behaved...you made feel like I was a convience. That time with me only worked when it convient for you, that you were always holding back a little. But I loved you, and I knew that if you would just let down your guard we would have what I think we are both looking for. With you I knew I wasn't settling, but I would need a lot of patience. And if you were to show up on my doorstep tonight unannounced, I would be more than happy to welcome you back into my life.

damn you
lovely
you come and go
like rivers
which makes it hard
on rocks*

So how do you go about a breakup, when it isn't what your heart desires? I pray to god that I can find a way to work this out. That you will come back. That whatever happens things will resolve in a way where you and I can be happy and whole. Because even though I don't want to lose you, I want the best for you. Which is ironic because you won't do better than me.

In case you put me down I put you down
already, doll
I know the games you play

In case you put me down I got it figured
how there are better mouths than yours
more swinging bodies
wilder scenes than this.

In case you put me down it won't help much.*

Back to the nunnery with me. I don't like to date, too much effort and energy goes into it. I made an exception for you. I love you and god bless. And though I don't want to do it, I can't just keep waiting on you. Either come back and give me as much as I give you...or goodbye. It hurts, believe me. And I wish there wasn't such a large part of me hoping that you will return to me...

you are not quite
the air I breathe
thank god

so go. *



*All poems (in purple) are from More or less love poems by Diane DiPrima

The reality of race part II (miscegation is awesome!)

I have recently encountered several people with the mind-set that you shouldn't date people from other cultures (too many cultural differences). It's odd how anthropology has become pop-cultured and now people talk using its terminology...but its used to hide behind things instead of for seeking a greater understanding of the world...though considering that it came out of a white-colonialist-academic setting I guess that isn't surprising. However, through my interaction with people in the fields of Anthropology and Sociology the vast majority tend to view dating someone from a different culture with more openness ie that while there may be cultural differences it is not all that different from all the other more "typical issues" involved in dating anyone (even those with a background similar to your own). My only concern with dating someone from another culture is when there is a language difference. Communication or lack of it is a bigger issue than culture or race. I mean I often can't communicate effectively with my own family.

This is not to downplay the role nationality or race will impact a relationship, I have recently started dating someone from another country. We are having some issues in the early stages of our dating. Rather than bore you with those details, I will say that the funny thing is that despite people saying its cultural differences...his behavior is pretty much like any other guy I ever thought I could end up in a relationship with. Which in fact may say more about me...back to the point. I have grown up in an untraditional household, granted from the outside it would seem typical: white middle class, two parents and whatever else is supposed to indicate "normal american." However, I grew up in the rural mid-west, part of my life was spent without indoor plumbing and living "off the grid" ie solar power (though there was a brief time with kerosene lamps), we had the use of a wood stove for our primary heat source for a number of years, and I even lived in a cabin with only a loft, no bedrooms. This list is an incomplete g;impse of why I am not really "typical" especially by american standards.

I don't really get men (or boys cause there is a lot of grey area about when a boy becomes a man, he may be 30 and still a child of sorts) and I am definately not an east coaster by nature. I embody too many of the deeply instilled mid-western qualities to really ever become fully adjusted to the east coast whether I am living in the south or the north. By this logic I have been dealing with "cultural differences" for 9 years. So taking the step and dating an African isn't so far-fetched. I mean New Yorkers, New Englanders, and North Carolinans are all pretty foriegn to me. The issues in my new relationship aren't so much "cultural differences" unless the cultural differences we are talking about are men vs women.

I guess what bothers me so much is that the people who have told me not date someone from another culture are hiding behind cultural differeces, when it is racism. Cultural differences was not mentioned when I was briefly infatuated with a European last year. It's attitudes like this that really pisses me off. I guess what is interesting about this situation is that it is a dear F/friend I like a lot and care about saying what is essentially racist BS. But she has no idea that its racist or that it is a good example of Northern racism having never been challenged to think about race before. I have been spoiled with all of my friends being pretty much aligned with my personal views on such topics.

Of course what we are talking about here is also addressed in "Jungle Fever" and I think that the movie tells us that it can never work (inter-racial dating) not because of so-called "cultural differences" but society's prejudices and the history of racial tensions especially in America. I watched it again recently and was a little pissy with Spike Lee for making it seem like we need to not date across racial lines...whatever those are. I think more people need to date interracially. The more it happens the less people freak out about it. Miscegenation is awesome! That is why the movie made me so sad. I felt like it made things seem hopeless.

And if things are hopeless what does that say about America? Where does that put those who are bi-racial or multi-racial? Are we always going to be afraid of the "other?" Once in this country we labeled the Irish as black on the census...there is a tale in my family that when my grandparents got married the Irish sat on one side of the church and the Germans sat on the other. There are no photos from the wedding. Of course in contemporary America no one thinks twice about Irish heritage or finds it shameful. Thus, the sociologist in me says, "See race is just a social construct!" So first a generation marries different ethinic groups, but within the same religion. Then their kids marry folks from different religions and the next generation is even more likely to marry (I am using that term to illustrate the historical precendent and evolution of social mores--so substitute partnership or whatever if you prefer) who they choose for love whether that is someone of the same sex or of a different race.

So here is to the cultural differences of men and women. And I understand that this is not going to be the first instance of racist attitudes that will try to influnce my current relationship but if we avoid examining such things we can never get to the root cause and work to change things. Whether such negative attitudes are being expressed by whites, African-Americans, Africans, Latinos, or Koreans they are still at their foundation prejudicial and ultimately racist. We all carry the means for racism within us, what matters is if we take time to examine and deconstruct it for positive change or if we let it continue to inform our thoughts and actions no matter how subtley.