Notes from the Service:

Rearrange the Nativity scene (no one uses their imagination with it anymore)

Theme of Christmas: “Misfits in the margins”

>or rather the theme of, you know, all of Christ’s ministry/Christianity...

Shepherds were absolute misfits

>like lepers

>often teenage boys

>couldn’t testify in the court of law! (like the women at the tomb)

>seen as sinners

Angels came to sinners (not saints)

Good news for all, not just the good

All of humanity is a misfit? yes/no?

>Depends on your view of human nature, I guess

>insert Incredibles “everyone’s super” quote here

Mercy: not being punished justly (I’ve also heard it defined as a level above justice, or justice extended, whatever that means)

Grace: undeserved reward, inexpressible joy, even greater than mercy

>How can God be both merciful and just under these definitions?

More questions about human justice - the minister showed a video about a Christian policeman giving out gifts instead of speeding tickets as an act of grace (not just mercy, as the minister pointed out). Again, not sure if the human justice system should try to mimic God’s grace; or, if it does go for that grace, it should reform itself so its system is built around that grace rather than contradicting its own rules.

>But couldn’t you critique the Law in that same sort of way??

Contradictions...! (Holy) Paradoxes...!

“Silent night” - silence = dreams (Maya Deren), but that night was *real* - a realization - and anything but silent

He came as a baby - utterly powerless, utterly embracable

>contrast with terrifying angels

“Shepherds with beer on their breath and dirt under their fingernails”

“God, who you and I try to out-think every day. Shame on us.”

“He let shepherds hold him.”

“Not because you’re good, but because He’s good.” - none of us deserve it

The haunting of a winter night

The moment of calm after childbirth - an emptying and fulfillment

Thoughts on Attending a Nondenominational Christian Service:

“Service on a Stage” - an act - perform perform perform

Can’t help but feel like this is very performative - or maybe it just seems so because I’m not used to this kind of worship. On the other hand (if that’s the right phrase to use), Mass is so very performative and is such an old performance that it goes beyond the people performing it - there’s a separation, and that separation allows for growth and true life on both ends (priest/people and ritual)

>like performing Shakespeare

>these words are not our own

A high-stakes service (Sunday before Christmas, and apparently most of these nondenominational folk don’t go to church on Christmas Day) - time to guilt trip all the passerby lol

Where is the structure?? This hierarchy is all messed up; and there definitely still is a power structure, it’s just pretending not to be one

Too modern/emotion-based/focused on social

No Scriptural readings! What????

>Bring your own Bible!

>My love left a suggestion on my behalf to put Bibles in the pews

“Communion” was bizarre

>Came out of nowhere - no buildup, it wasn’t anywhere near the focus of the service (completely different from Mass)

>They had it in the back of the church. There were some plastic tables with bowls of bread and grape juice set up. We got in a line and each picked up a piece of bread, dunked it in the grape juice, and fed it to ourselves. Utterly underwhelming.

>Needless to say, it wasn’t a true Communion to me at all. Of course it’s just a passing symbolic thing when you do it like that!

Too much music, not enough substance

>“Felt like a snack instead of the whole meal”

>Fast food, even

Felt very (and I mean no offense by this) White American

Like, it was so spiritually feel-good & fluffy that I can’t imagine how deeply distant you must be from God (as a Christian) if you won’t even go to one of these services

But! (I didn’t hate it! I liked it overall!)

>It felt much more socially engaged and enthusiastic than many Masses/services I’ve attended (even if it was performative)

>Their church’s setup and ministry are very impressive - there’s so much life there

>The ministers are probably way more approachable than other religious authority figures, which allows for more personal/deep faith development even if these kinds of services don’t feel as substantial

Another souvenir:

I have learned from Physics that our hearts pump blood

Forcibly

Not automatically or certain, we, with our brains –

Immortal, profound, great as we call it –

Choose to live.

And by that I know that breathing

Is a vital sign of life

But how do we even try to, when the world

Is full of dark, dark polluted air

Of sadness;

Of certain downfall

I’d like to think that I was not fit,

That I was lacking, something,

Like as cool breeze on every word I speak

Like a constant flare on a September Afternoon,

Or on a summer day when nothing

But the sun and its heat

And without presence of moving air

I’d like to think I was not fit

For the part

But I was wrong, I was not made to play

A part,

In any way,

In any world – paralleled (or perpendicular-like)

This Universe – I do not change for it –

It changes for me,

It evolves,

And revolves;

I, revolutionize and this would just become;

What I was and what I meant it to be.

I’d like to think I was not enough

I have concluded that I was not enough

I have trouble smiling and you can’t even hear

Any sign of laughter

But, I was wrong and then I was right

Because my heart, now beats more like a

Thump, thump, thump

And triumph is everything

That I have ever dreamt of.

And for ‘Forever Doubting’

Happiness is unconditional,

The sun has a way of reminding us that –

On a summer’s day or rainy July –

It shines.

  | nisa tamayo |

i am ugly. so. my mother kisses me goodbye every august. i carry her love inside me like a heavy suitcase. some days. yes. i have to heave my troubles behind me, they are so heavy. heaviness means nothing to me. if self-love were a 150 pound sort of love, i would carry it with me forever now. so. my words are fat from being inside of me so long. they are not modest about their bodies. i no longer care for the world's feelings of anger. they say it's possible now. recover. now. like flipping your pillow. you can do it now. so. i argue that it's always been possible. i have never encountered a word in my entire life that i couldn't sound out. 

i say my own name during sleep now. my deep-belly name. its consonants have hardened over and the z has accumulated moss. like a gravestone. i say it anyway. now. it's like pressing against scar tissue. 

i believe in the power of belief. not in a GOD way.  not in a "you are a GOD" sort of way either. but in a "you are a fragment of health" sort of way. in a "you could be a prophet" sort of way. some day. 

my lungs fold up like manuscripts when they sleep. it's my way. i burn myself down on thursdays. so. my hands are starving for a fresh wick. i am ugly. so.