The Unbearable Fabric of Being

For many years now, we've sort of described our church as a people who want to do nothing more than to create spaces for God to show up. Interestingly enough, we tend to do this not by filling a space with our theology or beliefs or music or what have you, but instead, quite the opposite. We've found purpose in pushing away dogma and direction in favor of making empty spaces in order that they might be filled. This via negativa approach to metaphysical space has proven effective, at least in our perspective (which admittedly limited geographically and ideologically speaking). We've tried to remove the trappings of religion in order for community to thrive in an environment of radical freedom and grace. It tends to be welcomed by the non-religious among us, while simultaneously feared by those dressed up in the shiniest faith clothes. Without a dogmatic creed to hide behind, we're often left just exploring the messes of each other's lives in search of wisdom. It's unorthodox, I admit; and yet after 20 years it just seems to be who we are.

So a couple of us get this brainstorm early in 2010 regarding using the historic Grove Theater as nesting ground for creative expression, one that we're adamantly devoted to protect from heavily sharpened agendas designed to gouge and poke and corral people into theological, or philosophical stalls. Anyone that knows us, knows the real paradox of High Places is that as haphazard as any given moment with us can seem, it has been utterly bathed with thought before it saw the light of day. We'll meet and debate for hours behind closed doors about the theological, philosophical, existential, and political ramifications of almost every course of action. Usually by the end of it, we've not advanced too far into any proverbial rabbit holes, so we tend to err on the side that says, "Let's just do it and see what happens. Use the good and bad of it as a learning experience."

So back to the nesting ground of creative expression… a couple of us thought it would be nice for Oak Ridge to have more opportunities for average citizens to just share their thoughts, writings, artistic creations, and songs in the form of an "Open Mic Night." Discussion began in earnest as to what such a thing might look like. Do we invoke censorship? Or does anything go? If anything goes, do we set age boundaries on attendance? How do we ensure that the event doesn't put a spotlight on HPCC and make it about us? Why should we expend time, energy, and resources on this event? What are our hopes, dreams, and goals?

We'll kick these questions around in staff meetings for months and the discussions are good for the soul. Yet, when it really boils down to it, we almost always return to this general feeling of "Just do it; let the chips fall where they may." I think this sort of thing that creates the empty space around which so many of the activities evolving, and revolving around us and/or the theater seems to get created.

Saturday night, we took the gloves off. We decided we'd just let things be what they were. I'm not sure who's reading this now, I know my blog uplinks to FaceBook and that seems to be where these "notes" get read the most; still, I do know for certain that it is impossible for any more than 12 of you to have had a direct experience with "Open Mic Night," because that's what we ran in attendance all sum total. I wanted to relay to any who missed this event that Saturday night was pretty incredible – I'd even go a step further and say it was miraculous. And if you've heard me preach, you know that the word "miracle" is a tough one for me. We live in a world where seemingly God can heal diseases under the surface of the skin (like cancer), but for whatever reason, amputees don't grow new arms and legs. God doesn't heal amputees, at least not any that I've ever seen. As a reasonable person, this casts a huge shadow of doubt on many things for me that I might explain later, using old sermon notes in case you missed that one.

This huge shadow of doubt comes as no surprise to those who know me; I make no real bones about my journey of faith and tend to not hold back my personal struggles from the pulpit. The depths of my struggles run pretty deep, so naturally, a big part of having an "Open Mic Night" for me would include reading some of my own poems that have over time, housed my doubts and simultaneously sheltered my faith. Having picked a long poem, maybe a life-long work of mine, it pretty much turned out that I was the guy doing the self-censoring for the sake of upholding "community standards." I love irony, really I do.

But the real irony of the event Saturday wasn't the preacher with painfully indirect poetic metaphors in need of censorship. The 'miracle' of the evening was in the lack of censorship by eleven other souls, because the space we created for community expression was met with a "no holds barred" humanity that I could not have imagined prior to seeing it with my own eyes. Let me be as specific as I can without attendees feeling like I am blogging their lives for them.

We began a bit late because no one was there. When we finally started, we had two guests. And elderly gentleman named Jim, and his wife. Of all the crazy coincidences, his wife happened to be my freshman algebra teacher from high school. She left my freshman year after tragically losing her son in an automobile accident. She pursued three doctorate degrees after that in physics, mathematics, and administration. But she also wrote a book, readings from which she shared with us. It was beautiful – just reconnecting, sharing losses, living our humanity out loud. As she finished up, three more people came in. As if one crazy coincidence wasn't enough, a second lady separated by a generation from the former shared poems she had written during the loss of her son a few years ago. Now I recognize that statistically speaking, this is possible. Mothers do lose sons early in life. I don't know, maybe one in a hundred experience this kind of loss… maybe one in five hundred… maybe it's more like one in a thousand if we go by health department data. So our first two participants were mothers who lost sons. Certainly unlikely, but also not out of the realm of possibility.

During a transition, a friend named Joe read a bit of prose he had thumbed through in my algebra teacher's book about her standing at her mother's funeral. He said that portion of the book jumped out at him. Well, it just so happens that third person who arrived late I know very well. He lost his mom during that week – I was there, and I knew the depth of the impact it had on him. So in four readings, by approximately 9:15 pm, we had two incredibly powerful shared experiences of identical loss. I don't know, people lose moms… it happens to most all of us at some point in life. Maybe statistically speaking, it would be not so amazing that a young man who lost his mother unexpectedly would happen into a room where a guy was reading a piece of prose about a lady who lost her mom; and that all that could happen about the time that a lady who lost her son shared with a group her experiences of losing a son – completely unaware that that the lady who shared before her had also talked about losing a son. I guess it might could happen, statistically speaking.

But in between it all was wedged this massive poem I had written on science, skepticism, and faith. It was about loss and death and the inability, or at least difficulty, in giving those concepts the same space as a God who claims omni-benevolence. There was more – including a young lady who did two beautiful numbers on a guitar using similar metaphors to describe loss, and the power of faith.

I never met these people – or at least outside of my experience 25 years ago with my algebra teacher, I had no real expectation that this thing would end up being such a tightly weaved fabric of being. The amount of healing and compassion that circulated in that room, in that, statistically speaking, highly improbable assembly of souls, was totally uncensored and overflowing with divine energy. If you were there, you know what I am saying is the truth. Something was happening that defied explanation. The walls had been pushed back through a dozen planning sessions, and in the empty spaces of these moments, grace abounded. The grace was so thick and experienced so personally for me, that I had to take back out my litany of poetic doubt, if for no other reason than to note the heavy lipstick of God as he had playfully kissed each stanza in a friendly mockery of my so-called evolved sense of logic and reason. He had in those moments addressed the doubts by weaving together an unbearable fabric of being. I saw it unfold, reveled in the moment, and took my community home to cover my own nakedness with something much more pure and unfettered than a theological fig leaf. I was reminded that Grace is the primary spiritual meal that we've all been invited to consume -- the meat and potatoes of life and community. I took away from Saturday night, a garment of being. And I stood in awe at the power of the seamstress.

Acts 17:28, my favorite verse in all the Bible… well, there could have been no greater demonstration of its veracity than what I saw in those moments. I am truly sorry you missed it because it was beautiful. Nearly unbearable in its power and beauty.