Offerings Final Cut

EditorsMatthew Schuler

Janay Garrick Timothy Schuler

Art DirectorMatthew Schuler

Selection BoardGrace Faraq

Michael WrightCamille Tucker

Matthew SchulerJanay Garrick

© 2011. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. Contributors maintain individual copyright

for their own material.

First Edition

Cover Design by Matthew Schuler

Offerings: A Creative Anthology is published annually as a service to the Fuller Theological Seminary community. The views and the opinions expressed in Offerings do not necessarily reflect

those of university trustees, administration, faculty, faculty, or staff.

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This book is made possible through the generous contributions of the Fuller Arts Collective, a Fuller student group, and The Brehm Center (brehmcenter.com) at Fuller Theological Seminary.

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OPEN CALL FOR THE NEW AMATEUR LAURALEE FARRER 008

POETRY SECTION 018

ARTIST OF THE YEAR MATT LUMPkIN 110

ESSAY SECTION 140

PROSE SECTION 168

LYRICS SECTION 190

ARTWORk ON THE PREVIOUS PAGE

AND IN THE FOLLOWING SELECTION BY JOY JUSTUS

PHOTO BY JANNA GOULD

We should love the work God has given us. Both the art we cannot live without and the jobs God has given us to support it. In fact, we must love—in order to do great work and in order to survive—because no other fuel is strong enough. If we do not know love in our art, to paraphrase 1 John, then we do not know God in it nor do we represent God with it. I’m talking to you now—the artist who is a Christian: If you are doing your art or your job in God’s name without love, you ought to stop.

I am an artist in Residence at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts at

Fuller. I want to champion the idea of a new amateur. We, as a believing community of artists, have lost the habit of being driven by love in our work—we, whose God is Love, and whose two commandments are to love and to love. Instead, we have succumbed to the standards of the Empire, preferring to judge success by financial gain and indiscriminate fame. By disdaining the life of the amateur, we rob ourselves of the courage, the insight, and the inspiration necessary for truly transcendent, revolutionary, God-infused work.

OPEN CALLFOR THENEW AMATEURBY LAURALEE FARRER

What does it mean to do something from and for love? Amateur comes from the old French, meaning “lover of.” Schooled or unschooled, paid or unpaid, the “lover-of” is not driven by money or credential. You will hear true artists say that they cannot turn away from their work because they would die or cease to be themselves without it. There is only one thing that explains the potency behind such an urge to create—it’s because the amateur is fueled by love.

Amateurs do by loving—a work ethic that produces profound art and lives; however, the word “amateur” has come to be associated with low quality, which we, as artists of faith, appropriately disdain. In this nefarious twist of meaning, we turn away from the power capable of reflecting God. We shouldn’t even have to talk about whether it’s acceptable to do mediocre work in the service of the Most High God. Anyone with that sort of thinking would have been struck dead back in the day. God may stretch the canopy of grace to cover your weaknesses and your failures, but you don’t want to start out with that expectation as an artist any more than you would want to be pregnant and thinking that you can abort or abandon your child if you get tired. We must strive for the best we can offer as amateurs, so that the idea of “amateur” actually has less to do with measuring an artist’s craft and more to do with measuring an artist’s love.

Professionals make money at their art, preferably a lot. Sometimes, well-paid professionals come to feel trapped by that money, under the impression that they have to do work they have lost love for because they need it to make a living for them. Sometimes, putting the burden of making a living on your art can be too much for it, akin to treating your art like a pack mule rather than a beloved child. Imagine the disastrous results on the art and on the soul of the artist! Cat Stevens

OPEN CALLFOR THENEW AMATEURBY LAURALEE FARRER

famously left a professional career as a musician claiming, “I’ve returned to being an amateur without any ties or strings attached, which gives me a freedom I never had before.” It was freedom he sought, in life and work, and love was the way there.

In ancient Greece, the amateur was the purest form of sportsman — which is why the Olympics are still, today, strictly non-professional. In the not-so-ancient 1960s America, musicians were judged not by how much money they made but by whether or not they had something to say. Martin Scorsese’s documentary on Bob Dylan called No Direction Home observes that the revolutionary artists were consummate amateurs; in fact, that’s what gave their music power. However, the idea that success might be measured in terms other than monetary is so foreign to our view as to appear at least naïve and at worst irresponsible.

Many respectable artists earn money for their work. It’s not more noble to work without pay than to work with it. Even the

scriptures say that a workman is worthy of his hire. Still, money is an inadequate determiner of whether an artistic work should be done or not. And I say that from within possibly the most expensive art form ever invented: filmmaking. Yes, money is a tool that can make doing the work much easier — like having a hammer to drive a nail rather than a stiletto. But the point is to drive the nail — to do the work!

I cannot count the conversations I have had with artists who find it impossible to conceive of working for anything other than pay, as if the pay were the point: musicians, painters, filmmakers, and singers who agonize over the financial worth of their art or of their time. Artists who are actually offended by the idea of working for free, as if their self-worth has been insulted. Curiously, it’s often Christians who have the most disdain for the idea of amateur projects — a natural result of being undervalued and taken advantage of by the church, perhaps. But we suffer again, by our own hand, when we react by not doing our work.

Artwork on previous and next page by Joy Justus.

I have worked with financial resources and without, and the work is hard either way. I find it more difficult to tolerate artists who continually remind everyone of how much they are worth or of how they have to make money. We all have to pay the rent. We all make choices. Where do we get the idea we’re entitled to make money on our art, and that we’re failing if we don’t? Often, I find that those whose work seems to be least affected by the tyranny of this thinking are young artists who still feel the fire in the belly or older artists who yearn to feel — once again — the love that propelled them when they were young. Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt said, “Once the amateur’s naïve approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur.”

Instinctively we believe it’s important to do what we love, but it eludes most of us how that is supposed to happen. We have precious little historical examples. Many of the artists we admire ended their own lives in despair, tyrannized by the inability to make life and art work together. Since most of us will live somewhere in that struggle, let’s start talking about how we can successfully live out the twin dicta of faith: to be honorable about our lives and faithful to our callings. Or, as Flaubert put it, “Be calm and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

There are many voices claiming that the energy we put into the world is toxic when we are not prompted by love. However, those voices too often conclude that we need to find what makes us happy and make a living from it. But what if you need to make a living at a job that is unlovable so that you can do what you are called to do? Was tentmaking (or

as John Drane interprets it “scene building”) Paul’s great passion? What if the thing you love is not something you are likely to make money at? Do you live in denial and ignore the responsibilities of your keep? Do you pollute your art into something that can make money but no longer resembles what you were called to do?

Turns out, love is the answer: calm and orderly love (your job) and violent and original love (your art). There’s a difference between those two categories, and naturally there’s a difference in the character of the love. But whether it’s loving the work you do or doing the work you love, love is the theme. Love the job God has given you for provision — your scene-building — with intent, with dogged determination if that’s what it takes. Love it because it is calm and orderly. (And if it is not,

if it steals your creativity and demands your “off” hours, then you need to rethink whether the job is doing what it’s supposed to.)

You also have to do the thing that you love — your art. Do it. Don’t let anything stop you. If it is a calling, and God has given the inspiration and the love, how do you dare to not do it because you’re not being “funded”? How will you answer your creator when God asks: What did you do with the talents I gave you? Will you say, “I hid them because no one gave me permission? Because no one paid me what I was worth?” Can you imagine saying that to the all-powerful and empowering God? Really?

There are a lot of ways to make sure your work gets done, and sometimes those ways require painful restructuring (make a movie on a borrowed flip camera rather than with

someone’s million dollars), but the point is that you must do it. As with generosity, you cannot wait until the circumstances are perfect. You must do it especially when the circumstances are wrong. To repeat: love your job, do your art. Most people I know hate their jobs and make excuses for not doing their work.

What kind of work comes out of a person filled up with love on all sides like that? With fear cast out and an endless supply of patience and energy? I am reminded of a story of the desert fathers Lot and Joseph:

“Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and

as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’

Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.’”

This is what I am talking about. Casting out all fear, becoming all love. I can’t guarantee that your work will be profitable. But your life will.

Lauralee Farrer is president and principal filmmaker of Burning Heart Productions; an artist in residence of the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts; and the senior editor of Fuller’s Theology, News & Notes.

sectionArtwork by Joy Justus.

section

thisis thePoetry

Photo by Janna Gould.

i last saw you before i had eyesheard your voice with ears stopped in fluidsthe nearness of your hand closer than skin

perhaps you showed me the worldthe future

you sang in unknown tonguesas i, tongueless, hummed along

and still hum now

by Lauren Mearesuntitled


we clapped our handsas oneboth a form beyond imaginationunknown to scientistsand now unknown to me

oh to be closegrowing, i waitalmost at timesbut wait

until i have eyes

Photo by Brittany MacMillan.

untitled

by Lauren Meares

c o u l d y o u l a y y o u r h a n d o n m i n en e e d t o f e e l i t o n e m o r e t i m ef i n d t h e b e a t i n g o f y o u r h e a r ti n t h e d a r k , i n t h e d a r k

o h , w e ’ r e n o t m a d eo f h e a v y s t o n e

o h , w e w e r e m a d e t o f l o a t

w e ’ r e n o t m a d e o f h e a v y s t o n ew e ’ r e n o t s t u c k i n a b a g o f b o n e s

w e ’ r e n o t b r i c k sn o t t a n g l e d w i r e s

w e w e r e m a d e t o f l o a t

i ’ d l i k e t o l o o k y o u i n t h e e y eo n l y s e e w h a t i s i n s i d e

p a s t y o u r s k i n , y o u r b r a i n , y o u r l u n g ss t r a i g h t i n t o y o u r h o m e o f h o m e s

c a n i r e s t m y h e a d o n y o u r st a k e a m o m e n t t o e x p l o r e

y o u k n o w w e t e n d t o l o s e o u r m i n d sb u t w e c a n f i n d , f i n d , f i n d

o h , w e ’ r e n o t m a d eo f h e a v y s t o n eo h , w e w e r e m a d e t o f l o a t

where broken t wigs and brushare gatheredthe look of winterthe heart of springeach one pickedeach one carriedeach one placed

unti l the debris i s returned to a treeand made into a spacef it for a most fragi le creaturetime to growand thenf ly away

the nest by Lauren

Meares


Life is so great—It is SO grand!Let us drink a toast !And so we did…but As we l i f ted our glasses ,We found them f i l led with bloodAnd soon our tears…Although horri f ied—We drank i t anywayAnd it coated our throatsWith resignation and understanding

Midnight Cocktai lby Matthew Blanton

Photo by Christen Bordenkircher.

Li fe is so great—It is SO grand!Let us drink a toast !And so we did…but As we l i f ted our glasses ,We found them f i l led with bloodAnd soon our tears…Although horri f ied—We drank i t anywayAnd it coated our throatsWith resignation and understanding

Midnight Cocktai lby Matthew Blanton

Artwork by Joy Justus.

“Poets

must have a direct l ine to God,”

she said ,

“because they know what

words

to leave out .”

T h e w o r l d i s p r e g n a n t w i t h p a i n a n d a l a s , i t h a s d e l i v e r e d a s t i l l - b o r n ! a n d t h e s k y r a i n s d o w n – W i t h t h e b o d i e s o f b a b i e s a n d t h e a c i d t e a r s o f t h e m a s s e s – a p e o p l e d r u n k w i t h t h e i r o w n s o r r o w a n d b l o o d T h e d a r k n e s s i s b l i n d i n g a s w e a l l s t a g g e r t o o u r d e a t h s B u t w h o i s t h i s ? T h i s d e a d m a n t h a t n o w w a l k s M y s t r e e t s ? H e w h o h a s d e f i l e d t h e s a c r e d o r d e r ? O n l y t h r o u g h d y i n g d e f e a t e d d e a t h – T h e f i r s t t o d o s o ! A n d t h e w h i s p e r s b e g a n . . . a s w e g a t h e r e d i n a f r e n z y j u s t t o c a t c h a g l i m p s e o f H o p e ! – m y l i p s m u s t l e a r n t h i s w o r d a g a i n ! N o w t h e f l o w e r s a r e g r o w i n g – g r o w i n g b e t w e e n t h e g r a v e s t o n e s

poetskaryn grasse

who is this?matthew blanton

sometimesi am a wallbricks. mortar.built up toblock. prevent. hide.in the name of safety

but i would like to bemore as a window to youopen lit exposed br

eathingat the risk of robberybut in the hope of sharin

gwhat might otherwise be wasted

Lauren Meares

untitled

by

Photo by Jeana Master.

“for it only trembles here/ when some soul feels it’s cleansed, so that it rises/ or stirs to climb on high; and

that shout follows./ The will alone is proof of purity/ and, fully free, surprises the soul into a change of

dwelling place—effectively.” Dante, Purgatorio XXI 58-63

Gloria in excelsis deo!What else could the souls cry out

when the mountain quakes—Not from shifting subterranean platesBut a violent fissure in violet heavens

Vice’s grip crumbles into ashesafter centuries of straining

The soul’s wings are tatteredfrom the struggle

Her bands, at last, snapped looseFinally snatched up by longing’s windShaking her feathered fist in triumph

At the snare, the home, she escaped.

A s c e n t b y J o y M o y a l

Bethlehem, you house of breadThey f lee from you or end up deadTo foreign land of Moab comeBut pain of death I cannot numb

My husband lost , now lost am IBut faithfulness remains my cr yPress not to leave oh mother dearWe are now kin so draw me near

“Where you go, I wi l l go;Where you lodge, I wi l l lodgeYour people shal l be my people ,And your God, my God”

So Naomi I fo l low, though in bitterness stainGod, restored be the sound of this woman’s refrainLet me go to the f ield , and in my work reapProvis ion be found that our l ives may we keep

Boaz the r ich man who noticed my skinIn further searching found out I was kinSo i t came about that he spoke to me clear,“May you glean in no other f ield but mine here .”


by matt arnettRUTH

I found bless ing with Boaz and with l i t t le painMy stomach was ful l and my arms ful l of grainSo I returned to my mother and to my del ightHer bitterness gave way to praises that night

A plan came about from Naomi one dayOff to the threshing f loor where the men layI was told to go down and search Boaz out thereIn the darkness of night his rest ing place share


I did as she said and al l went as plannedBoaz would seek redemption for our family ’s landDetai ls worked out and bless ings obtainedI was married to Boaz when others abstained

In union together we conceived in great joyRedeemed was Naomi through the birth of a boy“Blessed by the LORD,” the women al l claimedObed, the father of Jesse and David , was named



Standing at a distance I wonder , did he feel the genius f lowingfrom his brush

ever y stroke a l iv ing thingever y shade and s l ight inf lect ion inventing a world

transferred from an intangible regionto a perfectly placed bit of paint .

Did he know that a streak of white oi lcould make such l ight

could move so many on a cold spring night a hundred years afterhe stood in some lonely corner, that a del icate r ibbon

of amber could trace the outl ine of a chairthat was not there before he made i t so .

Did he know that a pin prick of red could bleed a f lower bedmaking a forest grow,

a vague black shape catch the instant of somethingjust

beyondreach.

AFTER VAN GOGHJennifer Shaw


The narrator says his Sel f Portrait eyesare looking for something he ’ l l never f indbut I see i t thereeyes al ive and awareof what can not be written or drawn,but passed along.

Drawn in I move unaware of the staresof those who bel ieve I am too close .Stretching out my hand brushes the ol ive green coatof a young man who steps bet weenA Park In Spring and meguarding these framed portals that seem out of placehanging on a wal lnot meant to be here at al l I wonderwil l they speak this way of meor wil l I a lways bet wo feet from the wal l .

PEOPLE MOVERCAMiLLE TUCkER

Photo by Jordan Henricks.

I t ’ s n o t t h e w o r k o f w o r k i n g .O r t h e b r e a t h o f b r e a t h i n g .

B u t t h e t h i n g t h a t m o v e s e v e n p a s t d e a t hw h e n w e w e r e s c a r e d

w e c o u l dn e v e r b e m o v e d i n s u c h a w a y .

A c a n v a s f u l l o f a u t u m n l e a v e s ,o r

e v e n m o u n t e d s u n l i g h tc o u l d n e v e r r i d u s o f

i t ’ s w h o l es o b i g

s o b i g i n h e i g h t a n d w e i g h tw h e n i t r o l l s

i t r e a l l y p i c k s u pm o r e t h a n l e a v e s b e h i n d .

A r m s a n d l e g s a n d f e e t a n d t o e s s t i c k i n g o u t ,h a p l e s s c a s u a l t i e s

c a s u a l l yd y i n g a l o n g t h e w a y .

T h e t h i n g t h a t m o v e s u s m o r e t h a n w e w o u l d c h o o s ei s l o v e .

GRASP AND REACHJENNiFER SHAW

She keeps gett ing up.Something which she can not str ikeknocks her down and then perhaps

gives her a few hard kicks .She refuses to y ield;l ike a bloody f ighter

in an empt y amphitheatershadow-boxing

she r ises and brings up her t ired armsawait ing the next blow.

Sometimes , an embrace;as her knees buckle she is caught

and held under the arms with stronginscrutable hands .

It i s for this moment of certaint y,for this hope that l ike a baby

she wil l continue to be heldthat she f ights this battle

made certain by birth .

Photo by David Frere.

Our emblems identify us, the costumesDesigned to move us through this world(Heels, armor, scrubs, weeds)Safely sorted by collars all of a piece.

Tethers uniformly obscured(We see only ourselves, cut adrift)Relay the tremor of rolling justiceThe black hole gravity of a dry well.

From birth we ingest germs of songs and starsEchoes of ancient fevers and their countercharms(Your castle, my ruin)Amulets crafted by ancestral spirits.

Common cause of death deludes us into dying alone(My errant word, your stray bullet)To wake surprised, bodily slants and shadesAligned, crossing the river together.

Photo by Laura Rold.

IconographyJ e n n C a v a n a u g h

1. ConversationsI am comfortable hereIn the structure of your skinLoose pockets with room to move around inIt is easy and I am not afraidYour words enfold me, holding me in place

I splinter my fingers on the rough edges of your ribsI let your blood move over me in its warm, circular passage of lifeI arch my foot against the strong solid mass of your shinI try to pace my breath with the steady pulsing in your chest

And I am at restI am knownLiving inside your bodyLike a transitory home.

2.Did you know your hands are softer than mine?Covered in the flesh of gentler daysCaressed by the slumber of skin not awake to the harsh lines of dayI peel back the stories embedded in your palmsAnd read the prose of innocenceCreating a stark dissonance with the world

Did you know your feet are my favorite poets?The rhythm of their shoes carrying my listening ears on their journeysDepositing words in the land like a farmer sowing thoughts and reaping stories

Did you know the rooms of your mind are my kindest companions?They sit with me for hoursInviting me in as their confidantsI set aside my striving and take up rest .

C o n v e r s a t i o n sb y C h r i s t i n a M i l l e r

Everything was blanketed and softened by the threat of falling ash,A flagrant existence now descended. Gas fueled justification for fire as Angels idly “contemplate… an infinite glory.”A fiery grey morning bleeds to a starved day.

A creative young mind, sits shocked by starvationHis imagination stewing on her lasting image‘Oh how sweet’ he pines ‘…her breath. What I would give for an eternity by her side.What I would give for her constant relief, no more grey,No more ashen morningsNo more literal inhalation of my relatives.Oh death, free me with your sweet release.Constant ma’am be my bride.”

His plea met with promise as the bored and sadistic image of GodScratches his ‘itch’ ending the life of an idle worker.

anexistencedescended

by matt varnell

Just as methodically as the death, the soldier finds the young man’s worth,His ink stained arm, a reason worth counting.

And what of meaning? Is a good God required to offer penance for those of His image?Only that which transcends time

Only that which is the very fabric of our livesOnly that which promises to be better than life itself could atone for such an existence.

And so it does. In the passing earthly image,

in the ash,through the gas and flames Eternity lives.

If being expresses existence than the existence of the Being expressed through the fleeting is great life.

For I too have held a Faberche egg of life and watched it crack under my tremble.I’ve been responsible for the vitality and beauty of a love

And watched it fade from glory to gray to gone;A paragon of love melding to a poorly written sitcom.

The existence of a beloved anotherignited in the flame of torture

descending upon the hand of a former lover.Photo by Janna Gould.

Everything was blanketed and softened by the threat of falling ash,A flagrant existence now descended. Gas fueled justification for fire as Angels idly “contemplate… an infinite glory.”A fiery grey morning bleeds to a starved day.

A creative young mind, sits shocked by starvationHis imagination stewing on her lasting image‘Oh how sweet’ he pines ‘…her breath. What I would give for an eternity by her side.What I would give for her constant relief, no more grey,No more ashen morningsNo more literal inhalation of my relatives.Oh death, free me with your sweet release.Constant ma’am be my bride.”

His plea met with promise as the bored and sadistic image of GodScratches his ‘itch’ ending the life of an idle worker.

anexistencedescended

I remember my del iveranceYour l ight revealed my heart for what is was . . .Broken, bleeding, leaking joy, drained of l i feEver y beat a bloody gush of misplaced love , going nowhere . . .You searched for me as I wandered the f i l thy al leys of deceptionYou found me alone, my l i fe ebbing away in a puddle of pain , stabbing mysel f over and over with regret for the choices that had brought death to my true sel f…

psalm 126by Dawna Cunha

the gnarled , t wisted arm of the long-overgrown tree; the r igid , knotted musclesof the one providing shade and rest .the Christ hung on the smooth-scarred planksof a tree that once shaded the Roman soldieror perhaps a pair of Jewish loversacting out Solomon’s song.

under the wear y tree , ancient ,i ts bark wrinkles under the pressure of t imeand earthly formation. countless hoursproviding shade has made i t an expertin blocking the scorching heat .

THE BENCH AT SAiNT-REMYBASED ON THE PAiNTiNG BY ViNCENT VAN GOGHby kevin Book-Satterlee

some days nobody would come for a s i lent respite .three t imes Jesus asked his disciples to pray.some days no lovers would grow their marriage under i ts bows.only the mother and a prost itute came to v is i t the grave .

under the wear y tree , rested a stone bench,the rock older than the treeformed at the foundation of the world .i t was fashioned, man-made for contemplation,prayer, and s i tt ing.

I stare into Van Gogh’s painting,the Bench at Saint-Remy, and in the trees wait ingthe rock springs to l i fe as i ts gnarled umbrel la dies .there I come to understand l i fe- long prayer.

Meister EckhartMy toes melt into the soft, richOregonian soaked dirt, like meatFalls off the bone after being boiled.I was createdAnd melt into the Father of creationAs the drops drip from the leaves of a buddingPine.The smell of cheese, like incense, waftsAnd soot runs with an oily stream into theRain gutter.

I am as much the piece of cheese as God is.I am as much His as He divines me to be,

Placing His mark on my forehead an invisibleMark of new birth.

Pine needles pierce my ears, and split the bonesBetween my wrist,But they don’t hurt. How can it hurt whenWe are all one in the created, and created with the heart,The very essence,Of the one who creates.Or so says Meister Ekhart, of whom I never knewYet know as intimately as I know my infant daughter.Or as she understands the callOf the screeching barn owl.

I am melting, Yet I was always melted,And was designed that way – to meldInto creation and unification as breath flowsAs equal to that ofA flower.

by kevin Book-SatterleeMeister EckhartMy toes melt into the soft, rich

Oregonian soaked dirt, like meatFalls off the bone after being boiled.I was createdAnd melt into the Father of creationAs the drops drip from the leaves of a buddingPine.The smell of cheese, like incense, waftsAnd soot runs with an oily stream into theRain gutter.

I am as much the piece of cheese as God is.I am as much His as He divines me to be,

Placing His mark on my forehead an invisibleMark of new birth.

Pine needles pierce my ears, and split the bonesBetween my wrist,But they don’t hurt. How can it hurt whenWe are all one in the created, and created with the heart,The very essence,Of the one who creates.Or so says Meister Ekhart, of whom I never knewYet know as intimately as I know my infant daughter.Or as she understands the callOf the screeching barn owl.

I am melting, Yet I was always melted,And was designed that way – to meldInto creation and unification as breath flowsAs equal to that ofA flower.

Photo by David Frere.


THE WOMAN JOB, AFTER WiLLiAM EVERSON’S “i AM LONG WEANED”

Jenn Cavanaugh

“I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty”Naomi in The Book of Ruth

Through famines I fed others, but now

My heart, blooded by milk, Beats dust to dust.

My dugs, those well-dug wells,Teaching the wastes.

My womb is another organ,In it, expended, expendable, Nothing moves.

My throat hollowsStraight down to my gut.

My door rusts hinged,My inlet, an outbound valve.

And yet, in my flesh, With no one to need it; With no one to show for it, With no one to survive it,

Will I see God.

Immanuel, deeply heldChild of all:

Take this breast. Photo by Brittany MacMillan.

THE WOMAN JOB, AFTER WiLLiAM EVERSON’S “i AM LONG WEANED”


veronica at the wash

Quite ruined, she thinks, as am I.

She considers his stained face suffusedTo ruddiness as in life, covered as always

With the dirt of Jerusalem, mortalized As she cannot remember him –

Brow pocked, two perfectTears for eyes, mouth gory,

Other men’s spit Weighing down the corners.

How like a man to sweat deathMasks onto heirlooms, to leave

Indelible prints on such a frail thing,Like God reflecting in clay. She traces the voids and hollows that form

His image, vowing never again to scour blood From cloth, to equate blood with death,

Perceiving power go out from her.


Jenn Cavanaughveronica at the wash


by Maggie Sullivanuntitled

I’m thirty-five and do data entry from home.I don’t have a child, or a lover,

or a ritual for it.The tourist thing’s wearing off.

Getting down to the metallic tastethat comes throughafter a year or two

no matter where I go.I want to think in the olden days

a life like this would’ve had a name.A regimen, anyway, clear-cut responsibilities,

an articulated direction,a dedication.

I am ugly and serious.

Please help me be more like Jesus.Jesus would see the bright source.

Jesus would be strong and cheerful,with a football player’s pat

on the behind –

Other people have always been able to say,“that was a waste of time.”

And they sound so great.I’ve tried, but never could without a twinge.

Until last night. Like inhaling from a cigarette


for the first time without coughing.I waited in Westwood for the Wilshire bus home,

downtown, after another day of data entry.For about twenty minutes,

the possibilitythat with a Jason Robards squint

over a shot of Jack,I too might someday say,

“I’ve wasted my life.”

Wilshire and Santa Monica.Dark at 6:30 in February. Chilly.

A lot of people don’t believe L.A.’s cold,but it is! The 306 driver said he had no idea

whether the 316 was still runningand poled his floppy doors shut hard

as if this time they’d make noise.A few minutes later a woman sitting beside me

opened a Tupperware boxand insisted I take a Danish butter cookie.

She took one, so I did too.She spoke with a smile that barely brokein a thick Philippine accentabout having been laid off from the marketing departmentat Sony last year and working temp now.About having taken the bus ever since her divorce.I said I liked her look: army pants, ski jacket, handknit scarf.Clashing shades of green.She said it was all her twelve-year-old son’s. That he dresses her.He wanted to get her into Sketchers but at thisshe drew the line.I said it worked. I was trying.She said take another.I laughed because she did.When the 316 came we pressed hands goodbyeand I’d forgotten about wasting your life.

This is why I fled upon the open sea,with dread and glee, your storm hastened my heart ,

from the start , lowly I ran, dreaming free.

An exile, roaming this loveless rampart ,a wretched heap on shores of self I keep,

yet , by ships aground, Nineveh falls apart .

Awaken blackheart as cities burn and weep,for as you sleep, the seas cry justice—fury,

and sailors pray to gods—parlay: Calm this deep!

Cry out! Cry out! That captain screamed in scurry,for judge—me—jury, on seas of self we keep;

and so, amazed, I gazed at ole death’s hurry.

Methinks, I am to blame for this storm we reap,and despite my plea, overboard—they threw me;

now free; baptized in water’s deep, I sleep.

O self I keep, ever rest apart from me,for thrown I lay, on shores of brother’s keep.

Alas! Love’s song so sweet—new wine revelry!

Mercy tree, withered shade-no-more, burn deep—love’s trill—ancient Liberty—song of wealth,

by worm’s hungry carve and stealth; self now sleeps.

Who am I, O Great I AM, wrecked on self,lost of health, I can’t believe, under this tree,

I see, by loving enemies, blooms true self.

Prince of Peace, mercy tree, drown—me—misery.Restrain the senseless self—dark beckoning;

Great Reckoning, beautify—we—history.

Mercy TreeBy Nick Barrett


This is why I fled upon the open sea,with dread and glee, your storm hastened my heart ,

from the start , lowly I ran, dreaming free.

An exile, roaming this loveless rampart ,a wretched heap on shores of self I keep,

yet , by ships aground, Nineveh falls apart .

Awaken blackheart as cities burn and weep,for as you sleep, the seas cry justice—fury,

and sailors pray to gods—parlay: Calm this deep!

Cry out! Cry out! That captain screamed in scurry,for judge—me—jury, on seas of self we keep;

and so, amazed, I gazed at ole death’s hurry.

Methinks, I am to blame for this storm we reap,and despite my plea, overboard—they threw me;

now free; baptized in water’s deep, I sleep.

O self I keep, ever rest apart from me,for thrown I lay, on shores of brother’s keep.

Alas! Love’s song so sweet—new wine revelry!

Mercy tree, withered shade-no-more, burn deep—love’s trill—ancient Liberty—song of wealth,

by worm’s hungry carve and stealth; self now sleeps.

Who am I, O Great I AM, wrecked on self,lost of health, I can’t believe, under this tree,

I see, by loving enemies, blooms true self.

Prince of Peace, mercy tree, drown—me—misery.Restrain the senseless self—dark beckoning;

Great Reckoning, beautify—we—history.

at a time like this there are no wordsjust the feeling of the feeling alivein all its beauty and terrorin all the awe and wonder we find ourselves once again perplexedby the science of love coweringthe concept of death

at a time like this we are the wordsthe speech of a speechwriter’s pen writtenin all its truth and errorin all the breath and power we find ourselves once again movingmountain masses by faith yet cuttingour own brothers down

at a time like this

by Jeremy kays

at a time like this the words are herein flesh, in blood, filled with spirit breathingin all its passion and firein all its life and freedom we find ourselves new in form lovingthe ones who feel no love and gracingthe world through Your eyes



A city set on a hill cannot be hidden during the day,but a city not letting its light shine in the midst of the darkness gets lost in the night.You try to fight for what is right and debate in order to win,but all the while the world looks in and realizes that the city is also full of sin.

What is love if there is no commitment?What is grace if you think you have to work for it?

What is freedom if you are a slave to self-indulgence?What is hope if you are already comfortable?

What is faith if you trust only yourself ?What is courage if there is no risk?

What is sacrifice if there is no mercy?What is belief if there is no conviction?

by pisey soksardis

The fire goes out when the wind stops blowing,and all that will remain are skeletons trying to stay warm.

Matthew 5:14-16; Revelation 3:1-3

Revolutionary Christ

So we stand and resist , revolutionary Christ

Challenging the status quo and illusionary might

The heart of an artivist move into the night

Where we shine so bright and illuminate with light

Lyrically Nat Turner’s gat , lyrics that I’m sparkin

Harriet Tubman and the spirit of Martin

This is Fannie Lou Hamer, this is Cornel West

This is Daniel Berrigan, fightin American terrorists

This is peace while they bring in the dogs

American empire and Kingdom of God

This that real revolutionary Christ music

That lay your body down, lose your life music

Somebody call the cops this is not talkin

This is stoppin, this is Doc Watkins

This for every single person who don’t got options

The Kingdom of God is now, we need to stop watchin

by kevin Sweeney

Revolutionary Christ

You pick the word ‘apple’without really grasping it(though you may think you feela sense of its gravity),lower it into your mouthlike the tip of a flaming swordand bite into an empty sign

With no original signifiedyou don’t have a damned reason to fallfor someone else’s idea of guilt(why take their word for it?)instead, you blink and whisper slowlyrecreating all things in your own imagination

by Gregory Stump

The Word onthe Tree

“ E v e r y o n e , l e f t t o h i s o w n d e v i c e s , f o r m s a n i d e a a b o u t w h a t g o e s o n i n l a n g u a g e w h i c h i s v e r y f a r f r o m t h e t r u t h . ” ( F e r d i n a n d d e S a u s s u r e )

to freely play in a garden of uncut hedges and broken sundials

circles without circumference or center geometry of sand continuum without ends

shades of nameless colorsand the freedom to forbid

the establishment of any rules whatsoever

then the taste of white apple flesh and torn scarlet skinevaporates like carnival candy with only a sticky residue

You reform the word in your mouth to reattach it to a limband when you make the ‘L’ sound you findthe backs of your teeth are smooth as seeds


The Word onthe Tree

Black as tarOphelia

legs vigorous licorice twists

carry you through rugged valleys and climb you up

the steep hillsides;God’s river

flows through you birthing from you

a thousand sons and daughters.

Your nimble limbscovered softlyin white eyelet

which breathes constantlyas you tumble

throughthe bristling blowing

wheat. You, a dreamy ancestor we once saw growing out of the branches of the

family tree

If you would drop a needle

in a haystack maybe then you would leave something

we could find.

Be our mother, Ophelia,black as tar.

You say, “I have dark skin

and big as oak thighs and big lips and deep sighs… of inaudible pain.”

Be our mother, Ophelia. Speak

and make us whole.

by Camille TuckerOPHELiA


Black as tarOphelia

legs vigorous licorice twists

carry you through rugged valleys and climb you up

the steep hillsides;God’s river

flows through you birthing from you

a thousand sons and daughters.

Your nimble limbscovered softlyin white eyelet

which breathes constantlyas you tumble

throughthe bristling blowing

wheat. You, a dreamy ancestor we once saw growing out of the branches of the

family tree

If you would drop a needle

in a haystack maybe then you would leave something

we could find.

Be our mother, Ophelia,black as tar.

You say, “I have dark skin

and big as oak thighs and big lips and deep sighs… of inaudible pain.”

Be our mother, Ophelia. Speak

and make us whole.

OPHELiA

there is a garden where all our sins are pardoned we wait underground in damp ready soil while the ground above accepts the gardener’s toil, accepts the tilling of its surface, patiently waiting for a time coming perfectroots down down down widely traveling towards one another until found taking grip into deep earth we wrap ourselves within the folds of each others humanness in search of an ancient way an ancient God an ancient peoplewith each stretch, each reach further out we become more exposed now you can see my flesh, now you can see my bones will our roots grab hold even when the darkest parts are known? will our imperfections be accepted our humanity being viewed as good and pleasing though marred by an enemies words, or will we be unrepairable, irredeemable, not whole enough to be of one accord?

damp ready soil

struggling struggling, yearning, underground if we prevail there is a day coming of loud sound

of music of glory

of a most beautiful story

by jeana master


We did not always have these words:ways to be like him and unlike the world ways to find him and ourselvesways to become ourselves in the world

God was not always here with us.Long stretches of centuries,filled by the strivings of ignorant, contented living changeless, endless centuries projected like corridors without beginning and end all through which we traveled and travailed,until disrupted by a host of great acts uprooting the world’s foundations and our foundations in the world.

We were now faced with such an offer: God’s claim to be with us and over us created out of the sterile ruins of wilderness,the possibility of abundant life:life-after-desert.

We were strangers to this hope. Strangers to: covenant dealings divine showings but we were never strangers to human longings facing uncounted weary days and nights that is, before now—until now.

Teach us to count the days,to number in our memories in the stories we tell our children to re-mark with our telling be re-made in our hearing

the dusk of your nearing the nights of our waiting the dawn of our hopingthe days of your appearing

Strangers to hope by Nathan Warn


Remind us to recount your words,to memorialize in our minds and mark with our bodies

the deep through which you’ve brought us —pain and joy a thousand years overwhelming— the height to which you’ll bring us and the promise to be filled out that all strangers to hope will find home with you.

Mother Natureby Dawna Cunha Mother nature you are a bitch , a horrible malevolent omnipotent witch .Bestowing death by disease , f loods , or f ire ; hurricane, bombs, or wicked desire ,Mother nature to you I wi l l not bow, death is not natural , I know somehow.The way i t i s now, was not meant to be , we were made for eternit y. . .

Photo by David Augustus.

Sunrise Sunbeamsby kevin Book-Satterlee

Sunrise sunbeams blindoff the sanded smooth morning waters

of the Sacramento Delta.Don’t look directly into the sun,

My mother tells me.I look at its reflection on the glassy surface

and see no difference in the blindingwhiteness of the sun or its mirror.

Blinded, shocked, paralyzed.Like Paul I’m dumbfounded by a silent

voice. I’m in a presence like a voice muddled by talking underwater.

I make martyrs with my impassionatezealousness for my religion.

I’m stone cold in the delta summer morn.I wear shorts and pennies weigh down

my pockets. A penny savedis a penny earned, my teacher instructs me.

A penny or two jingle as I rockon the deck chair like an orphan loved

but not touched. I’m stoned and salty likeAnnanias. Saphira my wifely muse knows

nothing of me while sleeping the river mistaway. Will she too be punished?

I see not John’s Armageddon vision in the smoothwaters untouched by a breeze from the sea.The growl of boat motors, revved for themorning ride, tingles over the air like lions or dragonsat a distance, close enough to listen, far enoughto be safe. Don’t get too close, the zoo keeper warns me.I sit alone as the sun rises over palmsand my reflection stares at theirs on the delta banks.I, alone, am a part of the very crowd that watchedthe Christ – from the fringes, with a comfortableseat in the back. My morning prayer lacks.Intensity, severity and brevity provemy spiritual deficit.

My cup sips to me milky coffeelike bitter morning wine. I like the taste of shitin my mouth, my father informs me while smokinghis cigarettes. I’m knee deep in shit and ashesas Job pores me over his boils.

I breathe golden air reflected offthe delta’s visual echo. Isaiah stood before Godcleansed, charred, touched by coal.I need cleansing and scorning. Seared.Presented now before the Lord who sends me. The pillarof fire like the sun’s reflection, rises from the waterto the sky. Well done good and faithfulservant, He blesses me.


Daddy had a canvas coat many-pocketed

like a magician’s; mornings he’d heft his shotgunstep out toward the hedgerow;

I’d seen deer thereears shooting up

fast as flight that followedbut he aimed higher

picked squirrels off tree limbsin obscene sprays of sound.

Any meat was welcome thenyet how I hatedpulling those limp gray bodiesout by their bloody tails.

Still peppered with shotMama fried them upin the old iron spiderand we ate them slowfor fear of cracking our teethwhile the coat stiffenedon its peg by the doorand dusk descended.

by bradleychewing shot

Photo by Rosalba Rios.

chewing shot

sacred beautyby Evie knottnerus

Would you have me believethat I was created to fit

within the confines ofa billboard ad

a magazinea TV screen

Would you have me believethat my body

my breastsmy lips

my facebelong to this world?

I choose to believethat I was not created for

lustvanitya fulfillment of desires

I choose to believeI was created forHis promisesHis pleasureHis purpose

Yes, I choose to believeI am His girl child…Set apartandBeautifully sacred


Ode toSeminary

Fall. 2010.

“We are created for awe”President Mouw wrote.Don’t forget that .Do somethingevery, single, daythat drops your jaw.

Have we lost our passion?Have we lost our way?What follows seminary’s last day?

Am i still willing to go to Sudan?Sudan sans husband?Am i still willing to give the best years of my lifethese so-called childbearing years to bearfruit that i may never see?We don’t talk about that in class.i ’m just leftfeeling badfor my colonial

by Janay Garrick

colored skinand for doing, in my ignorance,more harm thangood.

We’re rendered, practically, useless for the gospel.

Deconstruction.

All my friendsare pastorsor pastors-in-trainingand we cuss too much while parlancingabout the Greek we can’t speakand the health benefitsof wine, but that’s not why we pick up the glass –

We wonder – Is it worth it?Where is He taking us?Do we really believe?

Existential dread.

Is it all for nothing?Sallie Mae knocking downour doors for the nextten to twentyyears.

Is it worth it?

Are we asking the right questions?Have we found any answers or only more questions?Are we betterpreparedbetterpeoplethan we were before we came?

Ambiguity.

The increase of gray.“Think gray” a mentor told me when i left for Africa.Post it on your hutand don’t forget thatthe world is notBlack&White or colorful categoriesbut gray – one blendinginto the nextschema disappearingstrategies failing.

Redemption.

“Don’t mess with Texas” T’s on erudites who can’t sing

but sing anyway,redeem us.

Profs who find theologyin the puff of a sweet cigarand the lyrics ofcountry song,redeem us.

Writingswhich include the language of lamentand the honest screamas canon,redeem us as we move

Out the exit doors and

“i don’t know”

becomes our mantra.We now knowenough to knowthat we don’t know anything.

Humility.

At the very least ,a take-away.Nothing new under the sunwhat’s been said todayhas already been sung.

Spring. 2011.



M at t L u M p k i n

a r t i s t o f t h e

y e a r

M at t L u M p k i n

a r t i s t o f t h e

y e a r

e ss ays e c

t i o n

Artwork on previous page by Laura Rold.Artwork by Aaron Moore.

THEOLOGY ON TAP (No. 15). YARDSTICK.

BY MATTHEW SCHULER

Ten years ago I found out that I had high-grade spit-gland cancer and was given three months to live. So I started saying goodbyes and thank you’s, telling people things I would never have told them otherwise. And then, I didn’t die. Which was awkward. It was sort of like that scene in Almost Famous when the plane is going down and in their final moments the band members of Stillwater turn the aircraft cabin into an instant confessional. Jimmy Fallon admits to a heartless hit-and-run, followed by revelation after revelation of screaming infidelity between the musicians, the scene finally culminating in a resounding shout of “I’m gay” from John Fedevich. Suddenly the cabin stabilizes, the lights pop back on, and the pilot enthusiastically shouts that they’re all going to make it. It was like that. Everything was on the table, which didn’t matter because there was no hope that I would be around to see what would happen next.

The whole ordeal started one evening at dinner when my mother glanced up at me and said, “Son, your head looks weird.” Exactly what you want to hear from the woman who gave you life. I went to our family physician ( you know, the guy you have to see first and who knows next to nothing besides how to prescribe bubble gum flavored antibiotics) who thought it was an inflamed oil gland, and promptly prescribed antibiotics. Five months later, after my little tumor friend had grown to the size of a golf ball and was now wrapped into my neck like a toxic baby squid, I finally went to a specialist. He told me that I had Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma. Spit-gland cancer. So we packed up and took a family fun trip to Mayo Clinic, a land flowing with jawless, noseless, plastic tube-riddled patients lumbering slowly through the halls like zombies.

THEOLOGY ON TAP (No. 15). YARDSTICK.

BY MATTHEW SCHULER

After the surgery, the doctors mentioned that I had a “positive margin,” which means that there were cancer cells right up to the edge of their incision.

Which means that they hadn’t gotten it all.

Which means that it would come back and kill me in a fairly speedy and efficient manner.

Luckily, the eager doctors told me that I could receive radiation therapy that would forever rid me of this pesky cancer. They told me in loud and excited tones about their new radiation machine that could warp the beams and target a specific area in my head, giving me only a minimal bit of brain damage. They promised that the process would greatly reduce the chance of recurrence, and that the procedure was absolutely necessary for survival. I was still stuck at the brain damage part. My family and I sat around for three days thinking it over. Ultimately, they said, it was up to me. I didn’t do radiation. I decided that I would rather kick it than live life with a nuclear noggin.

We went home.

Due to the location of the tumor, the surgeons had damaged a major nerve, completely paralyzing the left side of my face. Mashed potatoes would fall out of my mouth at dinner. I had to hold my mouth closed to brush my teeth. And I cemented a plastic bubble over my unblinking left eye when I slept so that it wouldn’t dry out and turn into a raisin.

And I looked really really weird.

In public people would speak to me slowly, assuming that I was handicapped. Smiling was out of the question.

Our family was in shambles. Every day someone else would lose it. I never did. I made jokes and became steel, severing the connection between my head and my heart. Eventually my face came back, I went to college, and for years I went through the motions of doing things that our world told me I should be doing.

Technically I didn’t die. But I actually did. Not dating. Not caring. Not living up to potential. Staying in the past. Running from the past, not allowing it into the present. Afraid to hope.

For ten years I’ve just been waiting. Not waiting to get better, but waiting to get worse.

This is actually where the word “hope” in the

scriptures comes from. The shoresh of the word, the original consonantal root, means “to wait.” That’s exactly what I was doing. I had completely checked out, living life on a lower track of reality, not fully engaging with the people or world around me. But that’s not really hope, is it? Waiting for something is far different than hoping for something. The word “hope” alters its shoresh ever so slightly, building on it, pushing the meaning of its root further. The word “hope” changes “wait” into “measuring rod.” Like a yardstick.

Job, the pity-case poster-boy of the scriptures who had it way rougher than I ever did, says this, “At least there is hope for a tree: If it is

cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.” Exactly. At least there is yardstick for a tree.

A yardstick is a measuring rod that gives you an accurate reading from the beginning of something to the end of something. It gives you a sense of the object as a whole. A yardstick is worthless if you don’t start at the beginning or include the end, its job is to consider the total sum.

That’s hope. Hope is a collapsing of time. It doesn’t run from the past, it integrates it. And it doesn’t wait

for the future, it pulls it into the present. Hope is about now, realizing that just because things have been a certain way does not mean that they always will be that way. “Hope is hearing the music of the future,” and “dancing to that music in the present.” Like Job’s tree. It had a full life. It had been cut down. It even died in the soil. Yet at the slightest scent of water, the faintest hint that water might come again, it begins to sprout.Hope is the scene at the end of Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind when Kate Winslet says,“I’m not a concept, Joel. I’m just an f ’d-up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. I’m not perfect.” Jim Carrey replies, “I can’t see anything that I don’t like

about you. Right now, I can’t.” She turns. “But you will. But you will, you know? You will think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped, because that’s what happens with me.”A pause. “Okay,” he says.She stops.“Okay,” she answers,”Okay.”

Throughout the film, both characters try to get rid of the yardstick. They want to erase where they’ve been because they think it will help their present, and their future. Until they realize that only when what has happened, and what will happen, are examined, can they can fully be with each other. She knows that she will get bored and trapped because it’s happened before. And she knows that he

will see things he doesn’t like because that’s how it’s been for him. Hope is measuring those things for what they are, and allowing them to be part of the whole.

Over Christmas I was sitting on a couch in the middle of the night with my girlfriend Laura. I had just told her family the whole cancer experience story, beginning to end, and they had gone to bed. She said, “I’ve heard you tell this story several times now, and it’s pretty much the same every time. You throw in jokes, you make it exciting. But I’m wondering how you would tell it if you could say whatever you wanted with no judgments, not what happened, but how you felt about what happened.”

I sat silent for a few moments. “I would say that I hate that there’s a part of me that got charred or even burned away, the part of me that dares to hope. And I hate that I hesitate at the thought of getting married because I fear that the cancer will someday return, and I don’t want to put a family through that. I hate that I dream of the future but do nothing about it, I don’t even try. Why would I, if there’s no hope that it could actually become real?”

“That makes sense,” she said. “But I wonder, how would you be different if you hadn’t gotten cancer?”Yardstick.I thought for a moment about my life, beginning to end.

“I probably would have taken the scholarship to Wheaton. And gotten trapped in a life that I would have resented, doing things that I thought were important but were actually just worthless fluff.”

“Well,” she said quietly, “Maybe getting cancer saved your life.”

My head and heart reconnected. My eyes glistened. For the first time, that part of me that had been burned away, or had been cut down and died in the soil, began to sprout. I saw my past, and my future, not as what I wished it would be, but for what it was. And for the first time in ten years, I dared to hope that she was right.

PENMANSHIP.BY PETER DUNN

Photo by Matt Varnell.

Real writing lives in secret. It lurks in shadows. It is by nature reclusive, because it’s too raw, too scattered. It rambles like a thousand homeless voices on Skid Row.

Certainly not all of my journal entries read like this, but I cannot help but wonder if the frantic pages, that come off more like rambling questions from the frustrated zombies of Joban theology, are more honest than the entries in perfect cursive, as they tell seamless stories of embarking onto the glassy seas of a lucky life, or like the Ralph Lauren cologne that sails around crowded restaurant patios, birthed from polo t shirt’s with popped collars, that so frequently seduces the atmosphere into a spuriousness, during champagne brunch after Church.

Scribbled prayers speak volumes. Pit prayers, gargled

and unintelligible to the outside world, emotions boiling over into notebook pages, buried in mahogany desks.

These are the writings that have always been “best” for me, because they mark tipping points, compulsive thoughts that take homage in the prairies of the page, roaming as armed outlaws of impartiality, knowing somewhere there’s a bounty promised to the hunter of such heresies.

But who could stop the one hundred stallions’ hoofs, dipped in black ink, that stamp my white journal, with their unbridled gallop? Or the distant meteors that collide into rubble all over the space of my blank page?

They are the notes, from my excavation of the solid sentiment of insanity, that lives underneath piles of pretentious loose dirt; the heated debate between

anger and shame that paralyzes my soul after the last plank of my comforting pride has fractured beneath me. The divine point, I always arrive at tardily, when I can indulge my own blueprints no further.

When enough of Kierkegaard’s angst has pooled in my kidneys, that I impulsively elevate my head to decry the heavens; only to have the phosphorescence of a sovereign neon sign draw in my exalting eyes, finally acknowledging its long existence in the world above my thoughts, luminous in the hushed air, flickering, again and again,

“I Am”

Such light, from such words, soothes the air like vapor rub. Converting the clouds, as I begin again to scribble down all the ways I hate, everything I love.

PENMANSHIP.BY PETER DUNN

NONCOMMITTAL.BY LAURA ROLD

Artwork by Laura Rold.

Turns out, I’m in a noncommittal relationship...

with Drawing.

Like the pencil and paper, forms and figures Drawing. That’s who I’m talking about. We’ve had some good times in the past and still do from time to time, but even after those good times I often tell Drawing, “Eh, I’m not looking for anything serious.”

I primarily take advantage of him/her/I go both ways. I wouldn’t even call it a relationship, really. I would go so far as to say I use Drawing; for instance, say I’m in class and I can’t concentrate—I had too much coffee, and my hand and head are simultaneously crying out, “Do something! Do something!” (besides active listening of course). I pick up my G-2 and draw a tree. I always draw the same damn tree with slight variations. We are like that couple who watches TV every night—different shows, still TV. I leave class with a sigh of comfortable release. I used Drawing.

Sometimes late at night I’ll have random bursts of energy and writing just won’t do. I pick up the G-2 again (definitely meant for writing) and see what happens. Every so often Drawing will surprise me. Drawing will give me a gift. He-she will show me something about myself. Drawing is a giver, and the creative Creator gives through Drawing; I, however, am a user and abuser.

But last night when I was trying to spend time with Drawing, I realized: I am the one who has been taken advantage of the whole time…by myself. Imagine that! Drawing doesn’t need me. I never wanted to get serious with Drawing because I was scared of the commitment, but why? Drawing and I would go on a good date, have an intimate conversation together, and I would be in the

NONCOMMITTAL.BY LAURA ROLD

clouds—birds would be singing, sun shining, Icelandic volcanoes inactive. But the next date we went on wouldn’t be so great. It would be boring, embarrassing, chaotic, our interactions constantly missing a beat, so I would say,

“Um...obviously this ‘thing’ between us isn’t working out.”

I question to myself, “Well gosh, were our times together ever really that good?” I would indeed have fun, but then I start to couple-watch. The danger of couple-watching: “Hmm, well look how that person gets along with their drawfriend. Why aren’t I getting along with my drawfriend that well? That person’s drawfriend is cuter than mine.” I’d downplay my attraction to Drawing so that I wouldn’t be hurt by shim. I took advantage of Drawing, I used Drawing, but really, it was because I was worried I wasn’t good enough for wonderful, handsome, vivacious Drawing.

I realized I can’t have a relationship with Drawing if I don’t put anything into it. I can’t expect Drawing to unconditionally give every time. In elementary school I had self-help books, romance novels for 10 year-olds, in order to ignite my relationship with Drawing: Disney Animation, Draw 100 Animals, and others. I was much more initiative back then, and some of my teachers said we might be good together. It’s a good thing words stick because I was preoccupied with other stuff at the time. So last night I silently shouted to myself, “I should get another one of those books! One for adults!” Because I’m so mature now. Then I went to bed as the announcement of my endeavor was lost in the sea of hopeful quests and already established missions, such as, pass my classes.

It is always amazing to be reminded of

how God supports my endeavors (when they’re not idiotic). Even the simplest ones. Example: a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in Starbucks when glorious tunes begin to swarm my open ears. I thought, “I must know who this is.” I was confused: the vocals sounded like the guy from the Shins but the music was not Shin-y. It was something else, something much, much more magical. The song ended and then a female vocalist began singing. It was a darn mix! I said to God, “Hey, can you tell me who that last song was?” I’m pretty sure, 99.9% sure (the 0.01% is for the sake of humility) that God has an appreciation for music and I’m going to take advantage of that. I could have asked one of the employees but I already asked God. To ask an employee would have been like asking one of your historian friends for an assignment, “Who won the Battle of Champagne?” and she responds, “the French gained only minimally, and the Germans—“ you interrupt: “You know, that might be right but I’m going to go ahead and ask Jim.” Jim says, “Mimosa.” You fail your assignment.

Or maybe I just wanted to see what would happen. I admit, I did search for any new Shins albums but to no avail. I didn’t think this mysterious music would ever make it into my mp3 musical device; however, a few days later I think God told me the artist in the form of Dan Long saying stuff. We passed each other quickly one morning and this is how our conversation went: “Hey Laura!” “Hey Dan!” “Have you heard of Broken Bells?” “No. Good?” “Yeah, Danger Mouse and the guy from the Shins collaborated.” Me: Stream of excited banter. That was it. Endeavor accomplished.

Coincidence? Perhaps. Why would God give a crap about me having yet another CD to listen to when he has 6 billion other people to care about? I don’t know, maybe he likes to give gifts? Maybe he likes to see joy?

Anyway, back to my negligence of my poor drawfriend. I thought about getting a how-to-draw book last night and then forgot about it by time I woke up. I stopped by a couple garage sales this morning with Kelli and Andrew. One of the houses had boxes upon boxes of books and the owner said, “Fill up a bag for a dollar.” Woo! Goodies! We stumbled over several books; all and all, it was a successful romp: Kelli found Tolstoy and Fitzgerald, Andrew found Etiquette for Young People from 1936 (a successful find because he needs it), and I found Salinger and Hemingway, and…

The Joy of Drawing.

Endeavor accomplished. It is a cool, retro little hardback from the 60’s, for adults of course. And best of all, this is the beginning step of how to start the first drawing exercise: “Now, hovering over the paper like a bird of prey, draw a few squares with rounded corners in the air until you land with your pencil (or brush) on the paper.”

This is going to be a good date; although, the first step might have to be done in private.

IN DEFENSEOF HAPPINESS.BY BEN SWISHER

Last year I went on a Christian spiritual retreat, and at our first meeting we went around the room and shared the reason we had come. When it came my turn I simply said, “I’m here because I want to be happy.” To my surprise, several people laughed. One well intentioned elderly woman approached me after and smiled as she said, “You can’t be happy all the time, you know.” I brushed it off because no one seemed to understand where I was coming from, but it raised important questions for me regarding the relationship between faith and happiness.

Studying at a theological seminary, one finds him or herself in a number of discussions regarding questions of meaning and ethics. What does God demand of us? What kind of people should we be? How should we act in order to arrive at this goal? These questions are important, but I’m not sure they are the only questions we should ask, or that they are an adequate starting place in the search to satisfy the soul.

The Sufi mystic Rumi has a poem titled “The Field” in which he writes, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”

What does it mean for the soul to lie down in that grass? To experience a fullness and depth about the world that has been hidden by our relentless thinking, planning, worrying and striving? What does it mean to be happy? For me, true happiness is lying down in that grass and feeling love beyond measure, the love of God that dwells within each human heart without reason or remuneration. How I long to lie down in that field! That is what we all yearn for. We strive to make things right, and we chase after certain things and avoid others all so we can be at peace. So that we can feel whole. So that we can be happy.

Some may be inclined to think this is just a

problem of semantics. After all, happiness technically can be defined as either pleasure or joy, however great the qualitative difference between the two is. I assume my fellow retreatants would have been more receptive to my remarks had I spoken of joy instead of happiness. But I want to resist the temptation to remove this term from any meaningful dialogue on what it means to be human or to be fulfilled. Happiness not just pleasure seeking! Our language shapes our perception of reality, and if we disparage happiness and treat it with contempt then we are unintentionally giving credence to the disastrous belief that life is a series of tasks and challenges to be completed, rather than a gift to be enjoyed.

Enjoying our life as a gift does not deny suffering in the world or in ourselves. To do so would turn happiness into repression. Happiness actually requires courage because it celebrates goodness and beauty even in the face of suffering and death. As the poet Jack Gilbert writes, “We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”

None of this has anything to do with pleasure. Pleasure is ultimately unfulfiling because it is a sensory experience that is dependent on external (and therefore impermanent) conditions. Happiness comes from recognizing the inherent beauty that is within everything. It is beyond categories of “good” and “bad.” It is the joy of simply being. It would be incorrect to simply refer to this happiness as an emotion, but it is closer to a language of emotions than cognition.

Theologically-minded readers may be noticing by now that my language points more towards static metaphysical categories than the seemingly more dynamic and existential consciousness of the early, eschatologically-minded Church. They may argue for the latter approach because early

IN DEFENSEOF HAPPINESS.BY BEN SWISHER

Christianity was a movement that grew by witness and conversion, eagerly anticipating the second coming of Christ. In response to this I can only say: “I refuse to prioritize becoming over being.” Christians must first remember that God is the one in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). If they cannot touch that ground of being, then upon what ground will they stand to act in the world?

Sadly many of us live our lives cut off from the ground of our being, and this robs us of our happiness. In its place lies an enormous anxiety, as the ego is forced to navigate its way through the a hostile world seemingly separate from itself. True happiness comes from recognizing that the ground of our being is benevolent, and our participation in this being binds us together in such a way that replaces our sense of alienation with the reality of communion.

Here questions of teleology are overshadowed by present beauty, anxieties about life give way to gratitude for being alive and bitterness is swallowed up in compassion. I love to walk through campus about an hour before dusk because the sun shines through the trees in such a way that you can actually see white rays of light coming through the canopy of leaves. More times than not, this sight serves to snap me out my habitual thought patterns and brings me home to a deeper reality. In those moments my soul is at rest and for a few precious seconds I’m reminded that there is no reason to be anxious or afraid.

All shall be well because it is already well in some mysterious way. This is the consistent witness of the mystics. To believe otherwise would seriously call into question the presence of God in the world. Therefore, may we be happy. May we recognize the importance, the depth and the necessity of this happiness, and may we have the eyes to see it in spite of everything.

Artwork by Joy Justus.

Artwork by Jeana Master.

THE PERPLExITY, THE PROBLEM & THE PAIN OF ARTISTIC STRIVING IS TO OWN WHAT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU. BY JACLYN WILLIAMS Photo by Matt Varnell.

I am an artist. Inherently selfish? This role, this pas de deux, this high C – this is all mine, mine, mine. You can look and listen for a moment but you cannot have it. If I give it up to you then what will I have left? Besides, you don’t understand it. You don’t treasure it. You simply want to have it tantalize you for a moment and then you will throw it away. You will move on to the next tasty, aesthetically pleasing movement that suits your fancy.

This is life. This art is who I am.

Three years old. The stage was my siren. She called. I came. I crashed against the rocks and was shipwrecked. She teased me with a bit of what I wanted and yet withheld what I needed. But I could not leave her. She loved me, she hated me. She lifted me up and she tore me down.

This is insanity. This art is who I am.

Ever obedient to the call. I gathered my strength. I stood on the brink. And I fell.

The call, the call, the call.

I had answered the wrong call.

Not wrong in manifestation. Wrong in perception.

I was holding on too tightly to what could not be held. Trying to make finite what was infinite.

Not mine. Yours. Ours.

I am an artist. Instinctually surrendered. This role, this pas de deux, this high C – this is all ours. You can look, listen, love it or leave it. But you cannot stop the creation. You cannot stop the Creator.

You gathered my weakness and gave me your strength. I stood on the precipice. And we lept.

This is freedom, breath, and joy. This art is what I do. This leap is who I am.

The wind blows, wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.

The process, the providence & the pleasing of artistic striving is to let what does not belong to you pass through you for a moment, ever searching for …. what does not belong to you.

THE PERPLExITY, THE PROBLEM & THE PAIN OF ARTISTIC STRIVING IS TO OWN WHAT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU. BY JACLYN WILLIAMS

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You say it’s not much farther. I say nothing, just follow you beneath the dripping leaves. The whoosh of cars driving by on Highway 29 fades as we continue along the History Trail near the Bale Grist Mill in Napa. Eventually we hear nothing but quiet.

This trip was not my idea. A weekend getaway in Napa Valley in the middle of November, just one week shy of Thanksgiving — I wanted sun, but here it is all dark clouds and a persistently half-hearted drizzle that can’t decide between being rain or mist. You had assured me that this is the time of year when the vineyards in the valley are most beautiful, black and gold twined together against a backdrop of blue mountains and ragged wisps of cloud. So far, though, I’ve only seen barren trees and forlorn hills. The air is cold.

I walk behind you through the woods. Occasionally a large raindrop splats on a fallen leaf, but otherwise the world is silent, as though it is about to take its last living breath. All around us trees rise out of the dark earth in twisted red gashes that make me think of crucifixion, their trunks the colors of flayed flesh and blood, shining and slick with the damp.

You put your hand against one of the contorted trunks. “These are madrones,” you

say, adding, “Natives of Texas.” I don’t bother to ask why you know what kind of tree it is or where it’s from. When we first met, a year ago at the Edinburgh Castle on Geary in the city, you looked at the pearl pendant I was wearing and surprised me not only by knowing what month it was the birthstone for (June) but then which astrological sign went along with that month (Gemini) and then what that sign revealed about the type of person I was (“my type,” you said, leaning closer and smiling).

We went out two nights later, and slept together on our fifth date. And now here we are, a ring on my finger and one on yours, hiking in the rain.

You bend your long back under a set of low-hanging branches, holding them aside with one hand as, with the other, you hold your camera bag close to your chest to protect your prized Nikon, “from the elements,” as you like to say—even though I know perfectly well the bag is waterproof, having bought it for your birthday two months ago.

Tree roots writhe over the earth like strangled snakes. Rocks break the ground like jagged bones, threatening to trip me at every step. A breath of wind ices my cheek. I bring the hood of my new white sweatshirt up over my head and draw the strings tight. When you look back again and see me, you laugh

By Grace FaragMadrones

and wait for me to catch up.“You look like a white

crayon,” you say, tugging upward on the pointed seam of my hood and tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I only wish I was. I’d draw myself over the image of you at a table with someone else in the back corner of the crowded café I’d ducked into because of the red velvet cupcakes displayed in the window. If only they’d been banana muffins or pre-made Rice Krispie bars instead. If only it had been another day. If only you hadn’t been there with her.

Yes, if I was a white crayon, I’d make her disappear, blot her right out of existence. I’d cover up the sight of you reaching to touch her hair, then pulling her face toward yours for a not at all impersonal kiss. (“The Germans,” you told me one night as we drifted into sleep together, “have words for 30 different kinds of kisses.”)

On the trail, I take a deep breath. My body fills with the musty scent of fall. You come close, cup my face in your hands and I know you want to kiss me, but I pretend to hear an animal somewhere in the

brush and turn my head, pretending to look for it.

“I don’t hear anything,” you say.

“I hope it wasn’t a bear,” I say, and you laugh.

A squirrel scrabbles around a nearby oak tree at just that moment. “Some bear,” you say, smiling. The squirrel stops as if it senses us staring at it. I never thought before how strange a squirrel’s eyes are, so utterly black, like dark planets. For the space of several breaths the three of us stand, not moving, contemplating each other and our respective distances. Then, a twitch of the squirrel’s tail and suddenly the creature whips around to the other side of the tree and disappears. You start walking again, and after a few more seconds, so do I.

“Watch out,” you call over your shoulder. “It’s downhill and slippery from here.”

You scoot down the trail sideways, and I do the same, testing the ground at each step before trusting my weight to the forward foot. The trail steepens, angling sharply downward. You reach back to take my hand. “I’m fine,” I say, just before a rock under my foot

loosens and rolls away, and I fall. A butterfly of light flashes across my vision, and the accompanying stab of pain constricts my throat. The madrones whirl above me in an angry red dance, spinning and fading in and out of the gray mist.

You hurry back to me, your face full of sorry. You help me stand, and part my hair gently, running your fingers over my head. I flinch. You say there is no blood.

“We’re really almost there,” you say. “You alright to keep going?”

I nod, biting my lip against the pain.

“We won’t stay long,” you promise.

I follow you down the last few steps of the trail, my steps deliberate and slow, your hand firmly holding mine. My head aches as we emerge from the dark tangle of trees, into a small field of overgrown grass and bracken. You let go of my hand after one more concerned look, then stride across the clearing to where four or five white gravestones lean up from the ground, some of them behind black iron fences tangled in dead twining vines. This is what we’ve come to see, the old pioneer

cemetery. What’s left of it.The air is still and heavy, and the clouds seem to be hanging lower

than before, though for the moment the rain has stopped. A shiver shakes my shoulders, and I wince.

The cemetery feels far from everything, one of those places that will forever be alone in the world. There is no sound but the occasional whisper of a breeze through the bushes that scraggle around the uneven clearing. You crouch near one of the stone markers, sidling around it as you search for the right angle.

I see a picnic bench near the edge of the trees, where the trail goes back up the long hill. The wood of the bench is cracked and ridged along the grain, rotted from many rains and dripping days like this one. I sit down and lean forward to rest my elbows on my knees, dropping my head down between my shoulders. I try not to think about what the walk back to the car will be like, as I rub the back of my head.

“Smile,” you say, and I glance up just as you click the shutter in my direction.

“Don’t,” I say. You take another picture, this time of my frown.“You’re beautiful,” you say, like you used to.I wonder if you told the other woman she was beautiful, too. I wonder

if you’ve taken pictures of her, and suddenly I can’t breathe. I want to run home and leave you here, alone with the pioneer dead.

“What’s wrong,” you ask, lowering the camera.“My head,” I say. It isn’t true.The gravestones gleam against the grayness of the day like

whitewashed teeth. As the afternoon wanes, color leaches out of the world. The sun must be going down behind the veil of clouds. A sudden cold breeze rises and I shiver again, huddling deeper into my sweatshirt.

I look down and see the large piece of broken marble, fist-sized, nearly hidden in the grass by my feet.

A heavy, rain-drenched silence fills the air. I feel as though someone is waiting, watching. But there is no one here. There is only this man, so familiar to me and yet so strange, capturing the scene in pieces, still images that will last long after we have both become no more than names engraved on forgotten stones.

I stare at the jagged chip of marble, its whiteness marred by mud and grey-blue veins. Suddenly I lean down to pick it up, and that’s when I notice the sparrow in the grass, shivering under the bench. I pause.

Aside from an occasional quirk of its the head, the bird does not move. There is something wrong with it, but I can’t quite tell what. I get off the bench, squat on my heels, bend close. The sparrow does not fly away, but gives an alarmed sort of hop away from me. But a moment later, it hops back again and collides with the bench leg. Are its wings broken, I wonder. My hand reaches out toward the quivering little body. I actually manage to brush my fingers along the bird’s back before it starts hopping again, flailing around madly. Both wings beat at the air, clearly not damaged, but then why doesn’t it fly away?

Then I see its eyes. Or rather, the inflamed sockets where its eyes should have been. Oh God, I think. Now what do I do?

I glance back at you, but you are absorbed

in problems of composition. The chip of marble, now right in front of me, seems to glow against the grass. I pick it up. It’s heavier than I expected, and cold. The bird pauses, giving quick turns of its head and trembling. How long can a blind bird survive in the wild? If anyone knows the answer, it’s probably you.

Now I’m the one trembling, my hand shaking under the weight of this old stone. I don’t know any other way to do what has to be done. Oh God, I whisper aloud this time, but the bird is still there, still blind, and there is nothing to do but let the stone fall. And because the bird does not die the first time, I do it again and again.

Gradually I become aware of a light pattering and realize it’s drizzling again. I stand and look around at the weeds covering the graves, at the uneven iron fence and the leaning crosses. Pain throbs through my head. My face is wet, but not from the rain, and I am shaking. You have moved to the far edge of the clearing, no longer taking pictures, just wandering among a clump of trees. I want to run to you and cry, to tell you what I’ve done, but I can’t. My heart strains under the weight of the distance between us. We are so far from everything and both so alone in the world.

I glance back the way we came, the trail winding like a gash up the hill, into the fallen clouds where the madrones writhe in their cobra dance, the dead bright leaves sink into the sooty earth, and the silver rain washes clean everything I see.

Legend has it that in the year 1263, a Bohemian priest traveled to Rome to resolve his doubts over the doctrine of transubstantiation—whether or not the bread and wine of communion actually become the flesh and blood of Christ—and stopped to celebrate mass in the lakeside down of Bolsena, Italy. When he lifted the host, it turned to literal flesh at the consecration and drops of human blood spilled onto the altar cloth. The majestic cathedral in Orvieto was built to house the sacred stained cloth, and today pilgrims still flock to see it in the Chapel of the Corporal. This is the story of one such pilgrim.

Anna shifted uncomfortably in her pew in the Orvieto Cathedral. Anna had been shifting uncomfortably since she was ten years old, when she first realized that she was fat. She was always spilling over the boundaries placed on her—waistbands, bra straps, movie

theater seats, a standard desk chair—similar to yeasty dough gone out of control and creeping out of its bowl like the Blob.

Now she adjusted herself so that her thighs didn’t completely overtake the thin Asian man sitting next to her, who, she noticed, had skinny thighs like two denim-clad noodles. Anna clutched the fleshy sides of her legs with the anger of a road-raging driver clenching the wheel, and tried to focus on the Italian tour guide’s lecture as he whispered under the vaulted ceiling about the miracle of Bolsena. His voice was pleasing—Marco had just enough of an accent to give his speech that rich quality so conspicuously absent in the nasal squawking of Americans.

Marco spoke of the traveling priest who doubted the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That is, he doubted until the host

by Joy MoyalAnna

started bleeding all over the place like a scene in a horror film. To Anna the miracle sounded creepy and gross rather than holy, and she wasn’t sure why it mattered anyway. Didn’t Christ do his time on Earth, then get fed up and leave so he could hang out in heaven with God until everyone joined up for a big party, Oingo Boingo style, leaving bodies at the door?

Sometimes that was all that kept her believing—the fantasy of finally climbing out of this hateful, blubbery suit of flesh and becoming light as a vapor, and free. She’d come to view her body—all bodies—as evil, thinking of them with contempt and punishing her own with vicious words and fits of deprivation.

“Many spiritual paths ignore our physical nature, or fear it, or treat it with disdain,” whispered Marco, flipping his tongue around every r. “But Christianity is materialistic at its very core…notice the central saying from the Gospel of John, ‘The Word was made flesh.’ Every tiny particle of matter, every body, is destined to be an instrument of spirit.”

His words echoed later in Anna’s mind when she plopped down on a pew in the

Chapel of the Corporal to stare at the linen cloth stained by a few faded drops of blood. “Matter and spirit are not opposites,” he’d said. “The body and soul are not mismatched, but actually express each other—the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory…” Stretching out one of her hands, Anna studied it—the smooth creamy white skin, the dimples punctuating her knuckles—and wonder poured over her like honey.

Later, at dinner, Anna watched her fellow travelers dance to the music of a live band in the corner of the restaurant. For once, she didn’t compare their figures to her own; she didn’t judge the large and clumsy or envy the slender and lovely. Instead, she rejoiced in their movement, in the way their swaying steps infused the dimly lit room with earthy exultation. A few drops of red wine had dribbled on the white tablecloth, and she remembered the cloth of Bolsena, divinity spilling out of flesh. Anna rose from her chair and drifted toward the dancers until she was in their midst, shifting her weight gracefully from one foot to the other, moved by a spirit like water within her.

Curtis was up that night listening to the sounds of thunder in the distance. The meteorologist on the news had said the storm was headed right towards him, and because Curtis always feared the worst when it came to storms, he knew he would not be able to sleep until it had passed. And so he sat at his table, cautiously watching for lightning out the window, doing the only thing he could think of to keep the storm off his mind, though in hindsight, doing the Sudoku puzzle in the paper was probably not a good idea. And this was so for two reasons. First of all, he wasn’t very good at Sudoku and so gave up after ten minutes, and secondly, the frustration that had built up from his inability to succeed at something so elementary had resulted in an embarrassing overreaction to a loud banging at his door. He was just thankful nobody actually saw him jump out of his chair and throw the paper across the room. But as it hit the wall and fell behind the television he took a deep breath and reoriented himself. And then came the second bang—followed by a voice.

“Curtis, it’s me.” Michael? Curtis unlocked the door to find his brother, who was ten years older and half a foot taller, standing in the hallway of his building in his bathrobe. “Are you ok?” asked Curtis,

distressed at the sight of his brother who he had never seen in the sort of condition he now saw before him. Michael’s thick graying hair, which was normally parted and combed properly, lay flat on one side and in a tangled mess on the other, with individual strands shooting up like grass at the colic in the back. Not to mention his glasses which lay on the tip of his nose where they were no use to his eyes as they strained over the rim in a tired gaze. He

was wearing no pants, and the shoes on his feet were the same black oxfords he had worn to the funeral that night. “I need to talk to you. Do you have any tea?” Michael entered the apartment and sat down at the table.

It was a studio loft with roughly five-hundred square feet, which he had learned was just small enough for a thirty-six year old bachelor to remain a thirty-two year old bachelor. Curtis walked over to the kitchenette to boil some water and make Michael a cup of Earl Grey. “Does Haley know you’re out?” he asked, filling the kettle with water from his Brita. He would never trust tap water from the pipes of an apartment building. Michael wasn’t listening, rather he

brothera short story

Michael

sat in a daze and said matter-of-factly, “I’m gonna resign,” and then slipped down in the chair and closed his eyes. The thunder was becoming less and less a rumble in the distance and more and more a troubling presence overhead.

* * *

The seriousness of these words was not lost on Curtis. He knew the cost of such an

act. Michael was the founder and pastor of City Church which began as a meeting of his friends at a Starbucks a decade past and had since grown to be the biggest church in the metro area while also garnering the label “The Church that Saved the City” from an article published two years ago by the paper, in which the dramatic drop in crime was found to correlate with the rise in the church’s weekly attendance. He had become one of the most influential leaders in the city, even being invited to speak at the mayor’s son’s baptism, where he had said something like I will not rest until every newborn in this city is treated with the same love and support as experienced here today. The mayor could do nothing

but smile and cheer with the rest of those gathered, while the parish priest gawked at the notion of having to pour water on the head of every newborn in the city, though he was later reminded by the church secretary not to take everything so literally.

But Curtis saw his brother in a light that was much brighter than what anyone else could witness. Growing up behind someone who’s ten years older was like borrowing a book from the library. You

never see the person who read the book before you, but there are clues of their existence and their capabilities left behind in the pages. Things like underlined sentences and notes in the margins and

corners folded in on important sections to return to later. You would know how much smarter the person was than you and how much better of a reader they were because they underlined passages that you would have skimmed over, ultimately ruining your further interest in the book. Curtis, after all, wasn’t very close to Michael, who had left the house before he could even cross the street by himself, but he found traces of his greatness everywhere. Trophies and plaques and yearbooks, where he was voted most likely to succeed, weren’t stored away in a closet but kept in the living room book case for him to dwell on, every day of his life.

by Matthew Lautz

* * *

“I liked your eulogy tonight,” he said, bringing Michael a glass with the name of the bar he slipped it from and a tea bag steeping in the steaming water.

Michael sat up in the chair and took hold of the hot glass. “Do you have cream?”

“No. Sorry, no milk either. If I’d have known you were…” He stopped himself. He didn’t want to go there yet.

Curtis sat down across from him with his own glass and dipped the bag of leaves in and out of the water, watching the burnt orange pigment flow and swirl, first around the top and then sink slowly, darkening everything beneath. Through the window he watched the lightning illuminate the darkness for something like a hundredth of a second, which was just long enough the see the wind yanking like a persistent friend at the trees on the street below. “Do you remember,” Curtis began, “there was that tree house you built when I was still in the crib. Between the tree with three trunks. I used to play in that thing every day after school. It was like my fortress. I’d climb up onto the roof and look around at every yard on the block. I loved that. Such perspective.”

He took a sip of the tea and then took the bag out and put it on a napkin. He did the same for Michael’s, which had not yet moved.

“I remember asking mom once what kinds of things you did in the tree house. But she said you never played in it. That you just built it one summer and let it be. I guess you had other things to do.”

Michael just stared into his glass, his hands still wrapped around it, allowing the heat to stimulate his blood and turn his

hands pink. The lightning flashed, startling

Curtis. He almost didn’t have enough time to brace himself for what was to follow, which came just seconds behind with a vengeful wrath, leaving a knot in his stomach. To calm himself, he turned his attention back on his brother.

“Is this about mom?!” He had to yell it over the thunder and pouring rain. “I told you you didn’t have to do the eulogy. It all happened so fast. You should have just let someone else… You know?!”

Michael stood and took off his robe, draping it over the back of the chair. Then, left in his shorts and a t-shirt, he said, “It’s hot in here.”

The t-shirt was from an old soft-ball league he used to play in a few years back. His team was called ‘The Heirs of the Earth’ and was made up of people he recruited off the streets to play games on the weekends. Afterwards he would provide pizza and allow them to share their stories and then pray with them. Curtis only caught one game. They lost without scoring, which had come to be expected, but he knew that wasn’t the point. People had started coming from all over town to watch Michael’s team play, cheering for them, cheering for him. Curtis left after the fifth inning with a stomach ache, figuring the cold hotdog to be the culprit.

“You want some ice water instead?” Curtis asked, getting up and going over to the fridge.

“No it’s fine. I need to talk to you about this.”

Curtis returned to his seat, staring into his brother’s dark eyes, waiting for the answer to this mystery that sat before him. But before there could be any big reveal,

before the sound of a drum roll could even begin in Curtis’s mind, they were interrupted by an incoming call on his phone. It was Haley.

* * *

Michael met Haley in Mozambique the summer after he graduated college, where he took a group of Freshmen from his school. She was there with a church group teaching Bible classes to the children, while he was there to build houses for the families of orchard workers. His school group wasn’t supposed to mix with the church kids—Americans take their values with them around the world. The story Curtis heard was that Michael would sneak out at night to meet Haley in the tangerine fields behind her host family’s house. The crisp smell of citrus must have stimulated something in his imagination, because one of those nights Michael got a glimpse of his possible future and decided to make it so. It was in the twilight of the coastal haze that he asked Haley to spend the rest of her life with him. And it was there under the eyes of God that she said yes, though with one stipulation—he must first commit to a year of mission work with her teaching the Bible.

They were married the following summer, after a year together again in the orchards, both under the God’s watch. Her bridesmaids wore the bright color of that citrus fruit that witnessed their first commitment. Curtis stood second in the wedding behind the Best Man whose name was Lloyd from Idaho and had been Michael’s roommate and best friend throughout college, though his new path would set them apart from this day on. At the stingy age of thirteen, Curtis despised

weddings, or at least the ones he had to be at. Uncomfortable in his ill-fit tux, he spent most of the ceremony shifting his position to establish some level of comfort between his legs. Every so often he would catch a dissonant stare from his mother who sat in front wearing the olive green dress she had spent an undisclosed amount on, and a crème colored shawl to keep the summer evening’s breeze off her neck. “I think I’ll wear this again for your wedding,” she had said as they drove to the lake-side summer home of Haley’s parents, where the chairs and altar had already been set up on the terrace. “Don’t get your hopes up,” Curtis replied from the back seat, though he would regret those words many years later when they lowered her casket into the ground.

* * *

The phone continued to vibrate, bouncing across the table, with The Cure’s Just Like Heaven playing thinly through the phone’s speaker and Haley’s kind and benign face captured in the four-inch screen.

“Don’t answer it,” said Michael. Curtis was beginning to feel like his brother was trying to trap him, like he was being coddled into doing or saying something that he wouldn’t otherwise give into. And now the thought entered his mind—was he afraid of his brother? Isn’t it true that you fear what you do not know? They had never played video games together or gone camping or to concerts in the city. They had never talked the way brothers should talk. It was always, hey how are you, good how are you. Good. Just context. Only ever context. Never substance. And so it goes and so it came. There with his brother Michael staring down at him, the truth

struck Curtis like a match in the dark. He was afraid. The only thing he could think to say was what anyone might say in the face of the unknown, which was, “Michael, do you need a doctor?” Michael sat up straight and wiped the sweat off his brow, and then leveled the glasses on his nose. He took his tea and sipped at it slowly, putting his stare at the ceiling. When he came back down he looked at Curtis with eyes of great stillness—empty, as if everything had just washed down his throat with the river of tea.

And then he spoke. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have given that eulogy.” He took another sip. Curtis sat completely still, as if he were before a beast in the wild. “I couldn’t help but just stare at the casket. And as I stared, it seemed to open up in front of me, and I could see her laying there, like one of those porcelain dolls she had.” “I miss her too,” Curtis broke in, trying to be comforting.

“No it’s not that,” he said sternly. “I had this vision. It was a memory that came back as I walked off the stage.”

“What memory?” asked Curtis.“I don’t know, I was maybe twelve

or so and it was late and I had gotten out of bed to get some water. I walked down the hallway, hugging the wall to avoid the creaky floorboards. I remember hearing a voice speaking softly from your room. I didn’t know who or what, but as I got closer to your door and then looked inside I saw mom kneeling next to your crib. I listened, wondering what she was doing, and what she was saying. And then I heard. She said,

Lord, make my son a holy man.” Michael took a sip of tea and then

stood from the table and started pacing. “I had forgotten all about that

night, that little prayer meeting she had. The memory just came to me suddenly as I looked down at her casket. And you know what if felt like? Like she was slipping a note under my door to remind me that it wasn’t supposed to be me.”

“How do you know she didn’t pray the same for you?”

“That was the only time I had ever seen her pray.”

“So?” said Curtis.“So?” Michael’s arms rose into the

air, his hands spread, like he was the one making an offering to God. “This woman did not have a reverent bone in her body. We never went to church, we never read the Bible, we never did anything religious or spiritual. That was noticeably absent from our life. And from hers. Yet there she was, praying for you.”

As Michael paused for a breath, the storm, which had rescinded, had returned in a second wave with a swift flash followed immediately by its roar. Curtis stood to look out the window and witness its power.

“She may have prayed it over me,” he said, “but look what good that did.”

“This isn’t about you.”“Yeah you’ve made that clear.”Michael’s shoulders fell, and his

head sank to the side. He reached out for Curtis’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“But you did.” Curtis looked down and noticed

his knees shaking. He had never had to be strong in front of Michael before, and his body was beginning to give under the strain.

“Is that what you think?” Michael said, backing off.

“I don’t know.” He took hold of the back of the chair to stabilize himself, but he could no longer feel his legs. Every part of his body felt separate from his mind, like he was an engineer controlling a large robotic body with buttons and levers. Even his words sounded distant now, as they seeped from his lips. “I’ve been your brother my whole life. And I know that hasn’t been as long for you. I know you had a life before me. But what do you want me to say, that you don’t matter to me? I’ve always considered you everything.” Curtis opened the window and the air in the room seemed to flee, and then he began to laugh quietly to himself.

“What’s funny?”“Nothing,” he said as the last roar of

thunder echoed through the city. Michael took his glasses off and held

them out in front of his face, examining the lenses for smudges which he wiped off with his shirt. Then he said in a soft voice, “I’m not perfect. I would tell you how often I’ve screwed up, but you know, I like you looking up to me. I like everybody looking up to me. I like making people proud. I liked making mom proud.” Michael’s voice stumbled and his chest swelled. “If she knew…”

Curtis went to get him a glass of water, but Michael told him to stop. “I should get home. Haley’s probably called the police.” He took his robe from the back of the chair and put it on, tying the sash tightly around his waist. Then a smile came to his face. “All those who exalt themselves will be humbled.” Curtis went to Michael and grabbed him. It was the first time he had ever hugged his brother. He felt Michael’s breath on his

neck and the beat of his heart through the softness of his robe. When Curtis let go, Michael stepped back and turned towards the door. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, opening the door to make his exit. “What about the church?” Curtis asked, suddenly remembering the thing that had started it all. “It’s not going anywhere,” he said. And then he was gone.

* * *The day Curtis was born, Michael was picked up early from school by his father and taken to the hospital. When his father reached the large glass entry doors, he realized Michael was no longer by his side. He turned and saw his son standing back in the drop-off zone, staring up at the large building of new red brick. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Michael kept his gaze up at the stone and the clouds that passed behind. His father went to him and knelt down at his side. “Hey, listen, we don’t have to go in there if you’re not ready. It’s ok,” his father said in a near whisper. His son remained still. “I know this has got to be strange for you, having a brother, but trust me, it’s the greatest thing in the world. I loved growing up with my brothers. We did everything together. But, listen, you’re gonna be much older than him, so it’s up to you to set the example because he’s going to look up to you. You have to be strong for him, ok?” Michael turned and met his eyes, which were gentle underneath the large brow. Then he grabbed his father’s face between his hands and said, “Ok.”

The Brothers and The WindmillThe Brothers and The Windmill

“If you tell Mom I brought you here, I’ll kill you!”

“If I tell Mom, she’ll kill both of us!”

“Promise still!” Galoro pressed down on the section of chain-link fence that Pico was stuck under.

“FINE!” conceded Pico. “I promise I won’t tell Mom about your hideout. And if I do you can kill me!”

Skeptical but contented, Galoro lifted the bottom of the fence again, and Pico crawled through. Any other younger brother may have punched Galoro in the face. Pico, however, was no one other than himself. Bravery skin deep, fragile as thin glass. He knew his brother wouldn’t kill him, but he knew it could get ugly. He feared how Galoro would treat him around others. Or worse, how Galoro would ignore him. Then who would Pico talk to?

Who was he kidding, Galoro didn’t talk to Mom or him, ever, which is why Pico was so quick to jump at his brother’s offer to tag

along. Pico thought Galoro could have asked anybody. And he thought in choosing him that that meant something. But what Pico was beginning to piece together was that maybe Galoro didn’t have anyone else to share his discovery with. So, Pico was the default.

“Hurry up, Pico. You’re slower than dirt.”

Kids from other towns wouldn’t think twice about that. But again, Pico was no one but himself and not from any other town than his own. And there, any insult relating a boy to dirt was about the lowest one could go. It meant being one of them, and no one wanted that.

“Stop, will you?” begged Pico. He was beginning to think he made a mistake in coming. Scared, now annoyed, he couldn’t even enjoy the wonderful sight that met them as they pushed through the woods and came over the ridge to an open field that stretched far into the mountainous horizon.

They were in a graveyard for windmills. Dozens of them scattered the land. Many had

The Brothers and The WindmillThe Brothers and The Windmill

decayed, fallen over, and were now overrun by the wild grass. The few left standing now balanced precariously in the wind that blew over the forest behind the brothers and on toward the mountains.

“This way,” said Galoro, setting off for the last standing windmill in the distance. A few hundred feet shy of the windmill, he suddenly stopped and turned to Pico. “Are you sure you want to do this? Because I’ll admit I was scared my first time here, too.”

“Shut up,” Pico told Galoro. “I know what you’re doing. You’d never let me live it down if I turned back.”

“True, but it’s better than being spooked like Uncle J. You don’t want to stare out the window of a crazy home with the rest of the miners that worked with them, do you?”

“Shut UP!” shouted Pico. The wind covered his wavering tone and soothed the fire in his tear ducts.

“I’m just saying, everyone else has chosen to think they blew themselves up with the mine.

It’s okay if you do the same and never know whether I’m telling the truth or not.”

Galoro had a sick talent for making Pico both want and not want to follow him. It was cruel, actually, because even though Pico shoved his way past his older brother just then, he did it without a hint of confidence in his walk. Galoro quickly gained the lead, announcing without words who was king in this court.

“Use this rope here to help you climb,” Galoro said, beginning to ascend the windmill before Pico ever reached the base. “But don’t put all your weight on it. I’m not sure it could take it.” He climbed a little further before stopping to add, “And that’s not a fat joke…though it could be, you fat sack of dirt.”

Pico blew off this insult easily because he was transfixed by what looked like a mouth opening up in the field next to the windmill. A massive cavity descended far into the earth. From where he stood, Pico could see that a few feet below the soil under the field, the wall of the pit was smooth, hard rock for a distance greater than the height of the windmill. He tried to get closer to see deeper, but his giant

by Daniel W. Long

feet tripped in the extra length of rope and he hit the ground face first.

Galoro’s laugh made the windmill shake as Pico picked himself up and started to climb. Uncertain which he should give more weight to, he weakly shifted his hold on old wood beams and the even older rope crumbling in his fingers. Its coarseness felt familiar. He couldn’t place it until he finally struggled onto the platform at the top, where he saw a number of tools he instantly recognized.

“Are these Dad’s…old tools?” he managed between heavy breaths. “And…his rope…too?”

“Yep, don’t tell Mom,” said Galoro, who was already lying on his stomach, casually spitting into the pit, and taking delight in his accuracy.

“You greedy, dirt clod!” said Pico, attempting insults he knew he was no good at.

“Come on, Pico. Were you actually playing with this stuff when it was at home?” Galoro took his time rising to his feet, as if he couldn’t move fast enough to show how little he cared that Pico was bothered by any of this. If anything, Galoro looked annoyed that Pico was distracting him from the fun they could be having.

“Yes,” said Pico. “And Mom’s been looking for it. I should have known you’d taken it…”

“So what!” snapped Galoro. “It was all just sitting there, except for the rope you so loved to chew on when you first crawled out of the dirt.”

“Shut up!”

“This is stupid,” said Galoro, who started hocking up phlegm from his deepest bowels. He continued with a gurgle, “I don’t know why I brought you.”

Galoro turned back to the edge and dropped another saliva grenade. He watched for a moment before suddenly raising his arms in victory, stepping with toes just over the edge, and howling into the wind.

“STOP SPITTING ON THEM!” yelled Pico, driven by anger more than courage or goodwill. Still, it didn’t matter if he meant to stand in their defense or not. Galoro now had the makings to destroy Pico.

“THEM…down there?” Galoro faced his little brother, his heels still a hair away from the edge. His lack of fear in spite of the height made him all the more frightening to Pico. “Who cares about them? Except…” he acted like he was discovering a big clue to a long unsolved mystery, “except if you are one of them.”

“NO I’M NOT!”

“Yes, that’s it. Dad never had time to claim you as his own, but maybe that’s fine because you weren’t his.”

“STOP IT!”

“When did you climb out of the pit, Pico? Which one’s your daddy down there?!”

“AHHH!” Pico bellowed against the wind, and both boys forgot where they were in that instance.

Pico rushed at Galoro, who jumped out of the way. The younger boy couldn’t even try to stop himself. Giant’s feet and all, over the edge he went, before Galoro could think of grabbing him.

Down.

Far down.

The first thing Pico noticed was the lack of wind against his skin.

Then—the darkness. He closed his eyes as it swallowed him alive.

Pico felt something slippery down his side. Then another. Each time, his descent slowed until he hit a hard object, softer than a rock, but not by much. It gave way and Pico heard a grunt of pain. The boy continued to fall. He tumbled in the air as if caught up in a heavy current. But suddenly, something caught his ankle.

Pico stopped falling.

The pressure of blood in his head told the boy that he was upside down. He slowly opened his eyes. Cast in a faint light, the bottom of the pit looked like a large monster with scales crawling no further away from him than the height of the windmill. He could hear the sucking sound of feet loosing from mud and the smack of them stomping down.

A large object went flying past him, making Pico consider all that he hit on the way down. It crashed through the crawling mass below, and the entire thing stopped moving. The mass gave way, and Pico saw what looked like limbs sticking out of the ground, struggling

to get free of the thick mud they were buried in. Then all the scales on the monster turned upward, and Pico saw that they were actually heads connected to hundreds of lanky bodies, their flesh so mixed with dirt and mud he couldn’t tell what was skin and what was earth.

When their attention focused on him, each set of eyes glowed as they captured every hint of light that dared venture that deep into the earth.

Silence.

Pico felt his body move against his will. He looked at a muddy torso protruding from the wall who had caught him by the ankle. The creature was hairless. Its body, weak and frail. The face turned with curiosity as Pico was swung about for inspection. It grunted with each thought. It then brought Pico face-to-face with itself.

The pressure in Pico’s head made every thought slowly trudge through his brain. When the creature opened its mouth—a dripping cave on a muddy bank—Pico thought of being eaten alive. He kicked and punched. The creature held him out like a stinking animal.

“Let me go!” Pico yelled. There was a loud, bassy thud, and the creature groaned with pain and aggravation.

Pico heard his older brother shouting far away. He saw the rock that Galoro had thrown fall a little further until another creature hanging off the wall caught it. It investigated the rock before dropping it out of the way of those at the bottom.

Galoro threw another rock, and another, each hitting with dead accuracy until Pico felt the grip around his ankle loosen. The creature dropped Pico, and the boy crashed against more bodies on the way down. With a loud SMACK, he sunk into the mud.

“PICO…”

The voice of Galoro echoed down the chasm. It sounded like a whisper by time it reached Pico’s ears. He felt as if the call were waking him from a dream. But his eyes opened to a sideways world. His left cheek was planted deep in slimy earth. Feet moved all around him as if walking on a muddy wall. They were right by him but not stopping. Each one kept walking past him. Had he become so buried in the mud that they couldn’t even see him?

He began to slither himself backward toward a wall, glancing over his shoulder to see how close he was. Nothing was in his way, except a set of eyes fixed on his location. The creature they belonged to hesitated a moment. It looked around at the others, but didn’t say a word. Then it began walking toward Pico, picking up speed until Pico thought it intended to crush him. The creature lifted a foot and slammed it down so close to Pico’s face that mud from the leg oozed down into his ear.

A push hit Pico in the chest, then another in his gut, until Pico realized the creature was shoving him back toward the wall with its feet. He panicked and fought to break free, but the mud encased him. It was going to suffocate him at this rate. When his back hit against the wall, all the creatures stopped

moving, and if he didn’t stop resisting they’d hear him for sure.

In short glimpses through the mud sliding over his eyes, Pico saw that all of them were looking at the one standing over him. From the group, one of them fiercely approached. All of them began making noises when the world suddenly went completely dark. A final shove in his chest from the creature’s foot sank Pico deep into mud and dirt so thick that it filled every pore in his body. It constricted around him. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even fight to breathe. He was done for, and certain of it, when he felt the earth all around him shake over and over again.

The vibrations sent him deeper into the earth until he felt an arm wrap around his body. It pulled him in one direction then let go. The pressure of the earth around him opened wider, and Pico found he actually had space to move. The sound of rocks being struck together filled the pitch dark. Two sparks flew and burst into a larger flame that settled in the palm of a muddy hand.

Molding like a potter, the creature rapidly expanded the small bubble it had made around Pico and itself with one hand, while cradling a blue fireball in the other. The air smelled of something foul that sank its way into Pico’s lungs and pulled them inward. The constriction diminished the scream the boy finally had a chance to let loose.

The creature immediately stopped its work and shoved its hand hard against Pico’s face, filling his mouth with mud that seemed to

crawl freely on its skin. It brought the hand with the flame close to its face and waved it around its mouth as if to say, Shut up!

It was too late. A head popped in through the wall. It gave one look at the creature and one at Pico before opening its mouth wide. Its flesh quivered and there was no mistaking the anger deep in its eyes. The other creature punched the head back into the earth with its fire hand. All went dark again when Pico felt himself being dragged into the earth and pulled up through the bottom of the pit. The creature carried him, ascending with incredible speed, jumping off torsos half-protruding from the walls and grabbing onto whatever bits of earth it could sink its fingers into.

When the creature swung Pico on its back, he lost any sense of orientation and fought with every molecule of muscle in his body to hold on to the slippery body. Dozens of hands grabbed at him. Creatures came from everywhere, there eyes burned brighter the higher they got. When one nearly caught up to them, a huge rock smashed it in the face. The creature groaned loudly as it fell through the horde behind it, only taking out a few

on its way down. Pico looked up to see Galoro hurling rocks from the top.

His brother threw one last rock, then disappeared over the edge. A moment later, an end of rope came flying into the pit. It still didn’t reach much further than halfway down the smooth surface. As much as he hated it, Pico braced for what had to come next.

He held on so tightly he could feel the creature’s body tighten. For a brief second, all its flesh turned hard as stone as it hurled Pico and itself up the smooth wall. Wind hit Pico’s face, breaking the fear of the moment briefly. At the peak of the leap, they were a few feet up the rope, and the creature grabbed hold of it.

It all happened so fast Pico never thought once what he was experiencing. He gave one last look down at the pit crawling with life. The creature pulled him off its back and put him on the rope ahead of itself. His arms were completely dead, though. It was all he could do just to hold on until the creature came up under his feet to let them rest on its shoulders.

“Thanks…” Pico gasped. Slowly, they made their way to the top.

“Hey, you’re almost there, Pico,” said a waiting Galoro, stretching his hand far for that moment he could help his brother.

Pico finally caught hold of Galoro, who pulled him out with surprising ease. The younger boy stayed sitting up long enough to feel his face cupped in his brother’s hands. Galoro showed a smile then gave his brother something between a head-butt and a kiss on top of the head. Pico fell backward. He lay there breathing heavy, as the dirt flew up on his breath before being carried away by the wind.

A struggle suddenly broke out at the edge of the pit. Pico rolled his head to barely catch site of Galoro kicking forcefully, then standing up, grabbing a rock, and hurling it down with all his might. Before he could say anything, he heard the impact of a well-aimed rock. The groan of the creature it hit faded fast as it fell quickly. Pico struggled to get up but couldn’t, in part due to exhaustion, but mostly out of his inability to discern the millions of emotional explosions going on inside.

“Let’s go, Pico,” Galoro was now by his side putting Pico’s arm over his shoulder. “I got to get you home to Mo…”“Stop,” Pico gasped. He tried to push Galoro away. His inability to do so only made the tears finally come.

“We have to go, now.” Galoro finally managed to get Pico to his feet.

“How could you do…THAT!” Pico gave Galoro a hit to be remembered, if not by memory, then by the black eye it was bound to make. He didn’t give Galoro time to prepare for another. He let it rip. Then again. Until finally Galoro took a few steps back to reveal that he too had tears forming in his eyes.

“Stop it, Pico,” he said. “What were we going to do? We couldn’t let him get out?”

“Why not?” asked Pico, not caring for an answer.

“I don’t know. Because they’ve got to be down there for a reason. They’re dangerous. We don’t have a father because of them. Mom

cries every night because of them.” He stopped to wipe away some tears. “So, I’m sorry, but we’re not letting one of them out. And I’m getting you home before we do anything else stupid that hurts you.”

Galoro wouldn’t accept resistance this time, and Pico didn’t have anything left to try. He passed out as soon as Galoro got one arm over his shoulder. He caught sight of shoes scraping on dirt, windmills overrun by wild grass, and a section of chain fence that needed to be repaired. The familiar creaking of boards in an old house was the last thing he remembered.

Pico fell asleep for three days, never having the chance to tell their Mom where Galoro took him. Instead, Galoro got the chance to do that all by himself, in the presence of the town sheriff two days later. The officer had come to the door with a bunch of beaten up old tools that their mother instantly recognized.

Up the stairs, the officer’s voice carried to where Galoro sat eavesdropping. That morning, two officers were patrolling the fence around the windmill field. They came across a large section of the fence that looked like it had been marched over by a stampede. The officers followed trails far into the field toward the pit where they kept the

creatures those people discovered in the mines.At this point, Galoro remembered something that made him bolt to his feet.

The Sheriff continued to say that the pit was found completely empty. Not a creature roaming the bottom. Not a body hanging out of the walls or climbing about. Nothing. Except, the shattered remains of one of the windmills. They had people exploring the pit now but all they managed to find so far were these tools, which their mother now had in her hands, and the tattered remains of rope so old that the sheriff ’s office held onto it only because it was evidence.

The Sheriff needed to take the tools back, but he came by to put a rest to the case of the missing tools for their worried mother. He had no suspicion on suspects yet, but soon as he did, he’d let her know. Before he could dip his hat to leave, though, their mother said she had a list of suspects she thought the sheriff should talk with. She then gave a shout for Galoro that could summon Death to her side.

“Here, Mom,” he said. He was already behind her. With the sheriff present, Galoro figured he had the safest chance at avoiding his mother’s death sentence.

lyrics

section


I came to the shore

with a crown on my head

but my uncle wants it for himself

I walked into a stain

from a line of Peter’s hands

but hoped to see it pointing else

Grandma’s


Wrinkled Hands

I came across a boy

from a time distant past

he told me he was not the mirror

I came across a man

a giant of a light

holding grandma’s wrinkled hand

don’t dry me out

don’t dry me out

I will hold her

and be held by her

don’t drive me out

don’t drive me out

Lyrics by Elliott Chung,the band Towne & Country

I came to the shore

with a crown on my head

but my uncle wants it for himself

I walked into a stain

from a line of Peter’s hands

but hoped to see it pointing else

Jesus said, “By my grace, you may heal any body

Drive out demons with heavenly newsOnly shiver for He who can burn soul and body

Not for cold water spilled on your shoes”Brother dear, are we flaunting our “honor” with 30 pence of bulge in our belts?

Jesus said, “Bleat out loud as purple wolves flog your body

In my Spirit, both serpent and doveWhen your household disowns every cell in your body

Know my sword shines with radical love”Sister dear, are we killing for kindness and 30 pence from high priests and kings?

Jesus said, “You will always be my student bodyBut you disown me in desperate hope to graduate

Stay in homes undeserving of my blood and bodySandals heavy with dust and hearts even heavier with hate

Brother dear, are we raping guest angels for 30 pence of laughter and lust?

Willingly led by the hairs on our headWe’re just sparrows falling down to the ground

Jesus said, “Don’t expect me to please everybodyWhen your flock is so stubbornly lost

I’ll return to ensure that my most worthy bodyFinds its true life collapsed under cross”

Sister dear, are we trading our thorns in for 30 pence of laughter and lust?

by todd hooversparrows


Jesus said, “By my grace, you may heal any body

Drive out demons with heavenly newsOnly shiver for He who can burn soul and body

Not for cold water spilled on your shoes”Brother dear, are we flaunting our “honor” with 30 pence of bulge in our belts?

Jesus said, “Bleat out loud as purple wolves flog your body

In my Spirit, both serpent and doveWhen your household disowns every cell in your body

Know my sword shines with radical love”Sister dear, are we killing for kindness and 30 pence from high priests and kings?

Jesus said, “You will always be my student bodyBut you disown me in desperate hope to graduate

Stay in homes undeserving of my blood and bodySandals heavy with dust and hearts even heavier with hate

Brother dear, are we raping guest angels for 30 pence of laughter and lust?

Willingly led by the hairs on our headWe’re just sparrows falling down to the ground

I watch the ocean swallow up the rays of sunAnd watch the waves open their mouths and eat the day that’s almost doneI say good-bye to another moment of my feeble lifeI feel the sand inside the holes between my toesAnd feel it penetrate the deepest regions of my soul I feel alive, if only for a moment ‘fore I die

This life is just a breathOf wind inside your chestThere’s more than what you see to you and meWe’re more than momentary

I gaze at needles poking holes into the skyAnd think about the thousand years between the light that shines and II realize I’m so much younger than I feel inside

More Than Momentary

By kyle Shevlin

I follow clouds as they crawl across the air

And wonder how it is that water finds a way to stay up there

I feel so dry, like something has been missing from my life

This life is just a breath

Of wind inside your chest

There’s more than what you see to you and me

We’re more than momentary

What of me will last forever? I don’t know

Will it be my last endeavor growing old?

Will my thoughts mean a thing centuries from now?

Will I leave anything but bones inside the ground?

This life is just a breath

Of wind inside your chest

There’s more than what you see to you and me

We’re more than momentary

This life is just a breathOf wind inside your chest

There’s more than what you see to you and meWe’re more than momentary

Oh, we’re more than momentaryOh, we’re more than momentary

I watch the ocean swallow up the rays of sunAnd watch the waves open their mouths and eat the day that’s almost doneI say good-bye to another moment of my feeble lifeI feel the sand inside the holes between my toesAnd feel it penetrate the deepest regions of my soul I feel alive, if only for a moment ‘fore I die

This life is just a breathOf wind inside your chestThere’s more than what you see to you and meWe’re more than momentary

I gaze at needles poking holes into the skyAnd think about the thousand years between the light that shines and II realize I’m so much younger than I feel inside

Guide me , won ’ t you gu ide me Lord ; gu ide me in a l l a Your waysGuide me , won ’ t you gu ide me Lord ; gu ide me in a l l a Your waysGuide me a l l the way down your path , sweet Lord an ’Guide me f o r a l l my days .

Guide Me, Lord by todd hoover

I been wa l k ing l i ke a b l ind man , can ’ t see two fee t f r on t o meI been wa l k ing l i ke a b l ind man , can ’ t see two fee t f r on t o me

Gots a back bent down so l ow , fee l the we ight o my s in a k i l l in ’ me

Wine and women been my bread f o r oh so l ongWine and women been my bread f o r oh so l ong

Wine done la id me ou tSo , so many women I’d done wrong

Lead me t o the r iver , wash a l l my s ins awayLead me t o the r iver , wash a l l my s ins away

Lead me down t o the r iver , Lord , theseSins be gett in b igger every day

Guide me , won ’ t you gu ide me Lord ; gu ide me in a l l a Your waysGuide me , won ’ t you gu ide me Lord ; gu ide me in a l l a Your waysGuide me a l l the way down your path , sweet Lord an ’Guide me f o r a l l my days .

GLORY & FiREby mikey master


Out of Egypt, I’ve been broughtI remember the love that set me free You can rid us of fear in the landYou can give us peace once again

The cloud filled with glory sets down again

Its covering rests upon me and gives me peace to set out

The garden’s growth surrounded meAs the breeze moved through me

All was in its place

The peace on earth was thick

But I listened to lies and wa

s deceived by them

I swallowed my fill and was

left empty

You called out m

y name

And I hid my face i

n fear

A pillar

of fire, I felt

it in my gut

It never left its

place from my sight

I’m hemmed in by your

glory all aroun

d

A pillar of clo

ud, an angel

of the Lord a

nd the sea

Your fire is in my bonesWhen I see it I feel rightWith everything I have I will loveI will become what is placed upon my heart My heart is laid bare before the mountainWhere can consolation come but from you?

Glory Glory Glory


The sun ’s come ou t , snow is me l t ing

Water f i l l s the dra inGutters f i l l ed w i th what has passed

Skies have c leared , bu t s t i l l a lasYou ’ re shove l ing the dr iveway

Mov ing th ings that don ’ t remainKeep i t up , keep i t up

You might go insane

It ’s l inger ing , that fee l ingThat f i r s t brought me t o repentance

I can’ t shake th is gu i l tThough You ’ve a l ready served the sentence

I can’ t te l l the d i f fe renceCondemnat i on o r conv ic t i on

What do I do when I can’ t te l lIs th is rea l o r i s th is f i c t i on?

END

From ashes t o ashesDust t o dus tTo s in aga ins t the Lord ,You th ink i t takes a l o t o f gu ts?It ’s no t so much bo ldnessAs i t i s b l indness Oh! I do what I don ’ t want t o . . .And worse , I don ’ t do what I want t o !Do I ho ld in contemptThe pat ience o f the Lord ; my sa lvat i on?

by Aaron Randolph“Romans 2:4”

The sun ’s come ou t , snow is me l t ing

Water f i l l s the dra inGutters f i l l ed w i th what has passed

Skies have c leared , bu t s t i l l a lasYou ’ re shove l ing the dr iveway

Mov ing th ings that don ’ t remainKeep i t up , keep i t up

You might go insane

It ’s l inger ing , that fee l ingThat f i r s t brought me t o repentance

I can’ t shake th is gu i l tThough You ’ve a l ready served the sentence

I can’ t te l l the d i f fe renceCondemnat i on o r conv ic t i on

What do I do when I can’ t te l lIs th is rea l o r i s th is f i c t i on?

END

I’ve heard that you can feed the hungry

Water and wine and bread for the empty

God I’m full of fil th and I’m filled with myself

So would you God would you please starve me


People say

tha

t you

can mak

e a

blind

man

see

He

open

s his

eye

s to his

firs

t su

nrise

the

tre

es a

nd sha

dows

dan

cing

But I’v

e se

en e

noug

h now

I kn

ow tha

t mirr

ors ca

n’t lov

e

So w

ould you

God

wou

ld you

pleas

e blind

me

Would

you

God

wou

ld you

pleas

e blind

me

Rum

ors

say

that

you

can

mak

e th

e de

ad b

reat

he

They

wak

e an

d laug

h lik

e kids

righ

t af

ter

slee

ping

But I’m

hau

nted

by

my

own

hollow

life

So wo

uld

you

God

wou

ld y

ou pleas

e kill me

Would

you

God

wou

ld y

ou pleas

e kill me

Would

you

God

wou

ld y

ou c

rucify

me?

by Michael WrightResurrect Me

I’ve heard that you can feed the hungry

Water and wine and bread for the empty

God I’m full of fil th and I’m filled with myself



by Michael WrightResurrect Me

I don’t know where to s

tart.

There are scars I could show.

If I opened my heart.

But how far, Lord?

But how far can I go?

I don’t know.

BY JUSTiN GUiTTARD

If I could, I’d confess.

Good and loud, nice and slow.

Get this load off my chest.

Yes, but how Lord - I don’t know.

What I say, I don’t feel.

What I feel, I don’t show.

What I show isn’t real.

What is real Lord -

I don’t know.

No, no, no - I don’t kn

ow.

HOW FAR LORD?

if you got scars on your back where your wings used to be

don’t worry you’ll be safe with me

if your halo breaks into more than one piece


are you swallowed by shadows in a crowded room

don’t worry I’ve been lonely too

do you know that no one will ever know you

don’t worry I’ll say yes to you

only the broken will break bread with me

so don’t you worry

are you lost in the pages of the books that you read

don’t worry love don’t need words to speak

have you locked up your heart and buried the key

don’t worry I will set you free

are you weighed down my all the heavy rules that you keep

don’t worry I’ll bring you to your feet

are you tired from stretching for what you’ll never reach

don’t worry I’ll bring you to your knees

CommunionHymn

by Michael Wrightonly the broken will break bread with meso don’t you worry

are you holding thorns and the lilies won’t bloomdon’t worry I’ve fel t those same damn woundsdo you feel as empty as a white washed tombdon’t worry I’ve been in one of those too


if you got scars on your back where your wings used to be


if your halo breaks into more than one piece


are you swallowed by shadows in a crowded room

don’t worry I’ve been lonely too

do you know that no one will ever know you

don’t worry I’ll say yes to you

only the broken will break bread with me

so don’t you worry

are you lost in the pages of the books that you read

don’t worry love don’t need words to speak

have you locked up your heart and buried the key

don’t worry I will set you free

are you weighed down my all the heavy rules that you keep

don’t worry I’ll bring you to your feet

are you tired from stretching for what you’ll never reach

don’t worry I’ll bring you to your knees

Photo by Stephanie Struck.

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