Five Skin Tears

For years I’ve written. Sermons first and then journals, books, newsletter articles, press releases, lots of grants, letters to the editor, Judy’s term papers cause she could add (until the end) but couldn’t write anything if her life depended on it, arguments for funding, letters, drafts of divorce settlements and … now blogs.

For as long as I can remember I’ve written every day.

These days I mostly freebase.

With sermons you have to work God into it eventually (though I remain stunned at the number of clergy who don’t) … in books you have to have chapters that all fit together somehow … newsletter articles have to tug hearts to open checkbooks …press releases have to get the attention of the paper or television to do the story … letters to the editor have word limits … Judy’s term paper was like seventh grade stuff … arguments for funding were always fun because you have to dummy down the writing so the Congressman or City Official could understand it (kind of like Dr. Seuss needs money and will make up words to impress you) … letters are great cause they’re from the heart but hearts can’t be confined to paper … drafts for divorce leave you humbled …

BUT BLOGS … are freebasing … like mixing your drugs and breaking all the rules!

I love it!

You can do whatever you want. Write about anything. Go long. Go short. Whatevs …

Yesterday I wrote about sitting by myself with my feet dangling in a swimming pool, staring at the Back River of the Ocean, being at one with it … smelling it … feeling it … being it …

Thinking about the things I’ve lost and the things I’ve gained …

And of course God was present … she made all of this anyway … and I was thanking her for it … saying prayers … celebrating creation and the fact that I have friends who let me show up at their house to use their pool on days so hot they make your believe in hell …

But feelings of things I want and don’t have yet … led to me saying the word “Dammit” as I slapped the water.

Later while freebasing God and Dammit came together … in a holy way I think … at least that is the way that I think about it … God gave us this life … Dammit! Sometimes it doesn’t always go right …

So I wrote it out of me (as my son Jeremy describes it) and posted it … and it was amazing.

The phone started ringing. People wrote me asking me to call them. Others wrote asking me to write them … a couple texted wanting to come to Tybee to sit on Shirley’s sad little holy dock with Goddess and me talk.

I was busy all day. I was working hard and there is stuff being done to the house … and major distractions seemed to just lie on my couch as I tried to get things done …

Then towards the end of the day a friend of mine wrote saying that she didn’t like God and Damn being so close to one another. I say what I want every day and it doesn’t bother me in the least when people say what they want in response. I think it’s healthy and can cause dialogues if you remain open minded about it all. So she wrote and I read and thought well… that is that.

But through the miracle of technology we fell into an instant message chat. She asked if I was upset. I said no. She asked how I was. I asked how she was. This is the stuff that eventually leads to “community” if we’re lucky.

Then she told me that she had a day full of Five Skin Tears.

“What?” I replied. “Five Skin Tears?”

And she told me about it. You needed five layers of skin to get through that sad anger.

“Righteous indignation,” is what the Bible calls it, I told her. “Sometimes being pissed can be a very holy thing.”

We talked and were closer because of it. But Dammit God … sometimes things like that shouldn’t happen … why are people sometimes so cruel to one another … especially when frail innocence is involved?

Then we both had to go … but we’re closer because of it all … rain fell outside and we’ve all been praying for it for months … and God delivered just in the nick of time …

Dammit! It’s amazing what God does … and when … and how …