Boy, it’s been a whole minute since I’ve written one word. But this Rapture thing today has got me reminiscing. About a time I sat in my pastor’s office at 15 years old with two pieces of paper in hand – one with a page full of questions to ask about predestination. The other? HOW DO I PREPARE FOR THE RAPTURE?
And before you ask if I’m making light of the Rapture with blasphemy, let me assure you, I made NO light of it for almost my whole life. I took that stuff seriously.
Have you ever seen the movie “Mermaids,” with Cher, Winona Ryder, and Christina Ricci? When it came out in 1990, I was 21 and the family joke was still that I was still the Charlotte Flax of the family.
Virginal, unnecessarily pious, scared out of my MOTHER EFFING mind of a God I believed was the Old Testament OG, willing to save an incestuous family with a drunk at the helm in an Ark, while thousands of “less holy” human beings are drowned like river rats in the rising tides of doom.
But I digress.
What teenager is wringing her hands about such lofty theological worries? One with terrible anxiety and a crushing need to please people. And to please God, of course.
“That’s a big subject for one so young,” I remember he said. And the next half hour he danced around it, when all I wanted him to say was that I was on Santa-God’s “Nice List,” and clear of the “Naughty” one. No such luck. If you are not predestined for Heaven, you wouldn’t even know it. You either aren’t or you are, and you can’t earn it. Good luck, Kid!
(That pastor would be fired a couple of years later for sexually harassed several women in the church and having a full-blown affair with another. Freaking creeper. Perverts do not deserve positions in power, but HAHAHAHAHAHA! That does NOT seem to matter anymore! I don’t think you are ALLOWED to be in a position in power nowadays WITHOUT being a pervert!)
Even that didn’t deter me from wanting to dedicate my life to Christ…
And dedicate it again. And again.
And in case God was out that day and my attendance went unacknowledged, dedicate it AGAIN.
Am I in, or not? WHAT IS THE SECRET HANDSHAKE!!???
I have made so many altar-calls in my day, I wore the aisle carpets out. Each time begging God to save my heathen friends so that they too could be caught up in the clouds and not suffer the fiery furnace of Hell. And I really, really hope I am predestined, please God, please please, AMEN.
THE RAPTURE? I took that stuff especially to HEART.
For fifty years, I woke up every day wondering if we would we even hear it over the cacophony of chaos we find ourselves in? (Another thing I believe is that we are CURRENTLY in Hell. We are God experiencing himself through the human element in our humanity, both light and shadows. This is where we learn. This is where we suffer.
My current theology is that one day – one glorious day – we will all share Christ-consciousness. It will be an indwelling of Oneness, not a mass yeet up in the clouds. Sharing God’s mind. (And before you think that’s out of the realm of possibility, look around you. Did you ever think this would be happening? Evil is having its rave, and I know we all feel like we are crowd-surfing madness.)
It’s insanity right now, Dear Ones. I know it is.
But keep looking for the light. Keep BEING the light, somehow. (Good thing I am less Charlotte Flax, and more of who I was created to be.)
I will land on love.
I will land on peace.
I will live out my days without fear of a Sky Daddy who is waiting to smite ‘n yeet us. But seek out the FATHER, who is only ever love.
A father that doesn’t leave our sides, even as we surf the madness.
My goofy cat soaking up some vinyl prism rainbows through the window. Both of these things make me deliriously happy. I woke up hella depressed, in pain, and with a heavy heart. As so often happens, by the time I finish writing any given piece, I end up with some measure of comfort. It’s a weird phenomenon, but hey – what’s NOT weird these days? I wish you peace today, Dear Reader. Peace that passes understanding. And I pray you find evidence of God today in someone’s kindness.
By: JANA GREENE
I asked myself, “Where the Hell is God right now?” Because seriously WTF is happening? War and loss and disaster, oh my! I was feeling this way when I woke up this morning and sat down to write. Maybe that’ll help? God likes to slap me around with my own words at times…in a non-violent manner, of course, and with lots of love.
When you are having a depressive episode, the realization that a whole new day stretches before you is met with dread. Another one? Another whole day, chock full of pain in my body and pain in the world? Gee. Thanks.
Today we might have a new war. A new leukemia symptom. A new dislocation or migraine. A new issue with one of our kids. A new thing to grieve for, or about.
We occupy a doom-inducing, batshit crazy habitat full of awful unfolding of events in our world. Another day that we are supposed to be glad in rejoice! I do my best to please the Lord, but when he seems to be on sabbatical, it’s rough. Like having an emergency only your boss can fix, but he’s on vacation, left the office in complete disarray, and yelled, “SCREW THIS, I’M OUT!” on the way out. *SLAMS DOOR* Because that’s what I would do for sure.
For thousands of families that, this new day will bring heartache. They are looking for missing loved ones in a thick Carolina mudslide. It is a day that will either bring unresolved searching or crushing confirmation of loss. Again.
For so many around the world, a new day means missile sirens and the obliteration of their homes and possibly families. There is no holiness in war machines. Nothing sacred about violence. And so, for them, the new day brings devastation.
What the Hell is God doing right now? Where are you, God? It’s a mess down here!
But then I heard from one of my dearest friends, who live a couple of hours from the Blueridge portion of the Appalachians. This soft-souled woman and her kind and beautiful adult daughter had made a trip to pick up and foster a motley crew of terrified, traumatized cats and dogs. They brought them home, timid and scared, and are giving them a soft place to land and an environment that will envelop them in love (and probably spoil them, to be honest.) And I said, Oh. There you are, God. In the hands of people who care for the animals.
But that’s people, you say. And I say, how else would he make himself known but by people, made in his image to help and show love.
And then my husband held me for five whole minutes before leaving for work this morning (it would have been whole hours, if I’d have asked him.) He asked me what I needed, because he is so kind to bring me coffee or water when my body is creaky and sore. “Just hold me,” I said. In his embrace, I felt the presence of a loving deity within him. I know he is worried about me and my health and is frustrated that he cannot fix my pain. But in a way, he did, he does, in long, healing hugs. No words, just love so undiluted, I could not deny that God was loving me through my husband.
And as I was asking this very valid question, “Where are you, God?” I had a visit from Ollie, my 26-pound, longhaired black cat. I couldn’t get out of bed. Just couldn’t, too pained. Too sad. Ollie is so affectionate, and as the first tears of the day rolled down my cheeks, he pressed into me, nudging his head on my wet face. I told him good morning, and that I was sad, and he seemed to say, “I know, Mom. That’s what the extra smooshies are for.” Then his tabby brother Neo had his turn, coming to cuddle and say good morning. Purring and content, he let me bury my face in his fur. Yes, I decided. God is in the unconditional love of a pet. Absolutely. And you can never convince me otherwise.
Where are you, God? I was still asking. But as I was doom-scrolling through TikTok, the internet powers-that-be decided to add rescue videos to my algorithm, and dozens of clips of heroes took over my screen. It was like the Universe said, “Well she’s not going to get off of social media, so I’ll send her some digital hope.” And it was a little injection of hope. People being helpmates.
As if the heavenlies broke open, and I saw men and women standing amongst the worst devastation you can imagine, shell-shocked but intent on helping. They are administering first aid. They are in helicopters, eagle-eyed for any sign of life amongst the destruction, ready to drop a rope and climb into the muck themselves. Thousands of people in Appalachia have lost everything they have, but there are scores of volunteers gathering supplies, stepping up to do the administrative work to get them to the people in need. Good people, who carry that particle of God broken off into all of us, are fundraising and praying all hours of the day and night. Ah, God. There you are.
I am reminded of a story told by Mr. Fred Rogers – who carried and exercised his God particle more than most of us – from childhood. He was especially afraid of certain things -a very sensitive and thoughtful boy. When he would see scary things on the television news, his mother would say to him, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” His whole life -especially in times of great disaster – he remembered his mother’s words. ” I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world,” he continued.
Look for the helpers.
I still say WTF IS HAPPENING. Because hey, what the f*ck IS happening? But if you ask me – and you didn’t – I have a theory about why traumatic events are amping up all over the world. While my monkey-mind and lizard-brain are having a pow-wow about how we are DOOOOOMED, my Highest Self is aware that God is actually pressing into us right now. But not in religiosity. And not in a booming voice breaking open the heavens, or in The Big Zapping Up to heaven called “the rapture.”
He is pressing into us when we press into each other. He is comforting us with smooshies from big, fat, affectionate kitties, and rooms full of rainbows that get a little help from plastic vinyl stickers. He is reminding us that he’s still here by holding us for minutes (or hours) in the arms of a loved one. He rescues and fosters terrified doggies and gave them food, warmth, and love. He searches in the landslides for his creation, recovers the lost and returns them to their families. He grieves with the grieving. People forget the shortest sentence in the Bible – Jesus wept. His DNA is in our tears. He looks at the devastation and decides that he can become the hands and feet of volunteers. Made in his image, we carry the literal God.
And we carry him into our hurting world, whether we do it in his name or not. It is the good we carry. When I am hurting, worried, despondent – his voice isn’t booming. No hand comes through the clouds with the announcement BE HEALED MY CHILD, FOR I DECREE IT THUS! I HAVE COME TO COLLECT MY CHOSEN FEW! That’s movie stuff. That’s fundamentalist stuff. Evangelical teaching. There is no chosen few. ALL are made in his image. And anyway, that’s not how any of this works.
This is the “rapture;” his spirit is already present. We are in the thick of it, as we get ever closer to sharing God-consciousness in whole. Until then, chaos – that we ourselves create. It seems to run unchecked, until he comes for us with a compassionate whisper:
Please don’t lose hope. Look for the signs and wonders; they are as plentiful as the harbingers of doom; you just have to look in the right places. Rest in me when the pain comes. Don’t hold back tears, I am collecting them and will exchange them for joy. Keep loving my children, even though they can be brats. Keep loving my children, even though they are picking up arms. Love those who curse you. Throw grace around like confetti. Don’t bemoan your fate – it might be the one thing that gives another hope. Look for that hope in EACH new day. And do what you can for helpless people in hopeless situations, whether it be a personal hell or great disaster.
You guys could be reading any of a million things right now. Instead, you are here – voluntarily reading a blog. But blogs fell out of fashion at least ten years ago. Nobody reads blogs anymore, I’m told. So go on, GIT! (I’m just kidding, I love my readers and am extremely grateful for each of you.)
I am not commercially successful as a writer, by any stretch. But I love to play in a wide sky of words, reaching up and plucking the right ones out of the ethers, matching them with other words just waiting to be paired.
I’ll never forget that years ago, an acquaintance called me a “prolific writer.” Lawd, I was so flattering. Prolific! That sounds even better than “she writes real good.” Only it doesn’t mean “she writes real good.” It means I write a lot – some might say too much. It means my OCD manifests on pages and keystrokes. The dictionary says it means “an artist or author who produces many works.” And I produce many. Since the age of sixteen, I have used the written word to try to pound out my destiny, not realizing that I was really just pounding out my feelings. Any time I feel a certain way, I’ve written. And the truth is that I sometimes don’t know how I feel until I process my feelings through writing.
And the #1 reason writers write is to give the mindf*ckery a ticket out of our brains. Sometimes it takes the ticket and we feel resolution. Other times, it takes a seat and laughs at our efforts to rid ourselves of….well, ourselves. And it carries in another heavy box of anxieties, and dumps it at our feet, all while keeping eye contact. Bastard.
I had no idea how people could process their emotions without writing about them, because they tell you how to process them, if you listen. Recently, I stumbled across the journals I kept in high school and in my early 20’s. It made me say BLESS HER HEART (her being the me of my youth.) Pages upon pages of hand-wringing over the state of my dysfunctional family, and how I somehow felt responsible. Which in hindsight was silly. I was a kid, a child. And there are reams and reams of crying out to God (I can now imagine him now whispering, enough already!) to forgive me of my sins. To counteract my wretchedness. To save my sinning heart.
Now, I was a responsible teenager. I had to be. What in tarnation did I beg forgiveness for? I was chaste and virginal, read my Bible daily, felt guilty about how much time I thought about boys, and maybe if I prayed hard enough, I could be more like Jesus, and my world would right itself. The onus was on me to become holy, and I thought I’d never attain holiness, though I tried through weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Only here’s the truth, which would have made me scream “HERETIC!” The onus is not on us. I was already holy. I didn’t have to audition for a part in God’s family. I didn’t have to freak out because I noticed the guy in front of me in algebra had a cute butt and I would ask God (as a bonus) to make him have to sharpen his pencil at the front of the class so I could see it in motion. Now I imagine God chuckling about that. At the time, I imagined him shaking his great head, face in hands, then stroking his beard, agonizing “This kid. This heathen kid. She’s in for a long journey.” (And he would be right about that.)
In the coming days, perhaps I will share some excerpts from one of the literal volumes I wrote in my youth. As an exercise in healing. In an act of offering up to God my words from a different vantage point. God and I can read it and weep, together. Because holy cow. I showed myself exactly ZERO grace in all those years. And that’s too bad. I want to remedy that.
I have a friend who burned her old journals, and I have thought about it. They do have nice fabric covers, as was befitting a journal set in 1984-1990. Fabric covered books were it-on-a-stick in the 80’s. I’m sure they would burn clean. I’m just not ready to obliterate the words of my younger self. Because just as I am teaching her things today, she has a lot to teach me too. I need to read what she had to say so that I can comfort her trauma and validate her fear. She was so afraid.
So, I’ll keep on writing prolifically, if not well. Maybe share some tidbits from those journals – the beggings, the uncertainty, the desperation. In sharing my unpretty feelings, maybe someone else in the throes of uncertainty and desperation see that they too can come out the other side.
The written page (or screen) is a processing plant, and I – in my hard hat – labor at a keyboard, to try to determine how I feel about any given joy or trauma. So oftentimes when I am weary, the words tuck me in for the night. After I’ve written, I can almost hear a prompt to rest now, you’ve done all that you can do. You’ve written about it, and so now it’s been acknowledged.
Because everyone likes to be acknowledged, and if need be, written about prolifically.
Words by Jana Greene 