part one, part two

i have changed my blog to private viewing only. over the last few months, i've begun to feel that having all of my postings floating out there in cyberspace was a little too public. also, i've been wanting to experiment with writing in a less censored way. so here goes...a new chapter beginning.

this evening as i was frying up some left over black beans, green peppers and couscous, my thoughts wandered back in time. it's a strange sensation to realize one has lived at least two distinct lives already in one actual incarnation! sometimes aspects of the first life catch me off guard in my memory as parts of it feel so foreign now. take, for instance, the concept of original sin. i refute that dangerous notion with every bone in my body in this "part two" of my life, as i have found a very different way of seeing and understanding the world. however, i recognize how that belief, which took hold in very early, formative years, still reverberates in my cells to this day. it can still trick me into thinking i'm not okay, i'm not worthy and that i need some sort of external salvation.

like many other protestant newborns, i did not exactly arrive into a cosmology of belonging to this body, this earth. i belonged to god, who was somewhere up high, very abstract and yet somehow definitively male. i was his child, and my sights were to be set on heaven, not on the fleshy earthiness of human experience. during my earliest years, this belief system worked out pretty well as i seemed to be able to access god directly, through nature and imagination, and didn't have an understanding of patriarchy yet. my grandmother has shared many a story of catching me amid full out conversations with god, all by my lonesome.

i loved god and was on fire for jesus. in fact, i was a full fledged devotee by the age of three. i wrote song after song about how much jesus loved me, and i sang at the top of my lungs all day long. i was quite taken with the bible, so much so that i received a trophy in second grade for "the most scripture memorized." i loved the way the king james version sounded, all the "thee's and thou's." it rang ancient and poetic in my little ears. i wanted more than anything to become a preacher. i wrote lengthy sermons and would sit my two younger sisters down in the living room to play "church." i even made programs to hand out so my small parish could follow along with the liturgy.

i still remember the day i was told that girls can't be preachers. i remember the mauve color of the carpeting as i lowered my head in shame and disbelief. anger and questioning were not acceptable responses to authority at that stage in the game. i can still hear the whirring sound in my brain as my sense of purpose, creativity and pure joy were bombarded by the oppressive force of patriarchy. at my young age, i had seen no female religious leaders, so i took those adult words as truth. even though i couldn't quite believe it, my first and most vibrant dream went underground.

now, in "part two," i count my blessings that i was deterred before i could even think of attending oral roberts university in tulsa, oklahoma to become a zealous, raving lunatic of an evangelical preacher! it was definitely a road i could have easily traveled down coming from such a right wing milieu. i have no doubt i would have been quite charismatic with all that passion, but oh, the damage that could have been done! and the regret in the aftermath... i shudder to think. which reminds me, there is an incredible interview with frank schaeffer, who wrote the book "crazy for god: how i grew up as one of the elect, helped found the religious right, and lived to take all (or almost all) of it back." you can listen to this interview on NPR's fresh air with terry gross. click here to do so. it's incredibly moving.

so, anyway, here in "part two," i am in korea, devoting my days to the cultivation of wise understanding, compassion, and healing the fragments, reacquainting myself with what it means to have a dream of my own and really go for it, no matter what the old original sin voices say inside my head, no matter the gripping fear that follows. the courage, independence, and capacity that has been gained through following what i knew i needed and deeply wanted to do is clearly tangible after this year and a half overseas. even though it feels excruciating sometimes that the big choices come at such a great cost, i give endless thanks that there is also gain. gain and loss...gain and loss...over and over again, it seems. grief and praise. joy and sorrow. ever two sides of the same coin.

and in this process, dreams that once went underground, resurface again, in new shapes and colors...transformed by time, evolution, and grace.