Building a Shrine Part 3: With Bonus Material ;)

I still remember the intensity of that stare. They were in the center of the mall in a roped off circle—the local raptor rescue organization—and the young presenter had a golden eagle on her arm. He was restless and moving and making her nervous… and then he noticed me. Stillness. That stare. So keen and so persistent. No matter how she moved him, he contorted easily with that supernatural sense of balance that all birds have, so he could keep both eyes on me. I glanced down at myself looking to see if perhaps there was some glint on my shirt or pants that might draw such eyes. Nope. He was looking at me.

Building a Shrine Part 2: Nebt-Het Statue Creation

My dilemma was that there is no Veronese bronze Nebt-het (as far as I can tell). Eventually, I decided that my only option was to alter a different Veronese statue and make a Nebt-het of my own. After all, I am a creator’s kid so brining my creative talents to bare in these sort of situations is more or less a duty. (Once again, warning: there are a lot of pictures in the post as I decided to show the creation process)

Building a Shrine Part 1

Building a shrine which represents my full line-up has proven challenging to say the least. Acquiring images that were agreeable to both the Names and to me took some doing. (Warning: lots of pics in the post)

First Thoughts on My (Awesome) Dual Parentage

It was 2006 and the silence in the late-90s Impala was stifling. The sun outside was beating down heat from above and the black tar radiated the same from below. The ancient AC of the car struggled to keep up. The sickly whirl of its fan was the only sound to cling to as I waited for her response. My ostensibly liberal Christian co-worker seemed stunned.

 Of all the religions I could say she had not been prepared for me to say Kemetic and was even less prepared for my brief explanation of what it was. It’s a modern faith that reestablishes the worship of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. I told her calmly. I didn’t say the word pagan but I could see it reflected in her eyes nonetheless. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and my first thought was that I had just made this the most awkward Wal-mart supply run ever.

RPD Results

There is that moment when She leaves the screen to complete the divination and you are left to think and pray and bite your nails. I went over the list in my head again—the list of all the Names I was prepared to hear, the mental gymnastics I would have to do for ones I hadn’t prepared for. Because I had said in shrine, aloud, that I would accept the results, whatever they were. I trust the Nisut (AUS) and I trust the process and I had committed to it fully before entering that chat room.

So there I was in ritual whites, sitting across the room from the festival altar I’d set up for the earlier Dua, listing names that I would be able to cope with, trying not to hope too desperately for Him.

The Fourth Day

Strangely enough, this was written on time--just posted late. It turned out Thanksgiving was, far from being a distraction, a catalyst for focusing my thinking about this last bit. 

That's because Thanksgiving is a strange holiday for me. Since my brother and I started college, it has been a half-celebrated holiday in my home. Its traditions became inconsistent and casual. Of the last ten holidays, I have only spent three in my own home, only four with members of my own family. I spent this year’s dinner at a coworker’s house enjoying her traditions and her family’s company. I would say that it is sad or odd to be spending a family holiday away from home after what happened this summer but…

Home is a different word for me these days.

The Third Day

It’s hard for me to admit when I don’t know something. I’m not sure if that’s a matter of spending too much of my adolescent and adult life trying to live up to the “gifted” stereotype or a matter of ego, but either way, it leads to admissions like this one feeling awkward:

There are a lot of well-known Names that I know virtually nothing about...

The Second Day

I cannot think of a time in my life when I was able to easily focus on just one project, one skill, or one curiosity. The world is simply too full of grand ideas that demand to be played with, useful abilities to be gained, and interesting things to be explored. I have a kind of insatiability when it comes to novelty that carries over even into the spiritual part of my life. After all, there are literally hundreds of Names out there. There are enough well known ones to occupy a lifetime of study, and there are more than a few who have very little literature about them and are therefore intriguing in a different way.

The First Day

I can’t decide if the timing couldn’t be better or if it couldn’t be worse.

Hip deep in the debris of a kind of mental and metaphysical transformation I wake up to an e-mail in my inbox that would have been far easier to answer to if it had arrived a month ago. Having the RPD option on the table right now seems at once dangerous and a perfect way to speed things up a bit. There is a strong temptation to gain access to yet another little piece of the puzzle while I’m still in those early stages of reformation and foundation building…it could have a significant impact on this reconstruction of me. On the other hand, I’m also buzzing with Set’s energy right now and there is a small chance that doing anything even remotely community related might be disastrous in unforeseen ways.

It leads to a host of other problems as well:

Interesting Tangent to the Purity Discussion

I found it interesting that many of the items on the list of things which are widely known to disgust people, as shown in this video, are also on the list of things which negatively affect purity as defined in the Kemetic faith. We spend a lot of time trying to convince people new to this faith that impurity does not equal “bad” or “immoral”. However, if this research done by psychologists is any indication, it may be a losing battle to try and convince people of that. It seems that the emotion of disgust makes us (as humans) more judgmental and conservative in our views and actions:

 I found it particularly noteworthy that one of the experiments showed that even being reminded to wash their hands made people judge certain relatively harmless behaviors as being immoral—much more so than the control group.

 I think this has important implications in how we speak about purity. Maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised when, in the face of so much talk about being clean and “pure” people seem so inclined to swing to the opposite extreme, associate purity with worthiness, and get “purity anxiety” as a result. That seems to be a natural psychological reaction. 

An Answer to My Purity Question

So apparently, there is already an answer to my purity question posted on the forums: yes, purity is disrupted during all parts of a woman’s period because the flow of blood is as much an issue as the germs/hygiene. The issue isn’t in the blood but in the hemorrhaging of it.

I read the rest of the conversation. Then I did some reading online at various women’s health organization sites. Then I did some further reading on other medical sites and a few government sites. My conclusion: I respectfully disagree.

Full disclosure—the explanation that follows is going to be considered graphic by some and contains clinical terminology for various body parts people sometimes prefer not to speak of.

Reaction to the Discussion of Purity

Sometimes I sneak into the shrine room like a timid, curious child and just open the doors of the naos slightly to peak at the statues. Sometimes I curl up in the big reclining chair--the one in the corner, next to the shelves that house the library-- and just watch the naos from a distance. It’s curious: how a temple I built with my own hands doesn’t feel much like it belongs to me or is part of my home. It is a place I go, not a place I live. I always feel a bit wrong about going into that place with head held high when I am not in a formal state of purity, but, like a mischievous little girl, I still sneak in and poke at things anyway.

They have never chastised me for it, nor withheld their presence. I mostly get smiles and gentle eyes watching me back. They always seem happy to see me enter that space—especially when I have made myself rare. They seem to think I am clean enough, but still…

I am now officially a Remetj! :D

Remetj.

That was really the only word I needed to see in my e-mail this week to suddenly be having the best week. And now, of course, I have been suffering from a severe compulsion to “READ ALL THE THINGS” on the parts of the forum that I couldn’t see before. But it’s more than that: it’s a step forward in a new world. As the high school I work at winds down from an early homecoming and gears up to start the first “real” weeks of the semester, I face the beginning of another year—one in which nothing is the same for me.

I realize that is an almost redundant statement: if we aren’t trapped in a cycle of stagnation, then things are almost never “the same” as they were in the years, days, or moments before we stopped to think on them. Yet… the timing of things this summer…

My world has changed in a fundamental way on many levels.  The world of Beginner was very different than the world of Solitary Kemetic in ways I wasn’t expecting—and I know that the world of Remetj will be different still from that of Beginner. I eagerly look forward to that change, but even as I overflow with excitement for that new, shiny future which dawns in the east, I mourn the slow fading of a different light as it sinks in the west.

For a long time, I have lived in the world of Mom as Everything—in fact this summer was christened by me as the “Summer of Mom” as soon as I heard the diagnosis in April…but I only called it that until I realized that it's really more correct to say “Lifetime of Mom”. I was so close to her. I can’t say that in words that would do her justice. My world was her. My mother filled a role for me that was as dangerous as it was beautiful: Mom as All, Mom as Other Half. Which makes learning to live in the world of Mom as Ancestor especially hard…

Next Saturday is already day 70.

It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, and yet, it feels infinitely longer. There is still a hard, sharp edge to the grief, but the wound her death caused has ceased bleeding now and it begins to pull back together as new skin grows to cover it.  That doesn’t mean it hurts any less, or that there won’t be a proverbial scar left behind, just that it isn’t a danger to me anymore. The pain is now a healing one, not a rending one.

I slowly return to myself. My hands go back to beading, my mind goes back to telling stories, and my deeper self goes back to dreaming up new destinies. My gods put tasks before me and the voice whispering within me prods me along the path. I call my brother and my father often; I speak to friends daily—and my heart is beating again. I plan and scheme and go about life in general. I am whole once more. I am hale.

The ancestor shrine is ready. The words of the prayer are already starting to echo in my heart and mind, reverberating in the unseen space I’ve made for her to inhabit when she returns from her journey. I am not certain what to expect. I am not certain what she will be now. I am not certain because, for all I knew of her, I still only knew her as one of the living. She will be different. She will be changed by death. It is my firm belief that all souls are. I welcome that change even as I fear it. I will accept her in any form she takes, but there is no way to prepare for the moment when I first catch a glimpse of her transformed and transfigured self.

So much of life is about not knowing how you will react to things, but finding the courage to keep your eyes open anyway.

A few months ago, I didn’t know how I would react to the Beginner’s class. I didn’t know if I would be impressed or disappointed, satisfied or left wanting, finally connected or more alone then ever… I didn’t know if I could come to terms with the idea of the RPD or if I would be able to accept the Nisut (AUS). Would I feel anything during Senut? Could I really learn to connect with my ancestors? Would I really hear the voices of the other Netjeru if I put Set’s statue away? Could I bear to put his statue away long enough to find out? It was those uncertainties which had kept from applying for the class years before when I first heard of the temple. I only applied this summer because after six years, I had eventually realized that there was no way to know the answers but to discover them by experience.

I wrote here once, a long time ago it feels like, about trust. I have something to add to that:

I trust now.

 I trust the Nisut (AUS). I trust the process and rite of RPD. I trust this community. I trust Senut. I trust my ancestors. I trust all of the Netjeru, when they speak, and I trust Set, even when he is silent. And in all of that trust, I have found what I had not dared to hope for. I am impressed, not disappointed. I am satisfied, not left wanting. I am connected, not alone. I have gained something which was not in the lessons proper but somewhere between the lines:

I am prepared even when I am unprepared. I am ready even when I am not ready. I have learned to put some trust in existence. I didn’t realize that I needed to learn that, and at first, I didn’t realize that I had learned it. Until I thought about it this week when I was buying flowers for the ancestor shrine…

Everything is in balance now. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect or even that it’s comfortable, but it does mean that it is inherently bearable. It doesn’t have to be fair that my mother was taken from me so young. It doesn’t have to make sense that the cancer came back when she had been doing so well. It simply is what it is. The important part is that this terrible thing did not go unbalanced on the scales: there have been blessings along the way to soften the blow (I cannot even fully express how much the beginner’s class, and the HoN community in general, helped in all of this—simply by existing and taking me in and giving me something to hold on to), and there were Names who stepped in to steady me when I started to fall.

 Balance. Fairness. These things are not about individual events and single grains of rice, they are about sums and the weight of the crops against the need for them. The scales dip and soar as they even out, and as long as all eventually returns to the calm, steady equilibrium that makes things functional…that’s really all I can ask for.

Wow. That got overly philosophical toward the end there. I really did start this just to announce that I’m now a Remetj. I suppose that means the title of the post is now a bit misleading.

Sorry about that.  XD

It's Not Me, It's Us

I remember having an argument with Them once because I do not like to be wrong and because They have enough patience to keep after me until I admit that I am. I had created my first Kemetic oracle deck and pulled cards for a reading. Sixty-nine cards--showing words, not images. One of them? "Daily Ritual".

I didn't want to use the word Senut--though I knew of Senut and knew it existed in the temple and that it was meant to be exactly that: daily ritual. But I hated the idea of it. I hated the idea of being told "This--this here is what you will do to connect with the gods, and by the way? Do it every day."  Even if you don't want to. Even if you don't feel "in the mood". Even if you have other stuff going on. Every day. And I hated feeling like there was that expectation of me--that there was a need to develop some sort of spiritual discipline in me because my own way of talking to the gods somehow wasn't already enough of a dedication on my part.

It's actually a wonder--given how much my less mature self hated the idea--that I included it in the deck at all. I purposefully set out to not have a "daily ritual" in my personal practice. it seemed trite to me to schedule a time to talk to the gods. I talked to them everyday, in a sense, through prayer and devotional art. Why formalize that relationship? Surely, that was something only those who were deprived of that relationship,who had no practice speaking to gods, would do. So I went before shrine whenever I felt like I needed to and was convinced that it was perfectly fine to do things that way. But They had other ideas...

They did not hesitate to nag me with that card. It got drawn every time I did a reading. Every. Damn. Time.

Let me put that in perspective:

There are, as I said, sixty-nine cards in the deck. On a given drawing, I would shuffle the cards very well and draw nine. Even assuming that the first eight cards are not the card in question, thereby limiting the pool of possible cards by eight, the ninth card still only has a 1/61 chance of being the Daily Ritual card, or about a 1.6% chance. For every hundred times I preform a drawing, I should only draw that card at most twice. I have done drawings less than a dozen times and all of them have contained that card.

You think I'd take a hint. But in my usual defiant style, I didn't.

But now, like so many other things, I am reevaluating my stance on it. Here's what I learned once I stopped and listened--really listened--to the temple:

It's not about the expectation. It really isn't. It's also not about the spiritual discipline. It's not a practice meant to make me into a good little Kemetic. It's not meant to change my interactions with the gods or stop me from doing my impromptu ceremonies. Because--and this is the important part--it's not about me.

It's about knitting a community together through a shared act of Heka which draws its power from the forces of exact wording and mass repetition. When one does Senut, one does it as much to contribute to the community as to enrich one's own religious experience.

That's why there is no personalization of ritual words and no free choice in the ritual actions. To use a cliche, there is no I in Team. This isn't about how I talk to the gods--in fact, that's the one part of the ritual which is left open for the practitioner to improvise a bit--it's about how I share in a fellowship which is in diaspora, scattered across the globe. It's the song from American Tale (Somewhere Out There): "And even though I know how very far apart we are/ it helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star". It's the idea that whenever I say those words, at any time of day or night, there's a chance that somewhere in some remote place, another person is saying those exact same words along with me.

That's...beautiful.

Are there other ways to connect with the gods? Of course. But Senut is about more than that. It's not about me. It's about us.

And that is what I told Them I wanted, after-all.

Making Room for Ivy

For a long time, there has been one source for me--no...that's not true... a handful...but small enough to have the same affect--and there has been a desire in me to trust that source. Blindly. But ironically, not fully--I hemmed and hawed and half-ignored. It's a phenomena which I have encountered elsewhere...

When we have a student at the Alt. School who needs to really "get" something, to really think about it and process it (something like "you won't be able to graduate on time if you fail this class because you didn't do the big report...so you better start it now before it's too late) It does not do to have one adult say this. It has to be said by every adult that child encounters. We have meetings to manufacture this kind of group nagging mob effect. And it isn't because we think annoying the hell out of the kid will make him do something...it's because we know how easy it is to write off what one person says and how much harder it is to write off what a bunch of people say. That's the concept behind peer pressure, after all. It is easy for any of us to ignore one voice (especially if we have little investment in the relationship with the speaker), but it is a real test of courage and self-confidence to ignore a chorus.

Now, some people would call that manipulative. I call it simple psychology. I think in the US, peer pressure gets a bad wrap.It's not always a positive effect, by any means--especially when it is used to push someone into a dangerous or self destructive action--but like so many other social mechanisms, shunning it out right because it can be dangerous is unnecessarily limiting. We need peer pressure. Because sometimes we are wrong and hearing one person or one source say we are isn't enough to convince us. Especially if we have fostered in ourselves the healthy self-confidence and self-reliance that help us stand up to negative peer pressure and stand by our personal beliefs.

 Sometimes, we need the chorus to remind us that we aren't infallible--to at least plant the seed of doubt which can grow into the tenacious ivy that crumbles our walls. I would be the last to suggest that we should lay down our defenses and shift to meet each new perspective--we wouldn't be ourselves if we did that. As one of my teachers once said, "Our minds should not be so open that our brains fall out". But we shouldn't make our fortress air tight either. Give room for the ivy of doubt to grow, I say, and if it shrivels up and dies before the wall comes down than you are only further justified. It's all about finding out where your real boundaries are.

For me, making room for ivy means hearing many voices and giving them time and attention and good faith. I may not agree when push comes to shove, but I will have at least considered the other point of view.

That is part of why I sought out the temple. There is a richness of voices there. In the lessons and Reverends and books and other members. In the forums and chat logs and websites and the many, many blogs. I add those voices to the others I have been gathering in the last few months. Seeds are planted. Doubts take root and ivy flourishes. Walls I once thought foundational prove to be ornamental and come crashing down.

And I realize now--that is as it should be.

Shrines

Shrine space is problematic. I am not at home but living in a far removed corner of my parents' condo. When I am back in my own household, I will once again have my full shrine cabinet and Ahku shrine and festival altar:

But for the time being, I am squeezed into a tiny corner of the spare room I sleep in (once a sewing room--before mom was ill) and because not all of the guests coming to visit my mother in her final days are aware of my decidedly unusual faith, I can not make anything that would be overly noticeable. So I have had to make due:

(You can actually see by the corner how close it is to the bed. Not ideal, but I don't have many options)

(A close up of the actual work surface. My other supplies are stored inside the tin everything sits on. That little clipper like silver thing, by the way, is an excellent little tool used to put a candle out without creating a lot of smoke.) 

I don't think it's a bad thing to be forced to simplify once in a while.

Not having the statues, for one, helps me focus on Netjer instead of individual names, which is important for this class. Being forced to use simple objects and keep the small altar fairly clutter free reminds me that the artifacts of faith and the tools of faith are not the faith itself. The words and the heart are the core of ritual. Though I am not with only that.

I have my natron with me for purity, and though I can not use incense because of an overly sensitive smoke detector in that room, I have my Kyphi based oil* and a handmade diffuser which serves me just as well:

(The lower part conceals a piece of coton which holds the scent. I wave the talisman about the altar to release the scent at that part of the ritual)

In the event that I need access to my real shrine, I also have the linking talisman I made before I left:

My talisman making skills to the rescue once again.Yes, that is fully hand beaded by me. :)

There is a small scroll in the tube which bears half of a spell which links it to it's identical twin hanging above the statues in my home shrine. Speaking aloud the verse contained in this Talisman, then speaking the verse from the other should, in theory, connect the two spaces and allow me to tap into the consecrated space in my home and feel that comforting energy just as if I were really there. In theory. I will admit that I haven't tried it yet so I don't know how well it will function, but I felt pretty confident when I preformed the first half of the spell at my home shrine so I think it will work.

Overall, I feel prepared to do any work that needs to be done. I do miss my home shrine, though. But life is life. This is a temporary situation and even though I sometimes feel like I am stuck somewhere between normal life and life in the presence of the dying... I will make it work. I always have and I always will. As the Names keep telling me, life goes on still.

It must.

______

*The oil is vegan--meaning no animal products or by-products in it, is called Cairo and can be found here:  http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/wanderlust.html It is excellent for travel and situations where smoke based scent just isn't feasible.

Trust and Fear

Outside the window of my bedroom there is a highway. Through the tall, south facing windows, I can clearly see a busy on-ramp across from me. Today I have learned a lesson from observing it: I have trust issues.

Now, stay with me…I will get back to that thought in a moment.

I spent today sifting through the blogs of members on the forum, and the blogs linked by those blogs, and so on. I was looking for inspiration (and distraction, truth be told: today was another rough day for my mother, who spent most of the afternoon in pain between wakefulness and sleep). What I wasn’t looking for was fallout from something that happened all the way back in July of 2011.

I won’t repeat the words I read on those blogs here (anyone who knows what that date means can find what I found easily enough), but suffice to say I was worried. In fact, gravely concerned. I have been watching the temple for years but must have been looking the other way when this happened. I don’t recall it at all. I do remember a flood of refugees hitting the general pagan forums, but I never looked to see why they had all left so suddenly. The dozens of other blogs I hunted down and read today (checking the date in question to get a sampling of reactions) did little to ease my concerns.

But what I did next is the reason why I said in my application that I was finally mature enough to take this class: I checked the forum.

Yes. Instead of being my usual self and reacting solely based on the words of others and what they say was said I went and looked to see if I could find out what was said in the first place and hear it straight from the mouth the woman who first breathed it into existence. I was prepared for it to be bad. I was prepared to find something that would sour all of this for me and confirm what I had read elsewhere on the blogs.

But you know what? It wasn’t bad, and I don’t disagree with her. I liked what she had to say. I was comforted by her honesty even in the face of everything people said to her in the aftermath. I respect her declarations and her compassionate response to the criticism of those that challenged them.  

Then there was that insidious voice in the back of my mind…

That still doesn’t change what you really fear. What if it's “wrong”? What if his name is not the one she gives you? What if she says [insert name “I have issues with/is nothing like me”]? Then what will you think of her?

Back to the cars on the on-ramp.

It’s busy on that highway. At all hours of the day and night there is a steady stream of cars. Even more so tonight because it’s Friday and people are headed into the city for happy hour. But despite that, no one on the on-ramp slows down as they approach the bottom. No one. But I would— if I was out there. Because I don’t trust them. I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust chance or fate. I don’t trust luck. I don’t trust. But eventually I do it. Eventually, I merge. 

I asked him tonight. A plastic cup of milk and a bitter chocolate. No candles, no incense. Dripping wet from a shower, in my PJs. I sat there and I challenged him.

What if she’s wrong? What if I’m wrong?

No. What do you need? Aren't you the child who cried under the shrine because she didn't want to be alone anymore? Because she didn't want to be rejected anymore? Because she wanted acceptance and honesty in her relationships with others? Because she didn't want to carry the pain again?

He fixed me. He pulled me out of the darkness and gave me the strength and the courage and the temperament to insist on existing as I was no matter what others said or felt about it. But is his essence the only essence in me? No. Is his voice the only voice I cherish? No—though I do cherish him.

Make no mistake.

 I do empathize with him, and believe strongly in his cause.  I do still thrill a bit when chaos strikes. I do still like to test the mettle of my kings. I do still press my forehead against the glass to watch the storms. I do still get red of heart at times and speak out harshly against injustice and those who perpetuate it and stand spear in hand against the forces of uncreation. I do still do the things others will not do because someone must.

But…

I also write stories and devour knowledge. I also make talismans and hone my skills as an artisan. I also like being with people and belonging to groups. I also teach. I also obsess over death and dying and how it matters to society. I also cast spells. I also like numbers and math and order. I also play video games and watch anime. I also read tarot cards and have been trying to develop a personal deck. I also sing. I also draw. I also see land spirits. I also explore, constantly. I also like liminal spaces and dream worlds and mysteries and true names and…

And…

It goes on.

I am also many things.

I will not question how much he means to me. I will not question how much I have needed him at my side. But when he asks…

Aren’t you the child who cried?

I have to say yes. I am.

Aren’t you the child who pleaded for the thing I could not give?

Yes. I am.

He loved me enough to save me. He loves me enough to let me go... if I need that.

Because that’s the question I’m really asking when I ask “what if she’s wrong?” Because whatever her answer is, I have to trust that she isn’t wrong. Once I get past the trust deal, once I merge my car into this lane running parallel to me, that question doesn’t apply anymore.

What I was really afraid of was the unspoken question underneath it. The question I needed him to answer. 

Will you still love me? 

Will you still need me to? 

I don't know. I don't know...

A Woman's Hand

I didn't ask the question, but what was said struck me. Teacher. Coach. Counselor. Maybe even Kolee-dok-Zumil (for those who get the reference...I think it is a particularly apt description for this name in general). I added the last two myself, but the core of the thought is the same.


I was born on a clap of thunder. I was an outsider, always. Chaos is my natural element--it inundates my personal and professional life. But these things...


Do they make me his or are they the reason he walks with me?Nature or Nurture? The argument proves older than modern psychology.


 My family is mostly atheist. If you ask any of them, DNA is the force which makes the bones of who we are and anything gained beyond that is skin deep. Decorative and ultimately malleable. But in my heart I think on it and wonder...


I resemble my mother. It is a fact made clear to me by my father's frequent confusing of our voices over the phone and the comments of strangers. My mother is proud of it. "We're so alike," she tells others "we even finish each other's sentences."


That is true, to a point. But when I step back and look...when I am honest with myself...we are not the same. There are things from her that are in me, but a life lived differently makes a different woman in me. Teachers changed me. Friends changed me. Faith changed me. Books changed me. I changed me.


So what if He isn't my DNA?


What if he is Kolee-dok-Zumil? Does that matter? Does it change me or merely the way I see myself? Even if he is teacher, friend, faith, and knowledge. Even if he governs my life...does that mean he was the one?


There was a moment in my hour of deepest darkness--years ago-- that I looked up and cried out that the pain was too much. That there was no reason for me to exist. I was sure of it. I was sure that even if I asked for a sign of a higher power, there would be no voice to respond. But I asked, and I was answered. And for a long time I have thought...or told myself... that it was His voice. But is that true or was I misled because His name was the first name to speak to me personally in the days that followed? I think back on the moment now and I remember that it was not the voice alone which so impressed me as to convince me to give existence another chance. It was also the touch. The feeling which frightened me and comforted me all at once. The briefest sensation that couldn't possibly be real and yet, was. The phantom hand on my shoulder.


A woman's hand.


I remember that clearly, but only now do I realize the significance. There was someone else there in that moment. Even if he was the one that came for me... he was not alone. I realize that though I asked the question at the time, I never got an answer:


Who was she?


And now I ask and again, and I ask also: Is this the way for me to find out?


I don't know yet.


But this is a mark in their favor. I am on my way to being convinced.

When He Speaks from Within Me

There is a place in my heart which is full of fury and might. A place where I am strong in myself and sure of my course. It is always an ember smoldering within me, but every now and then it roars to life and fills me with flame. Not angry flame. Not hateful flame, but something else:

Defiant flame. A flame of challenge. Prove it to me. Go ahead. I dare you.

I genuinely don't want you to fail.

I want to see you emerge from those flames as strong as before you entered. I want to see you walk in righteousness and deserving glory--but I do want to see you walk through the flames.

It is not enough to tell me. Show me. Make me believe in you.

I look forward to giving  myself over to you honestly and completely. I look forward to being wrong about you.