Stumbled out of a room where I felt out of place and a little sad into staticky nighttime. Walked to the CRV, the only place I sing these days, and meet my friends in a new parking lot a capable golfer’s 3 wood away. Looked for Noah’s car, saw Megan’s, parked poorly, didn’t fix, and joined them in the backseat.
Noah recited the gospel in the drive thru line as fast as he could, like a witch on trial reciting the Lord’s Prayer to avoid getting cooked. I agreed in theory. A bumper sticker advocated for the separation of ‘church and hate,’ which doesn’t feel controversial, but was an accusation nonetheless. Not unfounded, probably not unprovoked, and not something I could justify refuting, though I still feel the instinct. If you’re not often let yourself be held accountable, you don’t see many opportunities to do so.
I never much enjoyed church. I never tried, but I thought church was supposed to talk to me first. Maybe I’m wrong. I tried not to fall asleep and wrote melodramatic free verse on the bulletin most weeks. Outside of church is where I found most of my pieces of God. I love my friends, and they really love God. Maybe I’ll get there someday. I’m wrong about enough right now that I am disqualified from loving God, I think. I hope that changes, I think it definitely could.
Water and quesadillas on an empty stomach. Grease and black ice. I ramble about the things I’m reading. Noah engages, analyzes, misunderstands, corrects, adds, then casually flings new and lovely insight at my head like usual. He’s great.
What’s influence, what’s power? What’s vulnerability? How do they interact, and how much of both do you have? The answer, as usual, is contextual. Noah asks how many truly close friends I have in my life. We start naming names, I am thoughtless towards someone we all care about. Use of power without vulnerability. Fascism at the hangout. Kindness like a Studebaker steamrolls my guilt. I am made whole and I do not remember much after the Jeep driver blinds us all with high beams. It triggers a migraine in Noah’s battered brain. The young night ages into nauseous infirmity.
How many times has communion, divine and generative, been adjourned by something simple and stupid? How could I blame the Jeep driver for wanting to go home? How could they know what they ended?
I apologize over text later and again, I am forgiven. Small pieces of the drive thru gospel have been acted out in front of me by accident again and again.
There’s a lot of music everywhere. I think you’ve always had something good to say.
A few days later, the peach yogurt sky makes me the best kind of insignificant. I want to live the Gospel accidentally every day.
I dig the Kerouac vibe here, brother!