Augustine: And then...

Dear Athena,

I told you I would write up my thoughts on Rachel Held Evan's new book "Inspired." I'm endeavoring to read through it again and write as I read this time. Each chapter is incredibly moving in what it tells about the Bible and ourselves as people who read it. I don't know that I will necessarily have something to say about each chapter other than "It is good." But I will begin with what has found a place deep within me, and that is the epilogue.

It is with a tinge of regret that I give away the last section, but I will not do so in detail. The title of the epilogue is "And Then." Rachel describes her sister-in-law's masterful use of this phrase to coax stories from her family and friends and the use by biblical authors to carry a story forward with Waw Consecutive "And Then, And Then, And Then." She describes how we live in the "And Then." That we find ourselves in the narrative of this story, not as the main protagonist, but through theology "linking our individual story to the biggest story we can imagine."

I imagined the place of this phrase in my own life and the words I tell myself.

In my closet, I have in a box journals from my childhood and adolescence. Different kinds, sizes, colors, and materials; I collected them when I filled or abandoned the last one. Some were gifts given to me by friends, reading "Cheaper than therapy journal" and others are leather and I dug out of a corner of the basement. The earliest one I still have was given to me by my 2nd grade teacher as way to store story ideas, one of my favorites is a leather travel journal from my brother that quotes "Do not wait to be inspired to write, but write in order that you may be inspired." When I was feeling more like an adult and I emptied my parent's house of all my old possessions. I tried to get rid of most anything I would not use or would not revisit regularly. In the mess of creating categories (college books, high school trophies and awards, etc) I created a pile of journals. I don't know the person who has the strength to sift through old things and not stop nostalgically and pour over their contents. I glanced through pages, falling into the strangest moments of life in middle school or a college excursion. I found moments of spiritual formation on a retreat and silly gossip flying back and forth between friends. However, what I discovered most, and dreaded seeing because I knew it to be there, was the pages upon pages of desperation and disparagement for my sexuality. I couldn’t bring myself to read them then, I can't bring myself to read them now. I've held on to these journals in a box, in my closet, believing that one day I will be able to read them and find some use from their self-destruction.

Reading them now is not necessary, because they are scribed into my mind. When I accepted my sexuality, these words did not vanish. They were part of the story and are carried in the neurons of my mind that are relieved when I am imagining and planning and attempting my death. When I failed at a work task or let a friend down, these lengthy and destructive scripts start playing as an album.  It took years to recognize they existed, and longer still to recognize when they were playing. In time, I added to the wording on how to kill myself, with delaying phrases "Not now, wait until this thing…", but the belief still held that I was fighting an unwinnable battle. I would eventually lose against the script one day and die. I confessed this to a friend one day and they challenged me as to the truthfulness of this belief. "Why? Why do you have to lose someday? I don't believe that's true." He impugned the narrative, and my love for him meant I had to consider he might be right.

I let myself believe that as time progressed, the self-destructive script may become weaker and my resistance stronger.

And then, I read Inspired. Every chapter was like a billow of air into the heart of a just kindled fire. And then, I read the epilogue and I found myself rehearsing this phrase over and over and over again. And then, and then, and then. I imagined sitting in Maki's kitchen being asked this question again and again. I imagined the rabbi's asking me when I though my script was over "And then? What do we write next?" I imagine a great cloud of witnesses living and dead, turning their face to me and asking "And then? And then? And then? What does God do next?" I imagine a church and community holding me in their prayers with "And then? What do we see next in your life?" I imagine crawling into the lap of a God who holds me as they tell a story of "And then" about not only my future, the future of us, their people.

"And Then" is a script I didn't know would come. It is part of the story I did not think would ever arrive. The old parts of my narrative are not gone, but they are also not the end.

I woke up on my most recent birthday to an amulet sun rising on snowfields and iced branches. I had reached an age, for a long time, I never thought I would see, and it is beautiful.

+Augustine