October post

I find that I'm doing the best art of my life right now - springing from stability in my life and some maturity - some getting free of what Lacan calls "the desire of the other." The funny thing about Lacan is when I hear people talk about him in a critical theory context, I wonder, "why are you focusing on that? Where is that coming from?" - but in terms of pastoral care: he makes perfect sense - our language fails to symbolize our experience; the concept of Ego fails to account for subjectivity; our demands are counterproductive to our desires; and we have to live in an 'always wanting more' state. Life is learning to live with our losses - our griefs - a sense of lack that sends us searching - that is the slippage between the "I think" and "I am" of the human subject. In this sense it's no surprise that Lacan quotes Romans 7 from time to time.
About other's desires: I described it this way in my recent workshop/seminar (I'm uncertain what to call these events) - when we are an infant we are forced into the position of other people dictating what we want (tantrums and crying aside - we get the message eventually about what is rewarded and what is punished) - our desires literally are framed by other people, authorities and peers, and then one day we are given the ball (as it were): Sometime around the end of the first half we're told, "OK you're on your own, now go in there and call some plays" - and we finally have control of the game, and we're behind 24-3 or ahead 17-7 and we've no idea how that happened. It's not like even then we get to do what we want - we've still got this Other play calling in our ears (and most of these people should never have been allowed to coach). Drastic measures are called for: the Other must be kicked off the team (though he's sneaky in re-insinuating herself) and you must experiment and make mistakes to find what you're good at to get out of habits (third down quick kicks and the ancient schemes of our parents and grand parents).
Rant Rant
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I thought of a devotion while reading Kaja Silverman's Flesh of My Flesh. I was reading early on her reflection on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth and Ovid's telling. She focuses on the Coda of the story - that Orpheus dies and reunited with Eurydice is now able to relate to her: that is, he had to come to terms with his own mortality, his own limits, before he was able to relate to another human being - that is, Orpheus' myth is a retelling of Narcissus. Orpheus charms the world with his gifts but fails to relate to that world - he cannot even understand his loss of Eurydice is is own fault, but must blame and shun women in reaction. When the Ciconian women tear him apart, he becomes aware of his limits - that he is really fragmented: in pretending to self contained he has shielded himself from confronting how his narcissistic wound, untreated, ungrieved, has split him. Ironically it is death that allows him to be relationally whole.
He is finally able to enjoy being with Eurydice, to allow her to walk ahead and to be invisible to her.
(interestingly, she notes how in the last supper Christ recapitulates Orpheus by inviting his disciples to feast on his fragmented body: that's not unusual and may have been prevalent understanding the early church, since Christ and Mary recapitulate the Isis Osiris Horus myth as well - the church takes over pagan iconography and memes)

Anyway, the story that came into my mind follows:
Isaac, years after the binding incident with his father, whenever he would be traveling, if the day was bright and the weather was hot, would feel compelled to take a detour off his route. Coming to a empty place, he would take off his clothes and lie down naked, exposed on rock and soil. He could feel the cold rock on his back, and the soil would cling to him. Clutching himself he would moan and writhe; finally he would cry out, "love me, father!" into the empty sky. Spent, he would lie there, crying.
When it all passed, he would rise up, put on his clothes, and travel on. His eyes remained wet and red.
He would never speak of this.
We only know about this because a sparrow watched him, unseen and still behind a thistle bush.
The sparrow later told the story to a fox in exchange for a piece of fish.

Devotional 2

I'll never forget when I returned home from a mission trip overseas and told my parents about the changes God had wrought in my life. First off: I had a new name, Anish Junimajapublin - no more Betty; I was a new woman now, a sacred vessel devoted to the service of the community - sweet, naive, teen Betty had answered a higher calling; and soon I wold conceive a child with a man the universe would reveal to me. I was so excited!
I had never seen mom cry such genuine tears as when I told her that I had come home to return the clothes and belongings of my former life. She hugged me like she wouldn't let me go.

That was ten years ago and not a day goes by that I'm not happy and grateful for how God has led me. I spend most days picking beans alongside my children during the summer; the rest of the year I teach math and birthing techniques at a community college.
A mission trip changed my life and it can change yours too.

devotional 1

I have a dream where my head is bolted to the keel of a super tanker. As it courses through the seaways of the world, the detritus and residue of life flow into my open, lamprey-like mouth, are consumed by my body, and exit back into the ocean through my womb as fine Danish-Modern furniture. My family takes this furniture and, selling it, provides meals and job opportunities to refugees from Sudan's and Somalia's civil wars. One of these refugees, Mashoudf Ali, has stayed with us this last year. He works hard and launders money using a dummy corporation he set up on the computer in the family room. His clients are various arms dealers and underworld figures. I'll never forget when the ATF visited. They had questions about some stinger missles in the basement.

I agreed to wear a wire. They placed cameras all over the house. They see everything.
Mashoudf has been away on business for a while.
God is like that. We think that he is away on business. But he sees all we do.
And he waits.

He waits by the phone on the Danish-Modern desk in the study upstairs.
He is with the refugees. He is with the supertanker.
He watches as I glide through the sea lanes.
He enters my mouth.