Rebellion

Memories flash as I sit to write this. A thread through my own rebellion. Drugs and parties and 4am nights watching the sunrise.

Sitting by the pool of some grotesque mansion on the hill. Pulling away a woman stumbling through the bar with a man whose face reminds me of a wolf. Holding Stephanie in all her grime. Shifting on the cardboard place mats as she cries and talks about her daughter and the red dirt and how it’s all connected.

I have never been well-behaved, never been interested in doing what was expected by those around me. I’ve always left my hair wild and my face bare. Turned away from the invisible cord that tells us to abide in the social nuance of the room around us.

Rebellion is interesting. Particularly in the Christian space. The rebellious spirit is seen as a mortal sin, something to be carved out and placed at the altar like a calf for slaughter.

Those born into a different beat are seen as disharmonious, disruptive. Something to be tolerated until the tension proves too much and then cast out with an explanation and mild guilt. I’ve watched it time and time again.

Fortunately, I am just well-spoken enough. I toe the line of disruption and observance just enough.

It’s a gift to feel. To understand the thoughts and shifts and dynamics around you. The less I numb myself to it and the more I embrace this sensitivity, the better I have developed this skill of balancing on that line.

I’ve witnessed others be pushed away for things that, in me, were met with tentative acceptance.

Undercutting my seething dissolution at the church with hope and mild humor. Sinking the conversation into the depths before bringing it back into the light with an acrobatic shift in tone and mannerism. It has been my quiet rebellion. Allowing the person in front of me to be who they are and say how they feel by gently coaxing them away from that stifling cord. By mirroring my own sense of gentle disruption to them.

There is a part in the Bible I struggle with quite a bit.

"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves" Romans 13:1-2

Not Old Testament. Nothing to disregard or “oh that’s the old covenant” here. Stated in plane language in one of my favorite books: abide by the powers at be. Isn’t this the opposite of who Christ was?

It seems dangerous to me, to equate worldly powers as those designated by God. We have seen the dictator and the fascist and the suffering of the lower classes at the hands of greedy men and women in power. My identity hinges on this stark fury for the corrupt powers at be. The rebel in me squirms and is quick to shoot down this seeming contradiction as contextual to the time or irrelevant to us now.

Though you may think I am bringing you down a road to reconcile the contradictions of the Bible, I am not. This is not about that verse. This is not about me having some wisdom or answer to impart to you. I don’t.

This is actually about me. This is about the trigger point I feel within my own soul as I read that verse. The warrior waiting to wage her war. My sacred rebel. My survivor.

We all have within us these sacrament energies and distinct personalities. Knit within us from the womb, as the Bible would tell. How we interact with and steer this magnitude held within our chest determines our life. To rebel against the sacred within you would prove death. To rebel against the world in the interest of the divine is life. How do we steer the rivers within us? How do we take the incredible rushing energies and put them towards cultivating life instead of death? How do we come home to who we are and not who we wish we could be?

I have held in so much for so long. I haven’t been able to cry for quite some time. The last time I truly cried, the 9 month old life in my stomach rested on a steering wheel as I reconciled with the idea of being a single mom. Even during Roman’s unmedicated birth, I held in much of the pain and anguish. The need to cry seems to be followed closely by a fog and a numbness.

This life has dictated that I be strong. The exploration of joy and the internal rhythms that drive me has always been secondary. Disassociating from that internal rhythm has proven key to my survival. So then, what does rebellion look like to me now?

It used to be loud defiance in the face of a dangerous man. The holding of a homeless woman on an ill-kept street behind the bank. Creating casual acquaintance with drug dealers and gang members and prostitutes. These were the things that made my sacred rebel feel alive. It reaffirmed my notion that life is not lived on marble floors and in scrubbed smiles but in the ugly and the mess and the humanity of despair.

Last night, for the first time in a long time, I watched a film. In a theatre. Surrounded by strangers and popcorn and the surround sound speakers. Last night, for the first time in a long time, I sobbed.

I sat as people filed out single file. I sat as the lights turned up and the screen went black. I sat long after the theatre emptied and I sobbed.

I felt the dam break against everything I have held long past its due. The devastation and joy and pain and bewildering numbness. The relentless routines and unmitigated expectations and constant performance. The winter and summer landscapes navigated far from home.

This morning, through relentless tears as I folded the laundry, I saw myself. Eight years old. No emotion between us, just the familiar young face beginning to take on the weight of this world. As I looked at her, these lines played in the background over soft guitar:

“Well, I’ve been afraid of changing,

Cause I’ve built my life around you”

Rebellion looks different now. Rebellion looks like rhythm. Soft feet on dewy grass. Sunlight and song and remembering. Rebellion looks slow. It looks tentative. It holds things gently and moves with an openness to the coming moment.

Rebellion looks like laying down my defenses. My toughness. My survival.

Rebellion mourns with the people around me. Allows them to mourn my loss in return. It looks like a woman in a crowd, dressed in red, as the hands of strangers reach forward to touch the wound within her own loss. To feel it with her. To allow it to live as one.

Rebellion is breathing life into our shared despair and holding it as sacred.

Rebellion looks like tears streaming down my face. Like creation in the face of survival.