a beautiful mess

i know this is long, but, the back story: occasionally, i will freelance design at a custom apparel shop downtown nashville. it is situated immediately within the projects (government housing doesn’t really sound that much better, if you ask me). at any rate, one day last month, early november, i was leaving the shop about noon. the sun was high, the southern breeze was warm, and sigur ros was breaking into a beautiful melody.

i had been meditating all that morning about the name, imanu’el: from the hebrew, ‘el’ meaning ‘god’ and ‘immanu’ meaning ‘with us’.

the implications of this name are immense and comic*; like grace, it changes everything. this name should penetrate our speech as much as our hearts. for example, it remains an odd prayer to “invite GOD into this place” if he is, in reality, imanu’el: god with us. i am not being nit-picky, i am continually being convinced: he is imanu’el. el’ohim becomes imanu’el. oh, i get chills every time!

[selah]

now. while thinking about this whole very simple, but very fertile and pregnant word, i came to a red light. in the midst of these projects. and there, appropriately on the corner, stood a rainwashed church building. the sign on the front without originality, “Real People”.

next to the old structure, a far more important place existed: an alley, with potholes for pitfalls waiting to be filled with the hells** of this world.

the woman, somebody’s baby girl, was leaning against that brick wall as if she were climbing into her coffin. fish nets covering her legs with a skirt not far behind. mascara, or dirt, i don’t know which. her hands trembling. eyes that were closed, probably for ages now.

the light turned green and i felt the blood rush back into my hands, gripped on the steering wheel. as i pulled away, i noticed the tourniquet at her feet.

for a month solid i have thought, at some point or another, about that woman. and that church building. and the gracious scar of an image GOD gave me.

now, here we are celebrating advent. from the greek, παρουσια or parousia, ‘para’ meaning ‘beside’ and ‘ousia’ meaning ‘substance’. it was also anciently used of royalty coming to visit the home of the citizens. it is used in the contemporary sense to speak of both the first coming of the messiah and the second coming of the messiah, which we now eagerly await.

and. i love the wordplay and mystery with which YHWH continually surrounds us. he is GOD with us. yet we wait for him to return. yeshua is revealed and being revealed.

but. i am saddened at that image, that parable, that desperately wicked scene: a woman in need of hope and life only a few feet from the church: a woman in need of thirst only a few feet from a well: and the people with the buckets just walk on by. may it not become us. no, not out of judgementalism against that church, for i don’t know enough of that church’s story! but, may it not be us because it just should not be!

so. that’s the back story to this poem, entitled “parousia imanu’el prostitute”:

elohim, elohim,

but not with her

in the alley, shooting cocaine

tears rolling sweet as sugarcane

she can hear the church bells ring

living a stone’s throw from mercy street

seven days, she hears them sing

elohim, elohim!

the advent of death is what she lives for

with a crown of royal upon her head

but who will open the door and cry

with this prostitute, who, or when?

elohim, elohim,

but not with her

see! we hide behind pulpits and eyes

they become our gates

which are found not in the kingdom of zion

but in kingdoms of hate

are we not the body

the once addicted and broken?

are we not the body

now the manifestation of holy?

are we not the body

to be love seen?

are we not the body

the body of elohim?

(c) 2009 justin heap

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*comic: used here in the classical sense. tragedy is the inevitable and comedy is the unforseeable (frederick buechner). it is divine comedy that the GOD of heaven should become flesh: it was unforseeable and beautifully comic.

**hells: speaking of those places absent of the immediate and tangible influence of heaven and truth. the kingdom of heaven is always meant to be bringing the kingdom of heaven into the the hells of this world. we see this when rescue comes to a child in need or when justice befalls a sex-trafficking ring, etc.

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despite my unbelief, i believe that who i am is a son of the only living god & king, YHWH [blessed be his name]. a son of the resurrection. a son of the wind which bends all things.