In the last year, I've begun to really envy my married friends: to have that kind of relationship, one of ongoing casual contact, great moments of togetherness, just as great moments of I-don't-get-you-and-right-now-don't-know-
What I really want for Christmas this year is a storefront church of my very own: a spiritual flophouse on Eighth Avenue full of Spirit-talk and Jesus-bums, with a corner reserved for winos; a skid row motherhouse for nuns in search of relevance; a supply depot for virgins negotiating the price of oil. A storefront church: a Jesus-joint vibrating with the acid beat of salvation rock, with posters of day-glo and night-lights by strobe, and a dancing line of chorus girls tattooed with Bible verses whose kneecaps, read in sequence, will dimple in and out with messages from John 3:16.
The column goes on, to its own hitherto unfathomable conclusion. But why was I reminded of this column, now? I am lonely. Griff was lonely. He figured God was lonely, too. Did God slip a Lonely Hearts Club lineup into my head--me, God, Griff--to distract me from myself and through oblique paths of grace thus cure me? I haven't the foggiest how that works. And presto! now I'm chatting with Zee online for the first time. Am I now not so lonely? I guess I'm not. What does that mean? I guess maybe it means that life is characterized by its unexpectedness, its reversals: constant work and contact that seem to somehow fail to fill the heart of you; new acquaintances who dispel solitude with casual conversation; salvation found in the long legs of dancers who'll do anything for a buck. What does that mean for me? I guess I'll find out tomorrow.
'Night, all.