I Don't Have the Heart of a Preacher; I Have the Love of a Student

My mother imagines me doing great things for the Lord. Preaching to the fallen masses and saving God's bruised sheep. Because I'm eloquent, if not intelligent. And I can beautify and simplify theological concepts.

I ooze God's love, sometimes. And I shift through religious texts, most days. And I explain to her in unsteady Spanglish Yom Kippur and salat and indulgences. I'm her Apostle Paul, she tells me. I teach her. And maybe someday, I'll teach others. Apostates and heretics and lonely, broken souls.

Because God bequeaths upon us gifts. God has a plan. And I am beautiful. Regardless of what others have made me feel. I am worthy. Every single one of us has value beyond our imagination. Because blood was shed in our name. Angels bow before our redeemed souls. Because God loves us in a way that doesn't fit inside our heads.

And I told her last night, as I sipped on champurrado, that God is love. That this I believed. And that the traveling preacher, denouncing Muslims as cockroaches and Obama as a terrorist, did not speak of God's love or God's truth. Love is empathy. Love is compassion. And there is none in declaring religious leaders perverts and messengers of Satan. Because something ugly happens when men fancy themselves judges, when men dress themselves as God. There is hubris, Mom, in that man. There is hatred in his message. And had I been there, instead of hearing an account, theological debates might have started. Hateful rhetoric might have halted. Because he didn't speak of God, only the clay idol that he constructed and called Divine. Because he doesn't speak for God.

But then, neither can I.

And I don't know how to tell her that this is not what I want. I don't know how to tell her that faith isn't effortless. That it's proactive and illogical. That our convictions fight not against the flesh or the Devil but against reason, against the loneliness of that comes with loving a God that speaks in a still small voice.

Because I don't have the heart of a preacher. I have the love of a student. And I don't write sermons. I write academic papers and melodramatic poetry. And the closest I've ever come to a genuine religious experience was watching Dance Gavin Dance in concert (My skin melted, I swear. Those other, sweaty bodies were my own). And any--even casual--perusal of my blog entries demonstrates doubt. Human, weak doubt. Of the brand that believers like to avoid.

Because I don't have the heart of a preacher. I don't have the mind or ambitions or disposition. I have the love of a student. The doubt of a Christian. The soul of my poet.

At my best, I can compose melancholy poems and tell you that I hear God when I listen to Cody Bonnette or Ryan Hunter or Jonny Craig. But that sometimes it's hard to know whether it's God guiding our steps or simply gravity compelling us forward. And whether God is answering our prayers or it's just our own voices bouncing back to us. But I know there's something more. I feel there's something more.

And at my worst, at my worst, I'm no good, love. I'm too mean, love.