Brethren, I’m back on this blog, after a pause in August.  I take my anger from observable hypocrisy and my scripture from Paul:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” — Galatians 3:28

Here is what I have recently observed.  As I have said here before, I am recently divorced, and I have been looking for a righteous, Christian man whom I might eventually date.  I have not accepted dates or even had conversations wth non-believers.

Twice, it has happened that a caucasian Christian man has engaged me in conversation. Over the coure of time, while he is doing that peacock dance that seems to be the better part of most men’s courtship ritual, puffing himself up to prove to me he is better than other men, he mentions people of color.  He uses — horror of horror — the “N” word, not in a hip-hop twenty-first century way (which would be bad enough, coming from a crunchy white man), but in a nineteenth century Jim Crow way.

The two times that this has happened, I have gasped, called the man on his bad attitude, told him to lose my number if that is his attitude toward other people of any race, and then he denies he meant anything by it, and he tells me, “I have plenty of black friends.”

Hmmm…

Twice, too, these men have then told me utterly improbable stories about brave, young, wonderful, much-admired, bff-type best male friends who were black.  One told me he dated a woman of  color who was a wonderful woman whom he cared about — this I doubt even more.

No one white ever uses the N word and has “black friends.”  There may be people of color who have to tolerate these lying hypocrites, but there are surely no confidences, no shared important memories, no affection whatsoever.  I pity those who have encountered these people and received less than their fair share of compassion and respect.

I have attended mixed-race churches ever  since I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, more often than not where I was, as a white woman, in the minority.  I have volunteered for church projects, and I have borne my soul  to women and men of  color, and those brothers and sisters have enriched my life by allowing me to really get to know them.

Even with all that, I would say that I only have made a few lasting frienships with people of color, not for a lack of love and mutual respect, but because racism is alive and well in America today, and African-Americans are right to exhibit some level of distrust, even within the church, with white folks, who are apprently, even as we — in Jesus’ name, elect Barack Obama president — still not conquering their absurd and idiotic ideas about  people of other races.

The good news — We are quite probably electing a black president, so this view is by no means universal, and most of the people  who don’t want to vote for him have other objections to him than that of his race.

Also good news — the men who heard me gasp and spew invectives knew that their views were absurd and idiotic, and they were embarassed by them when they were called on what they had said, and so they lied to cover their racist tracks.  Even if their views did not change — I suspect in both cases, they just wanted to get into my white panties, not embrace the black population (and for the record, my panties remained unconquered)  — however, at some level, they understood that their views were entirely unjustifiable by any intelligent argument.

The bad news, very, very bad news — before those words slipped out of their mouths, they assumed, surely from recent experience, that they were generally acceptable to the majority of white, Christian women whom they might want to date. This shocks me more than I can say.  I am horrified that there is at the very least a complacency among any Christians about racism, who seem to think that it is nothing that needs to be overcome.

I especially don’t understand how any Christians are left without understanding that Jesus is coming soon for an unblemished church, that racism is one of America’s greater blemishes, that it was designed and perpetuated by a group of social darwinians who understood that if they could get immigrant workers to hate African-American workers and vice-versa, they could dominate both groups because they were divided.  An unracist America would conquer poverty and crime, would ensure the welfare of every single child born in the USA, would demand a living wage for all workers, would demand excellent education for all students, wherever they lived, and would, in short, conquer the elite’s stranglehold over the many.  If this sounds communist to any of you, I exhort you to read your New  Testament carefully — it is in fact the way God sees the role of the church.  We are to take care of, as Jesus told us in the  sheeps and goats parable, “the least of these,” in other words, the most vulnerable people in our society, hence the poor, hence the excluded, hence the illegal immigrant, hence the crack baby, hence whoever has been given the short end of the stick, and that often  includes people whose skin color is different than our  own.

We should all gasp when we hear the N word from white Christian friends, especially those whose friendship is not imaginary.  We should storm out.  What fear do we have of calling our bretheren on this?  It is as great a sin as any, and it speaks so very little of the intelligence of the conversation that would bear it.

Any man who thinks he recommends himself by announcing that he is better than another ethnic group ought to have his name written on the walls of the stalls of  ladies’ rooms in churches with this warning –
“Has imaginary friends.  Has imaginary appeal.  Is a great, white hope in his own mind.”

I pray, in the name of Jesus, a man with wooly hair and Middle-Eastern skin darker than my onw, who died on the cross and rose from the dead for me, that we will at long last conquer this horrible affliction within the church.  In His name, I bind the spirit of ignorance and pride from our body.  I loose  the spirit of unity and understanding.  Let the church say AMEN.

Brethren, sorry for the poor-quality cell phone photo of what was a kick-@## rock festival’s stage. I was there yesterday. I got sunburned, and my neck is a little sore from all the head-bopping I was doing.

Here’s the scripture upon which I am basing my homily this week — I consider it a promise to all believers who will pounce on it:

Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s. — Psalm 103:1-4

Saturday this past weekend, Coney Island was host to a day-long indie rock festival, the Siren Festival, and everyone from other parts of town who considers himself or herself hip, the same ones who go to hear bands in basements on the Lower East Side, seemed to be there.

Most of them were in their twenties, and those who were “older” were in their thirties, and I’m, well — ahem — perpetually thirty-nine at this point, but I was there, too. Does that make me hip? Let’s check:

TOP TEN REASONS I MIGHT BE REALLY HIP

1. Last year, a (Holy) hip-hop CD was released, The Cornerstone, and I was the only white person whose voice was on it — www.newlewmusic.com (Everyone there was half my age, too, it seemed like).
2. I have occasionally been asked for my autograph after readings by hip-looking people in their twenties. I also have gotten a couple of fan letters for my poetry from people who are serious hipsters.
3. There’s a guy in Brooklyn named Jackie, who is an older man of color who volunteers to talk to young black men in “at risk” programs to give them reasons and ways to avoid the mean streets. When Jackie wants to reach these young men across generational lines, he reads them several of my poems that show empowering images of black men. A lit journal that writes about literature of interest to African-Americans gave a positive review of my work.
4. I have watched a cocophonous orchestra in Manhattan — experimental modern music — blare dissonant horns as a woman with a British accent shouted words I wrote about freedom — that happened at Merkin Concert Hall in 2004.
5. I taught a college semester last year where I told my students (truthfully) that I was about their parents’ age, and they said they couldn’t believe me. When I asked why, they told me things like, “My mom doesn’t text her friends like you do.” “You just don’t look that age.” “You dress way cooler than they do.” “You know words they don’t.”
6. I am part of the Colbert Nation — actually, that might make me a total geek in some people’s eyes.
7. I often give readings on stages where legends of the rock world have stood before me.
8. I am so riding the crest of the wave of the return of big earrings.
9. I own clothes by certain hip labels, such as Baby Phat — remember, the Bible tells us that the liberal soul shall be made phat! (Proverbs 11:25, King James Version, Anne Babson spelling)
10. I bought fair trade products long before everyone else consciously started to do so in order to be “hip.”

Understand that there are plenty of things that might disqualify me from hipsterdom — my faith, for one. I don’t have any nose piercings, no tattoos, nor will I get any, when I wear t-shirts, which I rarely do, they may have ironic slogans on them, but they are never cynical, I never do any drugs, designer or other, and while I am always looking for friends, none of those friendships will ever include benefits.

Understand also that when I say “hip,” I really don’t mean Sex in the City chic. Carrie Bradshaw might slum at the events where hipsters go from time to time, but unless Samantha is there professionally to promote them, she wouldn’t be caught dead in the outfits hipsters wear. She would be bored by their artistic and intellectual pretensions. She would not find their antiestablishmentarianism even slightly compelling.

You see, quintessential New York hipsters don’t wear designer labels. I have occasionally joked that I have the K-Mart Jacqueline Smith Collection version of Carrie Bradshaw’s wardrobe, but that’s not really true. Even if I had billions of dollars, I would never buy from the more fashionable couturiers because of their lack of fair trade practices (see my hipster top ten list). I am more chic than the twenty-something tribe that haunts the corner of Stanton and Rivington on the Lower East Side or any corner these days in Williamsburg, but I’m enough like them that I find myself bumping into them again and again.

Most people my age that I know don’t go to indie rock festivals any more — and I promise, I’ll talk about this one part of the scene, I swear — they go to the occasional movie, go to work, go home, feed kids, water plants, once in a while have brunch — their only potential crossing coordinates with hipsters — and attend establishment cultural events. I asked a few of them to go to the Siren festival with me, but they said no. Only my friend Doris, who is twenty-four, said yes, even though she has a kid she could go home and feed. She left the baby with relatives.

Now the festival itself was wonderful. I particularly LOVED this band I had never heard before, and so did Spin.com — they are called Ra Ra Riot, and they are a marriage between the sound of The Clash and The Kronos Quartet. They call their music “chamber pop.” They are a bunch of fresh-faced kids from Syracuse New York — okay, fresh-faced with really, really intense “I’m making awesome music” grimaces. It’s very original stuff.

Ra Ra Riot (totally go to www.rarariot.com because they rock) was on the main stage, set up by the historic roller coaster the Cyclone, so while they were riffing, the only screams were not from fans but from people sliding down wooden tracks very, very fast. The hipsters looked, well, bored.

At the top of the page is the one lame photo I was able to take. The hipsters are bored. So I borrowed another photo from Ra Ra Riot’s promotional material which is more fun to look at:

As a part-time, non-card-carrying hipster, I had forgotten, as my friend Andrea reminded me today, that one of the cardinal rules for being hip is that you’re not supposed to appear to interested in anything, even stuff you spent a lot of time and energy to go see.

Me, though, I was bopping my head and dancing around. If I like something, I just like it. I’m not going to pretend to be ironically detached from it. That’s just lame, that’s missing the point. Honestly, the young, bored people around me were wasting their time, in my opinion, if they weren’t going to even bother to enjoy what they took the F Train all the way to the end of the line to come see.

This brings me to the passage that I quoted — let me focus on that rather mysterious part about our youth being renewed “like the eagle’s.”

Cosmetics promise us this, but surely not in quite the way God meant it. I don’t think here that God is talking about literal age. I think he’s talking about an outlook that brings joy and a freshness of being, physically, perhaps, but because one’s mouth is involved, and good things in it, I have to assume he means something spiritual and intellectual.

One of the things that I find frustrating about talking to people my own age these days is that many of them have stopped entertaining new ideas. It seems with each passing year there is less and less originality among my chronological peers. I did not go to the siren Festival to be “hip,” in fact. I went because I wanted to see it for my own enjoyment. I do a lot of things — like when I learned about “bars” and “hooks” in rap, and the difference between gangsta rap and more mainstream rap from a hip-hop producer’s standpoint, that was just for my own edification and enjoyment.

My peers used to be curious about new things. What happened? I admit wholeheartedly that someone with a child has a lot less time to focus on cultural phenomena. I understand that. But still, wouldn’t being around that child engender greater curiosity by constant contact with someone who can’t seem to stop asking “why?”

And as for those youngster hipsters — isn’t youth supposed to include the ability to just let loose and enjoy without fetters? If being hip means being detached, I’d rather be a geek.

Perhaps being renewed in one’s youth like the eagle’s in Christ is like being held aloft in a state of perpetual vivacity, to be like the Nobel Prize winner whom I met who decided in his late nineties to learn the minutia of artificial intelligence design at the software engineer level, just because it’s cool, or to be like a woman I met years ago in a night club who was in her seventies and in the VIP lounge past the velvet rope, clubbing with her granddaughter because she wanted to see it all. I guess I’m on my way to being like that.

I exhort you, in the name of Jesus, bless the LORD, forget not all His benefits, and remember that if your mouth is filled with His good things, your youth can be renewed. Never stop asking impertinent questions. Never stop trying new things. His mercies are new every morning. Amen.

Brethren, those of you who have been following my blog must have discerned that I am going through a rough period of my life. I just got divorced after the man I loved literally went crazy — off his needed medication, and became menacing. I’m old enough that I thought by now I would have the white picket fence American dream — you know, the Norman Rockwell painting of Thanksgiving with patriarch at head of table, the children, the lovely home. When I was married, I lived in a suburban, lovely home. I now live on Coney Island, back in bohemia, writing my poetry in a (very nice part of the) ghetto. Have you seen the movie He Got Game? Spike Lee filmed that in my neighborhood. As a white woman, as a woman with a job that pays above poverty level, I’m in the minority here.

For those white (or otherwise Rockwell-cliched) people reading this entry, there is an expression that is used in the ghetto — one that I like but that I fear — “ghetto superstar.” The ghetto superstar is the person who plays ball better than half the people in the NBA but who never gets through enough school for the scouts to notice him, it is the singer at the local church who is better than Mary J. Blige but never gets the recording contract. Jefferson’s ideal of a meritocracy is belied by the very existence of ghettoes — don’t believe for a minute that the race is always to the swiftest in our society, not yet. There are people who are known locally in any ghetto for their talents, but the system, and sometimes their own personal weaknesses — drugs, general unreliability, shut them out from real success. I never want to be a ghetto superstar, not in poetry, not in any field.

So here is the scripture on which I am hanging this homily:

Hebrews 12:1 — “ Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us…”

This passage of Hebrews comes right after the “faith superstar” chapter — we get the list of people in the Old testament who hung on to faith despite adversity — then it says “wherefore.” Think “therefore,” “since they did all of this and are watching us.”

A few weeks ago, I gave a reading in Manhattan with a brilliant collection of women for WSQ, the premiere academic women’s studies journal. I was VERY honored to be included in their current issue. I was included with some other poets, among whom is a woman whose name sounded vaguely familiar to me, but when I saw her face, I knew exactly who she was.

Here is her beautiful face:

Nicole Cooley and I met in high school during a summer writing workshop at Bennington College in Vermont. She changed my life. I had never met anyone who was my age and took writing as seriously as she did. I was a little punk rocker at the time, at least the suburban version of one, and everything was ironic. I was not so much an artist as a misunderstood teenager with a variety of radical fashion statements and a real interest in poetry.

Nicole had already finished the manuscript of a novel. She was brilliant, intense, quiet, conservative. I was much the woman in the previous blog entry, dancing with bare-chested men painted green. Nicole’s choices were much more conservative than mine. My poetry was wild and loose. Hers was tight and clean. This is still true.

Today, Nicole has many things I wish I had, at least things that I wish I had my own version of — she is happily married to a like-minded man. She has kids. She is the new chair of a new writing program at a local college. She wholly deserves this distinction at her comparatively young age because she remains as she has always been — a phenomenal talent. She has published novels, poetry collections, and her latest book, soon to be published by Louisiana State University Press, entitled (I believe) Resurrection, is going to be the definitive book on the recovery of New Orleans (where Nicole is from originally) from Hurricane Katrina. I have heard one of the poems from this collection, and it is a brilliant work of art, one that borrows cues from Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda alike. In short, Nicole is amazing and deserves absolutely every wonderful thing she has.

Have you ever been to your high school reunion and met someone who you used to hang out with, and you find she is still as pretty as she was on graduation day, rich now, with kids on the honor roll? Have you ever then looked at your own double chin in the mirror, reflected on your own bank account, reflected on your own kids, in trouble with the vice principal’s office again?

Oddly, or so I thought it was, I met Nicole in such a way and yet felt not the slightest bit jealous. Really! I mean it! Stop looking at me that way! It’s true. I am genuinely happy for Nicole. Praise God for what He has done in her life. I could not have met her at a time of greater self-doubt than where I am now, and yet I looked at her with everything she’s got, despite all my sweat and travail that I don’t have, and yet I felt blessed, profoundly blessed, that Nicole is not a ghetto superstar — she’s in the NBA, she’s got the Motown contract — and I’m okay, glad, thrilled.

Because God never misses a moment to show me he likes irony as much as I did as a punk rock teenager, here is one of my poems I read that evening in Manhattan, which appeared originally (I am obliged to say legally, as they have first North American serial rights to it) in Red Rock Review:

SONG OF ENVY by Anne Babson

The God of the triple-process blonde is in a heaven where black is never worn, where cream cheese is eaten by triple-process blonde angels, just like in that commercial. The God of the triple-process blonde is in heaven, and there are songs of praise to be sung in a Texas two-step lilt, and there are blonde babies to be pig-tailed and pressed into new dresses. It is Sunday, and the God of the triple-process blonde hovers in a heaven filled with snowflakes over the church converted from the bowling alley, while the triple-process blonde sings songs.

This is a song of envy. This is a song sung in absinthe-green nail polish in an empty night club where crushed cigarette butts line the morning floor, the stench of beer wafting from the broken boards. This is a song of envy. This is a song sung in the bitterness of tea without sugar drunk hungover. This is a song of envy to the triple-process blonde who voted to close this place down last election.

This, Blondie, is my confession — think of it as a prayer before bedtime — even though it is Sunday seven a. m. my head has not touched pillow since high noon Saturday — well, his front seat headrest tilted down wasn’t a pillow, and we weren’t sleeping. This, Blondie, is my confession, my confession to you — your church doesn’t abide Latin or popery (unless you spell it pot pourri), but my confession is this — mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa – I stink of sweaty cowboy, sweaty nightclub, and Sweaty longneck beer, of sweaty sin, of sweaty desperation. This is my battle hymn, a song of envy.

This is a song of envy. This is a song sung in absinthe-green nail polish chipping in my metal bathtub, in frothy water drawn to scrape the glitter off my tattooed back, the stink of cigarettes and “Yeah, baby!” From my single-process head of spiked-up devil-red hair. You — Triple-process: that’s bleach, bleach and Bleach again — you are the object. You are the object of this song of envy.

My God is a jealous God, Blondie. He is a loner. He sulks often. He is enigmatic. He’s like any one of my dates this year — promising to call, but never dialing my number again. Even the answers He provides are in the form of a question, just like on Jeopardy — “What is children going hungry?” “Who is an underachiever?” “What is surviving bitter pestilence?” “What is war, what is it good for?” The holy book I read is filled with more riddle than rhyme, Blondie, and I’ve dog-eared the pages looking For where I get your pristine life, where I stop flirting with losers, where the deus is ex machina, where.

This is a song of envy. This is an epistle from my church — a bathtub for baptism, a beat-up pick-up truck For the lectern, two pair of jeans stiff with paint and cow patties crossed to form crucifix — to your church — The one in the old bowling alley, still boxed-in coffin-like with faux wood paneling, the one where I see Only whitest whites, the one where everyone flosses daily, the one where your God answers everything Before it is asked and whose voice is as clear as the voice-over selling cream cheese, the God of my envy.

Don’t think, Blondie, that my skepticism is chosen. I know a world where you have never walked. I have seen the blisters on my mother’s hands. I have seen my father’s nakedness uncovered. I have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He has trampled on the vineyards where the grapes of Wrath are stored — that would be in my uncle’s gun rack, where my cousin picked the lock and exploded his brains on the Naugahyde sofa set. Yes, Blondie, I have smelled burned brains and vinyl, so point me to your Jesus who heals this. I dare him to clean the ring from my bathtub, the scum from my veins.

This is a song of envy, a battle hymn to battle Him. I envy your shingled roof. I envy your fresh-baked Lingonberry pie. I envy your porcelain skin. I envy your pressed dress. I envy your diamond-heavy hand. I envy you your cream cheese heaven and your interceding savior. I envy your ignorance of people like me, who have stared into eternity downward and see their own mascara-murky faces staring back at Them from Darwin’s pond, who see the darkness of “In the beginning” — before your God moved over The face of the Earth, before anyone saw that it was good, before I saw anything but envy.

I mean for this poem to be an exhortation to the Body of Christ who would evangelize women like the speaker, a woman like so many non-believers, who has made choices that were the best she knew how to make, and who feels condemnation from church folks who seem to have it better than she does. We need to tread compassionately with such people, for they are more like us than they let on at first, and they are hungry for blessing and love.

Reading the poem that I wrote years ago on the evening of my brief reunion with Nicole Cooley, however, legitimate superstar, made me test my own spirit for signs of envy. The truth is — I told you to stop looking at me like that — I’m not. So why not?

I cite the passage from Hebrews I quoted earlier for the reason. I don’t know how much or in what Nicole believes, but I do know what I believe. The race that is set before ME is different than the race set before another, and the prize is not a book contract, although, Jesus, that’s one of the desires of my heart. The prize is not family. The prize is not even brilliance. I’m competing in a much more important prize. I’m running the race of faith. I have a stadium filled with onlookers — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rahab, Hannah, and the rest. Praise God, and to Him be the glory, I have set aside the weights — divorce, childlessness, every brick in nearby housing projects, disappointments, getting older — and the sin that does so easily beset us — covetousness comes to mind here, and I truly don’t covet, just continue to hope for my own — and I am running the race that is set before ME with PATIENCE, just like Paul told me to.

Trust me. I’m not that holy. I didn’t make my heart any special way here out of my own volition. I’m surprised I’m not jealous. It’s not my own goodness at work. That’s why you can stop looking at me doubtfully. I’ve done only one thing right, it seems to me. I have surrendered my heart and my real belief and confidence to God’s promises. I believe I will have a husband, or I’ll have peace about not having one. I believe I’ll raise children, or I’ll have peace about not raising any. I believe my writing will be published on yet higher levels, that my career will explode, or I’ll have peace about where it goes. I don’t write for a press. I write for the one who gave me His Word. And my poems are what He fashioned them to be. He may have given Nicole a violin and me a trombone. It’s His orchestra, and I am playing the notes He gave me on the page. I hear the music in my head, and it sounds beautiful to me. If that’s all that ever happens, to Him the Composer be all Honor of it. Amen.

This is a picture of me taken last night around sunset. The men are half my age, bare-chested and painted green. There was loud music playing in the background, and a woman wearing star fish on her breasts and wrapped in fishnet was dancing on a stage to it.

Did I sin? Do Christians attend such events?

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. — Romans 12:2

Brethren, while each of the blog entries here are testimonies of sorts, I can’t really say that I’m penitent for anything I did last night. I danced, mostly with the men in this picture, who were more interested in running their fingers through each other’s green hair than through mine. I spent the evening talking to people, including a man in a kilt, wearing a strange mink stole. He was straight, and I thought he was kind of cute, but our conversation was civil and one that might have taken place after church at a fellowship brunch — nothing untoward. I do regret that twice, one man who was a volunteer for the event — he judged the mermaids — and a man disguised as King Neptune, wearing a loin cloth made of material almost identical to my top — flirted with me in front of their wives. I told the men how lucky they were to have women in their lives who would tolerate them.

I also spoke to a burlesque dancer, who called herself Fin Ray. She was dressed half as a mermaid, half as a gorilla. During the course of the evening, where dancers performed in between rock bands who were very good and of no surprising kind, except that they were in fact better than some wedding band for hire, Fin Ray kept her half-monkey persona and otherwise dressed in bridal lingerie. She pantomimed an imagined King-Kong Fae Ray wedding night. Much of the action involved her eating a banana suggestively handed to herself by her gorilla arm. At the end, the Gorilla arm (again, her own) tore off her negligee, and she was wearing something slightly more revealing than what one sees wearing on the beach. It was far less lust-producing than laugh-producing.

Again — should Christians not have attended this event, which was a fund-raiser to preserve an arts community on Coney Island?

I am amazed at the success of the movie Rent among people who have never set foot in New York City. When I saw the movie (after having seen the musical on Broadway), I wept.

That was really my life back when I moved to the city in the late Eighties. I lost a lot of men (ones who looked like the men in green with whom I danced last night) friends to AIDS. I was kind of like the performance artist in the movie who got everyone to protest artistically — I ran a guerilla theater squad for women’s rights. For instance, I crowned myself “Miss Sports Ill-Lust-Raided 1992″ on the day the magazine launched its swimsuit issue and vogued in front of the Time-Life Building while reporters snapped pictures and women older than me gave out statistics about women athletes. I did this as a protest in order to gain greater recognition for the accomplishments of women athletes. My protest was reported internationally, and Sports Illustrated not only started to cover women athletes with greater seriousness, they started a women’s sports magazine that lasted for some years.

I did some other kinds of protests as well. I marched for AIDS research funding wearing a leather jacket and lingerie, because that was what our cohort had chosen to wear as a uniform to get attention. I dressed in a long, red robe with some men who wore dresses like Dana Carvey’s church lady character from Saturday Night Live to protest some of the ugly, nasty things that were being said in a very unchristian manner by certain Christian leaders of the time against people with AIDS and against women in general.

At the time, I also attended church every Sunday, and I read the Bible. I wasn’t a lesbian, the way that the character was in the movie that I referred to earlier. I was straight, dating a lawyer who was more conservative than I was in almost every way.

So those of you who know about what is called “La Vie Boheme” in the movie Rent — I wonder what you think of those characters. Paul says to avoid the appearance of evil. I agree, but what does that mean? I never did drugs. I was not into what might be termed by some “alternative lifestyles.” I did, however, choose to keep company with drag queens, people who pierce their tongues and their genitalia and are willing to show others both, people who do drugs, talk about sex that churches do not condone, and these people who were in my life during that time — we protested together for the world to change to be more compassionate, more patient, more fair. Were they sinners? By any definition of Christianity, I’m sure they all were without exception. But if they were the only ones not conforming to the world — the system of Babylon that is still here and according to the world will still be here until Jesus comes — not willing to accept injustice, weren’t they actually the only ones obeying the command above from Romans 12?

Brethren, as for the last part of the directive above, about the will of God — let me address that. Let me speak plainly to you about it. If Bohemians of every sort aren’t Christians, it’s not really as much their fault as it is ours, the church’s fault. I was often the only Christian that they knew who would really talk to them without judging them outright. I brought a small number to the foot of the cross, but quite frankly, it was an uphill battle, especially while their friends were dying of a horrible disease and the church responded largely by telling them that God was punishing them for fornication. Fornication is a sin. So is pride. So is anything short of the Good Samaritan’s response to pain and suffering of all kinds.

Last night, I was there to dance and to get to know my neighbors, not so much to evangelize, but I did shout over the loud music to four men that I was a Christian. They were astonished. They thought of Christians as people who would never dance — even though our Jesus is the Lord of the Dance — who would never laugh as loudly as I was laughing, who would never have talked to people like them. Brethren, I want to remind you how many parties Jesus attended. He would have seen belly dancers. He would have seen drunks. Don’t think for a minute he wouldn’t have seen hookers. Don’t think for a minute he wouldn’t have seen homosexuality, adultery, and other things against the Word of God. Did Jesus go in there and shout at the front of the room — repent thou evil doers, for my kingdom is at hand? There is no record of Him doing so. On the contrary, he seemed to have danced, to have had some wine, to have eaten plenty of what was served, to have enjoyed the company of these people largely on their terms.

Be ye not conformed to the world. I submit that the truest sense of this is not in the wearing of make-up, green body paint, sequins, or other manifestations of fashion and fun. Let me amplify what I hear: Be ye not conformed to the cruelty of the world. Be ye not conformed to the indifference of the world. Be ye not conformed to the selfishness of the world.

All of the men I shouted to about my faith told me with some surprise in their voices that I was very sweet. They said they were not used to meeting sweet people at these kinds of events. They treated me with decency and respect. They made sure I had a place to sit, enough to eat and drink, a safe way to get home. I can only imagine the people who met Jesus at these parties reacted to him in even stronger terms. If people feel honored and sense a general goodness — it is convicting to them, whether they fully understand it or not.

Preaching the Gospel, I submit, is often less about Bible tracts than about living like The Living Word. So go ye into the World, everywhere in the World. Be ye not conformed. Hang with the non-conformists. Go change the world with the power of the love you have been given. Love never fails. Amen.

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” — Hebrews 13:2

This week’s homily is about girlfriends, the ones I knew I have, but especially the ones I had no idea I had until they suddenly appeared. I have my good female friends, the ones I know I can count on all the time — the ones who attend parties with me. Here’s a picture of some of my A-List friends — I took this when we were at a Mets game.

These are the women that I always know I can count on to care enough about me to help me when times are down. The women in this picture have known me since I was in my teens (just a few years ago, I joke).

But this week, I became particularly mindful of the women who have helped me and treated me with enormous kindness even though they had no particular reason to do so. I was practically a stranger to them.

People who live outside of New York City may think that this is not the way New Yorkers are — that we’re a cold bunch. They couldn’t be more wrong. Look at the way we cradled each other after 9/11 — that’s our real character. We’re all toughness and bluster until somebody falls down. Then we gather around and pick each other up.

The women this next photo are virtual strangers to me, and yet, they behaved as kindly as sisters ever have. They met me first when my ex-husband and I were looking for wedding bands, just having been engaged. My ex had purchased my engagement ring from Rosanne, the owner of the shop, and he told them how much he loved me. They met me, and we tried on rings together. Rosanne employs only women jewelers — something that makes the shop have a terrific character. They give out terrific advice to men picking out gifts for women they love. It also has the chatty informality going there as if one were going to the beauty salon.

When my birthday and Christmas would roll around, my ex would swing by Rosanne’s and purchase a trinket for me — he gave me a couple of diamond pendants and some pearls.

Rosanne also buys gold and repairs jewelry. She has a terrific woman who works for her who delicately repairs broken jewels. She’s the one in the back of the photo. I went in there with a charm that belonged to my grandmother, and these ladies helped me buy a bracelet and attach the charm to it. I wear it on my wrist now.

When my ex-husband became scary and threw me out, I had to sell everything of value I had just to have enough to survive. I came to Rosanne’s and asked her to buy my gold. These ladies had already been nice to me, and I knew she would not steal from me. When I explained why I was selling, these wonderful women wept with me. Each of them hugged me as if we had known each other forever. They bought my gold, but they insisted I come back regularly for more hugs.

Here’s a picture of them with me taken yesterday. There is no more need for weeping. I’m the one wearing red, smiling the largest smile. These women are so wonderful. It’s amazing that they were so nice to me even though they barely knew me, that they are so happy for me now that I’m back on my feet living my life in joy. Why were they so kind? I am no one special to them — just another customer.

My accountant, Helen Kyrillidis, and her bff, attorney Susan Rizos, are another pair of suddenly discovered good friends. I had to see Helen about a matter related to old taxes, and she and Susan were sitting together laughing in their offices in Astoria, Queens. I wish I had a photo of these women to post here. They look smart, shrewd, confident, and a little tough. However, they have each expressed concern for me, delight at my triumphs, have worried about me like two clucking hens when I have made mistakes.

All the sociologists talk about how disconnected we are one from the other in today’s society. With kinship ties less stable — divorces at such a high, non-marriage, single parenting, abandoned elderly folks — we can surely see that on this father’s day we are all less connected in traditional ways than we ever have been. Community ties as we have defined them are frayed.

However, I am encouraged by my women acquaintances. Without a strong exterior social structure, perhaps we females remain kind, loving , generous, empathetic, and full of the spiritual gift of hospitality. I trust that women have been given at birth a sense of connection that cannot be permanently disrupted by the bad behavior of men who leave us, cheat us, beat us, treat us like trash. I’m back on my feet in part thanks to women like these half-strangers, who treated me as somebody important enough to care about.

Medical science backs up my assertions. It is a proven fact that those diagnosed with cancer have a much, much greater chance of survival if they have women to talk to. This is equally true for men and women — women are the ones who make us feel better when we’re down for the count. Guys surely have other strengths. I thank God for some of the men in my life, too, who have been incredibly supportive. However, there is something about the way women talk to each other and to men that makes the human race feel, despite evidence to the contrary, that everything is going to be all right.

So go to Rosanne’s Jewelry store — the address is 1040 Park Boulevard in Massapequa Park, telephone 516-799-7722. Tell them you saw them on my blog, and I’ll bet they’ll give you a hug if you need one.

Go into the world and see if you don’t have friendships that take you by surprise. People are kinder, more compassionate, than you perhaps think. Thank God for that. And thank you to those who have entertained me as if I were an angel sent to them. I am no angel, alas, but I am your sister. Thank you to those sisters in Christ whom I will never meet on Earth but who regularly practice Christian hospitality. We are family, despite what the sociologists can quantify. Together, we will endure somehow until the sky cracks.

This is a picture of Su — my collaborator in all musical things — isn’t she pretty?  She’s very, very smart, too, and incredibly talented, so utterly, unspeakably brilliant that she inspired the following homily:

“I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.” — Philippians 4:13

Oh, yes — let the church say “amen!” Christians will tell you, if they are familiar with the Word, that they believe what this Pauline epistle says. Yes, Christ strengthens us, allowing us to do all things. Some will say, all things which we are called to do — I mean, perhaps Christ wouldn’t help us rob a bank.

It is easy, of course, to say that one believes this until it is time to do something really hard to do, something that one knows could not be accomplished in the natural.

This week, I had such an incident this week, brethren.

Ok — Here’s what happened: I’ve written the words to an opera, a very modern and hip one. In it, I wrote a small comic role, that of a bad 1980s pop star. I wrote words that go like “Orange Mousse! Everyone is a Flower! Everyone is a Fruit! Drink that Pineapple Flower!” Not exactly cogito ergo sum, not exactly the words of Dr. Faustus when he meets the devil — just think B-52s, think Go-Gos, think Lena Lovich lyrics, and because I expected my brilliant composer collaborator to write something melodically on the level of sophistication of “Lucky Star” or “Turning Japanese,” two admirably foolish 80s hits, I said to her that I would LOVE to play the part of the bad 80s pop star on the bad 80s recording and rock video that would accompany the production on international tours and appear no doubt in the best concert halls of New York. After all, I sing in church and can surely carry a tune as well as any bad 80s pop star, and I can imitate the attitude and make it funny.

I forgot one thing, brethren. My collaborator is a GENIUS. She can’t help herself. She wrote something very sophisticated. It’s in the bad 80s pop genre, but it has got a three-octave range and rhythms that could put a flamenco dancer out of business. I heard a music-only version of the piece and did not understand that she wanted me to sing more than five notes — I thought all that piano music was an instrumental solo, not where MY voice was supposed to go!

Okay, I’m clueless. I’m not a real singer. For a singer, I’m an excellent blogger.

When she called to practice with me — understand the girl has been in the company of the world’s greatest musicians since she was knee high to a Malaysian tree frog — she was horrified I did not have a better instant command of the music. I could hear her disappointment in her voice. This opera means the world to her — it establishes her, rightfully, at the summit of contemporary classical music. She can’t afford for this not to work.

When we hung up the phone, I started to pray and cry — life has been a little hard lately, and being a nineteen-eighties pop star in my own mind has felt like a renaissance of sorts to me, a rebirth of my high school fantasy cool self. I couldn’t afford to mess this up either, on an emotional level. I called the engineer who was supposed to record (see my plug of him above) and asked him to rehearse with me.

A nicer guy has never been born than this young engineer. I think he’s single, ladies, and if you’re about twenty-two years old, he’s I’m sure quite luscious, too. Again, look above for his contact information.

I prayed, standing on the above-mentioned scripture for my text, and I got other believers to agree with me, including but not limited to Pastor Mike Burns of Christian Joy Fellowship, the prayer ministers at Kenneth Copeland Ministries, my good artist friend Andrea Bonifacio, a believing painter who paints in tongues — a story for another blog entry — and an engineer pal of mine who loves the Lord. Jared the engineer rehearsed with me for hours and hours with my still not making the sophisticated piece of music either palatable to the ear or funny. I began to despair.

I cried on the way home from the recording studio, and I fretted in my apartment. My voice was hoarse, and I was no closer to being an 80s pop star, bad or otherwise, than I was in high school. I decided to reread the passage in Philippians, looking for God’s loophole out of helping me with answered prayer.

Truthfully, it would have been unrealistic for me to expect to prosper in this project without practice. There are some people who think that the anointing of some gift should hit them without their preparation in the natural at all. That’s just stupid. God expects us to do our very best, and then He adds His very best, which of course is beyond all we can ask or think.

So that’s my testimony. I went to bed weepy and exhausted, discouraged and still standing on the Word, and God gave me better than what I had asked for by the time I got up.

I woke up at 4 am — it was the day of the actual recording (the video will come later), and I heard a funny voice singing the song in my head. She was incredibly pretentious, more pretentious than what I had imagined. THAT would be how I would succeed! I would make my “pop star” so full of herself, even though her voice was mediocre, it would be a send up of both pop stars and opera divas alike, and the piece would take on the air of the intentionally, rather than the accidentally, ridiculous that it needed to succeed.

When I got to the studio for the first take, I was ready. Jared the engineer heard it and said, “You did that a lot differently yesterday! It’s good the way you’ve got it now.”

Ah, says the agnostic, you just had a moment of inspiration of a human kind that pulled you through, Anne. Wait! Not so!

Before I tell you what happened next, allow me to praise God, whose Word NEVER returns to Him void. A moment of silence, please.

My composer had written me a high F sharp — that’s high f sharp over high c, y’all, and I’m a frigging ALTO. I HIT that note!

Let us have a moment of selah.

Again, I hit that high f sharp. It was NOT in my capacity to do it the day before, and I had no natural reason to aspire to it, but I hit it like Whitney Houston telling me that she’d always love me.

The song is funny, just what the opera needs. I don’t sound bad so much as snooty, in the best possible way for the context, and by the way — the opera is being filmed for TV, and we expect it to air in 2009. Details when they are confirmed.

I can do all things, even ridiculous things, high-school fantasy things, in Christ who strengthens me.

So can you. Practice your way to Carnegie Hall, whatever that is for you, but know that having done all you can, you can stand in your full armor of God, believing His Word, and what you can’t do on your own, you can do with Him and through Him.