Come In!

It all points back to the early years when it seemed I would be a model citizen once I reached a ripe age. In my youth I was cheerful, kind , and, above all, an obedient little girl. The very sweetest and kindest are most susceptible to conviction, so when they suggested that I ask Jesus into my heart I did just that, rather than pretending, like everybody else did. Everyone in America knows that it’s good to talk about Jesus and justify everything you do by insisting that you love Jesus, but of course that’s all just play acting, a little show on the surface of things, a lie we tell ourselves and each other while deep down beneath the shiny veneer, within the confused tangles of the deep psyche, we maneuver towards our greatest desires and veer away from our worst fears, and plot ways to hide all of this subterranean activity under layers and layers of words and social etiquette.
But I did not know that as a child. I was too slow to catch on to the ways of the world. When they bade me to accept Jesus I opened my arms and flung wide the doors to my little heart and cried:
"Come in, come in!"
And that was how my career as an invocant was begun, very innocently, obediently and with the best intentions. My crime, of course, was, is and ever shall be an indulgence in conviction. While immersed in a culture of fakers there can be no greater sin than sincerity. Jesus was for me a gateway deity. The way some kids smoke pot and then move on to try something harsher, I started with what was friendliest and worked my way outward towards the most forbidden. With time I grew sympathetic to stranger wilder forces, forces without forms, or names, or mythologies to dress them in. To those forces beyond calculation I likewise opened the temple of my mammalian countenance and threw back my head to howl an invitation:
"Come in, come in!"
There was never a more generous or hospitable offer to make, nor shall there ever be. I hear from others that this is a very frightening and naughty thing to have done. I hear from human animals that this is a bad thing. I hear this from fakers, from liars, from cowards. I am not ashamed to have looked into my own innermost quarters, into the depths of my heart, and the secret crevices of my mind and discovered that there was darkness there. I am not ashamed to have discovered that I am but a mere mortal, an animal alike in my fears and desires to all other animals. I am not ashamed that I would make a sacrifice of that animal on the altar that we call a lifetime. What is one lamb more or less to the flock? Maybe there are a few that have missed me down at the trough while I was away acting upon my convictions, living not just for the sake of being alive, but rather questioning the possibilities entrenched within that experience, exploring it, testing its measure, prodding its heights and depths with every sense available to me, beyond hope, shame, or fear. You may keep all of the rewards in store for the good animals, I will take all of the punishments reserved for the strays. For freedom I will pay with responsibility, accepting the consequence of my actions and inactions. I will be faithful to my purest impulses, to my open hearted wonderment and willingness. I will accept my worst nature, my cowardly yearnings, as they are mine too, and I will be the one to master them with open eyes and a gentle hand. I am resolved to be a bad girl until the bitter end, incurable of honesty and true charity, ever biting at the tether and bucking at the reign of the masters of the world. My kingdom is in the invisible heavens and hells, embedded in every shadow and every reflection, in every grain of sand and every tear drop. May it live in small gestures that grow grander, may it breath through subtle shapes, hues, and murmurs, may it flourish under this veil of mortality. I invite it with open heart:
"Come in! Come in!"