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It has been a great point of pride for me that I dropped out of Calculus in High School, in favor of a Photography class that changed my life. The sappy story of how a sarcastic art teacher and creepy darkroom tech might alter a course of personal history is a tale for another time. I am writing today to regersiter a complaint against the esteemed George W. Bush. In a round-about way, lest the Feds get my address this time.

In light of my current occupation changing the diapers of twin six month olds (Monkey and Turtle) and the fact that various Nanny web-sites assured me that I will never, ever, in a million years of economic upturn, make a penny more, or have any sort of job security, or have benefits or paid vacations, ever, I am looking for (yet another) career change. This makes seven in three years. This time, I’m hoping it will stick. Instead of looking for glam jobs, like kayaking near mile-long glaciers looking for whales, or hanging out with male prostitutes at 2am on dark street corners of sketchy ‘hoods, or teaching crack addicts how to avoid rattlesnakes and start fires with sticks fifty miles from the nearest road in the Utah desert, I am buckling down and going for something a little more (gasp) mainstream. Maybe it has something to do with getting married (settling down?) in March. Maybe I am aging. Either way, it’s a scary step for my little soul to plunge down.

I have been scowering the web for post-baccalaureate teaching certification programs. Every so-called “job” I’ve had has involved some form of teaching, and usually the teaching parts of the job are the only palatable bits. (ok, so surfing glacial drift and being tailed by angry bull-seals was pretty cool, too. but i’m trying hard to be positive, here.) I finally found one that looked good. It’s on-line, so no matter how many times Peter and I uproot, I can continue to take the classes. They’ll work with whatever state we end up in to find a student-teaching spot. It looks like it will take me less than a year. I hail the unsullied blessing of the Internet. The good news keeps on rolling in …

Until I actually talk to a human, a very helpful and informative and infinitely discouraging human. This interaction reminds me once again that I should have become a luddite. She informs me that in addition to the very hard graduate level online classes, I have to take any number of “core” courses – she’ll have to look at my college transcripts to be sure – but they will include chemistry, physics, history and (i nearly dropped Turtle at this point) calculus. Let me remind my listeners here that I am looking to teach FIFTH graders. Pint-sized, fashion maven, 4-square playing, eager-to-please ten year olds who are lucky if they can put a couple of fractions together without breaking a sweat. Calculus.

When I worked in a school district last year, I interacted with teachers in every subject at nearly every grade level. I also know many teachers from all over the country (thanks to my exponentially expanding list of places I’ve crashed.) I have yet to talk to a single professional educator who does not physically bristle when the No Child Left Behind Act is mentioned, referenced or hinted at. They become visibly irate, their mannerisms become jerky, faces turn red, speech becomes curt. This generally does not leave a favorable impression on a soul.

Now that I may have to take remedial mathematics for a decade or so, in order to teach tykes how to divide up a pizza into eights and then add them together to make a half, I am beginning to become a little bristly myself.

Two Sundays in the Bible Belt means Two Sundays in Church. The Directory of options for my parent’s town in Texas (population: 35,000) is three pages long. Although my church attendance has been spotty over the last several months, most lately with excessive travel as an easy excuse, the truth is my absence has been driven by spiritual turmoil that I have neither been able to identify or suppress. Living at home now, Church attendance is not optional. Thankfully, denomination (to a point) is.

My first choice was Mesa Community Church. It is an AMIA plant, and after attending Rez in Wheaton for so many years, I thought I would at least feel at home. I drove to Austin and was immediately welcomed by the requisite door greeter: “Have we met? We are *so* glad you are here!” I put on my game face and dove into the small milieu in the foyer of the Middle School where they meet. There were trendy, colorful handouts, a free worship CD by their band, nametags. I was heartily greeted by everyone I accidentally made eye contact with (“Have we met? We are *so* glad you’re here!”) When I made it to the cafeteria where ten huge squares of black fabric had been set up which framed easels of painted scriptures and creeds, I realized Mesa was not what I was looking for.

I have to admit at this point that I had chosen Mesa over the other Austin AMIA church for a single reason: Based on the website, it looked bigger. I was craving a quiet place where I could slip in and face whatever turmoil arose. Where I could walk out, if I needed some space, without being noticed. I sought an AMIA church because I was craving the familiar space that Liturgy creates to do that. There were fifty or so chairs set up in the tiny space those black fabric squares create. The church was very small. There was no subtle way out. And there wasn’t liturgy (although I will also admit I have been spoiled by my sporadic attendance with the Orthodox.)

I must pause here and say that Mesa was an exceptional church. I felt welcomed by everyone I came into contact with, including the pastor (greeter-lines notwithstanding.) What they have done with their limited space and informational materials was unexpected for a congregation so small. The worship was easy to follow, albeit short on the “old school” church practices I normally associate with Anglicanism. I highly recommend a visit in the unlikely event that any of the evangelical kilt who reads this lives in the Austin area.

However, as expected, as soon as I walked in the door the now familiar turmoil hit me like a brick. I spent the service fighting back tears and frustration (again: source unknown.) I sat through the service detached from the worship, the sermon, even (loathe to admit it) communion. I was fighting this now-familiar blindfolded battle, trying to remain straight-faced until I could leave.

The next week, I played it safe and went to the St. Mark’s Episcopal in my parent’s town. I had been there on previous trips, before The Controversy made national headlines. I know that their early service is a mellow affair where I could sit in the back, mouth the liturgy, and kneel (or leave) if I needed to without causing undue concern. And it was. The liturgy was exactly the space I needed. Although I didn’t pay much attention to the sermon, and didn’t know most of the songs, I spent the service focusing, searching … even praying, as unfamiliar an activity as that has become. There were robes and guitar music. Bells and kneeling and the lighting of candles for intentions (I love this terminology, and was delighted to find a non-Catholic church that uses it.) A man with MS sat beside me and explained in his wispy voice how communion is taken, so I would know what to do.

And now I come to the question of interpretation:

According to the Conservative Christian Right (as represented in this case by my Dr.Dobson Loving, Jerry Falwell’s School Attending, Anti-Gay Protesting, Overseas Evangelism Supporting, Anti-Immigration Voting, World Magazine Reading family) my presence at an Episcopal church was questionable if not outright Dangerous For My Soul. Because I am in a quagmire of spirituality a present, the fact that I experienced no turmoil while there would indicate to Them that the Spirit of Conviction, which should be pulling me (driving me?) to Christ was not present. My anxiety at Mesa was caused by that very presence, and I should continue to attend that place of discomfort until I am brought back into Right Relationship With God (whatever the hell that means.)

According to me, as the protagonist of this blog, my presence at the Episcopal church was the best thing (spiritually) that has happened in a formal setting (meaning: epiphanies in moonlit canyons not counted) in a very long time. Yet if I follow the reasoning of the Evangelicals, here, I get stuck. I do not think that there is anything “wrong” with Mesa, or that my presence there was somehow negative or detrimental, as would follow if Evangelical and Mainline churches were spiritually at odds with one another. I have a hard time stomaching this one. Granted, I am left with one more personal reason to avoid anything resembling contemporary evangelical worship. Yet I have no qualms recommending it to somebody who might find otherwise (although I would be martyred for the liberals before recommending some other churches that come to mind.)

(TO BE CONTINUED … )

I have driven over 6000 miles in the last month, and I am exhausted. I got a job with Wilderness Quest in Utah (www.wildernessquest.com) on short notice. On May 9th, I packed up a bag full of camping gear and flew south to train for three weeks. In the end, I came out of my first shift working with adult addicts in the deep desert wilderness of the Southwest elated. I was driving an old Toyota pickup with little engine power for the long inclines, and the head clinician was passed out in the seat next to me. As we drove through canyons and over passes, a harvest moon big enough to obscure the horizon rose up over the junipers and sage brush and lit the road. And I cried. I was so happy, having a job working outside, working with people, working for a company that was more than I could hope for, so many of the pieces that have made up my life so far coming together into such a beautiful picture.

But I was crying from a dissonance, as well. As much as I loved this job, these coworkers, the individuals we served. As much as I adored waking up under the moon, hiking through redrock canyons, finding clear springs hidden deep in crevices of rock, watching hawks hunt and jackrabbits evade them, finding mountain lion tracks by the stream in the morning, crying with a woman as the depth of her addiction sinks in and, for the first time, she wants … really, honestly desires change, and realizes she is willing to fight for it. As much as I loved all these things, there was Peter, waiting patiently in Alaska, and with him all of the plans we have together; the land we will buy in the mountains, the kids we will teach and mentor, the goats and the tomatoes and the yurt and the woodstove glowing all night through the winters we are planning to spend together. Graduate school in Seattle. Travels to India and Kenya in our dreams, and now in our plans. Together.

When I returned to the Northcountry to pack my things and drive back, leaving Nyssa in Chicago on the way, leaving Peter in Alaska at the outset, the dissonance grew louder. I was leaving this one thing I loved for another. I believed at the time it would be alright, because I knew the strength of our connection and commitment. Halfway through my next shift in the desert, I knew I had been wrong. My relationship with Peter is irrevocably intertwined in my life, now. This miracle was hoped for with an intensity I would never admit until it was realized. It is realized now, and we will be gray-haired, senile old earth-muffins racing our walkers to the mailbox together before this chapter closes. A job in the wilderness, no matter how perfect in the moment, can never touch that span. Even if it means moving to the urban sprawl of the northeast for a time, building this life is the most important thing.

Suprising my parents at their home in Texas with the Trifold Announcement: I Quit My Job, I Am Moving Home, I Am Getting Married … That was a challenge nothing in my life so far had prepared me for. But I am home now, the car a little worse for wear, my body still dazed from all the road-miles and changes, finding myself perusing wedding planners and looking for jobs in Pennsylvania. Peter is on his way to meet me, weaving his way through the Yukon on his own epic solo drive. He will be here soon. We will be here soon. And I suppose that is all that needs saying.

For the first time since the fourth grade I have found my days filled with lunch lines, long division, spelling tests and 4-square feuds. My current work has me spending weekdays at public elemetary school and a Boys and Girls Club for disadvantaged youth. My job requires me to participate in art projects, assemblies and recess, and I am suddenly a firsthand witness to the bliss and the agony being an upper-elementary student. I listen in awe as gifted teachers explain math concepts that (I blush to admit) I never understood until this week. I cringe as adults mete out arbitrary punishment on kids with a history, but nothing save accidental proximity bloodying their hands.

Watching the intricate social web of a dodgeball game was my reintroduction to this long-forgotten culture of childhood. I saw a scraggly-haired tomboy bite her lip to keep from crying after a vicious head-shot, shooing a concerned huddle of girls away, glaring steadily at the bully who’d hit her. I saw her brother (who had spent his game going after her at every opportunity) take out her slayer with unequalled wrath when he next got the ball. I watched as an everchanging gang of eleven and twelve year-old boys made alliances and broke them, ignoring the easy targets of elbow-height kids a few feet away. I watched these same mite-sized kids, many the youngest of multiple siblings, take their elders off-guard with perfectly aimed, powerful assaults. When a shot would land with a satisfying thud on the back or shoulder of an older boy, I cheered for the little one as they grinned at the floor and darted instinctively back to safety.

As weeks turned into months, I began to notice other details: Herds of pre-teen girls, still round with baby fat, wearing alarming shades of pink and mouthing off with distain and indifference to harried adults. Circles of boys, varying in size and age, swapping YuGiOh cards behind the bleachers and then stealing them back from the overstuffed pockets of their peers, undetected, during snack time. Skater teens giving up their slice of pizza to a smaller child at the back of the line who would have gone without. The requisite crybaby who burst into tears at every opportunity, to be surrounded by a new set of concerned faces each week, until the sobbing trick was learned and new sympathies required. And then I started noticing the bullies.

I don’t remember any bullies from my childhood. Perhaps I was exceptionally fortunate that way, or perhaps I was just far enough outside the social norm to avoid their attentions. I was shocked, then, when I discovered both their existence, their ferocity, and their relative exemption from adult intervention. Shocked and infuriated. They seemed to exist in a bubble of protection, intimidating some adults that tried to intervene, turing icy indifference on others. Their actions seemed to stem from a malicious streak that went beyond the occasional punch and scuffle of the gangs of dodgeball boys, or the push-and-shove incidents at the skatepark. I began to watch their movements, their associations. I began to hate them.

I know that school bullying has been something of a touchpoint in the last year or so. The movie Mean Girls, the slew of Pop-Sociology books, the prime-time TV specials and myriad of anti-bullying posters that line the halls of the elementary; each new addition has added to public outcry and hysteria. Having no contact with children whatsever at the time, I was oblivious. Now, I was angry.

Unlike the bullied-child’s parent, however, I watched from a distance. I had no particular stake in the immediate politics of the playground. Though technically an “adult,” I have no authority over any of these kids. Most of them don’t know this, but because my daily interactions don’t only involve whistles, time-outs and exasperated directions, I have begun to gain their trust and their voice. First, I asked in round-about ways about the bullies, of relevant adults. Then I talked to the bullied kids about their associations, their movements. I coached them on avoidance tactics, only to see them pushed around again the next day. Worse, to watch them virtually gravitate to the far corners of the playground where they were most likely to encounter a problem. I talked to the ininvolved kids about their perceptions of the ‘situation.’

This week, on accident, I started talking to the bullies. My morbid curiosity came into play, I suppose. Or my penchant for amateur anthropology. I forgot that putting a face on a stereotype often renders it powerless.

One bully went out of his way last week to play a game of chess with a younger, outsider kid, and graciously let his opponent win. Another has taken to typing up elaborate fantasy stories, developed in tandem with peers, that astounded me with their detail and subtlety. I don’t know what to say about them anymore. Their behavior is not excusable, yet I see environmental excuses for it every day. I always assumed bullies were the dumb jocks, eager fur lunch money and a cheap laugh. By all accounts, these bullies are too smart for age-appropriate social interaction with their peers, are ousted, and cope poorly in the shadow of adult indifference.

What haunts me is that these rough-edged kids remind me of the male street-walkers I used to work with; guys who make bad decisions with nearly every breath by the time I notice them, yet with a lifetime of indifference pushing them into the dark with an inconceivable force. In light of this, all my easy definitions are smudged to grey.

The last sensation I expected to encounter on Sunday was cinnamon wafting thick from a censor. Much less at a church still deep in the lenten cycle of contemplation and fasting. The spice of Christmas is associated in my mind with feasting, gifts and family – things antithetical to the season leading up to Pascha. The Orthodox are still deep in their lenten observances. My attendance there has been more and more sporadic, for a vast array of reasons that I shall not attempt to pinpoint here. Suffice to say, I was in no way prepared for my first “irregular” Orthodox service, expecting as I did the subdued nature of my own tradition’s march up to Easter.

Christina, my primary contact and closest friend at this small mission parish, grabbed me from behind as soon as I had kissed the ikon, and pushed me towards her gathered children behind the chanters. She has been calling me all weekend, trying to solicit my attendance at the spring (ha! It’s been snowing for two weeks!) retreat. I have been avoiding returning her calls. She whispers that it is a special Sunday, and did I know? Even now, I don’t remember the name. The presentation of the cross?

Just walking across the threshold of that little mission’s doorway had brought me into an acute state of confusion. I have been avoiding this place. Three weeks ago, I drove all the way out only to turn around again when I was close enough to see silhouettes of worshipers swaying through the windows. Yet with my hand on the snow-crusted door of the narthex, it was all I could do to to keep from crying. The only associated feeling I can muster is that of a homesick runaway, standing at the door of her parent’s home, hand on the wood, smelling the trees, her father’s aftershave and bread baking in the kitchen, savoring all these familiar things, yet refusing to let herself be known. And at the same time, I am loathe to admit that these were the tears I choked back. That would preclude confusion. Yet confusion remains.

I stood through the service, through the circling, the chanting, the wafting scents, the snow increasing and blowing into drifts outside, the kneeling, the kissing of the cross presented in a bed of roses. I held the tiny hands of Christina’s boys, encouraging them to stand, pointing out our place in the children’s liturgy book – the only one I have a hope of following. But after watching a congregation feast on a meal I cannot participate in, a palatable reminder of the leaps I have taken from everything I used to believe and trust, I couldn’t stay any longer. I was not sad, nor angry. I did not feel rejected or excluded. I was not gripped by conviction, nor was I fleeing some powerful presence. I had simply had enough.

I have been receiving tracts from concerned Orthodox parishioners, carefully worded to help Evangelical Christians understand (and embrace) the differences found in Orthodox worship and theology. They do not understand, I think, that these are exactly what I don’t need – little booklets pointing out how similar the Orthodox are to a tradition I am fleeing with deliberate steps.

The gold-and-purple-robed priests in birkenstocks, the ikons lit with flickering oil lamps, the miniature bodies of Duncan and Keegan barefoot and prostrate beside me, the earnest baritone voice of a man near us drowning the chant, the weathered cane of the sub-deacon tapping as he shuffles towards the cross, the unexpected scent of celebration, of birth and of hope, wafting from the altar as my stomach growls; these are the instants that pull me towards hope that redemption is possible. More, that redemption is true.

But the ice-encrusted world outside awaits, and blacks out these rare moments when I think I might open the door and come back inside.