Category: Musings

Week in Review (5/23-6/4)

Closing up week two of my deactivated-life…well, to be honest, I only deactivated Twitter and Instagram because those two places cause me the most inner strife. I still have Snap. Snap seems significantly more innocuous to me and for my personality type. *shrugs*

It’s funny to think about how often I Tweeted something, multiple times a day; pictures on Insta? Just as often. Yet, once I deactivated both mediums, I had nothing to share. Literally. Two weeks ago I mentioned that maybe I’d do a weekly video, cataloging and sharing my thoughts, and…in 14 days, I’ve had maybe *squinches face trying to recall* like, four thoughts that I’d want to share… and maybe a few more images than four, but still. It begs the question…

As an overview of my inner health, it’s very stable. I feel less pulled in so many directions. What’s funny is that each direction I was being pulled in was pointless. Why stay on a medium for communication that causes one to remember what was and have pain over the losses? Why stay on a platform that presents picture-perfect ever time you scroll? Is that what is necessary right now? The endless pursuit of “look how much I’m killing it!”? Happy shiny marriages. Happy shiny kids. Happy shiny food. Happy shiny runs. Happy shiny outings in the woods and mountains. Happy shiny glowy people perpetually celebrating perfection. And even if I know these images and status updates are merely the tip of the ice-berg, even if I know others hurt and have struggles as I do, the brain doesn’t actually know it’s all fake and momentary; this is why you cultivate so much inner struggle and strife when presented with so much perfection. It’s also why you may struggle it caustic and toxic conflict on these same platforms, because even if you know you are typing and you are in your own home, your brain doesn’t care…it’s there, thus so are you.

I think these platforms are growing worse, tbh. That makes sense, though. Our world is on fire, so why not double down on hyper positivity, saccharine optimism, and sparkly auto-mythology. I blame no one and do not through accusations in any particular direction. Not only is it human to do such things because it’s part of surviving tumult and chaos and despair is a scary option sometimes, but also because I’ve done this thing. I’ve grabbed various brushes and paints and have artistically fashioned an perfect image worthy of awards. However, I’m not sure that’s really helping anymore.

I think we need way more honesty if we are going to make it through these traumatic-twenties in one piece. And I’m *not* saying create a fake twitter or insta; please, even those aren’t “authentic” as they intend to be. What I’m saying is sometimes honesty starts with being silent. Stop talking. Stop posting. Stop cultivating a brand, an image, a platform…just be silent. Be with yourself. As I confessed at the beginning, it’s amazing how little there is to show off when no one will see it.

I think some of our coping mechanisms may have moved from the helpful category to the hindering category. For me, those social medium mechs just kept dropping me into a gutter of inner-sludge I just didn’t like and it was preventing me from surviving and keeping me far from thriving. Do what you need to, just be honest with what is helping and what isn’t right now. I’d like to see all of you make it through this very very very very long March 2020.

With that said, here are few things from the past few weeks I’d like to share…I think there are like a handful of you whofollow this blog, so, this is for you…

  1. I had the privilege of speaking at a local vigil held by Black Citizens and Friends (Fb: @blackcitizensandfriends) last Wednesday (5/25). Here is a recording of that vigil, I appear at (around) minute 26: https://fb.watch/drfeg-nBYs/
  2. Also on Wednesday 5/25, our little church (Fb: @nativitygj) held a morning prayer service adapted from the evening prayer service we just created for mourning and loss to spend time gathered to hold space to honor the many lives lost to gun violence recently (Buffalo and Ulvade and so many many many others). The link for that video is here: https://fb.watch/drfqNP_1tF/
  3. We did get out for Memorial Day weekend (Sunday 5/29) and headed to Kannah Creek for a hike and a picnic. However, that picnic was VERY rained out…nonetheless we snuck in a 90 minute hike. Here are some images from that excursion:
Angie refused to let us leave without letting us know, she wished to come!
Kannah Creek Trail; the scenery is the stuff of mythological trees who move and talk…
My three beautiful humans…
Kannah Creek 🙂

4. The kids and I helped out a Mutual Aid with The Caravan on Tuesday:

5. My Garden is doing well and I was able save the sprouts I grew. My neighbors father was here and he gave me some great instructions for growing next year, AND he gave me amazing storage advice for my root veggies. And yes, the crawl space will work! I’m excited. Pictures of that later.

6. My herb garden is in (I moved it out of the garden into the back yard where bushes used to be). Pictures later.

7. I’m working diligently on chapter 3 of my dissertation. Fun stuff. Maybe I’ll give a teaser of that later…

I hope you are well. You are loved. You are beautiful. You are surviving and that is wonderful. Hang in there, you are not alone.

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Entering Anew Into Divine Light

The following is the introductory comment prior to last week’s Ash Wednesday service. I’m sharing here because I want to and who knows…maybe someone would like to read them… *shrugs

***

The Ash Wednesday service bids us to come into the presence of God in a naked way. We enter this moment, this light to be exposed, to see ourselves clearly, to ask hard questions, and to reflect–seriously–on ourselves so that we may confess our captivity and complicity in oppressive systems–systems harming ourselves, each other, and other brothers and sisters throughout the world [and the world itself]. Everything about this service tonight is built with this desire for self-reflection in mind. So, tonight I pray you and I will listen and hear deep in our hearts the words and stories of this service, and come anew to the light of divine love for your health and sanctification.

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Dog Sounds

I’m sharing this audio recording of my dog while I’m out of the house for a run:

Angie Sounds

This is the saddest sound I’ve ever heard. I’ve never heard it before because she doesn’t make this noise when anyone else leaves (though, she is anxious and notices their absence).

I had to share.

This is the sound of heartbreak.

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At This Table

What I bring to the table is what I bring to any table: my flesh and bone, muscle and sinew, my stories and experience. Breaking bread at one table is no different than at another: my substance meets bread substance, and I serve what is broken to those who are gathered. I preside over both a table at church and at home, and I find neither more sacred than the other. Bread is served in both places, and the only thing I can remark as distinct are the words used to harken my people to the table. In one place it is, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” And in the other it’s, “Dinner’s ready! Wash your hands and get your drinks!” Both cries accomplish their goal: bringing people into communion to partake of a common meal, and to give thanks for what has been done for us, to stop and take pause and sit and gather, to eat and be nourished while participating in story-sharing and story-making.

They are both sacred.

They are both sacred because both tables have the inherent quality of encounter with God in the event of faith. One table may be more specifically dedicated to such an encounter for the hearer through the words and linens unique to it, but both contain the verdant actual soil to bring forth that splendid fruit of possibility of encounter. Both tables, no matter the words and linens, participate in the space-making and the time-ceasing of divine presence relentlessly seeking the beloved (you and me). The false dichotomy of the sacred and secular collapses and, with Bonhoeffer, we can proclaim all this is good and of God because of the work of redemption and restoration of Christ.

At both tables I feel the same; I am there as I am here. I feel no surge of power at one more than the other, though there’s more potential for variance in emotional output at one than the other—especially with little people who won’t just come to this table with clean hands and drink. The apron here is white and the alb there a flaxen color, and neither fabric changes me; rather they render awareness to others that I am here mom serving dinner and there priest serving elements, but the person is the same in both. The fabric alerts both groups as to what is being served; I chuckle at the idea of swapping outfits…wouldn’t that make for a good and vigorous communion in both cases!

The words I use at both are filled with the same substance of my voice and presence; the voice, with its lilts and intonations, is the same that populates words at this table and at that table.  Even the event itself of this meal and of that meal is enveloped in robust and profound story, swirling and circling about the wood of the table and the flesh of person, bringing together and uniting in experience one to the other and lifting up all unto something way more profound than I can see and hear with ocular and audial material, feel and taste of senses and flesh.

In this radical similarity of these two tables lies the distinction.

To come to the table in my home, where I am clothed in apron, standing amid the elements of the fruit of the earth, is to come to engage in a multitude of stories in both sharing and hearing. It is here at this table where we are brought together and something new is created in our midst as we share and eat and listen. The actuality of our gathering creates the potential for divine encounter in the present. This event is profound and yet bound to this time and moment. It won’t be repeated and can’t be replicated in detail–any attempt to do so will end in a deadness. This table exists now, in this way, and next time it will be different. The divine ordering of humanity toward humanity thus to God will happen but in very distinct and unique ways each time it happens.

To come to the table at the church, where I’m clothed in flaxen alb and stole, standing amid elements of bread and wine is to come to hear and see a very particular story not restricted to this table but especially to be repeated and replicated at this table. It’s at this table with this fabric, with these elements, and using specific words where we are brought into another moment in time, grafted by word and hearing and seeing into the history of one not ours but is now ours, and united to those who have heard and seen this story before and those who will continue to do so long after we’ve transitioned. There’s a permanence and timelessness here at this table that defies and revolts against the static and temporariness of our present existence. This table persists forever—existing in myriad form and made of various material—promising that next time it will be the same–radical! The divine ordering of God toward humanity through Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and thus humanity toward God in the same will happen once again and always as it has happened then, is happening now, and will happen tomorrow. A promise articulated in every language and at any time, no matter what words or people are asked to tell this story at this table.

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Quarantine and Chaos

Dominion and Control

A video in which I talk about the presentment of chaos in our current quarantined reality and ways in which (I’ve learned) to take dominion of the small environment and regain some modicum amount of control.

I’m not a therapist (or of that field). I’m sharing from my own resource of experience in facing the chaotic abyss of an unknowable future and stepping in.

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Revelation upon Revelation

A Birthday Reflection

I know this is a week late, but, nonetheless, it appears. My Birthday revelation. 

There is no real coherence to this post; the only common ground is that over the past year I’ve learned a lot as I am wont to do. But, last year was hard. Very. Hard. I had revelation upon revelation about people: they aren’t always who they say they are. I know that this seems like quite the kindergarten thing to learn, but sometimes, even as “wise” adults…we must learn this lesson again. 

You see, there’s a longing I have: to fit in. I have never. I just don’t. I still don’t. And the irony is that I care but don’t care because I’m a 5 who idealizes belonging but then when I get it, I hate it. I guess here I say: lolz. I think sometimes I fear my own individuality. It’s quite fierce and not even I can wrestle it to submission. It’s an alligator, and I’m not one to wrestle alligators. I think this year I’ve learned through some very traumatic mediums: That I’m okay; that I’m enough. 

And I am enough. I know, a protestant priest preaching such drivel…but I believe this. I am content in me–trust me, this has been put to the test this past year…and even so: I am content. It took some great loss, some great trial, and some great self reflection: I am enough. I’m okay. Even if I have “original” sin, it doesn’t mean that I’m inherently “bad,” that all I do is crave wicked. I don’t. You don’t. It’s not a sin to be okay on your own, or to feel one inside of your own skin. That’s not “sin.” It’s not a sin to feel whole and entire in your flesh; it’s not a sin to like yourself. (By the way, there’s no real righteousness in consistently hating yourself or debasing yourself through your own self-criticism; you don’t get the gospel more than me because you think you’re shit. B-t-dubs, that narrative your listening to is not the gospel at work but your broken-ass script you use to keep yourself insulated from prospects of confession and new life.) You can like yourself, and you can like the idea of self-change without it becoming a self-righteous thing. Sin is better defined as that law you use to discern who is “in” and who is “out”; sin is better defined not as individuality but as a “bird” flipped to the rest of humanity–just me!. Sin is better defined as a hatred of self that devolves into a selfish self-non-awareness that steals from the rest of the community your very presence. To love yourself is not pride; to love yourself is an acknowledgement that the One who made you knew exactly what the One was doing. To think you are better than everyone else is bad; to love yourself is not to think that you are above everyone else but that you are worthy of the love that you have received and will receive and will give.  

But aside from that here are some of the things I’ve come to learn this past year:

  1. Everyone reveals themselves; you just have to wait. Doesn’t matter who they say they are, actions speak louder than words. I get tired of people lying to me and speaking crap to me and putting the table cloth of “encouragement” on top of it. Doesn’t matter. That shit stinks to high heaven. Substantiate your words or don’t; just, please, don’t waste them. Our world is so full of useless words, there should be a global call to all who care to use words that have meaning…meaning that incorporates their own being. I tell my students: substantiate your words with yourself. It’s why I like for them to use the first person singular pronoun…I think this…I feel that… If you put yourself behind your words you can’t hide from the attack that may come, and maybe you’ll think about what you say before you say it. What if we reclaimed words, used fewer, and let ourselves be in more of our words…   ….   …. what if?
  2. Speaking of words…Let others tell you who they are. This concept coincides with the first: everyone reveals themselves, and so we should let others tell us who they are rather than determining who they are especially when they protest that you have them wrong. One friendship that went very south was one where I could not speak for myself or convince the person that their perception of me was based on a few poorly developed ideas of me. There’s nothing more frustrating than feeling like you have to yell and shout at deaf ears to be heard. That type of relationship is not a friendship of equals; that is a situation of some sort of domination. You know who you are–even at your worst–no one gets to tell you who you are…especially someone who has known you for only a few months. Experiencing this, I’ve become more adamant about holding back judgment about other people. Let them tell you who they are–even the hardest to get along with–everyone has a story. Think: Gabby Gabby from Toy Story 4. She seems so evil but she has a desire, a story that drives her: to be loved, to be some kid’s comfort. We could brush her off as evil; but she’s not. She has a story. But if we turn the movie off midway she remains evil…but if we let her tell her story…she resonates with us on a human level. I hope we all listen to others. (Also included here is anyone who needs to control you to make their world more calm…this is also a means to dominate and tell you who you are and determine who you should be.)
  3. People who love you aren’t stupid for loving you. I think we struggle with this sometimes…At least I know I do. I was bullied in middle-school. I was fat and ugly and there wasn’t one person there who wouldn’t let me forget it. Except for a small table of other “outsiders”. A table at the cafeteria where I found refuge but where I also found discontent. I found myself looking down on those who liked me because they weren’t the ones who were of status…what’s love if it can’t get you somewhere? What’s love if you do nothing but hate yourself? While I know now that I radically misconceived love, I find that I (we?) still struggle with those who love us. If we have that self-contempt that is so extolled in some theological circles, we will perpetually question those who love us…they’ll always be mistaken. But they’re not.  Now, bear with me: I’m a mom, I know unconditional love and I love…like LOVE my kids. I’d go to fist-a-cuffs over any one of them. There is unconditional love; I’ve felt it. But it’s hard to believe that anyone else would ever unconditionally love us that doesn’t *have to*. But there are people like that who also do not share the same or similar genetic code as you do. There are people who love you just because and do not have to. I won’t name mine because they should know who they are (if not, text me, I’ll send flowers or chocolates….) Don’t forsake these people who love you just because; don’t forsake them just because you don’t love yourself. Let these people tell you a different love-story with you. I guarantee that love-story is better than your hate-story. I cannot guarantee that that story will be a happy ending…but that right now that love is real…don’t let it go. 
  4. and last…Don’t hide your story. I’m famous for this. Well…this sounds hypocritical after an exhortation to be yourself, to let others tell you about themselves, to substantiate your words, and to receive love as is… I promise that I substantiate my words to the best of my ability, that I try to love those who love me and let them love me in return, and that I am myself. But there are somethings or (rathter) something that I still wrestle with: anger over years lost. I’m writing this portion because I think it’s important to my story and because I think I’m not alone. I’ve had years stolen from me; and I hate it. I want those 7 years back more than anything. 7 years of catastrophic self-destruction. I was so angry; I was so lost. I hated me and the world for nearly a decade. I wanted to self-destruct, to implode, to cease to exist.  I wanted to go supernova leaving only a destructive black hole in my wake. My anger coursed through my veins and around me. I was destruction. Everything I touched was dirt and not gold. I hated myself in a visceral way for nearly a decade. And then Christ. And then I encountered God in Christ by the Spirit in the event of faith and I was yanked out of my self-de-struction and oriented toward the world in others-con-struction. But there is still part of me that wants those 7 years back. Those 7 years of anger and self-destruction. I feel that I’ve lost those 7 years. But then recently I realized…those 7 years (and the ones preceding that time) are the reason I am who I am. I know…I know pain; I know turmoil; I know (deeply) existential crisis that brings you the brink; I know darkness; I know trouble; I know that surge of guilt and resentment that courses through your veins where you think you won’t survive before it moves from the warmth of you inner elbow to the pulse of your ankle. I know. And while I wrestle with my age in light of this loss, I realize…that I am who I am because of it. So I cannot resent it fully. I can’t hat it fully because I’d never change who I am, I’d never change my story, I’d never change the fact that I can sit in the deep, deep darkness and those “lost years” are part of my story. Not many of us can say that…but I can. I can sit with you…I promise. I’ve a decade of pain so deep that allows me to be with you not matter what. I’m here with you, in the darkness, no matter what; I mean that with all my person; and I have no problem showing you. Just ask….

So I say this to conclude: I’m 44 and unashamed after many years of feeling regret for having “lost” those years. I’m 44 and don’t want those 7 years back because they’ve deeply formed me. I’m 44 and a whole person, content with herself and who she is now. In my 20s, I never thought I’d make it this far; I’m proud that I have. I’m here, I’m present, I’m active, and I’m not going away anytime soon. And I just don’t quit. #ThatsAPromise #ThatsAThreat

These are my birthday reflections. And to reflect on a question from last year: Am I happy with who and where I am? I have to echo last year’s response: Yes. I am very happy with who I am and where I am. 100%, yes.

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Who Do You Say That I am?

The Silence of Holy Saturday

If there was a day to feel the most human, I know not one better than the 24 hour period linking the event of death of Good Friday to the event of life of Resurrection Sunday.  Yet, I believe most of us rush through Saturday, not paying any attention to tension embedded in this day.

We know what happened: Jesus died on Friday and was raised on Sunday. Saturday is just the day I run those last minute errands, color eggs, plan for tomorrow’s dinner celebration, and lay out my “Easter best” outfit. My day to day productivity attempts to eclipse the possibility of eventful reflection. God can break through the clutter and cacophony of a regular day just as God can break through stone hard hearts and closed off minds. But if we are too immersed in the demands of our worlds and lives, we could miss the silence of Saturday; missing this silence and the very pregnant space-time pause, steals from the abundance of tomorrow, Easter Sunday. Might as well just be a celebration of the fertility of the Spring solstice.

In my opinion, Holy Saturday, the divine silence of this 24 hour period, is the center of the chiastic structure of massive event proportions. While everything feels normal here, nothing is actually normal. Everything is different but then none of it is. It’s the entire book of lamentations jammed into a day; it’s the moment between Adam and Eve stepping out of the Garden per divine decree and the settling in of the cherubim and seraphim who will forever prevent return. It’s the between of the walls of water dropping and drowning the Egyptian soldiers and the arrival at Mt. Sinai. It’s the deep dark of transition before Mary pushed Jesus into the world and held him to her breast. It’s the pain of Dinah after her rape and before her brothers find out; it’s the harrowing  moment between the last few breaths of the Levite’s concubine of Judges 19 and the door opening the next morning. This is where we are; it makes sense that we run through it.

There’s nothing easy about Holy Saturday. It’s filled with questions with no answers. It’s filled with crisis and confrontation. It’s filled with darkness no matter how bright the noon day sun shines. The demand of what in the hell just happened? weighs down on human skeletal structures, and there is no reprieve of an answer. This is loss; this is sorrow. Our bodies are forced into a conflict of feeling and thought: he was here, and now he’s not. The longing to touch him still courses through the nerve endings of the skin of my finger tips, but I cannot touch him anymore. The grief of desiring to lay lips on his that are now dead and gone, cold and lifeless. Substance was here and now it is seemingly vanished; the vacuum pulls my body into it: where I could not lie and sit and stand because he was there, I now can and that awareness of absence is crushing.

In the midst of this palpable heaviness that feels like divine silence, God isn’t actually speechless. The kerygma floats on the warm breeze: who do you say that I am? On Good Friday humanity answered with a conviction and judgment that ended in death. On Sunday, God will do the same but it will bring about life. But even if answers have been given, the question spoken long ago still demands an answer today; we aren’t off the hook because we’re being addressed today. And today, Saturday, the question haunts us as faith goes searching for her desire: what we knew and believed is being met with a radical upheaval of the unknowability of the future.

Today, law failed. Today, religion failed. Today, piety means nothing. Today, faith feels like a farce. Today, bodies long and hearts faint. Today, prophets only sigh. Today, love mourns. Today, grace feels beyond reach. Today, we are naked. Today, we are forced to be human, to reckon with what was and confront what will be. Today, we must wrestle with the demand of the eternal question in the divine address: who do you say that I am?

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