With this renewed mind, Jesus took on the “Traditionalism” and extreme rigidity and violence of his time proclaiming, not that it would be the Roman Emperor who he would suffer greatly under, but those obsessed with power, mistaking it for God, those who were the leaders of his own religious tradition. Jesus chose to lose this life, this life that said, “your worth is decided by gender, tribe, or religious affiliation”… Jesus made a decision to lose that life so that he might find his life in Love, in Grace, in the eternal “Christ” he embodied where spirit invites us to live and move and have our being...

Jeremiah accepted the invitation of this Spirit of renewal and spoke out against those religious folks of his time, calling out the violence, preaching overtime, of a God that was different and more loving and merciful than the image of God his culture was handing him. The pattern for him is the pattern that Jesus faced, as well as those throughout history that stood up to power and an image of a stingy God saying “no! renew your mind!”.. This pattern was that of persecution from folks refusing to renew... from folks completely stuck in the tar of their unprocessed pain that they are scapegoating everywhere... and also from the danger of minds continuously refusing to grow, to change, to learn, to renew…

Jesus knows he will suffer greatly under the fear and cruelty of the “elders, chief priests and scribes” – many seemed to be the first century “influencers” of the crowds that would yell “crucify him!”, “crucify him”! During the passion narratives -- note that he doesn’t say he will suffer under ‘Pontius Pilate’ he names those blinded with religious power --

Peter rebukes Jesus saying “God forbid it Lord! This must never happen to you!”.. You must not suffer greatly! Jesus turns to Peter and says, “get behind me Satan!” ... The word Satan is not one of some dangerous and hypocritical rhetoric of “spiritual warfare” that is being thrown around, but a way of being that creates within a person fear, scapegoating, and violence towards those they blame for all the things.... The word “Satan” actually means “the accuser”... The accuser, one who is not willing to meet and process the pain that has occurred within their life. If we cannot meet and process our pain, knowing what happened may not have been our fault, but is our responsibility to face and begin to heal with mercy and restorative Justice (the will of God--- Mercy, Love, Compassion Grace) … if we do not transform our pain, we will then transmit our pain and fear onto others, becoming “the accuser”, personifying the definition of “Satan”… not a otherworldly being lookin to get us, but a state of being within a person due to unprocessed pain or undiagnosed struggles ... this is happening all around us and it has nothing to do with sexuality or gender, and everything to do with avoiding pain and mistaking control and power with “God” and “Gods will”... God is Love and God’s will is mercy, compassion, connection, diversity, and art, not circumstantial.

To follow Jesus is to deny the power and control obsessed ego, to deny the accuser part of us that is advocating for dehumanization and blame never taking accountability, and, instead, to follow the spacious flow of Love. Here is where you will find your life beyond white knuckling and needing to control all the things. Here you will participate in going beyond the binary, tribal obsessed mind, into a mind that is renewed, as Jesus’ was, where you will call out hypocrisy and hatred because the truth of love is burning in your bones like a fire that cannot be kept silent... from here you will participate in what is good, acceptable by the personification of love (that does not dehumanize or shove into boxes), as you realize that in this diverse creation and love, we are whole... (“whole”, a more accurate translation than the word “perfect”... “perfect” is not even a thing... )

May we have the courage to face our pain, knowing it is not always our fault, but is our responsibility to decide how to carry it, how to meet it, how to move towards healing and resurrection... no more personifying the word “satan”, and choosing to practice personifying the word “love” which has room for the whole messiness of the human experience rooted in compassion ...

“When you realize your life is not about you, you can become about your life”, Richie Rohr writes about entering the mystery of it all; the love of it all; the “Christ” flowing through all of life unfolding, hoping we will notice, longing to love us forwards.. paradoxically, as we become about our life, we get to truly know our deepest self beyond the unhelpful ego... to “deny your life” is not a command of not respecting your needs, your beloved body, your self-discovery... it is an invitation to life past any ego self that is obsessed with power and control.. that ego self that so often crucifies instead of loves...

May we have the courage to renew our minds in love, just as Jesus did.

Grace and Peace, Friends..

Jeremiah 20:7-9

Romans 12:1-2

Matthew 16:21-27

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I often find myself trying to create ideas in my mind before I go to bed of the right “routine” that will fix my daily struggle with Bev (what I’ve named my vestibular disorder), like somehow I could be one perfect wake up time and regime away from fixing my body… but the truth is, there is nothing to be fixed, there is only a life to be lived in the body that I have. It takes daily practice for me to learn this again and again… I don’t need to be fixed. I find the word “rhythm” lands better with me than routine... The word “rhythm” seems to have a needed space and heart to it that my being needs, there is space here for compassion and flexibility … I need to discover my rhythm each day rooted in a deep compassion, because some days my rhythm with a well-rested “Bev” not disrupted by hormones or weather shifts or the million other things can walk along to a sick beat like the opening to ‘Cant Stop’ by the Red Hot Chillie Peppers, at least for maybe two hours before needing a rest, or a total collapse... other days my rhythm may start off with a rhythm like Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, soft walking along on a soft rock beat for a while before slowing things right down, moving ever so gently into a flow like Unchained Melody before needing to allow my body to collapse into the smooth arms of the rhythm of Moon River (this happens anywhere from 3pm-6pm depending on how Bev is that day! My body is “all done!” as the toddlers say!)... but, some days start at a Moon River pace, slowing the metronome more and more... I need to allow myself to meet my rhythm on any given day exactly where she is, to accept what is, and get into my daily groove with Bev, no matter what that day for symptoms will be. When I allow myself to simply groove, my day is much easier than when I decide to pick a fight with reality…

There are many things that get in the way of simply accepting my rhythm on any given day and letting go into the groove. A major struggle is living with an invisible disability one must practice listening to my inner knowing of how Bev is in my body, as opposed to the cultural messages of “just try harder” or “you look fine” ... the brutal cycle of not trusting our lived experience with the invisible illness or thinking that somehow our symptoms are a failing on our part is quite paralyzing ... if only I could try harder or would have somehow tried harder-- the inner battle of trusting ourselves in knowing what “is” VS “fix” thinking like “if only I could be stronger” I could somehow “overcome” or “fix” what is...

I really dislike this word “overcome” and that so many movies out there seems to be about someone “overcoming” a disability. What if it was never about “overcoming” anything, and simply about living the life we have, in the body that we have.... maybe it’s time to have this comparison/struggle language to take a back seat, as we embrace the language of being human in a complex body. May we lean away from only celebrating “overcoming” a disability, and begin to celebrate because we are alive, no “movie worthy life” of somehow “overcoming Bev” and doing something our culture would deem miraculous and successful, but simply going for a walk, resting, hugging my kids upon their return, and doing some yard work together... beauty… I guess that doesn’t make for much of a movie, but it does make for a real life and what it is to live with a chronic disability. This culture we live in that is chronically obsessed with the notion of success does not allow for our humanity and it creates an unhinged, not real celebrity culture, where ones worth and so called life of worth becomes a commodity, as if our worth, or dignity, or humanity could be bought or sold with the “right” or “best” job or ability or overcoming all the things. That thinking leaves no room for our humanity and our humanity is what makes us real...

And so, I gather all my courage and practice unlearning our culture every day. Some days it is easier to do than others ... I practice meeting, not a created “perfect routine” to try to “fix” all the things, including Bev, but to meet my body’s rhythm of where I am on any given day that I might live while fixing absolutely nothing, yet finally noticing my life in everything that is real, that is present, that is here, in this moment, whatever rhythm may be needed that day, here I do not need to “fix” I simply need to “live”....

Grace and Peace, Friends...

My answer to Jesus’ question of “who do you say that I am” is what I have written above... a type of Messiah who sets us free to love and to know our living God beyond and box or rule.... What seems to have been revealed as time has unfolded since the life of Jesus is that our answer to the question, “who do you say that I am” regarding Jesus is extremely important, because who you say that Jesus is, is who you will mold your own self off of... Who you say that Jesus is and what you think Jesus cares about will be a major deciding factor of how you human, if you are a “Christian”, bearing in mind that each sect of Christianity often has a very different answer to Jesus’ question “who do you say that I am” ...

“People don’t see things as they are” Fr. Richie Rohr writes, “they see things as THEY are”...maybe this helps shed light on how it is not so much what words are written or what facts are laid out that seem to truly matter at this moment of time (and dangerously so), but that so many read what is written but throw in their own alternate facts, so to speak, that create a Jesus for themselves that is not found in the Gospels... If the Jesus I have molded from how I am inside and I am a person filled with unprocessed pain, anger, revenge, and fear, that is how my Jesus will look to me and will give me permission to act in hateful, angry, and vengeful ways... We tend to take from any given situation what we want to see and the internet has definitely exploited this with misinformation everywhere, feeding on folks vulnerability... None of the above describes the Jesus we read on the Gospel... Jesus never exploits the vulnerable and Jesus’ ministry had nothing to do with financial gain or success being equated with social status, but yet, here we are...

“People don’t see things as they are, they see things as THEY are”… it’s quite interesting to also ponder this quote and think of the person of Jesus who was born in a time of great fear, dehumanization of women, injustice, and threat, yet somehow Jesus managed to tap into something different than his culture and his religion were handing him. He tapped into our Living God, the Great Spirit of Love that always, always speaks truth and love to power… if Jesus saw as he was at his core, he saw through a lens of restorative justice, of equality, equity and communal liberation, caring for those religion and culture were throwing away… Jesus’ transformed heart was able to internalize and know who and how God is… Jesus, alive with a transformed heart, rooted in love was able to live a holy and whole religiosity.

Sitting with all of this, I can begin to deeply understand why Jesus said what he said after Peter replied to Jesus’ question of “who do you say that I am” with the answer of “You are the Messiah, the Christ”... it is written that “Jesus sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ”... it is as if he know that this news, this deep truth of who Jesus was and how “Christ” is to be seen and known and lived, would be utterly abused if heard about within a person who has not first been transformed by love. As Fr. Richie writes: “For the untransformed self, religion is the most dangerous temptation of all”. Any person who is using Jesus’ name to shame, to control, to set women against men, to dehumanize queer folks, who threaten hell and damnation for control and power has heard of Jesus from a heart that has not been transformed by love, but a heart that remains hardened. You can know that if Jesus’ name is being used as a weapon, there is no truth there.

Reading a Gospel passage where Jesus sternly orders the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Christ has me pondering the fact that Jesus never wrote anything down, other than in the sand... the shifting sand... He never said in a posh British accent for dramatic effect, “Peter! Do pen this word for word rule for me!” … it’s almost as if he knew what would happen with his words if they fell into hands and hearts that were not yet transformed by love.... it is almost as if he was trying to emulate a way of being and living with each other that went beyond words and longed to emulate simply loving and serving each other... A Way of human’ing that was truly and deeply human.

May we have the courage to soften our hearts and to meet our God of compassionate love.

Grace and Peace, Friends …

Matthew 16 13-20

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I can’t remember what was specifically being discussed, but Rob Bell spoke this line: “there was nothing left to hide behind”, and something in me exclaimed, “YES! THAT SOUNDS VERY TRUE!”... What arose within me was recognizing in these words what it is like to live with a chronic disability that does not allow me the job or the preforming or the abilities I once had which were important in my different stages of human’ing, but also busy things to hide behind. Illness brings with it a terrifying yet beautiful wrecking ball that dismantles these hiding places whether we are ready for it or not and what we are left with is ourselves, heart beating, breath breathing, vulnerable selves, not linked to work, or doing, or production. This is both terrifying and beautiful at the same time and a daily Truth. My body reminds me every day that I am human and am limited. My body humbles me every single day. Nothing to hide behind.

My “itty bitty shitty committee” can get loud in these moments of humbling that happen again and again in a day and a phrase that I have to deliberately choose to tap into in these moments (which one would have thought I would have “been over by now”, but turns out that’s not really a thing)… A phrase that I preferably contemplate and tap into before the committee becomes as loud as some sort of diabolical marching band with only crashing cymbals and no beat of any drum or heart! is: “take a long, loving look at what is”..... this “long, loving” part helps me to flow past that inevitable storyline of how things were so much better when I was working, or how, if I didn’t have this disability then I’d really be able to “do something with my life” (like simply living each day and being human isn’t “something” enough) and recognize it for what it is: that same underlying story line that would distort reality and give me another “you’re not good enough, or doing enough” story line even if I was able bodied and working... same song, different tune that tries to get us to think “if only I had what I don’t have, or could do what I can’t do, I would be happy, or content, or fulfilled”... this voice is a part of being human. Once I recognize that I really shouldn’t believe everything I think, and that there is a part of this voice that is trying to help... that part that longs for us to move onward, to connect, but is doing in a very unhelpful way, well, then I can get to the “what is” part with more clarity, deeper compassion, more truth, and less hiding behind a storyline of “if only”, as I get to know the mystery of “me” more deeply, not connected to “able bodied’ness” or “work”, as I see my life in true color: my kids, my wife, my dog, my home, my family, my friends, my river walks, my typewriter, and even more simply: my breath, my “I am here”’ness, my simple loving and allowing myself to be loved, my being....

“A long, loving look at what is” is filled with permission to grieve, and filled with mercy and compassion, with a vision rooted in incarnation, the deep knowing that love is rooted (is alive and incarnated)here in nature, in humanity, in me, and all around, inviting me to stop hiding and begin to live in this life that I have, present to my daily unfolding, open and willing to co-create in my life that is already “something” and “something beautiful” as is... Sounds Deeply True, indeed…

Grace and Peace, Friends...

Some of the writings attributed to Paul are incredibly, deeply, and truly human. He has moments where what flows through him is, what Christians would call, The Holy Spirit: “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, for we are all one” YAAAAASSS PAUL!!! Spirit breakthrough of our Great Mysterious Creators Universal Love!! And then, as the saying goes, we have following this “two steps forwards” “a few steps back”…

This same Paul who wrote of our oneness and that absolutely NOTHING can separate us form the love of Christ, ends up writing what I see as a conniving piece about manipulating the Jewish folks into belief by hanging with the gentile folks so to save some of them and that a Loving God could somehow have “imprisoned all in disobedience so that he might be merciful to all”, like God is some sort of petty being saying “HEY EVERYBODY!!! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!!! LOOOOOK LOOK AT ME AND HOW MERCIFUL I AM!!”... That framework of thinking is never love and would be super unhealthy parenting/care giving! We must look at the healthiest way of human’ing, of compassionate care for each other and never, ever attribute anything less loving and helpful than our most loving and helpful way of human’ing to our notion of God. We must call it out, like we see the woman do in our Gospel reading today.

Even Jesus is course corrected when he enters into a superiority complex and really, is an asshole to a woman who approaches him for help. A Canaanite woman calls after Jesus from a distance for help with her daughter ... Jesus at this moment is thinking God would somehow only want him to help folks from his “group”... Jesus tries to dehumanize this woman, basically calling her a dog, and the woman stands up for herself, rehumanizing herself in a cheeky way, throwing Jesus’ words back at him “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters table”.. this awakens something in Jesus... here we see that it is not the woman that is changed and course corrected, but Jesus who is changed and course corrected by the woman asserting her humanity and dignity and Jesus allows himself to be changed and to see her humanity... Jesus responds to her, “Woman, great is your faith!”... This is a huge moment of cultural/religious/social shattering, Jesus removes the blinders of exclusion and judgement religion and society handed him towards folks he would have seen as “other” as well has “gender roles” and changes his mind and opens his heart!

Everyone needs to learn and grow and mature and course correct in their lives. It is a part of being human. In a world where dehumanization is often a go to, “pull a Jesus” and allow yourself to be changed, to see our shared humanity, and see in new and inclusive ways, opening your heart to all of humanity... for all of creation is a “house of prayer for all people”. There is no “special one group of people”, there is and has only ever been people. All people and creation come from the same mystery needing to be loved, seen, and cared for... Power and control has never been a “Superpower” and have only always been destructive. “Empathy and Compassion” is what will begin to save the world... it’s never been a personal salvation plan, but a collective universal salve, inviting us to mend together as we recognize our shared humanity...

May we allow our hearts to see humanity and to be jolted into seeing and being in new ways, just as Jesus’ heart was opened in the Gospel reading today. May we have the courage to begin to notice what is loving, and healthy, and helpful in these readings folks put together and called “scripture” and what is very obviously a person acting and writing out of an unhealthy psyche, yet to have learned and grown and transformed by and into Love...

Grace and Peace, Friends..

Isaiah 56 1, 6-7

Romans 11 13-15, 29-32

Matthew 15 21-28

Today I am practicing hearing this question from Jesus, not as a condescending, slap on the hand for Peter that this passage has often been preached about or stating that Peter should somehow be less than human and not afraid of the waves, for fear at a moment like this is totally understandable and human, but as Jesus asking out of genuine curiosity: why did you doubt? And curious as to what Peters “Faith” was in? Because the thing is, Beloved, it is an important question, “why did you doubt”, with a multitude of important responses to an important life practice: doubt. Refusing to doubt and asks questions leads to religious teachings that creates caves and control, as opposed to curiosity creating spaciousness and living.

I am so very grateful that in the storms and crashing wave moments of my life that I doubted. I doubted all that I was taught by culture and religion about who God was and what life was and in a free fall crying out for help, was caught by the hands of Love. My “little Faith” was that somehow if I did all things right, “God would not let bad things happen” or I would somehow be “super human” (which is less than human, really) and not feel fear, or my humanity in struggle, where Big Faith is in the Love that holds us through all things.

Elijah, hiding in a cave is invited to wake up and notice God. God was not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, like we are taught. God was not causing the flood, or the sickness, or the horrifying thing that happened, or the earthquake, or the wild fires, please, please, please begin to doubt that teaching of God, that a loving God could somehow control all this destruction and cruelty, choosing some over others, causing fear, and allow yourself to be caught up in the sacred embrace of the sheer silence of God, as Elijah did, allowing himself to step out of his cave, walking towards the invitation of Love, into newness, into wonder, meeting God. All words evaporated, as in the silence we meet our One’ness, our Love that sustains us all, simultaneously meeting our deepest self.

Why did Peter doubt? Why was Peter afraid? Because sometimes life is freaking terrifying and we are taught to ask: “why is God doing this?” or to think “God is punishing or testing me” (like that could ever be love), instead of noticing that God is walking with us in and through the storm, and God is not the storm itself. God is saying, “look this way, Beloved, for I am not the terrifying wind, nor the demolishing earthquake, nor the destructive fire, I am the silence of your breath, the sustaining flow of love that holds you through it all. Controlling nothing, but loving and sustaining you, hoping you will notice.

I once stood at a river. The moment before me truly terrifying. God was not in the current of the waves, nor the earthquake of life shattering around me. God was in the sacred silence of my breath, the very heartbeat of fierce Presence, as I had no choice but to allow everything around me to happen, finally becoming quiet enough, unclenched from all my efforts to control, letting myself sink from my striving and to be caught by Truth, by Love, as I cried out for help in my silence, heart finally open to receive what God had been gifting all along: “I Love you. I Love you. I Love you”.. like the ebb and flow of a heartbeat... Loving me forwards, holding me tightly… “Take heart. I’ve got you.. I am not this circumstance unfolding... I am the love holding all of you through, weeping with you, embracing you, hoping you will begin to notice” …

Here, I stood at the entrance of the cave I had been trying to live in, filled with rules and preconceived notions and confining walls, and was given exquisite permission from the love that held me to begin to doubt the cave, walk towards the entrance and find myself in the freedom of the sky, the trees, the sunrise, the spacious Love of being deeply alive singing into and out of the depths of creation: I love you. I Love you. I Love you ... “Take heart. It is I. I AM not to be feared, for I am not the angry weather and life controller that you have been taught, I AM Love and I will hold you in your sorrow, slowly loving you back to life…”

Grace and Peace, Friends...

1^st Kings 19 9, 11-13

Matthew 14 22-33

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This is the beauty of an imagination post shattering moments where you have had no choice but to allow the illusions culture and much of religion has handed you to break away as you break open to the incredibly painful, yet freeing process of unlearning and unclenching our fists on what we think should be but isn’t and maybe never was, all the monstrously inaccurate platitudes are revealed to be what they are, a load of shit that truly feels monstrous to the grieving as the platitudes are hurled at us, even though those speaking them have no clue how gut wrenching their words are to a shattered heart... it’s what we have been taught to say in a culture and much of religion that has no clue how to sit with pain and loss and unbearable grief.

The shattered and now continual piecing back together mosaic self of me, who has gone through types of hell and collected the fragments of love and truth and beauty and complexities and delights of who I am continually creating myself to be, reads a prompt like “I dare you” and it does not become some taunting need for performance or an act of proving one’s self, no, the freedom of my broken and eternally mending heart hears “I dare you” as an invitation to allow my life to be my life... “I dare you, Sweet Sheena, to allow your extra Bevy days to be okay (Bev being the name of my vestibular disorder)... I dare you to let yourself unlearn the culture of compete and compare, the culture of “should” and obsessions with results and cherished outcomes driving us all loony and not in a fun way, to stop striving for more, more, more..... I dare you to let yourself grieve, and weep, and laugh and transform... I dare you to pick up your paintbrush and create just for fun… I dare you to be present to this moment and let yourself be enough. Knowing this moment, no matter how difficult, or how boring, or how delicious or enchanting, will, indeed, pass... because everything does... nothing is permanent, not even you… I dare you to let that knowledge set you free to simply live ... the only Permanent thing I have ever met is the ever present, tender, and bold, mending Presence of Love, taking many forms and having many names... I dare you to notice how your life is calling you to be lived, not by needing to do anything but to just “be”. I dare you to rest, unlearning the hustle culture of guilt, resting your head against the softness of your pillow, allow your mischievous grin to appear on your face, embraced by silence....

I dare you....

Grace and Peace, Friends...

A news post exclaims: LOOK! The Pope sat with someone while they had a fainting moment! And I think, can we please create a world where we are not surprised that someone (especially the Pope) sits with someone in a health struggling moment!.... Where “ordinary time” is loving and feeding the stranger until we are no longer strangers, but humans who recognize each other’s humanity...

If I was to create a title for the readings this Sunday, it would be “God’s Dream Come True” subtitle: humanity finally realizes it’s never been about Kingdom, but Kin-dom. That the corny phrases are actually true: We are one. We are family, deeply connected, one breath, one heartbeat, ones in need of love, of Steadfast Love.

Paul meets this true, steadfast love in today’s second reading. He has a “holy shit!” moment where everything, every rule, every preconceived notion he has had falls away as he proclaims... Oh my God, there is absolutely nothing that can separate us form your love... from each other.... I wonder what that moment was for him... did he meet someone he was taught to hate and realize they too were human? Did he have a moment of extreme suffering that shattered his notions of “earning” God’s love, or some are “in” while others are not?... Whatever it was, he was moved to deep compassion and raw honesty as he looked at the moment before him and realised the truth: we are all loved beyond any words or thoughts we could ever have or utter... Us finally noticing this Truth is God’s Dream come true!

When we realize this truth of God’s steadfast love, of our one’ness, we cannot help but be changed...your pain is my pain and my pain is yours as we lift each other up in love!.. no one is free until all are free! Jesus met this steadfast love of God as he looked out at the crowds and allowed himself not to think “well, they shoulda done better with their life and choices so that they would not be hungry and suffering”... nope. Jesus allows himself to be moved with compassion (to suffer with) as he says “no” to the request form the “earn your own way” disciples who say: “send these people away to find their own food”. Jesus says no. We will feed the people. We will sit together on the ground, one level, no one person more important than another and we will perform the miracle of sharing.... this is the miracle that heals… God’s Dream come true.... The embodiment of Steadfast love who sings into our hearts: come, ALL you who are thirsty, come to the water. If you have no money, come eat and drink... no specific belief system needed.

This is a miracle (as it says in a course in miracles) a shift from fear to love... a shift from “go find your own food, there is not enough” to “welcome, there is enough for everyone”... no hoops to jump through, only people to be loved and nourished, not “so that you can believe the right words, or control people, or create the right words” but come, eat, delight in this rich food here for all, in the richness beyond money that is loving relationship “that you might live”.... that you might allow your world of control to be shattered as it was for Paul and deeply see: there is absolutely nothing that can separate us form the love of God... not death, not life, not Angels, not rulers, not powers, not height, not depth, not anything else in all of creation can separate us from the love of God. MIND BLOWN. HEART OPEN. INTRIGUE PIQUED! … Beautiful curiosity, Delightful Imagination creating a new, inviting, Kin-dom of humanity loving each other.

Us finally allowing ourselves to know this truth leads us into compassion, and we feed each other, no questions asked, just as Jesus did... God’s Dream come true, humanity finally living, finally loving, finally delighting in the richness of being alive and holding each other through life’s struggles: this is Steadfast Love.... a Sweet Deal Covenant, for the small price of absolutely nothing, we are Loved... This is the shape of God... this is what God dreams our “ordinary time” will look like: loving one another with this same steadfast love that God loves us… May we practice living God’s Dream come true…

Grace and Peace, Friends.

Isaiah 55 1-3

Romans 8 35, 37-39

Matthew 14 13-21

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My hope is that folks lean not on scripture for this answer, but on their own lived experience. When have you experienced deep healing? When have you experiences deep fear and shame? Which one set you free to love and help, instead of control and harm? When have you experienced freedom in your living with no ties to that feeling happening because someone else is not free? The truth is, cruelty, judgement, and fear mongering never bring about healthy human’ing, never bring about the awe of being alive and are not love. So, my friends, even if Jesus or Paul is quoted saying it, and it is read as justifying throwing people away or creating one dominant, superior group, may we have the courage to say, “this is wrong”. We can come to the conclusion that this is out of context, or we cannot know what was in the heart of those who wrote it, or interpreted it, but what we do know is that this Great Mystery “God” created all of us and we all need the same things for healthy living: Love, Compassion, Nurturing care, respect of our dignity.... We must begin to cultivate the era where the phrase “but the Bible says” to justify superiority, cruelty, or dehumanization is gone from our vernacular, no longer said or given a platform. May we see through the lens of Jesus on the cross, looking out at humanity without any judgment beyond mercy and tender compassion, grief and steadfast love.

Solomon is writing about God and says, “You have shown a great and steadfast love”, and then goes on to try to figure out why he is noticing God as showing steadfast love, giving reasons of being “good enough”... the truth is, he could have stopped writing after his realization of Gods steadfast love, because there is no formula to figure out as to why God shows love, because God’s love cannot be earned or lost any more or less than we can earn or lose the beauty of a sunset. God’s love can only ever be noticed and lived into, because Love simply “is”. If a person thinks God loves them and they know it because they have money or have lived through an illness, or have witnessed someone they don’t like fall, that person has yet to have ever meet God, for God simply IS love and is known in loving. God is the lens you put on and allow yourself to be moved and notice that we all belong, we are all Beloved. With this lens you can no longer read any scripture verse and justify superiority, or cruelty, or throwing people away, because you know that is not nor has ever been the definition of Love. You’ll throw away the scripture instead of throwing away the person. You know that “all things work for good for those who love God” has nothing to do with “things happening for a reason”, or God “choosing a certain leader or circumstance”, but the bizarre fact that somehow love can help transform our pain as a vessel for loving connection, for “good” even out of the unbearable pain... that somehow a flower can grow from between a crack in the concrete, for this is the God that we have.... “steadfast love”... for all, always, no fine print, only “I love you”...

Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder and God gave it to me”... I think he’s onto a deep truth here, my friends, that wonder invites us into our humanity, into beauty which has room for the entirety of the human experience wrapped in a sacred embrace of not knowing all the things, as we know the depths of love, and isn’t that wonderful? Everything can be new... The lens of love waits to be noticed in our courage to have wonder and cherish each other beyond any word that has ever been written…

Grace and Peace, Friends.... may we begin to notice what lens we are looking through and find our freedom in loving...

1 Kings 3 5-12

Romans 8 28-30

Matthew 13 44-52

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The misguided way of thinking we have been handed says: the world is filled with good people (wheat), with bad people (weeds), and you need to be “good” because you are somehow born “bad” and everything is a war, a battle, a fight... You see, Beloved, our culture and religion has taught us to think this way century after century. It is the lens through which we read and see everything in our world, including the Gospel. We continually fall back into harmful ways of seeing, thinking that somehow Jesus, having met the depths of love, could ask us to hate, to throw people we deem “bad” away, creating purity codes and rules to help us feel superior and safe. The lens of “us vs them”, “good vs bad” feeds into this harmful lens and has created what we see so prevalent now, battle after battle, war after war more often than not “in the name of God”.

When we see through this misguided and dangerous lens we were handed, we read a parable such as the wheat and the weeds and think “God will rid of those evil people, so we act like the God we have been taught to see and believe in and we can be cruel and throw people away. From here, we create theology that allows for cruelty, because we have deciphered God loving cruelty to those who we deem as “bad”.... we have been taught to fear God’s judgement. Ironically, we have been taught to not truly trust the teachings of Christ: to love your enemies, to love everyone, to have mercy for people, including ourselves for we really do not know what we are doing most of the time.

Jesus reveals the depths of knowing the truth: we are bundles of weeds and wheat, each and every one of us. Jesus does not say, so go, then, and judge people for what you perceive as weeds and wheat, or to judge yourself, but to allow your life to continue on, rooting into compassion and realizing that you are both weeds and wheat and that is a part of being human, the point is not to force solutions and tear yourself and others apart, but to allow yourself to enter compassion and a willingness to grow, to learn to live and allow God to judge you, which is not a fearful thing! Please, read on! This becomes a gift, because by meeting the tender, loving God who Jesus reveals we see that God’s judgment is always: “I love you”... my friends, when we meet this love we begin to shift how we see and it is not a “loving God” somehow throwing you or anyone into “hell” or “angry fire”, but a God who weeps with you, with sighs too deep for words, takes the weeds that have sprouted from a root of some sort of cruelty that happened to you and throws it into a refiners fire of love, melting away the fear, the hatred, the division, holding you through the grief and the transformation of your heart. The judgment of God is arms wide open while we are still far off ready to hold us in a loving embrace.

We are a bundle of weeds and wheat. Love is the mustard seed that begins to grow, not into a palace of luxury goods, but simple branches that invite us to nest and rest and love, not to judge, but to live in the paradox of being alive, weeds and wheat, learning and growing as our pain is often our greatest teacher, not is a “it happens for a reason” way, but in a “life happens” kinda way…

May we allow the Gospel to begin to shift and shape and root our operating systems into love, into mercy, into a stubborn hope and gladness unable to read the scriptures form any posture but LOVE, mercy, compassion, and grace.... this way of seeing and knowing love, knowing God, meeting the depths of Sprit that Jesus met and lived allows us to have God judge and burn away any thinking and theology rooting in racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, etc as we weep from the suffering a theology of “good vs bad” resulted in, and begin to allow ourselves to be judged by God who sings and breathes “I love you”... love, meeting you where you are and inviting you into the depths of your humanity, your humility, your love....

I love you. I love you. I love you... will never lead you to judging and hatred, violence and harm, and will always, always lead you to love and compassion.

Grace and Peace, friends

(shout out to Fr. Richard Rohr who always offers me a new way of seeing scripture when I find myself bamboozled and seeking a lens of Grace and Love in which to see through)

Wisdom 12 13, 16-19

Romans 8 26-27

Matthew 13 24-30

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“If it is true one place, it’s true everywhere” Richard Rohr has written... and I realize that cultivating a healthy relationship within myself mirrors that of cultivating healthy relationships with those I meet and befriend and parent and family with within my life...

There are different parts of “self” that show up throughout our lives, sometimes from personality and experiences and sometimes from disabilities and changes in our body’s... the health of “me”, my deepest “Self” depends on my relationship with it all ... it seems as though all of life cannot be separated from relationship and how we relate to all things and people and experiences and parts of our inner “selves”, our inner dialogues ... I am not talking about a split personality here, but the many parts of who we are and have been that exist within us all.

“Bev” came into my life in my early 30’s... though not a person, she had a profound effect on how I was able to human and how I was relating to myself... “Bev” is what I would come to name my vestibular disorder and she would literally and metaphorically “rock my world”… The nerves in you inner ear are the gateway between your bodies sense of gravity, orientation in space, and steadying of your vision to your brain and nervous system and unbeknownst to me, mine were dying and in doing so, giving birth to Bev, so to speak. (AKA Bilateral Vestibulopathy: Bev) I found giving her a name helped me to separate myself from the symptoms and has also given me the imagery and ability to figure out how I would cultivate a relationship with this new part of my reality that I could not walk away from or love from a distance, like we can do with folks who are wreaking havoc within life and a relationship needs to end. Bev is within me and here to stay. She is both an invisible physical condition that has challenged my sense of self and brought about new challenges as well as gifts in meeting who I am.

My relationship with her began with me being soooo angry with her and the dizzy, pushy, pully, twangy, quickly fatigued reality she brought into my life... I screamed at her. I hated her and sometimes I still find myself here in moments....

Bev really brought out the frustration of my adventure self, my exuberant joy self that felt sabotaged by Bev, by my own body, my young, joy self would often yell, “YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME, BEV” and then push forward doing things that would cause my body to bottom out in frustration and anger as I crashed, followed by degrading self-talk of somehow needing to do better.... this dialogue would be like, Joy Self: BEV! SCREW YOU! I’M DOING THIS!!!... Bev: FINE! DO IT! I’ll PILE DRIVE YOU LATER!!.... post “pile driver exhaustion”: Me: I over did it. I feel awful. This sucks.”

It has been an inner battle figuring out how to healthily live with Bev with a personality that loves to do all the things and so felt very choked and stifled by Bev alongside living in a “overcome all the things” society where your worth is so often based on your ability to “push past” and “overcome” and “achieve”....

This summer I went on a holiday with my kids and my parents to Niagara Falls and we stayed at this epic water park place called “Great Wolf Lodge” and something really interesting happened, “Bev” and “Adventure Joy” (to name that young Adventure/Joy self in the spur of this moment, lets call her A.J for short) had a breakthrough.

I walked into the water park area with my family and Bev was not too badly effected as it was mostly natural lighting with not much fluorescent lights -- which are brutal on Bev--... A.J and I decided that I would try one of the slides after my dad and kids tried it and deemed it to have a lot of light and not go in loops (my kids told me very specifics of what they knew would probably be okay on Bev and my heart delighted in realizing how much they have listened to me about Bev and what she needs and how she is triggered.... turns out the song is true: “children will listen”--- “children may not obey, but children will listen”--....)

So, I grabbed the yellow tube and my dad and I made our way to the yellow slide and AJ was delighted while Bev was a bit pensive.... down I went and it was a lot of fun along with a bit of discomfort. I live with discomfort all day, so Bev was okay with that.

I upped the ante and decided to try the next level up ride called “The Vortex” (the name should have dissuaded me, but I decided “what the heck! I’ll give it a go”) .... I’m on the tube, sucked down spinning into a dark tube, A.J is screaming in delight “THIS IS F****ING AWESOME!!! While Bev is simultaneously screaming, “THIS IS F***ING AWFUL!!!!”... down the slide I went holding both of these awesome, awful truths together at the same time... I’m spit out of what could only be described as the “flushing toilet” ride, round and round and flushed out! .... A.J is thrilled, Bev is so glad it is done and that I am alive.... this is where there is an epiphone conversation between Bev and A.J

A.J: I LOVED THAT, I feel alive and reminded of my youthful joy....

Bev: that was so difficult, yet I can feel those notes of joy…

A.J: That was a blast and I also feel the needs of Bev. We did it once and I am delighted. Let’s not do it again, deal?

Bev: deal.

There was no internal yelling happening or wishing things were different or “you’re not the boss of me” moments where I pushed myself way further than I should, ignoring Bev’s needs... nor was there chiding from Bev towards me trying something out… A very enlightening moment of companionship between my multitudes with room for the joy and for the boundaries and for the needed post rest, accepting what was: Joy. Need for the deal to not do it again. Rest. All true at the same time.

Another A.J moment was going on this platform over the Gorge and afterwards Bev was so disoriented that my body had no clue which way was up and gravity seemed to be pulling me aggressively to the ground, the “pile driver symptoms” of an overwhelmed Bev that causes intense system overload and a pressure valve release of tears.... no racing heart or anxiousness, just tears.... Lets enter the dialogue, shall we!?

A.J: Being up over the Gorge was amazing!

Bev: turned out it was too much, but I felt the wonder and awe, too.

A.J: I’m glad we did it, won’t do it again and I have learned by this that the helicopter planned for tomorrow is definitely a no go and that’s okay.

Bev: thank you.

---- during the overload moment, I did have feelings of “I hate that I have Bev”, but it did not last long and even Bev had compassion for this, for she does know it’s really difficult, but I did not spiral into “I wish’es” or lasting anger, I simply took the time I needed to recuperate, release the pressure valve of tears, and respected what my body needed for the day... A.J was totally cool with videoing the helicopter taking off the next day as my kiddo’s got an adventure for their life story bank, the bank that truly matters… a helicopter ride over the Niagara Falls....

It was a trip where my multitudes discovered ways to exist together in a mutual respect that had room for the Joy, for the limits, and for every aspect of being human... there’s room for it all....

I’m delighted to experience the exuberance of A.J again, and I am delighted for the wisdom and depth brought to me by Bev…. It all gets to belong… I am grateful that I am me.

Grace and Peace, Friends.

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“The Sower sows the seeds”, Jesus says, depicting the “God” character as a generous wonder gifter tossing seeds of love, of life, of awe all around us, indiscriminately to everyone, including that guy that just cut in front of you in line and that other person who tapped you on the shoulder to let you know you dropped something, kind hearted as they are, and you take a mental note that you too have been that person budging in line, maybe by accident, but a “budger” to the person behind you nonetheless, and you’ve been the kind one who taps the person on the shoulder, making sure they don’t lose what they have dropped... our Great Creator in this story doesn’t seem to take much note of any of that, but simply sow’s the seeds over and over and over again, hoping we will begin to notice, generosity and love over flowing...

My heart in this moment, on this day was a soil ready to receive this freely given gift of awe, the falls inviting me home to myself past any story I may have been telling about life in my mind moments before. The seeds took root in the soil of my heart and my being went through the day, not stingy or choked, nor momentarily exuberant then back into my own neurotic stories, but willing and present to live the love I had received from the awe of what I had allowed myself to see, opening my eyes and understanding with my heart that these falls are simply water flowing epically over a rock formation, but that it is also so much more... The roar of the falls, happening for all, Glory Alleluia.

The fruit that I practice bearing from allowing myself to practicing noticing and seeing has nothing to do with “seeing the falls then realizing I can be my best self and make a whack of money and buy a whack of possession”, but the fruits of the spirit flowing forth from my heart into the world, patience, joy, peace, gentleness, love, kindness, a contentment discovered in the humility of the grandness of creation… for some reason, I get to be here, to see and experience being alive if only for a speck of time... Glory, Alleluia.

When the “word” of life, of love, of awe soaks into the soil of our hearts, the very marrow of our bones, we live what Isaiah speaks from the heart of “God”: “my word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I have sent it”, but having met the God of generosity and love that we have, we know that these words of “achieve” or “will” do not mean what we have been taught they mean in a culture obsessed with the notion of “success” and “control”, but that God’s “will” and “achievement” is always, always love that nourishes, that waters us not with a barely nourishing mist, but with a water source where we need to wear a “drench poncho” because we are to be soaked with “Christ”, with nourishing love, finally witnessing the majestic water fall inviting us to meet the majestic love that resides within us hoping to be noticed, to be loved, to be lived... I meet the love within me, I begin to notice the love outside of me and a whirlpool of wonder and awe cycle and dance within and through and around me...

The “will” of God is to “water all the earth” with nourishment and love, no “measure up” required, only showing up and practicing noticing… seeing… receiving… giving in our living...

The seed of love that falls on the hearts willing to see and hear do not become prisons of judgment hurled about, rules and lines and hoops to be jumped through, mistaken for “God”, but realizing that way of thinking to be what it is, a cultural and religious illusion of separation of egoic, false “power”, as you allow love to fall over your soul, washing away the illusion of separation, or needing to “earn” God… as you finally rest into love and allow yourself to be nourished simply because you are and you are loved. With love planted in the great soil of your heart, you walk into the spacious, and beautiful landscape of life, messy and beautiful, painful and exquisite all at the same time and begin to allow yourself to see and to hear your life. “I am here”! Love seemed to beautifully singing to me through the incredible wonder of the falls, as I stood cloaked in a red, recyclable poncho, drenched by generosity and wonder of witnessing creation that I could not control, did not own, nor could I lose, but simply needed to notice... To see. To allow. To be a soil for the generosity of the Great Mystery that is constantly sowing seeds of wonder and love….

Grace and peace, friends...

Isaiah 55 10-11

Romans 8 18-23

Matthew 13 1-23

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Looking at so much of Religion today, and “Christian Influencers”, you would have thought Jesus was written saying: “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you a crap ton of shame and yell at you that you are Satan’s warrior!”... (yes... that type of rhetoric is actually happening)... or “Come to me all of you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you your proper gender roles and tell you that you must have all the babies, even if you do not have the financial means”... or, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you the exact outline of how Church must look and all the proper rules and make you a warrior for me”... and one more, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you the perfect morning routine to guarantee success”…

Nope. Jesus is written to have said: “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest”... He goes on to describe following, being guided by, and learning from him as a “gentle”, and “humble of heart” experience where one will “find rest for your soul”... it will feel easy and light... talk about a drastic and tragic pivot so many have taken from the actual Jesus that is written about in the Gospel.

As I reflect here and pull back to much of Church and the idea of “Jesus” I was handed by culture and Religion, it was not rooted in “rest” or “ease” or a true unconditional love that can only be noticed and lived into with a humble heart... I was handed a judgemental, rule based, earn my love that is somehow unconditional but also conditional “Jesus”, that is not the Jesus I read in the Gospels at all.

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father”, Jesus is quoted saying... these “All things” held in the heart of God, it seems, transforms what we have thought and been taught about a “control and vengeful God”, into humility and Love. That is what “God”, what “Love” does: Invites us to unlearn and empty everything we have been taught about a “Powerful, Vengeful, War obsessed God” and to have a new, fresh mind in order to truly see that the God Jesus shows us is not a God of rules and doctrine and control, but a God who is humble in heart, demanding nothing, only longing to love us into dropping our fists and resting. Thank God that “God” is not the image of controlling, conditional love that I was so often taught, but a Presence of eternal, everlasting love who gives me rest for my soul and invites me to find myself, my soul in this rest... any notion of “earn” or “worth” have been handed over to love, revealed to be false, and transformed/replaced with rest, with love, with gentleness and heart.

May we recognize God, not in the noise, the violence, the men over women rhetoric, or the false notion of power and control and begin to allow ourselves to notice in the eyes of God “triumph” and “victory” looks like the humility of Love riding in on a donkey (representing humility) (not a tank), singing a song of laying down weapons and commanding peace to all nations... To be able to see in this fashion, we must not “die to our flesh”, as Paul is translated saying -- we must be deeply connected to our humanity -- but we must “die to our ego, our small and false self”… we must die to that part within that has been bolstered by culture and so much of religion which has tried to tell us that, you are more special, your group is more special, and that preaches of “earn and look at me and be better and any gender dominance” mistaking ego for God…

You shall recognize “God”, my friends, not in an invitation of becoming an “army” or “do better”, but in an invitation to “rest”, to meet a “humbleness of heart”, who sings the song of Peace through proclaiming Love.

“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest”… “for I AM gentle and humble at heart and you will find rest for your souls”… not because you’ll “be right”, but because you’ll finally find that you are already Loved and that your deepest, truest self is Love, longing to be found and rested into.

Grace and Peace, Friends…

Zechariah 9 9-10

Romans 8 9, 11-13

Matthew 11 25-30

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I cannot count how many times I have thought, “I didn’t drink, I ate healthy enough, I exercised, and yet I still got a health disorder that by the math of me “doing A” should not have happened! How in the hell did I end up with C!?”.... I should have got a reward, but instead I got punished, or so it felt, because that is what culture and religion taught me to feel ...

It has taken me a long time to realize that it is not “me” who did something wrong, but the fact that we live in a paradigm that teaches us something that is not true or helpful... turns out life was never about doing something for a reward, or for fear of punishment, even though that is what we are taught by culture and even by our scriptures, but that life is about living and living in a helpful and healthy enough way, not for a reward, but because we have learned to respect ourselves and each other, to meet our human dignity in our life that is meant to be lived. We don’t help another person for a reward, we help another person because that is what it means to be deeply and truly human. We don’t treat our bodies with respect, exercise, enough water, and healthy foods along with some treats for a “reward”, but because that is what living connected to our humanity looks like.

Turns out life has never been about “reward” or “punishment”, but about living, letting go of “outcome”, or “results”, or a notion of “reward” and simply showing up for ourselves in our living in the ways that we need on any particular day.

As I sat and did my morning writing today, I was pondering how I often say to my kiddos, “great job, you really showed up for yourself!”, and it got me thinking, “how am I showing up for myself?” How am I showing up in my day living with Bev (my vestibular disorder), how is my heart and how are my thinking patterns? Am I doing what I can to catch when I am listening to the “itty bitty shitty committee” and stinking thinking, or am I practicing nourishing myself with thoughts and comfort, love, and understanding? How is my eating? Can I begin to show up for myself in what I put into my body? Am I practicing movement and exercise in the ways my body can on any given day? ... and maybe most importantly of all, can I show up for myself for the sake of living and not for the expectation of reward, or a hoped for guarantee of “health”... Can I let go of “outcome” obsession, and simply begin to live???

I found these to be helpful ponderings, this art of unlearning what unhelpful paradigms we have been handed…. It’s very freeing, once you forgive that you were handed them in the first place… it’s what people had been taught for centuries, after all…

How beautiful to be a part of the sacred unlearning! May we toss out this “reward/punishment” way of think thoughting and being to show up for ourselves for the sake of living.

Grace and Peace, Friends!

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Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome... Ironically, I deeply know what it feels like to not be “welcome” at a church that claims to follow our welcoming Jesus and displays a sign that says “welcome”. The church way too often displays a “Welcome” sign, yet they do not welcome the truth telling or the mirror held up to their hypocrisy. A healthy organization is one that welcomes critique and is willing to change. Christianity has very often become exactly what Jesus preached against. Jesus himself was crucified largely because he held up that critiquing mirror and because of who he wanted to “welcome”, to “include”, which were the folks the powers of Empire and Religion wanted to exclude, and still often do.

I am a divorced, gay woman who loves to write and preach. I am what my previous church seems to be terrified of. I know first-hand what it feels like for a sign to say “everyone welcome”, and to feel that welcome, until I no longer fit their mold/doctrine. I know what it feels like to have the veil of false welcome begin to fall, and finally begin to notice how the church has always contradicted its welcome sign, as I was pushed out by silent, yet loud undertones of ignorance and disapproval all in the name of “doctrine” or so called “morality”. What I began to discover as I no longer fit the “straight and married” mold, was the very opposite of the Jesus/God I would meet in the depths of despair and who I read about in the Gospel with new, inclusive, love centered eyes.

I met the beautiful depths of “welcome” into my own heart as I felt and knew the depths of my humanity and the freedom of my broken heart. I finally heard Love say: “Welcome”, which is what love was saying all along... When I got a divorce from a very difficult marriage, my inner most self said “welcome”… I discovered my sexuality and my deepest inner being proclaimed “welcome”... I fell in love with my wife and my inner most being said, “welcome”... Welcome here into who you are, Beloved.

In all of this the church I grew up in said not “welcome”, but only “welcome if”... I have left that church and any notion of God that has small print of “you’re welcome if”. As I reflect on this, I realize that as I died to that idea of “God” or “welcome with strings attached”, as I lost that stingy notion of God and humanity, I found my living, I found my life ... I lost the life the church told me I needed and I found my life in Love, which is bigger and vaster than any doctrine could ever be... pushing against the grain of a culture and much of religion that says “you must earn your “welcome” with money or working or following our specific rules that have refused to grown and change and learn with the times”, does feel like “picking up a cross” and following “Jesus”, following love to the margins of society, to the margins of my own heart that was pushed aside, welcoming and loving myself, welcoming and loving people, sticking up for folks the church and culture has thrown away, just as Jesus did.

What a waste of time and energy “purity codes” are, or any teachings that say you must earn and deserve your spot in this Church, a “welcome” that is not “welcome” at all.

So I say to you, Beloved, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome….

Grace and Peace, Friends.

Romans 6 3-4, 8-11

Matthew 10 37-42

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I can’t tell you how often I have thought “what did I do to deserve Bev!?” (my name for my severe vestibular disorder) or “maybe if I didn’t do this or that or the other thing, it would not have happened!”, “if I just coulda done better!”… my brain machine trying to create for me a pattern of “why”, inserting unhelpful, unneeded internal ainxt known as “worry”... much of culture and religion has engrained this pattern into us. The truth is it is not, nor has this disability ever been personal. It just is. It just happened.. I think about the emotional turmoil, time, and energy I have spent on the “why”, the “what did I do”, and I begin to understand that I can practice having agency over where I put my emotional energy. I simply begin to allow myself to know that I don’t know, let that be okay, align with this reality of not knowing, and begin to see my life differently. I put my fists down that have been punching what simply “is”, hoping that would somehow help, and begin to live.

Here I practice meeting life on life’s terms, realizing that life does not know that I am a teacher and a mom and that life will be very difficult and not be what I planned if I lose the use of the nerves that run my internal balance system, thank you very much! ... nope. life does not know our plans... life is not trying to sabotage my life or upcoming plans with a cold or another happening, life is simply being life, and it is not personal.

When I practice living life on life’s terms, I can practice letting go of the stories my brain is trying to tell me. I can also practice knowing that this connection making and story creating is simply my brain being my brain, trying to help, not realizing that spinning storyline is taking me nowhere.

When I practice meeting life on life’s terms, I am not in the past, nor fretting over the future; I am now and here, as opposed to no/where. My meeting life on life’s terms is living with this disability that I do not like, AND my life on life’s terms is also this breath that I breathe, the taste of my morning coffee, the sound of my kiddo’s laughter, the smile of my beautiful wife. It’s not so much liking my disability but allowing myself to love my life. What happened, it’s not personal, AND I have discovered that life will keep life’ing and I get to participate. I could still live in different ways and life would become my greatest teacher, not because life is trying to teach me something, but because life is about learning and growing. When I live from this deep acceptance, I can realize that life also longs to use all of life’s happenings as a type of compost, not “happening for a reason”, but simply happening and the secret is hidden in plain sight, that life is to be lived and composted and learned from and grown out of and reimagined. My disability is what has allowed me to have the time to bus to Edmonton to get to know the person who would become my wife, which I am so beyond grateful for … no, I don’t think that’s “why” my disability happened, maybe we would have met in a different way, but what I do think is the shape of life is to love us forward in and through whatever may unfold, our job is to show up, live life on life’s terms, be willing to know that maybe we don’t know, unclench our fists and learn and grow and change… to “go with the flow”, as the saying goes. The shape of life giving more life and than life’ing some more seems to be one that can use everything that happens in our lives as a way of transformation, connection, and deepening love… the happenings are not personal, but the depths of love that hold us through sure is.

Grace and Peace, Friends.

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I have had a few conversations about the 2SLQBTQIA+ community with my kiddos, of course, since I was venturing into dating, and then would eventually meet the woman who would become my wife. We had a few chats about what each letter of the acronym means and why inclusion and learning about the different ways of being human is important. All was age appropriate and done in such a way that we should learn about all different ways folks are in their humanity.

With that all being said, my 10-year-old son that night said, “we learned about male and female, mom. But I know there is also the one that feels one way inside but doesn’t have the parts that match on the outside”. I replied, that’s right! Those folks are Transgender. We also talked about how in the Indigenous community there are folks who feel male and female who are 2 Spirit folks. Also, I said, there are folks who are intersex, where they have reproductive systems that do not fit into the “male” or “female” organs and all these types of folks have always existed and are all different ways of being human. Humanity is much more diverse than male or female, just like most everything in creation is more diverse, creative, and intriguing than the binaries we are so often handed... there is always “and” always vaster and more expansive and diverse ways of being human.

It was a beautiful conversation with my son that night that included everyone male, female, 2SLGBTQIA+ folks. We discussed the notion of gender and expression..... I also added that “God” is beyond gender, to which he replied, “yup, mom. God is they/them!”... I smiled and said, exactly buddy, God is neither male or female but beyond gender. I asked him who taught him that? He said, “you did mom! Like a million times!” LOL... I don’t remember saying this a million times, but I must have said it at some point and it is what has stuck with him. He has heard the male pronoun for God a million times at school, though, and I adore that the one that stuck for him is the one his mom taught him. I love this.

I may not have had all the conversations perfectly, as that does not exist, but I had the conversations and what has resulted are kiddos who include and will hopefully have an open mind in how they live their life and how they meet their own and others humanity... there is always room for us all...

Grace and Peace, Friends.. its still June, so Happy Pride!

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“... for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known”... - Words of Jesus written from the perspective of Matthew.

“You’re only as sick as your secrets” – 12 Step recovery.

There is a beautiful quote I once heard it goes something like: “The truth has legs, it’s always the last thing left standing, so you might as well start there.”... this is so hard, though, because often situations can become so complex that we aren’t even sure what the truth is anymore, until those “rock bottom” type moments happen that either force us to allow our denial to be uncovered, or to dig in even deeper. If we are able to go with “door number 1” and allow our denial to be uncovered, we finally allow ourselves to hear the Whisper of “I Love You” within the depths of our hearts from the mysterious beyond place of “God”.... Our patterns of deflection and blame have no place here, and what is left is our weeping, our grieving, our deep surrender, not to the stories of a capitalistic, oppressive, punishment obsessed, fear based “God” we have often been taught, but to the tender heart of our Great Creator that we actually have who weeps with us. The One who has gifted us the singing of the birds and the colors of the sunrise to anyone who longs to practice noticing, never to be earned, only ever to be noticed.

We read of Jeremiah today, a Prophet (a Truth Teller) of his time and he has begun to meet this voice and heartbeat of God that longs for us to call out the oppressors and the systems that feed the rich and punish the poor in the “name of God”... and we see that Jeremiah is still growing, still maturing in his Faith, because he is calling on this God who he knows is standing up against the cruelty of his time to then be cruel to those who hate Jeremiah for his inclusion and love... at this moment Jeremiah is stuck in this notion that somehow “God” can be loving to some and cruel at the same time to the people he does not like... makes me think of the Anne Lamott quote: “ you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do” ... Jeramiah does not stay here, though, he allows himself to continue to grow into the chorus of “I love you”…

It is in the darkest of the darkest times in my life that I was able to hear the whisper of the God I had always had and the only phrase sung into my heart was, “I Love You”... no cruelty towards the one who had hurt me, or towards the part that I had played in my own disillusionment, but only an all-encompassing “I Love You”... a foundation not of dualism or division but of eternal love and a vast ability to include all that had happened in mercy, in weeping, in compassion, towards a transformation within the great paradox of life, this deep woundedness and anger would shape me, would break me open into new and deeper knowing, would cause me to allow what I had covered to be uncovered, for truth to be known, that truth that has legs, and to need to tell what I had met in my darkness (the God who is Love and the very act of Loving) out loud into the light... and to proclaim this whisper of Love from the metaphorical “roof top” of my typewriter...

Just as we must give grace to ourselves, we must give grace to the writers of the scriptures we read here, for they too were human, growing and learning... we can practice noticing where they are able to lean into steadfast love, inclusion, compassion, and grace, this blessed, sacred, beautifully inclusive voice of the God we actually have... and when the writing has smiting and judgments and wrath, we can know they have stepped back into the cultural and religiously harmful image of a God who is not “God” at all...

May we have the courage to allow for our growth and for ourselves to know that we have always used story to try to make sense of our lives… that we have got it “right” sometimes and have also “missed it completely” at times too, just like the writers and interrupters of scripture... The story of “Adam”, for example, was not one of a particular human but of every human, and the “sin” was not eating the apple, the “sin” was what happened in Adam’s hiding. The “fear” is never asked for by God, the “fear” instilled by culture and harmful theology is what causes the symptoms of “sin” (of what we do when we think we are sperate from Love, from God, from each other, but our thinking it doesn’t make it so)… harm is what happens when we hide. When we hide behind an image of a wrathful God, or booze, or distraction, or lies....

“Fear not” .... for the God we actually have meets you in your darkness and always says “I Love You” and from here, my friend, we can begin to tell the truth, knowing God never asks us to hide, but only ever sings out our name, asking us to live and to love.

Grace and Peace, friends....

Jeremiah 20 10-13

Romans 5 12-15

Matthew 10 26-33

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I find myself in an interesting spot of life to have had to deeply ponder this question, grappling with a disability that has forced me to shed the layers of our culture that says: you are your work, or you are what you can produce, or you are what your body can do.

I was in a counselling appointment the other day. I am a huge advocate of therapy to help walk us through this life journey. I had been struggling with these invasive voices of, “I can’t “do” as I used to do, therefore I am not”… or “I missed doing the thing I shoulda done”, or “I should be doing something more somehow”... becoming a “should-head” one might say…

I have provided a name to my Vestibular Disorder. She’s called Bev. I have given a name to my hormonal/menstrual cycle, too. She’s called Tami, or if she is being completely unruly with headaches and awfulness “Hurricane Tami with an “i”“... my counsellor who I once replaced a dental appointment for and was sure to let her know she is way better than the dentist! ... she asked something like, “at your inner table, when you find yourself ruminating on these questions, who is at the table, and is that voice who you are? Was that voice even ever invited to your table”?... WHAT A QUESTION!! YOU are WAY BETTER than going to the dentist, my friend!

The answer to that question is no. No. those particular voices are definitely not me. They are not my deepest self. They are the voices of a bombarding culture of opinions, ideas, voices, misinformation, cruelty, and, yes, also voices of support, but they never seem to get the loudest platforms, nor is their information something that I was looking for, just BOOM, there it is, a video, an add, a something pulling a seat up to my table.. Upon reflection I found that this infiltration was vastly Social Media for me. Even the “good” videos had me thinking, “I should be doing more, get “likes” make a platform”... thoughts that are not my own and keeping me trapped in discontent. So, I got off of it (besides Substack for a place to place my writing, in case anyone is interested in reading).. The thing that brings a smile to my face is the fact that I did not get off of the majority of Social Media to be more productive.... I did it to begin to figure out who I Am and who gets to sit at my table, my most inner table of “me”, my humanity, my unique “me’ness”... no more unsolicited videos, images or algorithm... just me. Using my time in different ways. Unlearning so many things and discovering who I am, which is always an endless journey, as we continue to discover more about ourselves, not a destination, but a journey that ebbs and flows.

It made me think of the beginning of my time in Al-Anon... going there hoping with the last thread of my sanity and hope to change another person and make things better, only to discover a program that says, “Sheena, who are you and what is it that you like or want”?... PLOT TWIST!!!!! It’s never been about controlling another or even controlling you, but deeply knowing myself, dancing with myself, discovering myself, its all an inside job.... Create for the sake of creating. Write because I love writing. Practice accepting an exceptional body that allows me to experience this adventure of being human but with exceptional limitations.

My therapist looked at me, sitting there, hand on my cheek and said, “tell me about your tattoo on your arm”... my tattoo that says, “Wild and Sacred”... in a moment I was brought back to myself, my deepest self... not a “my likes or dislikes, or what I can or cannot do”, but my very breath or the fact that I get to exist at all, “Wild and Sacred”.. the observation was made as I looked at my tattoos on my arms that I have subconsciously tattooed my deepest self on my very bodily self... “Wild and Sacred”. “I am who I am ~ I’m right here” “Seeker”. “We must risk delight”. “Wisdom”. “Grace”. “En Christo” (held by love, in a great mystery, a vessel of God of Love”... As well as a cross with “and” written on it, because life is always “and” beautiful and disturbing, joyful and painful, all at the same time alongside my own contradictions.... lastly, I’ll share the phrase “Just This” that I have on my forearm.... a reminder if what is truly real... “just this”, this moment. this breath. at this moment the feeling of the keys typing beneath my fingertips... just this... and I am.

Bev and Tami are both part of my body that I live with, but they are not the boss of me. And guess what, Social Media and culture is not the boss of me either... I have agency over what voices, what ideas get a seat at my inner table of Self, and what is to be tucked in quietly with a blanket, maybe there, but not allowed to run the show, and I get to make a decision of what outer voices I allow in, too... and also, my therapist is much better than going to the dentist... (if you are a dentist, this is not personal! It’s also true, my therapist cannot help out with a tooth ache!)

Grace and Peace, Friends!

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Jesus does not send out the disciples to preach a notion of “Traditional Family Values” (Jesus himself didn’t have a so called “Traditional Family”) or to check up on people’s gender expression or “gender roles” or sexuality. Nope. He sends out the disciples to Love. He does not say, “now go out and make sure no one gets divorced”... nope. He says go out and “heal”. “Go out” of your usual judgmental mind and love. Cast out the demon of hatred and othering, dehumanization, and shame by practicing seeing and loving people, humanizing people. Oh, and to keep this clear from anything to do with the fragile ego, make sure you do not take any money for spreading the Good News that heaven is here and cannot be earned or pounded into a doctrine, or bought, but only ever noticed, lived, and loved... “Heaven” and “Cash” and “Power Over” never go together. “Cash” and “Power Over” people will only ever keep you away from being able to look towards the crowds of people and be moved with compassion to love… Cash and Power Over people causes a person to look out to the crowds to judge and see a value number, not love or humanity.

You’ll know you are beginning to notice heaven, my friends, because you’ll look out at the crowds of people and be moved with Compassion, moved to your very core, beyond the confines of the boxes we’ve shoved each other into, and see and feel the pain of the people and their universal human need to be loved, to be seen, to be cared for, to be reminded of their wholeness, which are all the exact same needs that you have.... You see, beloved, no one needs to be saved, everyone needs to be loved.

Grace and Peace, Friends.

Matthew 9 36 – 10:8

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