Your form is as small and limited as you believe

Something beyond matter is at work here

Through your yearning, and your ache

For murky soil and vast expanse of sky

It is the reaching

The reaching

The reaching

Which will crack the surface

Until you breathe free

Photo credit: Pascal Meier on Unsplash

Miles, still. Hours? Days? Or will we be spared?

I run through it all, room by room, eyes squeezed shut, focusing. Mentally pulling out drawers, assessing items, finding essentials.

What would make the cut? What needs to be loaded up now? What am I willing to part with?

I feel a strange detachment.

Let it all go.

I want my violin, and the Bach sonatas. That one winter coat, the one that feels like wrapping up in a big green blanket. The merino-lined Slovakian barefoot boots. I want all my books, but would have to settle for just a few.

The family picture albums, of course. And there’s all that food stored in the basement. That would feel like a real waste. The cats, for sure, though I know the chickens and rats (yes, rats) are unlikely to make the cut. Only so much chaos can fit in one minivan.

Oh, my herbal medicine! My beautiful tinctures and oils. My survival books, gardening books, my many Bibles. All the books I have bought and not yet read. Books again, then. And my journals, but how many pages of the past of one’s life can one read while living one’s days?

But really, my winter coat. The boots. My family albums. My favorite overalls and that blue dress. The Bach, the Slovakian violin (a theme!) and some books.

What more do I need?

My children are safe.

I open my hands, then.

Destruction can also be blessing.

Look around you
A flickering flame?
Just that
See it dancing
See the shadows on the wall.
See the pale blue fading
(where, exactly?)
into white-hot

Not like white
White in stuff is the absence of pigment
But they say all hues exist in the white of light
There is a rainbow here, then, beyond our perception

Why does the flame suddenly still?
Why does the eye crave fire?

Destruction meets creation
Matter meets air
Particle meets wave

And here we are again:
Here is one thing.
Here is

everything

Photo by Paul Bulai on Unsplash

On the last day of the gathering, when my turn came in the sharing circle, I said this:

“I have read the Bible cover to cover multiple times. It was the foundational scripture of my life for at least 30 years. Today, I see so many ways in which this book has been used to harm, and my relationship to the text is changing. But looking around at each one of you, I believe this to be true…

You (and I) are the temple of the living God.”

These people were from all walks of life, and there was a time I would have labeled some of their (and my) behaviors with biblical language: adultery; unfaithfulness; witchcraft; corrupt communication; inordinate affection; fornication; rebellion; blasphemy.

Scary words, aren’t they? Heavy words, filled with shame. Words that cause us to hide, and to separate, and to point a finger. To isolate and purify ourselves lest we become tainted. Oh, how often I have done just that.

Instead, in this beautifully diverse group of souls, I saw God.

I saw the Divine in the raw honesty, the courage to witness and be witnessed in one another’s pain. I saw the Holy in the wracking sobs, the timid song, the rose petals showered over one another, as we proclaimed, “beloved!”

If other people are—as spiritual teachers often remind us—a mirror of our own internal reality, something within me has shifted profoundly.

I saw heaven where, at one time, I may have seen hell.

Two Bible verses have come to my mind lately. They seem to present competing worldviews, at least in the way they’ve been presented to me.*

The first one is this: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” - Luke 5:32

Sinners. There’s a loaded word, huh? I’m going to paraphrase this a bit.

“I’m not looking for good behavior. I’m here for those whose lives are messy. The wounded, the heartbroken, the bitter. The ones who were picked last at the tryouts, who hold a grudge too long, who don’t trust love. The ones who are quick to fly off the handle, who have done things they regret. The ones who accidentally let the “F-bomb” fly at Thanksgiving dinner, who flip off other drivers, and who wonder if there’s any point to life.

I’m not here to get you to clean up your act. I’m here to love you into wholeness.

I’m here to change your mind (yes, “repent” is also pretty loaded) about yourself. That you are not an accident, but formed for a beautiful and unique purpose. You are not broken, but beloved. Not forgotten, but known with such a depth of intimacy that is beyond what you could even long for. Not “too much.” Not a failure. Not incapable of love.

And I’m here to change your mind about God. He is not a harsh taskmaster, but a compassionate witness to every detail of your life. He is not angry with you, judging you, but radiating with love toward every particle of your being - yes, even with the harmful and petty and fearful ways you’ve behaved. You have not even begun to imagine the love He has for you, always. Always.”

I imagine the rule-following Pharisees shrinking back or lunging forward, offended, confused, outraged.

But then 1 Peter 4:18 says this:

“If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”

Well, now the Pharisees are puffing out their chests, aren’t they?

“See, I told you this is hard! Following the rules takes all our energy, and you all had better get it together! This is about behavior. It’s about conformity. It’s about being good enough, and better than. We Pharisees have a slim chance of making it, and you sinners have almost none!”

Two verses in the Bible. Two ways to view sin, and righteousness, and people. One leads toward arms-open-wide acceptance of all. One can tend toward fear, strict purification and isolation.

What if the Bible, and other scripture, is also a mirror?

What if the verses we cling to most fervently tell us as much (if not more) about ourselves, as they do about God or other people?

What do we see when we look into the mirror?

Is love or fear looking back at us?

Photo credit: Михаил Секацкий on Unsplash

“We see life not as it is, but as we are” - Anaïs Nin

“Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted.” - Titus 1:15

*It’s possible that Peter was making a bigger point about holding onto faith during suffering. I’m not so interested in what Peter really meant here, as how this verse has been preached and has affected many of our psyches.

I have laid on the kitchen floor, crushed by overstimulation and loneliness, unable to do the smallest next thing. I have felt a heaviness in my chest so palpable, it seemed as though I were drowning. I have felt that each day is like carrying buckets of concrete up a very steep hill.

In January, my husband lost his job.

In the midst of the deep uncertainty, I found this verse, this promise:

These words feel complicated. Deceptively simple, maybe… or frustratingly simplistic. But when I read them this time, they hit me square in the soul, as both invitation and challenge. I decided to act as if I believe these words. I started trying to figure out what I actually wanted to pray for.

It turns out, this is really hard work.

Most often, we go through life mildly—or extremely—discontent. The weather or the politics are not going our way, we’ve fought with our person, the prices are too high, they never understood us. We know what is not working. We see room for improvement. But how often do we have a clear vision of what we actually want? When is the last time you single-mindedly pursued and prayed for your vision of flourishing?

I started writing down my desires, and I found so many competing motivations. I feel unworthy to ask for this; that feels unrealistic. I shouldn’t want this; that dream is silly. I really want this; but then again, what about that? If I ask for the safe path, will I be missing out on the adventure? If I ask for pleasure will I miss the depth? Underneath the noise of expectation and duty, what does my soul really long for? Can I hear that whisper, or is it a shout? Do I have permission to ask for it?

I ended up making a simple request: may my life continue.

May the life that has brought me pain continue. May the life that has felt too much continue. May I continue in the path that has felt, at times, unbearably lonely. May I have the gift of a few more years, unchanged.

Soon after I found this clarity, Dave got a job. And so our life continues. And now, our situation looks much the same as before: the communities, the relationships, the rhythms, the limitations, the financial situation. Nothing has changed.

And all has changed.

I have changed.

Because now, this is what I prayed for. Begged for. I am not just accepting this life; I asked for this life. I chose this life.

And in the midst of it, I am finding moments of the most intense flourishing. The light shining, as it always does, right into the darkness.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

-Rumi

She must become tall, nourished by soil and decay, by sunlight and gentle rain. She must strengthen root and stem in the buffeting winds, bending and swaying with a grace that is more determination than surrender. She must attend single-mindedly to her own growth and balance all along.

She brings deep joy to others, yes, but their joy is not her purpose. Her purpose is to be, to live, to flower. To open to the ecstatic tremble of wing-flutter and proboscis, to the exchange of nectar and life-dust in the most ancient of dances, and to the subsequent shedding of her own delicate splendor. To bulge, to fruit with sweetness, and then to bear the long decay of her own body as she bears forth from her own dying strength a hundred new dramas of sprout, flower, fruit and seed.

She belongs utterly unto herself, but she is never alone. She shares root space with creatures mysterious to her. She finds herself in a sea of breeze-blown buds, aching with an unknown, and unifying, longing. Sun-brightened, rain-soaked, and wind-caressed, she briefly marries earth to sky in a shock of joyful hue. She embraces the hum of suitors, reveling in her inclusion—no, her inciting—of the frenzied pursuit.

But neither friends nor suitors are her purpose. And when it is time, she will turn inward, to fruit and to seed. She will find that this work is hers alone, and that she has within herself the power to distill sun and soil into the germ of life to ensure future flourishing. She sees others doing this, and she bows to them. And to herself. But no one can do this work for her. She-and-God (for they are One at the deepest core) will do the living, and the dying, together.

Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash

In a season of unemployment, anxiety, and heaviness, some of which I have not named publicly, I am tasked with writing a paper on human flourishing.

For the spring term, I’ve chosen to only take one 1-credit class. It’s the final “Intersections” course of the year, completing the arc of common curriculum shared by both the theology and psychology cohorts. In the fall, we wrote a paper outlining “what is the self” from a psychological lens. Last term, we used our theological research and life experience to answer the question, “who is God?” And this spring, we are linking both together into a capstone paper called a theological anthropology, or “what is human flourishing?”

Indeed. What is it?

This unemployment season has been rough. There have been joys and gifts and kindnesses along the way, moments of spiritual depth and even breakthrough. But there have also been many days of tears, hopelessness and exhaustion. A worthy pilgrimage, I guess, except that I don’t know the destination, and I don’t know when we’ll arrive.

A few weeks ago, I had turned back to the book of Genesis. I found the promise to Isaac, where God said, “don’t fear a thing because I’m with you. I’ll bless you and make your children flourish because of Abraham my servant.” (Gen. 26:24, MSG) That promise felt so seductively secure. I wanted to claim it as my own, but I’m also mindful of how often we as a collective Bible-reading demographic have misappropriated words from Scripture, taking them wildly out of context (a letter to a specific church, for example) and proclaiming them as truth for all time. So instead, I settled for a sort of nebulous wishfulness that maybe we would all be okay.

Later that day, we were driving downtown Spokane and a man on the corner was holding a sign, asking for food. I passed him some crackers through my window and, as I began to drive off, he quickly told me: “If you read your Bible, go read Galatians 3:29!”

So I did:

“And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.” (Gal. 3:29, NLT)

Now, I could have told you this. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover a few times. I preached out of it multiple times a week for 5 years. I listened to it read and preached from multiple times a week for almost 42 years. I could have told you, if I had really stopped to think about it, that the Bible teaches that the promises God made to Abraham now apply to all people who are walking by faith in the eternal Christ. But it’s been a while since I’ve read with any regularity, and I’d forgotten, or was too tired to think about it.

Anyway, the man on the corner reminded me.

And so I’ve claimed “flourishing” as a promise. I’ve made it part of my daily prayer. Often the entirety of my daily prayer.

And now I will be spending 8 weeks researching and articulating human flourishing.

Yesterday, I was not flourishing. I was stuck in spiraling thoughts and fears and resentments, and I was missing out on sweet family moments because of my own darkness. Which, honestly, is okay. It’s a hard time, and my strength ebbs and flows. I apologize to my kids when I’m not at my best, and I think they know that in the tides of emotion and life experience, my love is steady.

But I don’t believe it’s an accident that right now, with so much personal uncertainty and pain, and when the world feels like it could literally blow up at any second, I have this paper to write.

I don’t believe that flourishing means ease, or comfort, or security. I think it’s more along the lines of a kind of soul grit—a preposterous hope and resolute love that defies experience—that surfaces in the darkest times of history. It’s Victor Frankl’s last of human freedoms, Corrie Ten Boom’s unrelenting faith and forgiveness, the Baltic singing resistance, Gandhi’s non-violent political action. Flourishing, I think, is trusting and gutsy, tender and fierce.

So yes, I am praying for flourishing. And I wait for Divine sustenance and direction.

But flourishing is also a choice.

And last night, sometime between snuggles and giggles with my youngest and a long hot bath with a recording of the Brahms piano trios, I remembered that. I remembered that it’s also a choice.

I can’t provide all of my own flourishing, but I can open myself to more of it. I can commit, and re-commit, to practices that encourage it. As I study and write this paper, I can embody the things I learn. I can look for repeated themes, like gratitude, creativity, and friendship, and I can act on those things.

So today, I drank a lot more water and gardened in the sunshine, listening to podcasts that fascinate and uplift me. I took the news apps off my phone. I’m committing the next 8 weeks to experimenting with flourishing practices as I seek wisdom from psychology, theology, the Bible, biographies, poetry, music, and more.

What one thing, today, would be a small step toward your own flourishing? I’d bet you already have an answer.

Photo by Flash Dantz on Unsplash

A couple of months ago, I sat in on a talk given by Mary at www.waymarkers.net (look her up - I highly recommend her work) that stirred my soul like nothing has in a long time. Not my mind, not my heart—my soul. Her words pulled on so many strings of my life narrative: yearnings, resonance, lostness, meaning, journey, belonging and fear… to name a few.

This soul-stirring, this heart-burning, this Spirit-moving beyond ordinary emotion, is something I used to only associate with the church group of my youth—which called itself “The Truth”—and occasional private experience in prayer or devotion. I was shocked when I first felt the same soul-resonance in a church, as I had been taught so confidently that God’s Spirit did not live in church buildings with paid pastors.

Of course, since then I’ve also experienced the same soul-string resonance through a mystical encounter occasioned by plant medicine, so clearly “church” as a whole has no corner on the market of Spirit.

At this point, I believe something like this: all of us possess a spark of something, a Soul, a fractal pattern of Godself, a harp-string from the Divine. And only the Spirit of God, (call it what you like - I don’t think the Divine is much concerned with our proper verbiage) can make that inner something resonate in this recognizable way. It’s an experience we’ve all had, sometime. It’s awe. It’s worship. It’s surrender. It’s gratitude. It’s all of those things and more. It may have no God-language associated with it, it may not have ever occurred in a church of any kind but rather in a dream, or a walk in the woods.

I think it’s what the old hymn means when it says, “Jesus, thou lover of my soul.” I believe Spirit and Soul have a love affair, and we know instinctually when the two meet. There is something in us, and something greater than us, and at the point where the two have a true encounter, there is ecstasy.

Call it what you will, use the Bible to try and approach it, or take the Bible-language out entirely:

“Deep calleth unto deep” -Psalm 42:7, KJV

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” - Carl Sagan, astrophysicist

The point is, we’ve all experienced it, and children experience it more than most of us. And at the moment when we feel that touch (and we do, and we always know it when we do), there is a choice: shake it off and continue living as before in the ordinary world of measurable input and outcomes, or surrender. Shift. Accept the invitation into more. Open to this marvelous, shimmering, living way of wonder. Follow the breadcrumbs. Embrace enchantment.

If we choose the latter, we are living in our true identity: children of God.

That’s it. That’s my religion now. It doesn’t fit neatly into any creed, and I often lose my way, but Souls on this path always recognize one another.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

The next day—her actual birthday—I was so depressed, I couldn’t get out of bed.

It took me a while to acquaint myself with the source of my feeling, but once I named it, the darkness did what it always does when truly acknowledged: it lightened. It softened into something asking for compassion, not judgment.

“I don’t have a script for this.”

My own 10-year-old self was asking to be seen. Because that was the age that I professed. That was the age I began the long process of shutting down my own true thoughts and feelings, and substituting them for a script. That was the age I determined to deny myself and serve a God outside myself, as exemplified by external words and authority figures. And, tellingly, that is the one year I have no memory of.

I can tell you my teachers and something about school for every year from K-5 (and possibly K-12 if I really try)… except for 4th grade, when I was 10. My daughter is in 4th grade. This is the year she has really started coming into her own. She has a really great friendship group, she’s loving theater, she is excelling academically, her teacher adores her, she reads voraciously, and she has started a morning routine complete with alarm, shower, hair, and jewelry. She’s smart, funny, kind, sassy, passionate, and alive. I think 4th grade will always stand out as a pivotal, vibrant year in her memory.

For me, on the other hand, I can’t tell you if I spent a second year in Mr. Fretheim’s class, or if I had some other teacher I don’t recall. For some reason, I have yearbooks of every other elementary school year, but not that one, so there are no reliable sources of information. I faintly remember 3rd grade with Mr. F… the chaos of his classroom, meeting my new best friend from Texas, Alex, who always brought a water bottle to school before it was really a thing. How our teacher had a class money system and played guitar on his couch and decided it was a great idea to take the class on a field trip to Death Valley. (I didn’t go.) But 4th grade remains completely blank for me, apart from the very clear memory of standing to my feet on December 19, 1993 during the last two verses of hymn #161 from my blue plastic chair at College Place Elementary School.

So here I am, 32 years later, loving and guiding a 10-year-old girl down a path I never walked. Encouraging her to experiment, to see what she likes and doesn’t like, to dream about her future. Letting her wear things, do things, and listen to things that were forbidden for me. Delighted when her choices reveal a sweetness and an innocence that doesn’t need to be forced, or produced by shame. Touched when I see a hunger for good and beautiful stories. Challenged when she expresses emotions I stifled.

There’s more, too, of course. It’s more than parenting a 10 year old. Like I don’t have a script for this unemployment. I don’t have a script for maybe needing to sell the house. I don’t have a script for whether or not I can finish school. All of life feels unscripted now, honestly. And I hate it, and I am practicing surrendering to it. I am breathing into the “groundlessness of life” expressed by Pema Chödrön. I am saying with Antonio Machado, “the way is made by walking.” And I am trusting the “withness” of Emmanuel, the Christ, the Divine Incarnate, whose nature is Love, and whose presence is here, now, always. And it feels like this has always been the invitation: to surrender the control of the script, and instead, to mindfully and trustingly create.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Instead, I shed
skin
story
worries
and all movement

Until I am very small
and still
distilled

A drop
alongside you
in the ocean
of belonging
in the womb
of re-
membering

And there,
I ask
to be prayed
back
together

Photo by David Becker on Unsplash

it has a nice view:
the pines
the clouds
my sanctuary.
it will catch a breeze here,
and not a bird’s beak.

Safe.

just a stink bug
not bright, like a ladybug
not delicate, like a dragonfly
not transcendent, like a moth

i guess this kind seeks shelter in the cold,
s l o w s d o w n
and waits out winter.
its whole world reduced
to 24”x40”.

Certain. Defined.

but it is nearly March,
and will be 50 degrees on Friday.
and he is also

stuck.

i have no special regard
for stink bugs.
but i favor freedom.
i take a scrap of paper
and edge him toward
a tear in the screen.
the spindly legs shrink at my touch
but i coax
from a gentle heart
which i know he does not trust

neither would i

at last his head is through
and with a paper push
he
f
a
l
l
s
to freedom and to Friday and to abundance only dreamed

Divine Spirit,
Corral Me, Too
Toward the Tear
And the Fall

Pick your example: Old Testament warfare; the Roman Games; the Vikings; the Inquisition; the French Revolution; the American Revolution; the Civil War; the lynchings; the World Wars; the Holocaust; the Cold War; September 11; ICE raids in Minneapolis.

Reading through a list like this, our bodies may respond by tensing, or resisting, or becoming agitated. Every expression of violence exists within a story for us, a cultural and historical context, a sense of right and wrong—and our reaction to it will depend on the narrative we inhabit. But the brutality itself is not new, and I don’t even think it’s what bothers us most.

It’s true we’ve done our best to edge our awareness of the macabre out of our civilized existence. We have so removed ourselves from the blood-and-toil earthiness of our food sources that milk comes in conveniently-handled plastic gallon jugs at the supermarket instead of being pulled from a swollen teat into a rusted bucket. Nor do we need to do the unpleasant task of chopping the heads and feet from our chickens and plucking out their feathers; instead, their extra-large, hormone-filled breasts rest in refrigerated rows of shiny shrink-wrap emblazoned with words like “Farm-Fresh!” and “Natural!” When it comes to bodily death, too, we prefer distance—a closed casket rather than visiting the dead in the family home, beholding the mortality of the body, and bewailing our loss.

But for all this gleaming orderliness, we still seek out violence. We are enthralled by the fierce clash of tooth and bone in nature documentaries. We entertain ourselves with movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, and The Hunger Games. We play Fortnite and Mortal Kombat and we pour billions of dollars into an industry where large young men hurl themselves into one another, concussing brains and breaking bodies with regularity. And when football season is over, the appetite doesn’t disappear; it simply turns to wrestling, MMA, and other forms of choreographed violence—brutality as scripted entertainment, stripped of even the honest soul of conflict.

So no—I don’t believe it’s the brutality that so horrifies us, but the way it threatens our sense of the world, and ourselves in it.

The resistance many of us feel right now is not only against the destruction of a body, but against the dismantling of our self-understanding. It’s not just bullets tearing through the back of a citizen in broad daylight, but the collision between “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free”, and the footage of an ICU nurse, holding a phone and supporting a woman, wrangled to the ground, disarmed, and then shot to death. It’s the hypocrisy we sense: brutality masquerading as justice. It’s the disconnect of what we have believed America to be, alongside what we can all see, from multiple angles, with our own eyes.

I’ve watched other videos recently, too. Ones that are very difficult to see. And I know that for many Americans, this absolute disconnect between the “American Dream” and the disproportionate violence directed against their bodies has long been felt.

This is how the story goes for me. It’s difficult for me to grasp another story.

But trying to step over the line for a minute, I think it may feel something like this: resistance against what feels like public overreaction—the obstruction of justice, the outcry against what is perceived as a fair and democratic government, the sense that this is all being politicized while very real, foreign, illegal criminals are threatening our lives and livelihoods and way of life: a way of life distinctly American and distinctly good.

I may have a hard time engaging with someone on “this side of the fence,” but here’s what I know: there’s a story on both sides. And pain. And fear. And love.

Clinging to our narratives, we may shrug off assault. We may be endlessly cynical about the veracity of the video, or the innocence of the victim. We may decry brutality as a mark of systemic oppression. We may seek to repay evil for evil. We may seek out violence for catharsis or entertainment. We may engage in force to defend our rights, our beliefs, our land, our people. But there is one brutality we will not abide: the blow to our cherished worldview. We would often rather be killed for our beliefs than submit to the shattering of our myths.

We hold to our stories and call them Truth, or Science, or God. But our stories often prevent us from seeing the suffering of our neighbor, and acting in love.

We have expected our worldviews to deliver something we desperately need: wholeness. Indeed, our narratives offer such a map, but then fail to provide completely. And it may be that the hunger for this wholeness is coded into our souls.

Theologian W. H. Vanstone writes in “The Risk of Love” that humans, being made in the image of God, enter the world craving the kind of Love that only the Divine fully provides. To varying degrees, we are hungry for something that we never fully experience, and yet we “already know the taste of what we need”[^1]. And through experiences of imperfect love, we develop keener awareness of what real, authentic love must be. And further, “pretenses and parodies of love are not only recognized: they are also resented”[^2].

We come into this world primed to receive pure love. We know (by experience) what love is not, and we resent the falseness which parades under its guise. Likewise, I believe our souls are tuned to such moral realities as Justice, and Mercy, and Truth. Something deep in our very being knows these realities, thrives on them, and resents when we are offered something false. More and more, we are given a caricature of Truth. A caricature of Love. A caricature of Justice. A caricature of Mercy. And people are rightly resentful.

But this resentment is not the way to wholeness. It may be a guidepost along the way, but it is not the way.

There are other ways to have this conversation. I’ve been deeply challenged by the YouTube channel The Enemies Project, which refuses caricature and insists on encounter—on slowing down long enough to hear the hunger beneath the story. This conversation, for example, is an extremely timely watch.

But this encounter is a kind of death, and it’s not for the faint of heart. We can choose to step “outside the camp” of our sociopolitical and religious identities, and listen to the hunger for wholeness that already exists inside each of us. Our cherished narratives offer an illusion of safety, but we can choose disillusionment as an act of faithfulness. We can risk seeing the “other”—not as enemy, but as neighbor, hungering alongside us.

Photo by ev on Unsplash

[^1]: W. H. Vanstone, The Risk of Love (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977), 40.

[^2]: Vanstone, The Risk of Love, 40.

I have a faint memory of singing hymns with that word in it, though it showed up more often in our Spanish hymn book: “peregrino.” I once tried to read the Christian classic “Pilgrim’s Progress” (somewhat secretly, as I was in a ministry that didn’t look kindly on any Christian writings outside its own circle.) Then there was that jazzy tune—maybe from the hefty “Redemption Hymnbook” that was somehow allowed material for our youth hymn-sing get togethers—: “He sent sojourNERS from every LAND, two together, at his comMAND.” (No, not the Redemption book. That had to be written by one of our own.)

But for all that, I never really knew what it meant. In my mind, it signified ancient ways, before modern civilization. Bible days. Third-world countries. Religious fanatics. Nothing for which my Seattle Public School self had any mental map.

And yet, now, it is becoming a vital concept, a life-giving practice.

My task this term, among others, is to plan and enact a mini pilgrimage. It can be literally anything; there have been students who have actually used this class as a springboard for international journeys, but it could also be a trip to your own backyard, if done with intention and meaning.

I had already tossed about 8 possible local destinations around in my mind, but in a turn of events suited to the spirit of pilgrimage, my journey chose me: the day after our first class session, my husband lost his job. And so, my undertaking is now this: how do I walk like a pilgrim through the journey of unemployment?

A pilgrimage involves leaving the known for the unknown, and walking into the wild in hopes of gaining something greater, though intangible. A pilgrim may be seeking solace, quiet, inner peace, or may wish repent or atone for their sins. Sometimes, it’s just for the exercise, the discipline, or even to prove something to oneself.

But the thing that all pilgrimages share is the retreat from the ordinary. There is a decision, even a call, to set out. To leave the comfort and routine of the daily life and begin a path toward some destination. ChatGPT says this, which I love: In Scripture, the sojourner isn’t just a traveler; they’re someone living between securities, dependent, vulnerable, visible to God in a special way.

That’s where I am: between securities. Without even walking through my front door.

This is an old invitation. I remember the concept from my early King James Bible days. There’s a verse in Zephaniah condemning the people who are “settled on their lees,” in other words, mired in complacency. They will not give up their comfort. Or in the Psalms, where it says, “because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.” Or, as a modern devotional put it, “we ask for God to give us this day our daily bread, and talk about living by faith, but try our hardest to not actually have to do it.”

But sometimes pilgrimage is thrust upon us. And we can walk with intention, or we can remain reactive, asleep, lost in fear. And for me, right now, it is literally my assignment to walk this path mindfully.

Part of our pilgrimage project involves keeping a Vade Mecum - literally a “Go With Me” or a pilgrim’s journal. It’s a place to note inspiration, intention, encouragement, or simply a mindful record of the journey. The feeling of uncertainty can open our eyes to the moment, and to the endless possibility hidden by the everyday routine. In this last week, I found myself playing violin on our deck surrounded by a luminous sunset, ice skating at a friend’s backyard rink after a last-minute invitation, and losing track of time playing a funny game with my kids. I’m saying yes to things I would often put off, because who knows what’s next? I’m reaching out, seizing the moment, and recording it in a pilgrim’s journal.

Seeing this phase of life as pilgrimage is grounding me in the right-here, right-now provision of my life. I have enough, today. My children are safe, today. Our house is home, today. And most likely, we will be just fine. This will be a blip. But…

But.

Daily bread is only daily. That’s the path of the pilgrim. The God of manna still refuses storage.

So today, I walk. And I invite you: Vade Mecum.

From our youth, we have been taught that God is Water, and that we are God’s temple. That makes sense; after all, our bodies are largely comprised of water. So God, the Water, lives within us. That must make him a being sort of like us. Maybe He is a water-body too.

We also know that water comes from the sky, and gives life. So God must be like us, a human shaped person, just bigger and more powerful, up in the sky pouring out his water-ness onto the land, to give us life.

When the water is withheld, and we are parched in the desert, we believe that the large Water-Person in the sky must be angry. We cry out and ask for mercy, and eventually, the water comes again. We have heard from our people of the Great Droughts.

Sometimes we have seen travelers, and they have brought back stories of flowing water coming from the mountains. This is rare. They speak of things called rivers, and waterfalls. They even tell of animals that seem to be able to live inside of the water. But we don’t believe them. We know the water is inside us, and we know the water comes down to us, but we don’t believe anything could live inside the water. That’s just not how we’re made. There are those words that say, “in him we live and move and have our being,” but we don’t really know what that means. The water made us, and the water lives in us, and the water sustains us. That is all we need to know.

This God has given us many words, and we know they are true. This God says we must be “born again” of water. We argue about whether this is referring to rain water, or bath water, or whether we need to go on pilgrimage to the mythical land of rivers. We discuss the purity of the water: the water from the sky is pure, so we know we must be pure. Do we insist on reverse osmosis for drinking and bathing? Or will a charcoal filter suffice? Rain water is best, but so difficult to collect without contamination. Some people who have completely lost their reverence will cover themselves with mud, but we know this is blasphemy. Too much of the earth mixed in; our God will never accept that.

We fight about this. We quote the words to each other. We try to scare each other into obedience: “Our God is a flood of water and will consume you! No man can see his face and live!”

And then, one day, a teacher comes. This teacher will not enter our arguments. He acts as if all of the water is sacred; he treats the mud-bathers equally with the purest among us! This makes some among us understandably angry. He claims to have come from the Water, and that he will return to the Water. He calls the water “Ocean”. We don’t know what that means, but haven’t we all come from the Water? The Water is the Source of all life. The Water comes down on all of us. The Water lives in all of us.

He exemplifies such great care for every drop of water, whether released from the sky, or enfleshed in people. But in doing so, he destroys our categories! He seems to think the water within us is just as precious as the water from the sky! He acts as if drinking impure water need not be punished! He even says there is “no condemnation” when we clearly know that God’s Watery Presence can flood us for our misdeeds. It does, occasionally. We have heard the stories of our people. He keeps speaking of love, and of “Ocean”, and telling us not to fear, but we still need the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Otherwise, how will we ever know how to please God? How will we be saved?

Someone asks him whether humans could ever live in the water, and the teacher does not answer directly. He only says that the Water knows us more deeply than we know ourselves, and that we are not yet what we will be. Our other teachers say he is talking crazy.

He begins to attract a lot of negative attention. The reverse osmosis crowd will not bear such blasphemy. Eventually, he is cast out, away from the community into the barren desert; a certain death sentence.

But a few of us follow him. We know it is foolish, and that we may all die, but we never heard a man speak like this before. It has stirred something in us. And so we walk.

And we walk.

And just when we think we cannot walk any longer, the landscape begins to change. There are shrubs, and then trees. Then a cliff. And then…

Water.

So much water. Not even the rivers or waterfalls of legend; this must be Ocean. No man can see this much water and live! We will be punished! We begin to turn away…

And then the teacher does something unthinkable:

He dives in.

There is a splash, and then the water becomes still.

He is gone too long.

No one is meant to live in the Water. It is not possible. That is only the place for God, who comes down to us, and lives within us. Not for us - never for us.

We sit on the shore, a very long time. He is certainly dead. We try to drink the water, and find that it is contaminated: salt. Then we will die too.

All of this, for nothing. We should have stayed in the desert, where at least we had the rain. Even with the fighting, and the fear, we had the rain. That is where God was understandable, even predictable. Where repentance earned us rain and we knew where we stood in the moral order. We knew where everyone stood. We could measure purity. This man has deceived us.

And then… there he is.

There he is! But how?

No human could survive in the water that long. We watched him drown! And yet… I come from the Water and return to the Water…

…Do not fear…

…We are not yet what we will be…

…This is not all there is.

The job that entirely financially supports our family of school-goers and theater-actors and organic-veggie-eaters and Nintendo-players and Spanish-speakers and furry friends.

In a moment like that, it all seems to crumble.

I kept jerking awake, later that night, with visions of our family, friendless, out on the cold streets of downtown Spokane. I sensed Spirit whispering to me to loosen my grip, go along for the ride, that this will be okay, but my brain and nervous system immediately hollered, “Red Alert! Doomsday! It will all be lost!”

I’ve lived in this body a while now, and I know her sweet sensitive ways. I know her fear. And so I gave her time. I sat, much of the next day, just breathing, and crying, and tending to the quivering in my belly and the racing of my heart. I felt the panic, the need for certainty. I sat with my sweet, scared self and told her it was okay to feel all of this. That of course I would feel all of this. And then I took a nap.

And that night, I slept. Long, and deeply.

And for the last two days, I’ve been okay. More than okay. I have felt curious. I have wondered what life might look like if it suddenly takes a 90 degree turn. Different feels dangerous to a nervous system on high alert, but what if the changes are offering us a new possibility? What if life after job loss could be better than life before?

In one of my classes, we are tasked with asking deeper questions of our hyper-local area. What is the history of this land? Who was here before us? What kinds of resources, businesses, churches already exist here? What is the local governance? What are the demographics? It took a class assignment to cause me to dig under the surface of the “housing development by the freeway” that I thought I knew.

I’ve learned that 200 years ago our land was still tribal territory of the Spokane Nation, living, hunting and fishing by the Little Spokane River. Then the settlers established fur trading outposts here in the early 1800s, followed by a booming logging industry, then, when most of the trees were gone, dairy and other farms. The housing developments, all in neat rows on their cleanly parceled lots, have only emerged in the last 25-50 years. Now I wonder what has happened right on the very ground under this house: who has loved; who has fought; which animals have birthed, frolicked, been killed; what has been traded; what has been lost?

And what is here? I discovered a u-pick farm, a local winery, and learned more about a community garden, all within 2 miles. I found a delightful apothecary in an unlikely little shopping center less than 5 miles away. And I gained new appreciation for the river access and nature preserves within easy distance for a quick walk or family outing.

For the nearly two years I’ve lived here, I’ve mostly seen uninteresting rows of houses, lack of diversity, not very good walking areas, and lots of things that are better-and-worse than, but always compared with, what we left behind. But a fresh, intentional look has left me feeling rich and grateful in new ways.

There are always other ways to see.

Today, we went on a family walk in a nature preserve we’ve been to many times. I think I know it: there are trees, and some steep pathways that will take you down to the river. To be honest, I’ve found it a bit boring: mostly pine trees and shrubbery, large rocks, and spotty river access. Not the lush vegetation of the coast, nor much wildlife that I’ve yet spotted.

But today, I remembered something I’ve always been curious about: geocaching. I looked it up, and suddenly we were navigating our way to hidden treasure all over the park. All these tiny gifts, just below our feet, and we never knew it. All these little logbooks and legos and rock formations, intentionally placed and waiting for an intentional seeker. The shrubs became a shrine, the land a mystery.

There are always other ways to see.

So, yes, we may have to sell the house. We may experience financial strain. But what is waiting to be discovered? What possibilities exist? What can I see differently? What gifts lie in my hand already, or under my feet? What can never be taken away, even if it’s all lost?

This is the journey. I will walk it.

Some were dropped, casually.
Others were pressed into my open hands, gaze becoming gateway, pools of eternity.
Still others were held between us, as we examined the rent that produced them, weaving where we could and letting the rest remain unincorporated, unmended.

I behold them now, these strands in my palm, bound together with a fiber from my own heart.

Look how they shimmer, when they meet the light:
Hidden glints of iridescence;
sea green that seemed grey under the fluorescence;
pinks and yellows (they were told they were garish) that now create a sunset as they rest together, held.

What shall I weave with them?
A shawl for comfort?
A tunic for beauty?
A jacket for protection against the chill?
A life?

Can you weave a life?

Do we ever weave anything else?

Today, I’m at loose ends. I already met with my advisor and peppered her with questions. I want to know the end from the beginning. I want to know what the next quarter is going to look like, and the next. I want to have my apprenticeship and capstone project all figured out. I want to know where this journey is going, and whether it’s the right direction. I don’t want to waste time.

I love school. I love the reading, and the writing, and the wrestling, and the conversation, and the comraderie and the structure. But I don’t have a totally clear view of my end goal. And so today, I feel a bit lost. Not sure what to do with myself, not sure how to order my time. To be clear, I’ve still done all the things: browned a pork roast and put it in the slow cooker, kept the laundry train going, cleaned the entire kitchen and dining room again, had that meeting with academic advising… but now? Do I go for a walk? Do I sit in meditation? Do I eat lunch? Do I read a book? Do I call a friend? Do I sleep?

This lostness goes deeper than the daily routine. I feel it in my bones, and have for a while now - but it’s a lostness that feels “right.” Like an exhale, like the space between breath. It’s a time of transition in many aspects of my life and faith, but a private one. It’s the winter ground, filled with potential, but appearing barren and unchanged. It’s a time of inwardness. And the lostness provides spaciousness that certainty and a performance-driven life could never provide.

When I’m driven by certainty, I can’t be truly present. I operate out of a pre-determined narrative instead of curiosity. Life conforms to my judgments, instead of presenting itself as it truly is: a wonder. Endless possibility.

So I will get up from here, and eat some curry. Then I might stroll around the neighborhood, getting fresh air in my lungs, fresh thoughts in my brain. Then, maybe I’ll sit down and look at some pictures of my family, think about where we’ve been and where we are right now.

And when the next right step presents itself, I will take it.

Maybe I’m not lost, maybe I’m just right here. Right now.

Maybe being awake to this moment is all the finding I need.

These words have echoed within me for the last two years. They were spoken in the context of how I have shown up in an online space that is geared toward survivors of religious and sexual abuse, and toward wrestling with hard questions of doctrine and practice and faith.

I keep those words tucked in my heart as I continue to put one foot in front of the other on this journey of discerning my vocation. I am drawn toward, and currently pursuing, hospital or Hospice chaplaincy. Sturdiness required.

I think my heart is like a shoe box full of words, actually. Inside are little scraps of paper, calligraphied or hurriedly scratched out, impersonally typewritten or set artistically against a backdrop of sunset or pine tree; snippets of poems, Scripture, paragraphs, and ubiquitous memes. These words are how I understand the world. Most often, my heart is a jumbled mess of ideas that have resonated; there is a sense of something true within, but no cohesive framework for elucidating the moment. But then, occasionally, a word or phrase will rise to the top of the box, and I’m able to see my life through its lens, and there is an integrative moment of clarity.

Lately, another phrase has been poking up out of the box, asking to be heard:

“You deserve to be in environments that bring out the softness in you, not the survival in you.” - Ronne (not Brene, although it could be) Brown, from a meme somewhere online

I reflect on some of the primary relationships in my life, and how many of them have asked me to harden, to protect myself, to survive. I see specific moments, and general trends, in which I went within, sealed off my heart, declared to myself that I “didn’t need” this relationship after all. I’m not talking about a friendship gone wrong once or twice along life’s journey, but a theme I’ve experienced in some of the closest and most formative relationships life has to offer, across decades.

I’m sturdy, because I’ve had to be.

Several years ago, I engaged in an hour-long group prayer exercise. We were guided through different aspects of prayer and given a template for what engaging that kind of prayer may look like. There were time markers given, such as “5 minutes for corporate adoration”, during which time we called out within the group, “popcorn” style, the things about God that we most appreciate. There was an individual time of confession, when we were to find a corner by ourselves and spend 10 minutes asking God to reveal to us the sin in our lives, hearts, and minds.

The response I received in my heart was clear: an immediate, definite, near-audible statement:

“Your sin is self-sufficiency.”

That scrap of paper has been at the top of the pile ever since, and I’ve turned it over in my hands many times, seeking to understand its weight, its meaning, its pervasive quality in my life, and its remedy. I have felt defensive about those words: “what choice do you think I have? Who else is going to do everything?” I have felt angry: “do you think I wanted this??” Or, “What’s so flippin’ wrong with being self-sufficient?” And, in my moments of deeper contemplation, I have sensed that these words reach into a core of myself that needs profound healing.

It might help to share that, recently, the definition of “sin” has taken on new meaning for me. Instead of “doing something naughty or against the rules that makes God angry”, my working definition is this:

“Sin is the lie we believe that keeps us trapped in an illusion of separation from others, and from God.”

The words I heard were not, “self-sufficiency is a sin”. It wasn’t a condemnation of strength, self-confidence, and the ability to provide for oneself and others in general. It was personal; the thing that makes me feel separate from God and from others, is this core belief that I must take care of myself. That I am ultimately alone. That I don’t need the company and the help and the affection of others, especially in those very places I have felt hurt. This separates me from God, and others, and it also separates me from myself. My own self-sufficiency keeps me from even feeling how badly I ache for nurture in these places.

So then, a question:

Is it sturdiness, or repression?

Yes, I’m quite strong. Yes, I’m able to take care of myself. Yes, I’m able to bear deep, soul-level pain. But am I also able to bear softness? Does my heart still open to longing? Am I able to accept love, care, intimacy? What does it look like to be strong enough to stand on my own two feet during the storm of my own or another’s pain, and to be able to accept help and safety and refuge? What does it look like to allow myself to not always need to be sturdy? To fall completely apart, and still have value? To not isolate myself in pain, but allow myself to be held?

Sturdiness will be helpful as I pursue a helping vocation. Repression, not so much.

One of the requirements for my graduate program is something called Listening Lab. The class sizes are small; there are just 6 of us in my section. Today was our first regular meeting over Zoom, after spending some time together in-person a few weeks ago. None of us know each other well. All of us are new to The Seattle School and don’t quite know what to expect in this lab. We all come as aspiring therapists/chaplains/helpers, and we’ve all been identified in our ordinary lives as “good listeners”. And yet, there is so much to learn.

For this quarter, we are primarily listening within ourselves as we engage in discussion, asking ourselves questions such as, “What am I feeling in my body right now? What is behind my sudden urge to turn off my video, scroll on my phone, get up and walk? How do I believe I am being perceived by others? How welcome or included do I feel, and expect to feel in this space? Who am I drawn to? Who do I feel a need to stay away from/guard myself from? Why?”

Today, we were asked to enter into conversation together and share some mildly personal things about ourselves, and then we were invited into a space of reflection, to engage a number of questions like those mentioned above. After ample space to reflect, we were invited to share with each other any of our reflections that we felt belonged in the group space.

When I chose to share, I acknowledged the thing that had been most present within me for the entire class-time; my underlying expectation in any group setting is that I will be criticized.

I shared that my nervous system was attuned early to this expectation, and whenever I am in a group setting, especially when I am invited to share my authentic self, I get triggered into old bodily responses. I brought public attention in that moment to my thudding heart, my flushed cheeks, and the way I started tripping over my words. I shared that, even in that moment, I was hyper-analyzing my every movement, my appearance, my words, my Zoom video. And that my primary coping mechanism since (at least) high school has been to aim for perfection. I want to be bulletproof in everything I say. I want every part of my presentation to be flawless. And I will analyze and criticize every part of my public engagement, trying to look for any way it could have been taken incorrectly or offensively, to arm myself against any possible criticism.

Toward the end of the class, our facilitator brought attention to the way we shared. She pointed out that the first people who shared were more externally focused, like noticing feelings of curiosity within themselves about what someone else had said, or someone else’s life experience. But after I shared, the others entered into their own stories of fear and alienation. One person likened their experience to “always feeling like my chair belonged 10 feet outside the circle”, like their inclusion was always in question. People then shared a word about what they felt when someone shared with true vulnerability:

“Appreciative”. “Understanding”. “Calm”. “Safe”.

Honestly, I feel myself anticipating criticism even as I write this. “It’s all so self-focused, Heidi. Enough navel-gazing. Being selfless means to stop thinking of yourself at all. Who do you think wants to read this glorified journal entry?”

And then there’s Carl Rogers, the psychologist who has already been quoted a few times at this school as having said, “that which is most personal, is most universal”. And I trust that, in exploring the authenticity of my own experience, there is something that resonates more broadly with you.

Maybe the way to be truly sturdy is to be honest about our not-so-sturdy areas. Maybe feeling fear, and needing care, and accepting our need for care are all parts of a sturdy existence.

(Photo by Jason Thompson on Unsplash)

For a time, He did not suffice
as He had no body

But today,
with chalice in hand
with song caressing
with eyes searching
with hearts listening
with arms embracing
hand in hand with strangers
(but not strangers at all)

Today,
I see He has not one body
but many

And I receive

I receive

I receive

Starting a graduate school program in my forties is equal parts scintillating and petrifying. As I sat on my bed with five different course descriptions spread before me, I wondered if my brain has been too long conditioned to respond to small humans every 37 seconds, to sustain the focus necessary for this work.

I wondered many things, mostly about resources (mental, financial, temporal), and mostly from a framework of scarcity.

I still do.

I read a line in one syllabus that struck me, though I can’t now for the life of me find the quote. It said something about creating a learning environment that is supportive, inclusive, and free of risk.

No. That’s not what it said. That’s what my brain inserted. Because in scarcity, we don’t like risk. Risk is bad, if all the resources might run dry. So of course I would see “of”

I read it again.

This school does not embody an ethos of avoidance. I knew that already, before stepping foot in the rugged and newly-leased brick building on Rainier Ave. I knew that before meeting the incoming cohort, before drinking in the introductory teaching from seasoned and courageous and curious and heart-full faculty. I knew when I incorrectly read that sentence, that this sentiment did not belong, even as my psyche inserted the meaning it believed would protect me.

Two letters, but what a landscape it opens: “to”. Free to risk. At this school, with these people, in this program, we are working together to create an environment in which we are free to risk.

I’ve seen it already. During this residency weekend in Seattle, I’ve had many conversations with people who were strangers 24 hours ago, and now so quickly feel like friends. I’ve heard stories of family and spiritual harm, of escaping from sex trafficking, of dislocation and homelessness. I’ve seen conflict and awkwardness and “too much” in conversation. I’ve seen risk.

And, as you might hope in a room full of aspiring counselors and healers and chaplains and teaching clinicians, I’ve experienced what brings safety to that risk: people stay. They stay with their attention. They stay with their care. They stay with the way they lean into discomfort, the way they ask a follow-up question instead of walking away.

For too long, my spiritual path has meant being free of risk. I clung to certainty, begged for signs, needed to know for sure that I was on the right road. I needed guarantees and contracts, and I badgered God until I got them. He gave them to me, too, though probably with the heavy heart of an adoptive parent working with a traumatized and untrusting child. “Yes, I will assure you of my love again. Yes, I will give you exact instructions again. But someday, I hope you will trust my heart. Someday, I hope you will play. Someday, I hope you will be loosed from your hypervigilance, and you will fall down and get your knees scraped and your heart broken, and know that I am still here. And know that you are getting stronger and wiser for these very pains. You will come to trust me, and you will come to trust yourself, and you will know that you are safe enough to risk.”

There is spaciousness here, in the security of loving relationship. There are people, and there is a Presence, who will stay.

So let’s take a risk.