Thrashing: Day 12: Push a hand away

What is most interesting to me is that though the fear washes over me in waves, there is a bravery i have never felt before. A willingness, a desire, a passion to fight. I'm aware of a commitment to be in the dungeon for as long as it takes. So much so that I am fighting off the hands that are reaching down for me from the lightworld above. "Let us save you," they say. "Let us fix you," they call. "Let us dry your tears. Let us overwhelm you with light once again so you'll forget all of this, and it will be just a dwindling nightmare." Where were these concerned voices when I was drowning in all that light, living an empty religious life?

                                                                                                       - Mandy Steward, Thrashing About with God

periodically, throughout this time of absence from church, i receive a message from friends who want me to return. they promise me it won't be weird, and that the longer my absence, the more the darkness will win. they pray for freedom from my chains, and my heart responds "isn't this the freest i have ever been??"

i know they love me. i know they are well-meaning. but they cannot love me well right now. they are not a safe space for my heart.

for a while, i was responding to their messages, defending my decision to take a break, trying to help them see how this was God leading me away into the wilderness for a time. but they would see only "do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together" and tell me the Spirit would never prompt something that goes against His Word.

maybe so.

but maybe it's possible that the interpretations they are working with are too narrow, even as they try to apply them too broadly.

Because I would never naturally take this course - it had to be divine intervention to prompt me to move away from the expectations and toward his heart (as i have said before, rebellion is a spiritual discipline for me - it is not my bent. i am wired as a "good girl", and am slowly unlearning, rewiring).

i had to quit "stating my case" a few months in, since it always seemed to fall on ears that care about me, but care about being biblical more. 

my heart is not held in that space. 

so, i have stopped responding.

{{but i feel the urge to run just under the surface of that healthy boundary, so i think this silence with them will only be for a time. because i am sick of running, hiding, avoiding their judgments and questions i have no answer for. i am sure i will need to stand, as myself, even in their presence, at some point.}}

but not yet. right now? i run, and run wild.

"Don't you dare!" I yell back. "This is not about you. I'm sorry that it makes you uncomfortable to see me this way, but you're not going to rob me of this richness. I am with God. He is here. Imagine that. In the darkness. There is no place I'd rather be. And I will come out when He says we are done, because I want to be healed this time. I want the holes in my body to be forever mended, even if there are brutal scars to show for it. When i resurface, I want to be able to contain the fullness of God within me without it leaking out all over the place. Down here, I am closer to my life to the full than I ever was soaking up sun on the beaches of pretending and performance and duty and devotion. Leave me alone. This is something I must see to."    

                                                                                                                          -Mandy Steward, Thrashing About with God

Thrashing: Day 11: Break tradition

my life is breaking tradition right now.

i have quit going to the church i attended for 15 years. my husband and sons still go every week, and i stay home, and i am told often how much my absence is felt. and yet i refuse to go back. [not yet. maybe never.] not until i know my heart and my God so intimately that i will not collapse in shame every time i walk through the doors, hear the voices.

i am blacking out most of the words of a bible. and responding to the words with my own poetry that is totally "outside the box" as far as what it is actually saying in the text.

i want to get dreads, and a tattoo (or two or three).

i am not a "traditional" stay-at-home-mom. i refuse to allow tasks like cleaning and cooking consistently to take precedence over being present with my own heart and the hearts of my family. i have refused to allow a get-your-shit-together, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of attitude to reign.

this has been an issue lately, as it is apparently not as okay with other people as it is with me (with us - my husband, though a clean house significantly decreases his anxiety level, is totally on board with the "hearts first" thing). i have had multiple situations recently that have ended up being underhanded jabs at my inability to maintain a put-together household. comments from family members; coming to our house and cleaning for me because they think/say "well, someone needs to do it."

my mother-in-law interrupted my usually peacefully quiet sunday morning this week, to "surprise us" with hiring someone to come clean our house (this, it turns out, was because a family member was coming to visit, and she couldn't handle the thought of it not looking like her kids had their stuff together).

i guess it is just not a traditionally valid option for a mother to have interests that take her time away from these tasks.

but. i have to create. it's just not an option not to for me anymore. it is my space for connecting, and i will keep choosing it, whether it is accepted or not. because the demands of tradition do not rule my life any longer - the spirit does.

Thrashing: Day 9: Say I am tired of....

i have started this post 5 different times now, and apparently i'm tired of a lot, because it goes in a different direction each time. everything from:

i am tired of not sleeping through the night

to

i am tired of thrashing. 

 and everything in between.

but this morning i am finding myself wanting to make a declaration out of it.

{{{i am tired of letting fear and shame win.}}}

it is a daily battle, and my soul has so long known the hunched over deformity of carrying the weight of shame, that it's too easy to slide right back into shouldering it, when this shame? it isn't mine. it is a lie. 

but it's comfortable to me. 

it's what i've always known.

so, to choose the truth [of my worth] is always a battle, and i always enter it with fear. there is so much to be afraid of. failing, succeeding, being wrong, being arrogant,  being unseen, being intimate. being misunderstood.

but, today, i am taking that risk.

after all, my name is Braveheart.

Thrashing:Day 8: Make a new language

Thrashing: Day 7: Be honest.

be honest.

why does my breath catch in my throat, and the anxiety begin to squeeze my sternum as i read those words?

it is as if part of me - but not the conscious me, at least most of the time - knows that i have been historically less than truthful. to myself, mostly. i have been unable to acknowledge what i feel, what i think; instead always feeling and thinking what everyone around me does, and expects me to.

i feel panicky as i try to imagine what being completely honest would look like.

authenticity is a word that has grown tired within the past decade or so, but i seem to be only discovering a need for it now. today.

it's not as if i set out to lie to anyone, and if i recognize that i have, it takes all i have, but i try to make it right. but i'm afraid i slant the truth constantly to please the ears of my audience, whoever they may be. 

this coping habit has been born of fear.

fear of:

*rejection

*being misunderstood, my beauty unseen

*being unloved, unliked, unwanted, alone

*being wrong (if i say what they expect, i will never be accused of being wrong. except when someone plays devil's advocate WHICH DRIVES ME CRAZY, AND MY ANXIETY LEVELS WAY UP because how can i gauge what they really think, and cater to that, when they are presenting the opposite??)

wow. this runs deep. 

but today, i have sensed a spirit-invitation in this:

to be present with my own heart, so that  i am even able to "be honest".

to learn to be true, whatever the cost. 

to let the truth set me free.

Thrashing: Day 6: So what?

{that was the prompt i drew today. but, so what?

i've been wanting to write an "I am from" post, since i saw the linkup last week, and today the words came flooding.}

i am from

i am from "no" and "we can't afford it" and "you can't always get what you wa-a-ant"

i am from cry it out and be good and talk to Jesus about it.

i am from swinging bridges over creeks and poison oak.

i am from treasure hunt clues on Easter and a hostess cupcake on first birthdays.

i am from animals who die and sisters who cry for them.

i am from having a peace about it, and isn't that the Lord?

from binding the enemy and the real church inside is made up of people.

from speaking in tongues when knees are scraped, and applesauce and 7up when you're sick.

i'm from private school and public school and private school and homeschool and private school.

I'm from "we're [not] moving"

i'm from gasping at swear words and needles and blood.

i'm from strawberry festivals and quilting circles, street hockey and baseball card collecting.

i am from the best chocolate chip cookies ever and newborn kittens that must be given away.

i am from lying on my belly in the grass to observe insects and drying on warm concrete after a swim.

i am from collecting snails and seedpods for a penny apiece and sheet-tents strung across the backyard.

i am from the smell of the food pantry and dollar-a-bag's at the thrift store and "i don't know - something with hamburger" for dinner.

i am definitely from spelling bees, and church choir.

i am from mixed messages and awkward conversations and tough love.

i am from scarcity.

i am from trust and obey.

i am from not thrashing.

Thrashing: Day 5: Let others find their way

i am afraid to let others have a different path. (because i haven't given us all permission to be as free as we are)

i fear that it means the way my heart experiences life and God is less valid, when i am met by blank stares or "biblical" arguments against what i have known as truth. (because i haven't given us all permission to be as free as we are)

the way i have dealt with this previously has generally been to villify those who would discount my experience, to have hope that "maybe someday they'll get it", but until then, they are stuck. (because i haven't given us all permission to be as free as we are)

my husband cringes when i talk about certain people who have been important to him (us) along the spiritual journey. i caricature them and how judgmental they are, how illegitimate their ideas. i guess this all comes from being trained that there is one "absolute truth", one "right way" and we have to find it. (because i haven't given us all permission to be as free as we are)

"Do I really want the cookie-cutter approach? Do I really believe that if Jesus is the way, then our roads to get to Him must all look exactly the same? Our lives must all contain the same elements? There must be God's one way to live a good life, and the details all play out the same? If I do this, then God rewards me, and if He doesn't reward me, then I haven't performed to His liking? Is this my life to the full? Penciled-in stars? 

What's inside me either matters or it doesn't. Either it is worth listening to or it isn't. Either it is worth exploring or it is worth ignoring. But the decision I make about my worth is a decision that will affect my entire life. If my story doesn't matter internally, my story won't matter to anyone else." - Mandy Steward, Thrashing about with God

no one else can decide who i am. people may have their opinions, and they may have differing views about what is important, even what is crucial.

but right now, for me, and for humankind, i can declare:

i am free

you are free

my story matters

your story matters

we have permission to be who we are, where we are, right now.

Thrashing: Day 4: Burn

How to Scream: a Memoir this is what i would call my book, if i ever wrote one.

i have never screamed. well, not since infancy.

i have just always known it was not allowed, and never even tried. never shrieked, playing with the other kids at the park or in the pool. never screamed across a crowded room to get someone's attention. never cried out in fear, or from being startled. and i have never screamed that angry guttural one i feel burning down in my gut these days.

i never even used to feel angry. it wasn't allowed. i spent a lifetime avoiding anger - others', my own. only recently have i given myself permission to feel what comes, and to express it. because it matters. my voice matters. i matter.

i think the time is coming (and soon) that i'm going to have to let that scream out into the atmosphere.

***

six years ago, on the day i met my spiritual director, she took me and a few others out onto a mountainside to help me scream. they all let out these huge vibrant yells... and as the wind carried five out of six voices away, my mouth was open and nothing would come. 

just like in a nightmare when you can't cry for help, can't run, can't scream.

***

learning to scream is, for me, a metaphor for learning to speak, learning to let my voice be heard, even when it doesn't want to say pretty things. 

autumn is a season for shedding, letting go, exhaling what needs to be let out.

i have had a recurring image come to me the past few weeks, of a forest post-wildfire, and how that is a picture of what it is sometimes like at the end of a shedding season. things look a little bleak. but there is hope, even in that image, as i learned that serotinous pinecones could never release their seeds to replenish the forest, were it not for the high temperatures melting the resin holding them tightly.

the autumn fire has come, and i have felt the loss, and i am going willingly. because what i am losing is the false self that lives to the expectations of others. because there is indeed beauty amongst the ashes, and life will show itself new, come spring. 

Related articles

• The Pig Herder (wheretheywalked.wordpress.com)

Thrashing: Day 3: Create Your Own Church

[maniacal laugh]

this has been the quest of my year, deep down under it all. to find (or create) a space that is "church" for me.

because the walls i was being held in by were not giving life. and i need life.

i stopped attending the church campus we helped to plant two years prior, in february. and i have had criticisms, pleas, and eye-rolls my direction. but never a "what you believe God is leading you into is valid." i only intended to stay away a few weeks, take a breather, get my feet under me, begin to exercise my voice and learn to hear His over Theirs. but the cacophony of their responses has made it feel unsafe for my tender places, so for now, i have stayed away.

but i have needed the body. and i have found the body. i see incarnate love every single day in this space i have found, this online community that refuses to settle for being less than jesus-with-skin-on. i see women loving each other and loving jesus and wrestling their way through the hardest of questions TOGETHER. i have seen people held, and people called out to live courageously into their calling when they were hesitating. we sit with each other in pain, and dance through each others' delights.

we are a varied fabric, woven hopelessly together, for better or worse, so that we are bound to love each other.

i didn't create this space, but i am part of its church. i bring my heart to the table as they bring theirs, and we thrash, and are never alone.

there are pastors among us, offering "church in the wild" for ones who need words of life poured in. and really, that is what we are always offering each other. words of life. we are seeing each other. and we offer our selves, our own courage and hope and light for the others to catch when theirs is failing. we are moving ever closer to our purposes and the One who gave them, each unique.

we wrestle through hard things like family and the bible and feminism and modesty culture and what happens when you have to leave church? (you find church, in the wild). 

somehow we all bring more of our deep selves to this space, pieces we wouldn't dare unveil to the ones who have touched us and judged us even so.

this is a beautiful, amazing thing, this space that is shepherded by ones who love us, who see us deeply.

at its core, church is worship and community.

and, ideally, that community would be able to give hugs, and come over and hold my baby while i nap after a particularly sleepless night, or i could drop one kid off for a playdate while i take the other one in for shots. we could borrow things from each other and share fresh-baked and brewed kind of love. we could dread each others' hair.

i have hope for this kind of tactile community one day, but i wish everyone had a safe and beautiful space like the one i have found.

i wouldn't trade it for anything.

Thrashing: Day 2: Take Scandalous (amounts of) Self Portraits

self-portraits are scary.

self-portraits are liberating.

self-portraits let you see.

self-portraits force you to look.

take a longer look//notice with compassion//what you love//who you are

notice with compassion//the holy work of sitting with self//who you are//truth-gaze

the holy work of sitting with self//what you love//truth-gaze//take a longer look.

there is something subversive about a self-portrait. we are taught from birth to look out and not in, not to make too much of ourselves. i have been told recently that this journey i am on, of discovering my true self, wrestling with questions of beauty and identity and worth? that i am looking the wrong direction. ("turn your eyes only on jesus"; "you're being selfish") but he has allowed me to discover deep desire, to move toward dreams and self, and he moves with me.

i have needed to find me in order to have a "me" to be in relationship with. Thomas Merton says:

so, i will keep looking, and keep shooting and painting and sharing. even when the very idea of my own beauty is painful, a deep wound. i will be brave, and keep asking, keep looking, keep seeing me.

"so let them think our eyes are hollow for a bit, because, friend, we've got some dancing to do down deep." - Mandy Steward, Thrashing about with God

Thrashing: day 1: Write your own Bible

Mandy Steward's book Thrashing About with God: Finding Faith on the Other Side of Everything was released today, and i am two chapters in. i've already decided i don't need to write a memoir anymore, since she already has (don't worry,  writer friends, i'm just kidding - i know MY story is important. it's just the similarities are...eerie).

and God has already spoken to tender places in my heart.

this book, it is connected to my story in many ways, and is beyond where i have allowed myself freedom to go, in so many ways. i had both fear and excitement before beginning its pages. i had to write myself a "permission slip" before i read the first lines, to remind myself of freedom to thrash, unafraid of my final destination.

Mandy is one of the co-creators of The Art Journaler community, where i have spent much time this past year. Each month, they send out a download for us to have prompts to work from in our art journal, or to set intention for our days. This month, October, since her book came out today, the prompts revolve around themes within her book. some of them look very dangerous at first glance (and may very well be). Last night, i cut apart the typed phrases, without paying much attention to their words. i read some, and a few made me think: "i hope i don't draw that one until later in the month, when i've read enough of the book to have context for it." This was one of those.

"write your own bible", it said. Whaa...?

but as i held it at arm's length (literally. i'm farsighted.), i focused on what was directly behind this little subversive piece of paper in my hand. and realized that i have been doing exactly that. well, not exactly that. i began a new project a few days ago, and it involves:

*marking out huge chunks of the bible (yes, like IN an actual bible - gasp! it's a One-Year Bible that we have been meaning to "get rid of" and i rescued it.) to create "blackout poetry".

*meditating on one word that "shimmers" from a bible passage, contemplating ripe meanings within its phrases.

*free writing about themes that emerge, then creating a pantoum poem from favorite lines:

in deep waters//empty, waiting, like a dark womb//having only ever known: alone//until the light

empty, waiting, like a dark womb//the spirit moves//until the light//birth soon to be witnessed

the spirit moves//having only ever known: alone//birth soon to be witnessed//in deep waters.

*and finally a "found poem", cut and pieced from random book pages. 

i have been afraid of the bible. for years.

it has been a full three years since i stepped out of the darkest , most despairing time of my life (so far) into new light. and it has been beauty and freedom and spirit-whispers and desire.

but the bible? it still had all the same language it did in all my growing-up years, and when i read it, it was heavy with baggage of decades of knowing all the right answers. all those "right" answers that no longer had the same meaning for me, walking in this new life. and so, i haven't spent much time in it. i have had moments of feeling guilty, like i "should" be able to read scripture without feeling so triggered back to the shame of before. but walking in freedom requires of me not to obligate myself when i am in a season of needing something different. and he has been nothing but tender, grace-full, aching with me for my heart's freedom. 

so there was this moment, a couple weeks ago, where a friend was teaching a workshop, and used a bible passage glued down as the base layer for what she was creating. and as i followed along, glancing here and there, making connections within the passage, i discovered that i wasn't afraid (well, maybe a little). i felt free coming to the bible for the first time in ages. granted, i chose the passage that has felt most "safe" to me - galatians 5 - i can get on board with being free, and refusing to put old chains back on, and being led by the spirit.

but as i worked through it, i found myself alive (this was very unexpected), and i suddenly wanted to do this for the whole bible (a lofty goal? perhaps)...! and the friend i confessed this to said, "i would buy that book, even if i wasn't a christian anymore!!" 

imagine. a book of art and found poetry, created as i thrash my way anew through old words? abstract reflection and interaction with ages-old text, and the heart of God? i want that book.

and i have been waiting to find "my book", since i am 8 weeks into a 12-week writing course whose intent was to come out with a manuscript; but all i was writing seemed to fall flat. nothing seemed right.

but this? this is me.

this is my journey, moving quietly in rhythm with the spirit, no cold-hard-fact answers; only whispers and questions and creating and receiving.

last week, i began in genesis, and have made it through the first four days of creation.

and i have to tell you: it has been incredible. and whether or not it ends up published as an official book, this process...? it has already been invaluable and life-giving for me.

and i hope the glimpses will refresh you, too

"October is a fine and dangerous season...a wonderful time to begin anything at all." - Thomas Merton

here is to #31days of thrashing

holy hiding

hidden.

that was the word that rushed like wind into me as i listened to a guided lectio divina this evening. the passage about him revealing a new thing, something previously hidden and unknown. and as i pondered why that word, the first flashes were about a secret book i'm writing only for my husband, and the deep hard things i am hoping to explore without drowning. those things that have been hidden a lifetime, even from me, but affect my every day moments in the way my heart responds to a certain word or touch.

but then, oh, then, the graciousness that he has me hidden under his wing. so while i feel no small amount of fear when i begin to face some of those old monsters of shame, i know now: i am safe. he's got me. that giant feathery strength that can shoulder it all and keep flying, is holding me close to his warm side-belly, secure as we begin to tread unknown paths. together. never alone in the dark.

and as i have felt spirit-urgings over and over to create space for solitude and processing and art and word and all the life-giving things, and it has all the time appeared impossible, with babies that seem never to sleep, and people needing already more than i can give all day... this affirmation of being hidden away as a great and glorious good has come deep to my soul.

we spent much time and energy this summer creating a studio space for me to work and play and worship, and it has gone largely unused. there have been times. but fewer than ever in recent memory. and i need it. we need me to have that oxygen to share.

so i will hide away, create ritual, fence the sprouting growth, protect it. 

and when i open to those deep heart-close places in him, as i relax against his chest, who can say what hidden things will come to light, come to The Light, come to Life?

bent

she said, “do you hear that? it sounds so sinister to me! what an accuser!!”

 i hadn’t noticed.

she pointed out that i have been moving toward - stepping into - my purpose. that I had heard affirmation, words of life directed at my identity, at my desire to bring healing, felt that spark of “yes! this is it! what i’m made for!” and, within two days, the very same places were attacked, twisted.

my value, beauty, worth all called into question by an enemy of my soul’s life.

bending almost certainly innocent words into strangleholds.

i had told her, with a sigh, a few weeks ago, “i wish everyone had a jolie*…” someone who speaks life-giving truth into hearts that need it. someone who can walk alongside, witness the heart of another, engage spiritually with them, and – in a way – love them, be jesus to them. her response was, “maybe they need an ailey.” wait – that’s my name.** like, i could actually be that type of a presence with people?! heart-racing excitement and terror came with that thought. that maybe, just maybe, i could offer the same Life that i have found.

obviously, you might be thinking.

but i'm thinking: i’ve tried that before. been vulnerable, opened my heart, spoken truth… and been held at arm’s length, rejected by crumbling brick walls they think will protect. and i’ve believed that the reason for that was my inadequacy. my inability to stand in the face of rejection, in the face of spiritual pressure. i’ve seen myself cave, give in to the warfare. let it take me.

not this time. not now that i know.

because, far from scaring me into inaction, when i realize the dark forces at play, it ignites something in me. i find a fight in me i didn’t know i had. i discover this part of my heart that refuses to allow the ultimate liar-thief-destroyer to have his way in the hearts of people i love, people i see.  myself.

so when my 3-year-old tells me i used to be pretty, and the enemy turns it into an attack on my worth, a foothold for lies about motherhood-failure and beauty-lack and all the other inadequacy-talk… i will stand. on my own two beautifully purposed feet. and breathe in oxygenating presence, and breathe out healing truth. truth of my worth and yours, our beauty, our love and lovability, our purpose.

like c.s. lewis' lucy with her dagger and cordial, tending the wounded... as a healer-warrioress i will join the battle. Stand with me?

*names changed to protect, well… me. This is an anonymous blog, ok? (baby steps.)

**no. it’s not. It’s a pseudonym.

a blessing

by all means, go deep. embrace all those true and vulnerable places.

see the ways that what was beautiful

became broken

scarred, limping

agree that what was done was wrong,

and forgive anyway,

because then you become

so free

and your love unstoppable.

by all means, dive down into the darkness

take your courage with you

because only then

can you defeat the old enemies

that lurk, waiting to bind you up again

in the fear

and the shame

and all the lies 

you have no business believing 

when the truth lives in you.

by all means, go deep,

but hear this:

don't forget to play.

because when you are a child

in all the most real senses

you are free and alive

and suddenly

people are joining you in your freedom

and discovering a God

who doesn't want their perfect performances

doing all the "should"s, all the right ways.

they, together with you,

explore, and discover

that this God

loves to play

right there with them.

because it means you're together

and engaged

and delighting in love and beauty and presence

together.

together.

together.

i am not alone.

I told them that rebellion is a spiritual discipline for me.

and they knew what I meant.

They get it.

They understand that this pretty-Christian-good-girl life has to get out of the way before I can really really see God.

That life is messy, and the truth is that shit happens and God is good.

Most of them love wine, and all of them love jesus.

They love orphans and fight for justice.

And sometimes, we take a break from the church structures we have known, to dive deeper to what the church can be.

Almost all of us are introverts, all of us creatives.

We are finding our footing with our words and paint and vulnerability.

We love each other, and pray for each other,

And encourage each other to be who we were made to be.

They make me believe that I’m not crazy for believing there is more. That dreaming is holy, and that my voice matters.

Most of them live in texas, and none in california,

But they are my people.

and i just met them in person yesterday.

dreamspace

I dream of a space where women are free to be.

Just be.

Rest. Stop putting on all the shows we always do around other people, assuming our actions and words will be judged on orthodoxy, our appearances on their presentability.

A space where we can be creative.

Where we can share a poem we’ve written – I see it all spoken word in my living room and on the streets. Where we can paint together, tell our most secret visions, or just sit quietly, resting in the presence of Love.

Where we are free not to be defensive because we know deep down for reals that our hearts are for each other, and that we are the beloved. A space where we can learn from our collective mistakes and strengths and offer our bleeding hearts to be cared for.

Where the wind blows through, welcome.

Where the firelight flickers and beckons and casts into darkness.

Where we can sing, where we can improv, draw, love.

Where the smells are of baking and chai spices.

A place to touch - take in texture and form - and be touched.

A place to be brave, face fears, leap.

A space where my offering –and yours- is accepted, cherished.

Where we lean on his chest and into each others’ lives at the same time. 

A place where “should” is not allowed, and our hearts are required.

And we take our baby steps right out across the water, just to be with him.

when your calling is a faint orange glow

laughter in the dark

vital abandon

voice being drawn out

aware of her windy reality.

(found poetry in my art journal)

***

A faint orange glows through the fog and gives me hope.

My life chaotic at best; at worst, a failure.

I dream big dreams of light cast into dark. Of artist-birthed life making its way into a hurting world. Of hearts healed. Of beauty and spirit-wind wrapped holy together, bringing truth that frees instead of binds.

And then I live.

Isolated, unfree myself. Wrapped wholly with the whims of beloveds and their bedlam. Unseen, unheard because I do not speak. I long to bring life, bravery. I live fearful, greedy for solitude, shamebound.

They say the area of your struggle is inseparably woven with your calling.

If I was having coffee with you and these words poured out of you, I would be so drawn to offer grace, rest. To make sure you knew you don’t have to meet anybody’s expectations (yours included). That, yes, you have this amazing calling to offer light and life and beauty and freedom and healing. But the failing is the lie.

All the trying, beating up the beauty because it’s not quite beautiful enough.

The fighting with life instead of living it.

And most of all, I’d want you to know he’s right there.

In the afternoons with a three-year-old anarchist whose heart you desperately want to guard in ways yours never was.

In the hundreds of minutes you feed and lullaby your baby, hoping for a soul that knows it’s worth rescuing.

In the confusion of intimacy.

In the tension between beauty-longings and real-life mess.

Even when you haven’t given him the time you “should”. There is no condemning coming from his heart, so if you’re sensing damnation-emotion, you gotta fight, albeit an unseen enemy.  One that pretends he’s not there so you think it’s your own voice, or even that of the life-way-truth. It’s not. He may even sound like people you love. He likes to put flesh-and-blood to his lies like that. But no matter what, it’s not true.

You are enough.

Your heart is worth fighting for, just like those little boys’.

And those women you dream freedom for.

He bled to rescue your heart, so you simply can’t give it back over to the liar. To the hater of your aliveness.

it might look like the easy way out – to wallow, to believe in your worthlessness. Because then it doesn’t matter so much that your days don’t look like your dreams. But think of the alive-in-your-purpose days. Isn’t even that handful worth the fight?

Well, isn’t it?

And I am surprised to hear my own heart answering yes. Oh, yes. 

fought for. rescued.

 

we still don't know what happened.

two teenagers realized they were lost in the Cleveland National Forest sunday, and made the 911 call that probably saved their lives. their phone died right after calling to describe as best they could where they believed they had lost their way. because they called, people immediately began to search for Nicholas and Kyndall.

days, a thousand prayers, and dozens of searchers - many of them volunteers - later, they were found.

Nicholas was found wednesday, a mile from his car, exactly as he'd described in his emergency call. it took another day to find Kyndall a little ways away on a ridge, disoriented and dehydrated, both of them. but both of them alive. rescued.

i only knew about this because a very new online friend posted on her instagram feed that they would be praying that night at her church for these two teenagers to be found. i joined their prayers, though not in person, and continued to expect the worst.

then, tonight, i walked into starbucks to see the huge title of the OC register scream at me "weak, but alive". relief flooded, and in that moment, more than one of my prayers was answered.

they were safe.

that was one.

the other one had been spoken on the drive to starbucks. i have been feeling so disconnected, lost, and was just longing for God to speak into me. jesus, speak.

***

ever since i watched my first episode of parenthood last week, my heart has been longing, asking a question without ever verbalizing it. both episodes i've seen of that show now have ended with a scene where Max and his heart are fought for.

Max, maybe eight years old, has just been diagnosed with asperger's, and they're all reeling. in the first episode, when they realize he unexpectedly wants to join his team to play baseball that day, his entire extended family drops everything and rushes to get ready for the game. they had just sat down to a lovely backyard lunch, but they leave all that, calling out "you get his uniform?" "i'm snack mom this week! help!" and they are all delighted to fight for this young boy.

the second episode ends with Max's dad putting on a pirate costume to enter his world, try to understand him, to reach his heart. as they run around the yard with red handkerchief-heads and tennis racket-swords, my tears fell for the second time in two episodes. over a dumb television show. but i knew where the emotion was rooted.

i want to feel fought for. i want to believe that i am worth fighting for. worth whatever it takes to rescue this heart of mine. 

there have been moments i believed this, little glimpses into the father-heart of God, into his love, his delight for me. and yes, i have been rescued. but i need to be rescued every day. from the lies, the self-deception, the accusing voices. i need to know: are you on my side? will you fight for me, rescue me? am i even worth it?

and tonight? he answered yes.

in the stories of the many rescuers that went out to fight for the lives of these kids. the ones that got lost themselves in the process, the ones that were injured. one even had to be hospitalized; he was lucky to be alive, the sheriff's department said. people prayed, people searched, people risked their lives to fight for these two teenagers.

and my God fights for me. he doesn't let me stay in my same old ways of self-loathing, believing defeated-enemy lies. he risked GAVE his life because my alive-heart is worth it to him.

and so is yours.

I don't always dream about Lord of the Rings, but when I do, my husband is jealous.

//We are in a room filled floor-ceiling with figurines of heroes.

My eyes take it in and treat it as a history lesson, and also as proof of how inadequate I am, how much I will never rightfully belong in this company of brave ones.

He follows my eyes, then turns to me with a secret: "you know, in a way - all of these were actually let-er down-ers", says Gandalf the Grey [he is much more eloquent in tolkein’s work than in my dreams, apparently].

My tears rise and spill over, unbidden, and I turn in an attempt to hide.

Because if he sees, he will be kind, and that will be the end of my ability to hold up the dam. I know deep inside that I am only a poser in the midst of true heroes - artists and writers fighting for justice, slaying dragons.

One hobbit in the company of a dozen warrior-dwarves.\\

All this was my dream, after falling asleep with words rolling over on the tongue of my undulating mind:

"I ended the movie with tears and a heavy heart…”

no, that's not quite accurate.

“I ended the movie asleep, drifting off with a heavy heart as hobbits and dwarves climbed trees to keep away from orcs. And the tears came afterward in trying to discern this heaviness.”

I knew the moment I could bear it no longer (and gladly succumbed to heavy eyelids). Bilbo had just taken off the ring and rejoined the company of the dwarves, assuring them of his noble purpose of helping them find a home. But he had a trick up his sleeve, and Gandalf saw his self-deception while he was blind to it.

He would use that ring to allow him to be brave.

But then it wasn't real courage because he always had an out. Invisibility. A way of escape. Something to fall back on.

I knew I'd been identifying with Bilbo along the way as I searched plot and dialogue for secret messages and redemptive analogies. But I didn't know until we were speaking of it in the dark that I was afraid.

Afraid that I was deceiving myself, too.

Afraid that I was keeping a trick up my sleeve, even as I answered the call for bravery.

And my love said: "we all do that. Self-deception. I'm sure you are, in some ways. But you're my hero."

The tears came then. With the realization that I can fight this battle flawed. And must.

But the most important part was when I considered what the trick up my sleeve was. It is a form of safety net. Where I step out into the dark bravely, only because I think to myself, unconsciously I suppose, that I can always go back.

But now that I've seen it? I can't.

I have to take the lunging, flying leap into uncharted air-over-canyon, bow in hand, and let him find my footing. Trust. Abandon. Words that sound so nice and pretty until you actually have to do it, jump. Then they scare you spitless.

But here I am, lunging over open space into grace.

a light spirit

 

in some ways, this is a misnomer.

my friends will tell you i am one of the most heavyhearted people they know.

i have struggled my way through mild depression, even before it could be called post-partum. never enough to be diagnosed, just enough to weigh on me. dysthymia, one psychologist-friend said. i've been to therapy, but never on medication. (yet. when i'm done breastfeeding, i am definitely considering it.)

but i wonder to myself if this is just the condition of those who choose to go deeper.

destined to the depths. with kelp wrapping, shark-fears circling... ever clawing our way to the surface for air. so then, why go deep at all? why dive down below the sparkling surface? why make new discoveries of beauty in the darkness?

because we must.

we must because we are no longer content with words that sail us happily along a glassy-flat experience of a one-sided life.

we must because we know he meets us there, more than anywhere, because we need him most there, where our ships have sunk. where our treasure can be regained.

and we must because of all the souls sinking around us. we are rescuers, those of us willing to plunge beneath lovely exteriors. bringing our diver's headlamp and what oxygen we have to the ones fighting for life. it's not enough for all of us sometimes, especially when the victim thrashes, disconnecting our breathing apparatus, headlocking us in their confusion, and we have to come up for air. but then we're right back in the frothy fray, stealing wriggling ones straight out of hungry jaws.

so this blog's title is maybe more of a twofold prayer, than a descriptor at this point.

a prayer for a light spirit - a spirit full of light, buoyed with purpose.

and a prayer that says, "alight, spirit. speak your light-words through me in this space."

jesus, make it so.