Come Home, Dear One

Come home, dear one

You left in search of what already was within

To fill a longing birthed years ago

Not safe

Or not enough

Or, perhaps, not worthy of love

The first arrow, this wound of longing, opened up.

“I can fix it! I will fix it! I will love me!”

With things

Success

With busyness or fame

Or food or starving

With drink or the screen

Or perfection

“Oh, how I’ve hurt me!

Why can’t I get this right?”

The second arrow, this wound of shame, opened up.

But perhaps there is a better way:

To see your searching, your substitutions

To ask, what’s under here?

To remember: love met longing and started your quest.

Come home, dear one.

You are not enemy, but caretaker

Reach out and join hands with your hurting self

“You were always worthy of love

Let’s be still now, for Love lives here

It blooms within.”

As you stop searching, you find it everywhere

You and Love forge a new path

Giving and receiving

Healing

Home

This poem was inspired by Tara Brach's teaching on Desire and Addiction: Voices of Longing, Part 2

Maybe

Maybe

There’s nothing to say

About what terrible things come to pass

Of those who endure them

Of those who inflict them

Of the long, lonely journey that leads someone off the path of belovedness

And into the cavern of malice

Turning friends into enemies

Children into orphans

Men into monsters

The warm light of love

Into cold, empty aching.

Maybe 

There’s nothing to say

If all of our saying is what led man astray.

Then we who shout and point fingers

Should stop, silent, and open our hands

We might reach out with love and grasp a wandering one

Before he has gone too far into the darkness.

You belong

You are loved

We are one

For it is only love, not empty words

That turn enemies into friends

Orphans into children

Monsters into men

And the cold, empty aching

Into the warm light of love.

This poem was inspired by this quote:

This my dear

is the greatest challenge to being alive.

To witness injustice in the world

and not allow it to consume our light

~Thich Nhat Hanh

An Iron Fist or A Golden Arm

This morning in my news wrap up email I read about two different men. One gave a speech to accolades on one side and scowls/ heckling on the other. The promises of a thriving country through control, dismantling, threats and hate speech. I could say more, but I digress. 

The other man I read about was James Harrison, an Aussie who recently died at the age of 88. I can’t tell you a thing about his political swayings. No promises to save the world or take Australia back to a golden age, but he IS known as The Man with the Golden Arm. In the years from 1954-2018, Mr. Harrison donated his blood and plasma, which contained a rare antibody called Anti-D. He is credited with saving 2.4 MILLION babies. Twice a week, for over 50 years he gave the gift of his blood. 

I was thinking about how much time this added up to, sitting in the chair or reclined on the table, hooked up and just giving what was given to you, to save lives. No crowds, no news conferences, no golden statues or requests for recognition. Just a man multiplying a small but precious gift, week after week, year after year, decade after decade. 

An Iron Fist or a Golden Arm? Both men’s bodies will return to dust as I am reminded on this Ash Wednesday. Mine too. Leaving more than legacies and stories behind, Mr. Harrison leaves 50+ years of lives, coursing with his blood. 

Who was the good neighbor? Who did the most good? Who showed mercy? 

What small gift can we offer up faithfully over time like Mr. Harrison in the work of mercy? 

What might we let go of for a time, to open the iron fists of selfishness and give way to golden arms of life and mercy?

Embodied

 I sit down to write this first draft with paper, pencil, and just my own hand and thoughts. It seems slow and clunky, but also quiet. Calming. 

When I sit and write at the screen, the words tumble out in a frenzy. 

Honestly, I long for the days untethered to devices, but I have forgotten how to live without them.

My word of the year for 2024 was Embody. 

Much has been said about our collective screen addiction. We take digital fasts or screen "detoxes", but we are up and running on that same hamster wheel chasing that dangling carrot again in no time. 

Whatever your digital dopamine drug of choice: games, socials, news, videos, or even just a podcast to drown out the thoughts of your own mind; our devices have us connected to them, like an oxygen mask.  

For some of us, our own bodies are taking shape to accomodate the medium by which we spend our days. Shoulders rolled inward, neck and head sliding forward.  

I've seen adults with phones glued to their hands at the table during a family dinner. I have been that very person, too.  I have observed entire families down the pew, glued to their screens while we sing "His Name is Wonderful." 

Sometimes as I sit in church pondering the miracle of God with us, I wonder, who is OUR God these days? And if the digital world becomes our whole world, who will we be?

I hope to finish out this year, this season of waiting we call Advent, focusing on embodiment. 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. What would it feel like, to heal with your touch? To wash someone's feet? To die for an enemy? Could we imagine it? If all our screens went dark and we had only the wild world in front of us, would we see God? 

Ideas for emboidment:

Go outside

Grayscale your phone

Write with pencil and paper

Use a paper calendar / planner

Read a real book

Unscubscribe from some or all of the things

Play real board or card games

Read your physical bible

Draw, paint, color, write

Workout without a screen or noise distraction

Journal. Think about what you used to enjoy before you had a screen available at all times. 

Pray

Meditate 

Breathe

Volunteer

Just be with your people

Who is Autumn?

 Who is Autumn?

She comes in with splendor.

A garment: satin leaves of golds and ambers, rust and maroon.

She walks on acorns and pinecones.

As she goes, her garment seems to age, colors fading, it dries out, ugly, delicate, then almost dust. 

Is she dying? No! Now she’s a wind! A nip in the air.

She calls to the birds, “Eat! And fly far from here.” 

To her woodland friends, her chill thickens their fur. 

“Eat” she says, “grow your coats, gather what you need.

It is coming, the time for rest.”

Autumn, she reminds us that we are more than the outer man that wastes away.

She is God’s glorious exhale.

What Opens at the Close

 I had just planned my senior son's last week of school.  Wrote that last 180th day at the top of Friday's lesson plan.  Last last day.  He has graduation at his co op on Saturday.  We have been working on a table we get to set up to honor him after graduation. Looking back through so many first and last day photos. Memories from public school and teachers and memories of homeschool and co op. Reading through old compositions. Seeing the progression from childhood to young man. The pieces of humor and sweetness that transcend the growing up.  The parts of them that forever change as your child becomes a young adult. It is such an unfolding. 

I kept thinking of a scene from the Harry Potter book about the Golden Snitch. Harry puzzles over the meaning of the words engraved upon it: "I open at the close." He finally understands the clue, he must breathe his last dying breath in order to open the snitch. And inside is the resurrection stone that will raise him back to life! I love this scene in the movie, and I find it true in life that often something in us must die before something new is born. It is certainly true of childhood. I don't envy teens as they navigate this transition. It is true in parenthood as well, as your child begins to grow up it is a slow unfurling of your influence and control. Being the chief educator of my son these past 7 years has been an honor and yet so humbling. Watching your child discover passions and being able to dive deep into them was a huge gift of homeschooling. Being the person in charge of assigning work and cracking the whip was much less enjoyable. It has been a wonderful, challenging journey. 

I am full of hope, with a sprinkling of fear, and anticipation. Asking for faith: I believe, help my unbelief. Which is a great place for a new beginning.  

And now we wait for what will open at the close.  In me, in him, in my daughter next in line.

Wide Awake

"Thunder rumbling

Castles crumbling

I am trying to hold on.

God knows that I tried 

Seeing the bright side

I'm not blind anymore.

I'm wide awake."

-Wide Awake by Katy Perry

    Sometimes a song brings forth one set of emotions for a time, but after a life experience it hits you in a completely raw, new way. This past Sunday, our minister at church spoke about the difficulties of living in liberation. The sermon had a fantastic title: "Craving Freedom, But Longing for Egypt." It was excellent. The sermon struck me in a different way, and I thought immediately about my own struggle against walking right into a new Egypt. 

    I don't think enough is said these days about the loneliness that comes from walking away from an old identity. Whether it be an abusive relationship, an addiction, or an ideology, there is a death to grieve. There are feelings to untangle, belief systems, motivations and patterns to address. Sifting through all of that isn't fun. It is incredibly tempting to either walk it back to whence you came or walk ahead right into a shiny new cage. It is difficult NOT to find yourself (once in chains over there) now shackling up over here instead.

    I was telling my husband that I actually don't trust most of the people currently making christian "content".  It seems most everyone has an agenda and it usually isn't Jesus, but book sales or political platforms or mini courses. A new recipe for the good christian soldier just falls FLAT. On all sides it seems like people are peddling everything except the good news of Emmanuel: God WITH us! In matters of faith, I honestly struggle with whose teaching I trust to sit under. I hate feeling this way. Finding oneself sitting there in the messy middle can feel extremely lonely. Yet, I would rather wander with the exiles: clinging to equal parts faith and doubt than march with the mob of certainty. 

    If you are reading this and this feels like you, well, you aren't alone. May we keep wide awake, even when it hurts and feels lonely. May we keep listening for the voices that stir us up to good works and freedom. May Christ grant us hearts of flesh to love and eyes to see that He is working in our midst.  May we remember and give thanks to the teachers and ministers who are walking with us: Thanks John and Lily! May we busy ourselves with comforting, loving, and encouraging each other. And when we feel sad or lonely, missing our old places, may we give thanks to Jesus, who breaks our chains, even ones that gave us comfort, allowing us to stretch our faith and reach up to Him.  

"Yeah, I am born again

Out of the lion's den

I don't have to pretend

The story's over now, the end.

I wish I knew then what I know now

Wouldn't dive in, wouldn't bow down

Gravity hurts, you made it so sweet 

Till I woke up on, on the concrete. " 

*****

-Wide Awake by Katy Perry