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

Temptation to Resurrection

    This lent, I gave up social media. Ash Wednesday was on Valentine's Day this year, so I was attending the JVC luncheon the first day of my fast. It was interesting to immediately be tempted by a desire to share pictures that first day. I have quit and re-started social media MANY times. I do, actually, hate it in almost every way.  There are probably more than two previous posts about my disdain for it on this blog.  AND YET... I keep circling back hoping to find it might have changed [like some toxic ex-boyfriend] only to find it is quite the same. An ad for ozempic next to my friend's post about her grief at the loss of her father.

    I wish we lived in a world where people still wanted to call each other, to have the back and forth, the ummm hmmm and sighs and ohhhs of real conversation in real time.  We say we don't have time, but is that really true? The best most of us give and get these days are texts, marco polo videos, snaps, voxer recordings, or apple voice memos.  Press play, listen to a recording and then record your own response.  I am 100% guilty of this! What in the world are we doing? I am so thankful for friends that still want to get together face to face for conversation. And yet, even face to face, we have to fight the urge to look down at our phones or watches. 

    When I logged back in this morning, I saw that I had definitely missed some happenings in my friends' lives.  I wonder, do they think I don't care when I simply haven't been on to look or comment? Do they feel like they have to do the same for me when I post so I won't feel bad? Is there more fruit or rot as we click and like and scroll? Is this what we are supposed to do EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES? 

    And, I just don't want to.  It's too noisy.  It makes me less loving.  It is not emboided.  It will never deliver the face to face connection we are all so hungry for; that we were actually MADE for. It was so uncomfortable resisting the draw of it even though I hate it.  It reminds me of when I smoked and wanted to quit so badly but couldn't. What a powerful hold it has had on me. Numbing me and distracting me and engaging me and enraging me.  

    So, I quit. I'm off it. I want to resurrect the life I had before all that stuff.  I will miss out, but I hope to gain more. I have loved this little blog for years and I want to keep using it. I don't care if anyone likes it or comments. Writing is one of the ways I pray and process. I am so thankful for this lenten journey and how much I discovered about myself and temptation. I asked over and over: Jesus HOW, how did you resist against your hunger, against being tempted to showcase your power (pride), and against every worldly treasure promised if you would bow down and worship the deceiver? How did you choose human embodiment even when its limitations were so hard and painful? But that was the life God sent Him for. The life God sent us for. That fully embodied, we might feel our lack and look to Him.  

Photos from our Lenten Season   

JVC Luncheon

Bridge Troll Babes

 Senior Color Run

First and last day of Co Op (Ever for Isaac!)

 Vanguard Showcase

Sigil Music Museum

Godzilla X Kong for Eden's Bday

Another amazing cake by Heather

15!!!!!

Two of my favorite ladies

Easter

Eden's new lizard

The Two Still Standing

 

I’m no bible scholar, but it seems to me the people Jesus called out the most (when he wasn’t otherwise occupied with healing, serving, or teaching) were those who already thought they were holy. Today, I read in John 8 about when the Pharisees and the scribes brought a woman who had been caught in adultery into the temple. They did this because Jesus was teaching there and they wanted to test him, hoping his response would allow them to bring a charge against him. His penchant for grace was a threat to the law they so loved. 

The first thing that struck me about this passage was that the Pharisees dragged the woman into the TEMPLE, into the house of God. Why? To accuse her, to attempt a stoning, and to bring charges against Jesus. It seems so horrible. The house of the Lord should have been a place of healing, grace, humility, repentance. A place to encounter God. Instead we see a sinful, prideful mob looking for blood and to raise their own elevated egos.  

If you read the rest of the scene, the holy folks ask Jesus what should be done to the woman, reminding him that stoning is the law. And Jesus did the most awesome of boss moves: he bent over and wrote in the ground. As they asked again and again he looked up and said “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” Then he did some more ground writing  (*some ancient authorities say he wrote the sins of each of them). And low and behold, they went away, one by one, the elders first.  And Jesus addressed the woman: “Woman, where did they all go? Has no one condemned you?’ She said “No one, Lord.” And he said “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

In churches of my past, ministers and fellow congregants have pointed out that Jesus did command the woman to go and sin no more at the close of the scene.  That actually has been the big takeaway for some, and yet this is not the big takeaway sitting with me as I read and sat with the passage. Also, when I was discussing this with my husband he pointed out that nowhere in the passage do we even hear the woman ask for forgiveness nor express her own repentance.  Not that it didn’t happen, but it is not mentioned. What is clear to see in the passage, is the vast difference between the character of the condemners and the character of Jesus. The Pharisees accuse the woman, who has indeed done wrong. But Christ calls out the accusers. 

This passage also reminded me of church disciplines I have witnessed in the past.  There, the words spoken had a kindly tone, where “truth in love” was the delivery. And desire for hopeful restoration and details of all that had been done to “help bring the person back into repentance.” But ultimately it felt like a public shaming, an instruction to exclude, to only interact with the person insofar as to encourage repentance. A different stoning of sorts. And public shaming is not just an Evangelical weapon of choice, it is EVERYWHERE. I see it daily from the secular to the religious, from left and the right and everyone in between. We accusers are loud and sometimes well intentioned.  But I doubt what good we are doing throwing rocks and hurling accusations. Perhaps our time would be better spent healing, helping or speaking words of life to each other.  And on occasion, bending over and writing in the sand as we contemplate our own hearts and sins, remembering Jesus who sent all the stone throwers away and then set the woman free.