the oft-repeated refrain

{photo taken by me}

if you asked me what makes my heart pound, I'd tell you that it's women. if you asked me what pushes me to write when the words feel dried up, I'd tell you that it's women.

if you asked me what's blocking my words right now, I'd tell you that it's fear.

I'd tell you that I'm scared that I write too much about the same thing, that I bombard the world with the same concept over and over again. I'd tell you that I swell with fear when I think about speaking about the way that I've changed, the way that my eyes are wider open now because He smeared mud over my blindness.

but I think you already know that.

I'd like to tell you that I write elegant, put-together and composed ideas about egalitarianism and Biblical feminism. I'd like to tell you that I'm good at gracefully pondering these ideas with highlighter pens and stacks of books that pile around my ankles.

but that wouldn't be the truth. and you already know that, too.

I'm the kind of woman that sits on her couch with her legs crossed while her child sleeps in the room above, sipping a long-cold cup of coffee as she types the words "you are worthy" so many times that she starts to think you might be sick of hearing them already.

and then something crosses my path that reminds me beyond the shadow of a doubt that you cannot remind someone of their worth enough times, that you cannot repeat the same tender invocation too often for the soul to not absorb it like water in the salt pans of Africa. it comes in waves, these whispering calls to arms.

I'm no Joan of Arc, but I think I understand her sometimes, the way she sat with the unpopular call of God shivering through her very blood. and that's where I am today, sitting on the edge of my soft green couch while my child sings her own made-up songs to herself above me. I'm walking with Joan but in the opposite direction. because today He's calling me to put down the sword. there's been enough blood today, enough caustic words burning acid marks into souls.

today I'm letting the sword rest beside the water. and I'm holding you close and whispering the words I've said a thousand times. I'm dipping my fingers into the sea and running them through your hair, smoothing down the edges that can cut us both if we're not careful.

I'm resting against the Lion's side, and it's warm and good. and I'm speaking the words He spoke in oft-repeated refrain.

all things are made new. 

in His image, we are created. 

female, yes, female too. 

He is worthy. 

and you, beloved daughter, are worthy. 

in which I am doing something

{photo by me via Instagram}

in 2011, I wrote 297 posts.

it was the second year of my blog, the first full year from January to December. my mother called me prolific, and it was true. I was writing a post nearly every single day, sitting at the computer agonizing over something to write that was profound enough, that was rich enough, that was "good enough" for me to push publish and let it fly. and if I ever missed  a day, ever missed a step, I would apologize profusely, as if I had broken some never-made promise to always be present, always have words.

since I started writing, I've always felt like I had something to prove. that's what happens when you get married a week after your nineteenth birthday instead of going to college, and people are breathing down your neck for you to do something. it's not commonly done, choosing to become a wife instead of pursuing a degree. and so I wrote, wildly, and in some respects it was good because it was a honing period, a chance for me to understand the edges of my voice and what it had the potential to sound like , eventually.

but I had to clear my throat first because I had so many other voices at war in my vocal chords to the point that it was hard to figure out which was mine and which ones belong to everyone else. they taught me a lot, these other voices, because they pruned me down by making me feel uncomfortable. their words fit in their mouths so perfectly, but they were the wrong shape for mine.

:: :: 

I started to press myself deep into the Lion in those days, the ones that heralded the start of my thrashing as I shed my dead skin and sunk deeper into that lioness hide where I belonged, a selkie of a land-bourne sort. that's when I started to realize something.

maybe Susan wasn't "spared" death in the train crash because she was leaning toward boys and make-up and things that were pushing her into socially-appropriate adulthood. maybe it wasn't Lewis' way of chiding children for growing up, for choosing to walk . because if that was his point, if his purpose was to chase away adulthood and keep them locked in innocence forever, then Aslan wouldn't have been needed, and His own words would have been made void.

{photo by Nikki Jean Photography}

there, I have a different name. you must learn to know me by that name. that was the very reason you were brought into Narnia, so that by knowing Me here, you might know me better there. 

and in those words, I started to understand.

I have absolutely nothing to prove for being in the Land where He placed me. 

my voice and my story and my authenticity are mine, breathed holy straight into my lungs from the mouth of Lion on the mountaintop. it is a shift from the familiar, and it makes me feel a bit of a dervish. but this view, it's breathtaking.

I've spit out the salt water. my throat is clear.

and I'm prepared to speak.

for when you're sitting in limbo

{my girl and my love watching the snow.
they teach me the most.}

I am in the state of limbo that every writer who has ever submitted their work for publication knows intimately. it's the period between submission, the pushing of the words out from your hands to another pair of stranger-eyes, and the hearing of the acceptance or the rejection.

I sent my short story, Coffee, out for publication right around the end of January. I haven't heard back yet, and that's to be expected, as I was told it could be as late as April 1st before I heard anything in either direction. I still check the acceptance page of the publication's website every day.

my friend Brandy says this: just putting yourself out there is a win. aim for rejections. it's so foreign to me, this concept that even releasing your words is a step in the right direction, that a rejection letter is a sign that you did the impossible. you wrote something and sent it out.

honestly? I'm not in that place yet. I can't look at rejections as positive reinforcement, as reminders to keep trying. I haven't been able to stop the heart-pounding when I think, maybe they won't like me. it's reminiscent of being a child, right on the edge of the all-wood playset in the yard of the school, wiggling my fingers back and forth against my legs as I watched the other children chase and swing and toss pebbles at one another.

I just want them to like me. 

writing is vulnerability personified. I've said that before, that exact sentence almost exactly a month ago when I acknowledged that this process is, for me, wandering deep into the lair of a dragon. even more than that, it's realizing that I have no weapon, and that my intent is to ask the beast to share a meal with me. writing is walking up to the Big Bad Wolf, holding out my basket and whispering,

Grandma's not home. do you want to share?

{my writing space}

that's how I can tell that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. there's a whole new kind of fear that comes when you recognize your calling and understand that breaking bread with dragons can be written in my resume under "job description." it's one of those moments in the tent, the kind where you overhear the Angel of the Lord tell your husband that you're going to have a baby at ninety years old, and you laugh because it's impossible. you have to laugh. it's that or cry.

the website for the publication to which I submitted uses the words "in progress" to refer to a work that hasn't been "completed" {passed on} or "accepted for publication." I think that's prophecy, in it's own way.

I'm still waiting. I'm still in progress, fidgeting a little bit as I wait to hear where my words will go next. I'm still refreshing the page every day, still watching the number beside my name, the one that identifies me as a writer.

I can feel Him looking at me, straight through the doorway of my tent, the place where I sat and laughed when He spoke a calling over me. I can hear the way He shakes His mane, the way the wind whispers through the wilderness and weaves around Him. 

Rachel, why did you laugh? I will return, and you will bear. 

wine-tasting

tonight at WalMart, a woman touched my arm and spoke life over me.

I've never met this woman before and I doubt I ever will again. we were standing between peanut butter and hot chocolate mix and Keurig coffee cups, me leaning upwards on tiptoes for a jar just barely out of reach, her pushing a cart down the row toward me from behind.

"I just want you to know, I feel like you need to know, you're doing a good job at whatever it is you're doing." 

and then she walked away.

holy. holy. holy. 

this woman had no idea what those words did for me, the second breathing of prophecy over me in the past twelve hours. she has no idea how deeply I've been creatively pushing myself, she has no idea about the vulnerability hangover I've been nursing since I submitted my fictional short story for publication perusal on Monday, followed by pouring raw words of a far less fictional sort in yet another direction last night.

she has no idea that today was the day that I stood crying at my kitchen counter, overwhelmed with a thousand things bearing down on my shoulders. she didn't know that I've been laden with self-doubt and low on words since acknowledging my own worth. {does it get more ironic than that?}

{photo via pinterest}

I am the biggest enemy to my own creativity, to my own setting out and declaring. I'm fearlessly committed to encouraging others to embrace their words, tell their stories, pour themselves out, peel back the roughage and let their brave show naked and raw and powerful. and then I find myself at the top of a tree, a kitten who had no problem scaling the trunk and finding my cheerleading perch, but now I cannot get down and I'm suddenly stricken with unmatched fear.

I am ravenous for my own self-worth. it's there. I can smell it, the way wine drifts over from the glass and makes your mouth water and your tastebuds spring to life with anticipation. but someone convinced me that I'm a teetotaler and that picking up that glass would be death to my soul.

but the Lion is whispering, not roaring {He knows what my soul can hear}.

if you do not drink, lioness, then you will die of thirst. and there is no other stream. 

being brave enough to lift the glass, to down its contents and let them flood the depths of me is only half the battle. the second part comes when I must step forward and speak, knowing that they'll know what I've been drinking. it's a different kind of intoxication, the kind that brings life instead of death, the kind that leaves deception at the gate and ushers in life like electricity through the heart of a corpse.

it's not chasing the fear away. no, not at all. it's embracing the fear, letting it do what it must, letting it prove itself futile and watching it drift away on the breeze like ash as the brave-flames stoke higher and higher still.

if you'll excuse me, I've been invited to a wine tasting.

{inspired by a Story Sessions prompt. join us? there's always room for you here with us}

why I don't hate the Church

{photo by Jennifer}

why do you hate the Church?

I get asked that question a lot, especially by those who have found themselves reading my plea for permission not to be a Christian anymore from last year. I'm finding myself having to explain myself over and over, in my awkward stammering way which belies the confident way I lay out my words in writing, that I am not targeting the Church. I do not hate the Church. I have no ax to grind, I have no vendetta.

my choice to refrain from referring to myself as a Christian was not because I have turned my back on my local body, and it's not because I'm sitting and staring daggers at any other believer-housing building that I have encountered in my past.

mostly it's because I'm tired of need-to-know religion.

in her stunningly visceral book, Pastrix, Nadia Bolz-Weber writes the following words which drew an audible gasp from my mouth and brought me to tears the first time I read them :: "we want to go to God for answers, but sometimes what we get is God's presence." and that right there is why I needed to lay down the name.

because we've somehow set it up that walking into Church and into Christianity is the way to have all the answers, to find the magic guidebook and a pile of glimmering power-ups. we have somehow given the impression that there is a laundry list of answers just waiting to be discovered, and if you look long enough and walk the paces with exactly the same amount of distance between each step, we will find it and everything will be made clear.

but if that's what you're looking for when you throw in your lot with the Lion, you're going to be disappointed. it's mystery. it's grace that is completely beyond comprehension. it's redemption for all, no one left outside.

sometimes, I get this wild mad idea that maybe the Church doesn't have to be clean carpet. maybe we can go back to the cross, the splintered wood stained with blood and the way He talked to the thief hanging beside Him while they mocked him from the ground.

I've stepped back from religion. I can't do the treasure hunt anymore. but that Carpenter from Galilee cooking fish on the beach and smearing mud to restore sight?

I cannot get enough of Him.

here's to indecency

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

monotony is easy. safe is easy.

quite frankly, there are days when I'd so much rather withdraw into the protected little hovel I dug for myself in the early days. sometimes I want to go back to when the words were pretty and drew a crowd and fit where they was "supposed to," according to the rule list.

who made those rules? I'm still not exactly sure. but I can tell you this much :: it wasn't Jesus.

two days ago, I wrote about being published with profanity. the piece isn't even live yet -- not until Wednesday -- and already, I'm feeling the pressure to apologize. I've been told that I'm pushing the envelope too far, that it's so great that I'm expanding my horizons, but no one likes a lady with a potty mouth. that just because I'm saying that it could be holy doesn't mean that it will be.

I've even been told that holy ground is not mine to declare. I've been told that I'm trying to pull the power out of God's hands, that Moses didn't light the bush on fire, so why am I?

because He already lit my soul on fire. 

I'm not declaring holy ground because it's a whim, because I'm throwing the word around to land willy-nilly on any spare scrap of earth. it's because the first spark was kindled hot in the depths of my soul by the Lion's roaring.

and sometimes it's not always presentable. sometimes holiness is scandalous, the kind that makes people put their hand to their mouth and whisper about you in the shadows. sometimes you can hear them talking, feeling them pointing, talking about decorum and the way it should be.

but He made me risky. He showed me how to shed the world's clothing and walk a little closer to the line, whispering,

I didn't draw that line. walk My line, not theirs. 

that's what being a writer is. it's shedding the appropriateness of social norms, it's digging your fingers into the smothering wardrobe of darkness and ripping it off in shreds. it's pure risk, pure surrender.

so, here's to clinging tight to the filthy robe of the Rabbi and realizing that the path is easy without all the extra weight pulling me all over the road.

here's to holy, sacred indecency.

the one where I'm resolving to write a book

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

I'm already working on my list of resolutions for 2014.

I know, it might be a bit presumptuous. I might be stepping ahead of myself just a bit. but I'm shivering with the anticipation of what this coming year is going to hold. 

the big one on the top of my list: write a book. my book. my story. my words. it's been brewing inside of me for a long time -- since I was eleven, if you want to get technical. I didn't realize it at the time, of course, but this passion for story has been living inside me since long before I acknowledged its presence. 

the big things are throwing themselves at me, of course. I don't have an agent or an editor, I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing. I've only ever written fiction, save for here on my blog, and I'm not even sure how to put my words out in a way that won't sound ridiculous or overly contrived. 

they're all lies. that much I think I've come to understand over the past year. but they're damn compelling lies. they feel exceptionally realistic, not unfounded. and those are just the surface ones. there's also the big ones, the big "what if"s that take over every scrap of my mind if I'm not careful. 

what if no one buys my book? what if no agent thinks my words are worth it, whatever that means? what if...what if my words hurt someone? these are the big ones, the ones that keep me up at night. the ones that lead me to light incense in my kitchen and practically fling myself into the Ocean of Him, whispering, won't You please just take me all the way down? 

the funny thing is, I couldn't even bring myself to acknowledge that I am a writer until this past year. if anyone asked me, I'd respond with, oh, I'm a blogger. and I do NaNoWriMo. but I'm not published. I'm not a real writer or anything.

{photo by dramaticelegance}

this looming year, this precipice year, is already brimming. it's like when you're standing on a cliff beside the sea, and you can't see the waves, but the ground is growling and shuddering and trembling beneath your feet. and you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the sea is there. just one or two more steps, and you'll be off the edge. you'll be falling. 

I'm still not sure what this means for me. and I won't deny the terror. I won't deny the fear that comes with the unknown, and the wondering, and the what if's. like I said, they're everywhere.

but He knows. 

and He's standing between me and the lies, the cliff coming up behind me, and He's roaring the holiest of expletives at the ever-creeping fears. 

leave her the eff alone. she's Mine.

and still He's stepping forward, toward me, urging me onward. His eyes are telling me jump. just jump. 

so that's what 2014 is. here on the edge, six days from the start. I don't have a parachute. I don't have wings, at least not that I can see. so the plan is :: I have no plan. the rules are that I'm listening and I'm breathing and I'm taking that final step right off the edge and I'm letting myself float in midair on a puff of Lion's breath. 

and so, in 2014, I'm leaping off a precipice. 

I'm going to write a book. 

Advent and the Von Trapps

{via Jennifer Upton}

I cry every time I watch The Sound of Music. I've seen the film about thirty times, the stage production about seven times. and yet, the tears come every time. 

it's that moment when the Captain looks into a crowd full of his countrymen and softly sings the song of his people, the anthem of the country he loves so very much. there is so much story behind his eyes, a tale that the rest of the faces looking up at him and his wife and his children do not know. but they feel that same thing that he does. we all do. 

and I can't help but compare that moment to this season, to these final moments of Advent. I cannot help but take that moment and hold it against the fabric of this silent night that we are pressed deeply within right now. 

we are steeped deep within this season, our entire selves wrapped up in this time whether we want to be or not. it's unavoidable. there is a holy clamouring that comes right alongside the hushing and the softly flickering candles. 

there's a volume to this season, and it's more than just the screeching of the shopping centers. it's more than the cries of the ones who insist we are victims in a war against us, raising their voices so high against the "happy holidays" greeting that they're drowning Him out. 

it's that moment when you realize that even in silence, there is a noise. it's not about pressing the world out, locking our doors and demanding peace on earth at the top of our lungs. it's realizing that even on that stage, with the music and the song and the clapping of a thousand Austrians, it was most likely the most roaring silent moment of Captain Von Trapp's life. 

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

he was soon to wander. he was soon to take his seven children and his bride over the mountains on foot to escape the hands that sought to drag him beneath the darkest waters that he had ever encountered. but there he stood, fingers strumming the guitar held in skillful fingers. and he sang, may you bloom and grow forever....bless my homeland forever. 

and that is this season, taken from words with no holy intent, but summed up so perfectly. because we are reaching inward toward come thou long expected Jesus. we are welcoming in silence He who brought a wild noise. we are pressing knees against straw-strewn floors as we reach out, whispering, toward the infant I AM. 

but He is the one who was born a radical, with thinking so far outside the box of the words being spoken from the temples of His day. there was wildness in Him, a strange sort of peaceful ruckus. 

He is soon to wander. He is soon to place human feet on the ground sculpted by He-Who-Sees. He is soon to face the darkness of a Father's back turned as the sin of all the world and time fell upon His shoulders. He is soon to rise with cracking and shaking and thunder. 

this is the time of wild, loud, keening peace on earth. 

at the sound of His roar, 

sorrows shall be no more. 

the theft of words

you want the truth? I forgot about plagiarism.

I'm not in high school or college anymore. the word stopped being something I heard all the time. but somehow, it was one of those things that slipped away from me.

plagiarism is one of those things that almost seems surreal. it's the concept of taking the work of someone else and putting it out into the world under your name. in the literary world, it's the taking of words. someone else's words, breathed from their spirit, and putting your name on them.

it's theft.

and then it happened today, right in front of my nose. a post made its way around the internet, a good post, one that felt familiar but it felt good also. I shared it, so did others. we commented and ooh'd and ahh'd and tweeted the link to our corner of the internet. and then today, we understood why it felt so familiar.

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

someone else had written it, long before it made its way to this new space. the words we were sharing, they didn't belong to this new voice. they were taken. stolen.

it makes me feel like I'm watching The Little Mermaid. a voice stolen, pulled from a throat and swallowed down into someone else's body. it's a deeply personal destruction. if you take someone's television or their wallet, you're taking a piece of earth. something physical, something replaceable.

when you take someone else's words, you're taking a piece of spirit, a piece of themselves. sometimes, it's not replaceable. the words can be repeated, but there is something deeper taken. it's a guttural, visceral violation.

i don't understand why it's ever done.

****

there's a big lie out there, one that seems to slip in among the writers like poison gas that can kill us while we are completely unaware. it's the lie that you don't have words. it's the lie that you have no story, that you have nothing to say of worth. it's the lie that your words don't exist.

but there's something we've forgotten. there was a Voice in the beginning, speaking words over empty space and watching light and earth and sea and sky and plants and creatures appear from the void. simply through words. His words. His song.

and then, on the sixth day, there came more words: come and let Us make man in Our own image. hands and words joined together, art of a whole different sort began. He spoke, and there was Life.

do you know what that means? do you understand?

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

you are made of words. 

your skin. your soul. your wild parts, your sacred parts, your everyday parts. it's all words. they're waiting, lingering just beneath the surface. you have your own words.

you don't need someone else's words to make you a writer. 

you have a story. it's pulsing beneath the surface. you have thoughts, points, valid observations about the world around you. you have a voice. and maybe it's a little rusty from lack of use. maybe it's a little skittish because of the way you were treated. maybe it's a little soft because you weren't taught how to raise it up.

but it's there.

you don't need someone else's words to make you a writer because you already have your own.

because you already are your own. 

precipice

{photo by jennifer upton}

I found my word for 2014. and it's a scary one.

normally, I keep this under wraps until right around the end of the month, the end of the year. there's something about that cresting that has always appealed to me. I appreciate symmetry, waiting for the start of the end to speak about what word is to come. but this year, this year is different.

this year is a big one.

it's been building, this strange activity that I started just for fun. I had no idea that He would use it to change me, shape me in such a powerful way. how could I have known? it was just a clever pastime, something everyone was doing.

in 2012, it was brave, that word I now use far more freely than I ever imagined I would. but He heard me and whispered, brave you will be, dearheart. but it must be built. 2012  was a year of expectancy, of pregnancy, of birthing, of pain and sickness and surgical knives. it was the year of delivery. it was the year of motherhood.  

then came 2013, and with it, came release. I remember wondering, why this word, and thinking of what it could mean for me. I wanted to be made new. I just forgot that Holy fire was often involved. it brought me the first year of my daughter's life, the loss of a dream house and the finding of another. it showed me that I'd forgotten how powerful grief could be as I mourned the death of one grandmother and brain cancer in another.

now 2014 is right around the corner, and it's breathing soft down my neck. it's not stalking me, it's not threatening me. but it is making me quiver as it breathes the word straight from the mouth of the Lion, whispering it over my soul.

precipice. 

when I heard the word, curled under a quilt beside the Christmas tree while Survivor played on the television, my everything shook and I wept. there was something overwhelming about this word. simple letters, laid together in order, enough to make me tremble with the power it brings.

{photo by jennifer upton}

first I was brave, brave enough to climb the mountain. and then came the releasing, the start of the shedding, finding what was holding me back and weighing me down. and now I am on the precipice. and as my precious sister Elora spoke to me, prophetess that she is: nothing is holding you back now. you've released everything. now you're free to fall.

I've talked about this birthing before, this cervix-like opening, a Red Sea of blood with my soul as a midwife and the Lion of Judah as a coach at my back. it's standing on the edge of a cliff with the water beneath me. the waves are beating and the rocks are shaking and my footing is a combination of steady and unsure.

I've been shedding, chips of me falling off and splashing into the water. and now, here comes 2014, right around the corner. and my toes have found the very edge.

precipice.

nothing holding me back. I'm free to fall.

wild night, holy night

{photo by me}

I want to talk about the wildness.

did you know that this season is the start of the wilding?

we don’t talk about it, we don’t focus on it, hardly ever. we focus on the two extremes, the war on Christmas or the silence of the must-be-holy.

there is the madhouse of the mall, the shopping centers pulsing and writhing with need and want and heads down to make it from one aisle to another. or there is the Silent Night, the soft moments that are left behind the closed doors of imagination, the things that cause lit candles to flicker to the tune of Oh Holy Night. 

those are your options. pick one and have done.

but I can’t. I can’t release that wildness, the one we feel obligated to leave at the door as we find our places in the pews in their special liturgical rows. because there was screaming and howling and blood, so much blood. and was there even a midwife, anyone save the rough carpenter hands fumbling? It was foreign, one virgin touching another in a way far different than they could have anticipated.

there was wildness. this I promise.

but it’s not just the cave and the hills and the shepherds humming the song of the expectation to their flocks. It’s not just the mooing of cows to the tune of birthing screams.

it’s the sacred conflict, the holiness of the One long awaited slipping in a rush from body to hands in darkness. it’s the way we strip away this rawness, this wildness, the very moment the tree is tucked away and the candles are guttering in their sconces.

{photo by jennifer upton}

we wipe Him down and place Him neatly on His prepared shelf, and say, “there You go. You were so dirty, and now You look like us.”

it’s not that He was Anglo-Saxon or Mediterranean, it’s not that He was born in humble state and then raised up high. it’s that He was born wild, raised in His own Messianic rebellion. and then He poured out the essence of Himself on the ground into a puddle that splashed against their shoes.

but we would rather see Him clean. His birth was blood and straw. His life was dirt and wind and callouses on His fingers and blisters on His toes. His death was blood and splintered wood. His burial was ice cold stone and humbly woven linen strips.

there is a reason for the falling to knees and whispering, “oh night, divine.” 

because what is more holy that the Mighty taking a seat beside the bleeding and pulling them against themselves? what is more sacred than the Lion taking the wounded lamb and letting her blood turn His mane from brown to crusty sodden red?

oh, holy night. 

permission to chase {page seven}

it came again, the silence. that breathing calm after the storm that often follows a bursting of bravery. the words -- my own words, those from the lips of others -- have been burning deep within me, a fire in my bones.

i've felt a little unravelled and a lot vulnerable. i opened my heart to the world in my last post, gutting myself and pouring out my grief toward the broken Church like a drink offering on the ground. so many thought i was dropping the title of Christian into the mud and making a point to stomp and grind my heels against it until there was nothing left. 

:: but that wasn't it at all. instead, i took the moniker and set it loose on the sea, like a message in a bottle, a page out of my Story. 

i want to reach out and take the hand of every person who wrote me harsh or concerned or confused. i want to draw them into my arms and whisper, i'm scale-shedding. i'm not leaving Him on the sand. on the contrary, He and i are wandering the beach together. He's not afraid of wandering. 

 i am the lover and the loved, home and the wanderer, 

she who splits firewood and she who knocks, a stranger in the storm.

:: adrienne rich 

those words up there, they epitomize this thing i'm doing, this thing i'm letting Him do. i'm letting Him strip me down, bare and scandalous. He knew the scars were there, but i'm letting Him see them. i'm dropping the arm and letting the tears fall. my eyes are closed, yes, but the arm is down. 

i said before i was tired. when i was young, there was this slogan, this little smiling fish swimming the opposite direction of all the other frowning fish. go against the flow. but i couldn't help but look at that little fish and wonder, aren't you tired? 

i always thought the point was that He lifted off the too-heavy yokes, stripped away the heavy chains that were exhausting to drag around. He never wanted to trade one weight for another. 

Mandy etched words in the front of my copy of Thrashing about with God :: to the one who chases Light and makes space for sacred selah. we've never met, but she breathed those truths over my soul like oxygen, and i'm gasping, even though i had no idea just how empty my lungs were. i'm breathing in the Holy, the Wild, the Spirit, the Lion's Breath. it's all my soul can handle. 

i feel like my spirit has dreadlocks, twisted knotted things of beauty cascading down that i'm just starting to appreciate. but the well-meaning Church keeps pressing a comb into my hand, whispering, you're knotted. go straighten yourself out and come back in. you'll fit better. 

but i'm drawn to the One that's beaming Light down into my soul, the One who broke my chains and turned me wild and fierce. i'm running, flitting, chasing after Him.

and i can hear His voice on the wind,

I like your hair. 

a year of Light :: {my girl}

i wanted to write a post about thrashing. it's been on my heart and mind since my post last week since i allowed myself to exhale about my faith journey publicly. but then, i guess i am going to write on thrashing.

because i'm going to write about my girl.

i cannot believe it's been a year since my soul-wailing warrioress made her entrance into the world. i didn't know such a small being could so drastically change my perspective on life. i didn't know i could be this brave for someone else, not just for myself.

in a way, she brought about my gushing. this tiny one brought me intense volume and the most incredible hush, all once. she's a mystery, my Marian.

she held my hand

walked me into my soul

and said

this is where i want you

to write from.

Soul/mate |Tapiwa Mugabe

the poem above made its way into my inbox this morning, so early, on this day, a gift from a soul-sister far away.  and i wept like rainwater with each word. because a year ago, i would have read those words so differently. i would have found something romantic, something sensational in those words. i would have imagined something far away. 

but now it's personal. 

because the she is now both of us :: this tiny little blue-eyed dove daughter that whispers the most luminescent nonsense into my heart. it's been a year of this whispering, and i look back now with impossible awe that i have survived, and what i have done, and what she has pushed me to create with those tiny fingers. 

i didn't understand this feminine roaring, this brave standing, until i held something made of Light in my two hands and trembled, i don't know what i'm doing. 

sometimes she cries. and sometimes i cry. and sometimes, i sit and weep while this tender-souled love touches my cheek and hums some strange infant-turned-toddler song while we rock. sometimes she soothes me. she's radiant and intense and such a jumble. 

in the darkness, while she sleeps with lashes on my cheek and mouth drooping open like it did the night she entered this world, He whispers, she needs you. and you need Me. 

dearheart, it's okay. 

He gave me her in a time when i didn't know who i was, let alone how to mother something so small and innocent. i'm still thrashing {oh, that word. prepare to see more of it around here}, and i'm still growing. but He knew i needed her like she needs me :: a picture, born of blood and love. 

so we'll keep walking. her and i and Him. 

happy birthday, Marian Abigail. 

your momma loves you. 

when thrashing isn't a thumb war

{photo by dramaticelegance]

these past several months have been all about the Story for me. the funny thing is, despite the fact that my entire being is storytelling, it's really never been something that has met the criteria for my focus.

i've heard that phrase "let Him write your story...only you can tell your story" over and over as long as i can remember. i was raised in the Church; it's one of those things that fit in our little dictionary of words we all know. but it faded. and in some respects, my faith began to fade, too. 

writing that phrase made me nervous. i am loathe to write anything about shaky faith because i tend to hear the same things in response. it makes people uncomfortable, edgy, to think about faith being anything but concrete. we talk about it in whispers, as though it's a very dirty secret, casting furtive glances over our shoulders just in case someone might hear. 

my precious friend Mandy {who has written a book about her own personal thrashing which can be found here} wrote these words on her Facebook page ::  I don't have answers. I can't prove a thing. My faith is custom fit. Messy and mysterious. This is all I've got. 

ever since i read them, they've been humming in my soul. there's a strange sort of freedom when someone else speaks that same thing that's been sitting in your heart for a long time, maybe even before you knew they were there. 

part of telling my story is lifting my head up and acknowledging the road i've walked instead of keeping my eyes down to study the cracks in the sidewalk. the thing is, i didn't trip. i faded. Mandy uses the word "thrashing." and that's a good word. it brings up a picture in my head of a man on a mountain in the throes of a wrestling match with the Son of the Most High, from the darkness until the dawn. 

{photo by dramaticelegance}

and damn, that's powerful. the thrashing, the wrestling, the wandering....it happens in the night. that dark night of the soul. and then comes the dawn with Light shining down on the flattened grass and the bruises and bumps and bleeding places. thrashing isn't a thumb war. it's a guttural cry as you charge into the complete darkness. and sometimes you run into a tree. but you pick yourself back up and snap off a walking stick and pull yourself along.

sometimes pruning leaves you messy // right there on the inside //

and it's that moment in the shower // when you're crying to match the water 

// but then you come out // and the steam pours off //

and you're coffee and tea and warm blankets from the drier 

// fragrant and steaming and clean

words by me :: #mypoetryseptember

:: and it's all part of my story. 

it all comes back to the Lion. it's in that dark place where you have no idea what might come skulking out of those darkened doorways that He curls up quietly at your back. and sometimes, when you need him the most, when fear threatens to consume you and has crawled down your throat

He roars. 

the elephant in the room

{via pinterest}

i want to talk about elephants.

there's something about them {as anyone who follows me on instagram will notice} that captivates me. i've started to notice this metaphorical parade of these creatures following me, never too far behind. people ask me all the time, why elephants? what do they mean? and my answer has shyly, sheepishly been :: i don't know.

i hate not knowing. really, it's one of those things that i struggle with the most. my favourite question is "why?" and i ask it perhaps more than i should. i want to know why, i want to know what. i just want to know. and so when these elephants began to appear in my life, stepping into my path one at a time, i wanted to know why.

and then i found a secret message, tucked in-between words gifted to my heart from my dearheart friend Teresa. and the rest came in a Lion's-breath whisper straight into my very soul.

:: it's okay to quiver. baby {elephant} steps count. 

fear. oh fear. it's the elephant in the room, to use the cliche. it's the thing we aren't supposed to do, but the one with the deepest-sinking claws. and it buries itself in and snarls and refuses to let go. and i'm holding out my hand, begging and pleading for Him to take it away, but then He reaches out and i jerk back my hand. i'm afraid to let go of the fear.

{from my own art journal. photo by dramaticelegance}

and those elephants, so big and bold and strong enough to even take on a lion in the wild, quiver in fear at the sight of something whiskered-small. they have fear too, these mighty things.

i've started to realize more and more, as i reach in and take hold of the story deep within me, that there are fear-chains wrapped around each word. it's being held down, tight, doing its level best to keep the Story stiffled. it tried to do it once already. have i forgotten that it failed? the Story ends with broken chains.

and so these elephants follow me, a sweet gentle parade, trunks swaying and nudging my back. and the Lion leads the way, a strange and beautiful party. we're walking, and inside we're quivering a little, because our Guide isn't safe. but oh, is He ever good.

and something is churning deep inside with each light barefoot step of mine, and each plodding waltz of the elephant feet.

i can hear the chains snapping.

rejection of the Story

{via pinterest}

there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you :: maya angelou 

i haven't started a blog post with a quote in a long while. but this quote...mm, this one, i felt was all too appropriate for my soul-season right now. 

i have a lot of emails sitting in my inbox right now. one of them is one that has been sitting there since February of 2011. i can't bring myself to delete it, even though i really really really really want to, more than even i realize. 

it's my very first novel rejection letter.

frankly, it wasn't all that surprising. the publisher had asked for my first fifty pages of my {still} unfinished fantasy novel, and i had sent it along with a small shred of trepidation in my heart. and i heard back. they thought it was wonderful. they used words like "brilliant" and "beautiful imagery" and "radiant." 

but it just wasn't for them. 

and i cried. it was the strangest most painful compliment i'd ever received. it was as though they were saying :: your work is good, great even. it's just not good enough. 

i never finished the novel. it's still sitting in my WORD file, completely untouched since that rejection letter arrived in my inbox more than two years ago. 

part of me wonders if it's because i needed to let it die, like a stone-pile monument to the moment i realized that i was officially a rejected writer {rejected as in, a right of passage to have your words turned down}. but then, maybe it was because i got scared. maybe the idea of a monument, a reminder, was romantic in a strange sort of way, and i was okay with leaving it like that instead of facing that fact that rejection sucks and i wasn't looking forward to dealing with it ever again. 

which, as a writer, is laughable. 

which, as a human, is laughable. 

rejection comes, like brutal hammers or like shards of glass in your shoe. it's there, banging down your door, right in your face. it's there, whispering quiet doubts that borrow deep into your soul and lodge there, eating you up into nothing until your story shrivels away into broken twisted stems. 

no light, no air, no water :: the story dies. 

{via pinterest}

and so i'm writing again. it's September. there's a thousand things happening this month, so many challenges laid out on the road in front of me like Turkish Delight, tempting and covered in powdered sweetness. it's a luring concept to take them as excuses to just not write, to just let the story lay "one more day." 

but there's a table laid out before me, gleaming and right, brimming with love and light by the Hand of the Lion with enemies and rejection pressing at the edges. but He growls so low into my soul. 

courage, dearheart

I have known you long. 

and i dine for strength. and my laptop perches gently on His broad back. i write, and He leaps over the kingdom of darkness until we rest on a beach with the gently cresting waves giving me glimpses into His Country across the sea. and i dip my toes into the Light-Water. 

and the Story puts out leaves. 

{want to enter a community of Story, of grace, of Jesus, of growth? Jesus found me in story 101. are you ready to take the leap? you won't regret it.}

unsanitized sanctuary

{via pinterest}

i'm a watcher.

when i go places, i find a corner in which to tuck myself and i start to gaze. not awkward staring, but secret studying from under long, dark lashes. it's an art, studying the world, perhaps the most education of behaviors.

:: because you learn about yourself when you look at the mirror of another's eyes.

this is why community is so important, perhaps more important than this thing of too many words, too much sentiment that trails off and runs into trivialities when we stop paying true attention. i think this is why this concept of {wild}erness appeals to me in such a soul-thudding way. it's more than just a metaphorical landscape. it's a place where the soul wanders and wrestles and clings tight.

it's amazing how many of us are holding hands, taking step after step through the wilderness together, one made of pines and one made of sand and another made of barren stone. but we're all there together.

if you have a deep scar, that is a door.

if you have an old, old story, that is a door.  

if you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door.

:: Clarissa Pinkola Estés

we've crafted a place together, a worn and rugged sanctuary with water for washing and shelter from our individual storms. our mermaid cave with bit of preciousness, our hunting shack in the midst of the mountains. and there in the middle is a burning fire and blankets knitted to fit each of our souls, a perfect match of blue and green and white and cranberry red.

it's comforting when the world is trying to twist and turn and wipe every germ of "unclean, unclean" from the surface of faith.

why is the world obsessed with taming faith? even in the ruggedness of the mountain wilderness, somehow we always seem to pack hand sanitizer to spray all over everything, including the body of the Most High. 

{via pinterest}

we wouldn't want to get blood on the sofa. 

but He was the One that bent with a towel around His waist to wash our feet with a soft murmur of follow Me. 

there's a painted wooden sign that sits on the wooded island across the river from my sacred hideaway. i can't ever see what it says, but i like to imagine :: warning, wildness beyond this point. and outside this special sanctuary, i see a sign just like that one. 

caution :: wildness ahead

it seems to fit. He's not a tame Lion, and i want to be like Him.

so i'm curled around the fire with sisters all around in our church in the wild, a sanctuary together. and the Lion is singing a wild song to the stars.

vespers in the wild :: uncensoring glory

{photo property of dramaticelegance}

my soul and i had vespers in the rain tonight beside the river with the Most High. the funny thing is that i didn't even know what to call the moment. and then came the word into my soul, gentle but strange.

vespers. an evening prayer service. 

and we hummed a gentle song to the splash of water-drops on the surface of the water, a song i've whispered familiar since the day i first dared to touch, even before i knew what it was. we had church together, me nestled at His feet, the rain tapping out the hymn-rhythm

what wondrous love is this

oh my soul, oh my soul

all i wanted to do was press my face into the sandy soil. even now, sitting here in my space, sky darkening and stars rising on the other side of the windowpane, i yearn to lean up and brush my cheek against His palm. 

why do we only think that God is in a building, tucked among supposed "sacredness," confined in a neat-pressed suit in the front row? He isn't a tame Lion. what is our obsession with caging God? 

the sky is big, but He's bigger, and He made it string by string. the Lord of Heaven was humble enough to spin threads into skeins, weaving chords into fabric, tossed out wide and streaked with His own brand of love-paint. 

:: why must we make Him fit our tiny space? 

{via pinterest}

we debate heatedly between unforseen and sloppy wet, back and forth as though all salvation depended upon words in a song that mean nothing when we should be in wondrous soul-gasping at oh, how He loves us, oh...

we shut the door on His story and tie a muzzle around the mouth of the Lion of Judah because the words He speaks aren't the ones that sit smooth. milk is cool and simple, nothing complex, nothing wild. and so we pour out the Blood behind the bushes and pass the milk-filled chalice around. it's easier to swallow. 

we censor glory to fit our mouths and shut the lid on Light when it's just too bright without sunglasses, and we left ours at home. He is Light without a spotlight or a pulpit or a podium to make His space appropriate. 

He is where His are.

and so i'm going to have vespers in the wild, tucked in the moments between His every breath. i'm diving into His space, the ocean of His glory, and letting Him shed away my snakeskin for a sacred-Lioness mane and a mermaid tail.

what do i know of You who spoke me into motion? 

where have i even stood but the shore along Your ocean? 

what do i know of holy // addison road

what the silence taught me

{my space, unafraid of clutter}
photo property of dramaticelegance

i've been practicing silence this week. i didn't press myself hard one way or the other, and i refused to let legalism be my governing force. i simply let myself sink down, down into the ocean-rushing.

oh, the things that happened when i stopped shouting and let the Light soak in deep.

we met a new place, a white cottage tucked into the urban wild. we put our names on a piece of paper and let the Lion prepare to sing us a new word :: home. and oh that space has potential, and my fingers can twist gently around the banister of a place called mine, and his, and ours, and His, too.

dearhearts, we're buying a house and making it home. 

the irony is, i finally found my space here. tucked between the kitchen sink and the front door, there it was. i think He was waiting for me to exhale, ending up with my forehead on the table with ink on my fingers and paint in my hair, before He slipped this new space into my grasp.

i learned to embrace
:: and i learned to sever. 

i learned to cut and rip and take something mysteriously called "whole" and make a new kind of wholeness from the pieces. there's nothing wrong with reaching out and finding the secret messages humming deep within a secret place.

oh, let us know Him.

His going forth is established as the morning;

He will come to us like the rain

:: hosea 6:3

{via pinterest}

i'm excited about August. the last month in our place of almost four years. it's a page-turning, a severing embrace. it's bittersweet, i'll admit. but oh, am i excited.

it's like i'm finally seeing the design among the broken pieces. because July was so deep and full of grief, so full of shattered bits that didn't feel smooth like seaglass but were jagged enough to gash and scar. but then i realized that there was something beautiful coming. it's a birthing, a labour in blood and
tears and even some breaking deep inside.

and then Life streams forth, and glory is born. i've been fired like molded clay, not made hard but made strong. a few feathers floated to the ground, but my wings are still beating strong in the wind.

the silence taught me to grasp tight while i sever. the silence whispered to me of strength. because He was not in the fire or the wind or the crushing storm. but that still small voice, that hush-holy selah...

the Lion found me in the silence and spoke a hard thing into my soul.

it is coming.
and i am eager to breathe.

sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone 

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

// david whyte :: sweet darkness \\