when I was one of the X-Men

{photo via pinterest}

we were given lessons in how to touch. I wouldn't think it was real unless I had experienced it myself, first hand, sitting shoulder to shoulder and toe to back with my peers. there were big smiles as they demonstrated on the stage, one boy and one girl.

always from the side. never from the front. girls have breasts. don't cause a brother to stumble. arms around the shoulder, quick squeeze. 

we called it "nacho"-ing, a playful turn of phrase coined from the lauding of the "non-committal side hug." we were being taught how to stay pure. we were being taught how to protect our brothers from stumbling, from being ruled by that strange thing behind the zipper of their jeans. we were proud of ourselves.

my body was dangerous. I had to be careful. we all knew that. we were dangerous beings, with our shapely hips and our growing breasts that might press into a boy's chest and send impure thoughts racing though him like poison.

I was one of the X-Men. my name was Rogue. to touch me was to die.

because I was a girl. and girls were poison, except to our one-day husbands.

I'm going to let you in on a secret. it didn't protect me. it did the exact opposite. 

it taught me that I was dangerous. it taught me that my body was a cactus. all I could do was hurt, all I could was destroy. it taught me to hate me.

this same dangerous theology creeps through the ranks of the youth groups and the purity conventions. raps and songs and t-shirts and seminars abound. we grip the hearts of those girls, sitting shoulder to shoulder and toe to back with their peers, and whisper, you are in charge of his mind. you are in charge of protection. you are the problem. 

who put us in charge of stripping them down until they keep their arms crossed across their chests and their heads down with shoulders bent to hide that they are women, God-made and Heaven-adored? where is the mandate to shake the least of these, the little ones, until all their worth comes dropping out the bottom like gold doubloons down the storm-drain?

we are resisting innocence in our chase for purity. we are hanging stones instead of breaking them to gravel.

I remember the first time I hugged the man that would become my husband. I mean, really hugged him. I had just returned from a summer in South America, long weeks of sleepless nights and experiences that filled me with wonder. and there was my boyfriend, standing on the curb beside my parents' van, smiling. I didn't think. I hugged him, hard. from the front. and I can promise  you this :: the thoughts in our head were not about breasts or penises or sex or impurity or stumbling blocks.

we were embracing.
that was all.

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 \\

:: joy dance

{via pinterest}

the pursuit of joy is a dance, a thing of glory.

it's feet placed squarely against smooth cool wood, that slight intake of breath right before the music starts, a matched exhale with that very first note.

happiness can be found easier, under the stones that cover the bed of a stream or right between the complimenting syllables that trip so sweetly from the lips of an admired one. 

but joy. ohh, joy is the elusive White Stag of the Great Lion's master plan that leads you in a mighty chase to place you direct in the center of His roaring triumph.

see, I am doing a new thing, a mighty thing.
joy, joy, joy!

it's a majestic thing to be in the center of this whirlwind of joy. because to get to this center, this pearl in the midst, there comes that grain of sand tucked in the sensitive corners of the soul.

the rubbing and the aching brings the sorrow.
and then comes the dawning in a rumble of Lion's song and dew-drenched blades of grass.

joy is something sought after, something requested and then begged for, a thing that draws the greatest and the lowest to knocking on the door with flattened palms and an urgency incomparable. joy is not the feeling. it is the being. it is not the treasure, it is the hunt.

you would not have called for Him had He not been calling for you. 
{paraphrased from C.S. Lewis}

and so joy is a dance, a leap and a skip that can be done alone but is better with two, with clasped hands and fingers raised and head thrown back.

{linking today with beautiful emily and the imperfect prose community}

Embrace

Millions and millions of years would still not give me half enough time to describe that tiny instant of all eternity when you put your arms around me and I put my arms around you.  ~Jacques Prévert

There is something utterly magical about a hug.

Really, the above statement reads so trite to me compared to the depth of emotion that is packed into those words...

...it almost seems a shame to even write those words. 

I feel as though I am doing every hug in the world a mighty disservice. 

There is something remarkable that happens when one person puts their arms around another. 

It is inexplicable...

...and it's one of my favorite things in the world. 

Whether it's a loving touch from your mother after you've had one of the worst days of your life, and all you want is comfort...

... a soft caress from someone you deeply care about, and who you know cares about you more than anything else, and can feel when your heart is about to shatter into a million pieces...

...an affection-laden bear hug from a guy who's been as close as a brother since high school...

...or a still-awaited embrace from your sister who's only been in Germany for a month and still has another 2 months to go before she comes back home. 

Every last one of these touches has power in them.

The power to comfort.

To reassure.

To demonstrate the utmost of tender love and affection...

...sometimes more than words can say. 

If you're angry at a loved one, hug that person.  And mean it.  You may not want to hug - which is all the more reason to do so.  It's hard to stay angry when someone shows they love you, and that's precisely what happens when we hug each other.  ~Walter Anderson