the one where I talk about sex {again}

{via pinterest}

let's talk about sex.
I'm serious.

it's everywhere.
I'm serious about that too.

but you know something else?
it's also a really big secret.
{especially in church}

I grew up in a world where gateway drugs weren't seven-leafed plants held rolled and drooping between teenage fingers. it was the fingers themselves that were the problem. because if skin touched skin, that was the start of a slippery slope...

...a slope that led to bodies and skin and nakedness and words that were alluded to, but rarely spoken aloud. just in case there was someone listening. and the idea of it being mentioned in church? never. just in case God might overhear.

we talked about purity, of course. about guarded hearts and the mystery of a man with a woman and the way it should be for marriage. but what, exactly, should be for marriage? we were never sure. not really.

it was all a mystery. until churches and white dresses and rings slipped onto sweaty fingers and hotel rooms where the door shut with a heavy thump...

...and then it was still a mystery.

because it was a secret until that minute, except that everyone seemed to have forgotten the "sex kitten" potion that was to transform a blushing new bride and a nervously fidgeting groom  into ravenous sexual creatures. they forgot about what happened when the door closed and we stood there with shuffling feet and the acute awareness that there was nakedness under our clothes.

this is the part where I am supposed to present a solution.
the only one I have is for us to talk.

we have to stop making little words that start with "p" and "v" and "s" into dirty unrepeatables that linger like forbidden fruit squashed into pulp on tongues. we have to find that line and realize that it's written in the dirt, not carved into rock.

we need to talk.
with words, not euphemisms and "when you're married, you'll understand."

because it doesn't work that way.

we need to talk.
about sex.
about penises and vaginas and hormones and sex. hear me say it. sex.

because the most important thing is a heart.
not a hymen.

dark chocolate

{photo by Rachel L. Haas}

are you writing? 

those words are familiar these days. they fill my message box with little smiley cyber-faces sent from the fingers of the ones who know me best. they know that I need the reminders. they know that I'm swimming against the current, and they know that sometimes I need a solid jerk on the towrope. 

and yes, I am writing. I'm just not doing a lot of writing here in this space. my blog has gone quiet since I started burying myself into my new fiction project. I'm writing a book. I'm not sure if that's really sunk in fully yet. every time I look at how far I've come, it makes me marvel. not because I'm writing. I'm always writing. not because I'm writing fiction. I've written fiction before. 

I'm in awe because I'm writing something that is making me afraid and brave all at the same time. both of those things come with the knowledge that I'm writing something that is more dark chocolate than cotton candy. 

go with me here, loves. 

there is a lot of cotton candy in the world. or maybe it's just the expectation of the sweet vapor, of the ease of acceptance of things that taste good. things that are uncomplicated. for the most part, everyone likes the sweet and the simple, the stuff that melts on your tongue and makes you feel happy.

but it's so much harder to write to write the bitter. it's hard to write the thing that not everyone will like, the thing that will lead the reader on a balance beam, toes stepping in a line on the wooden plank. it's hard to write things that will rankle, that will annoy. it's hard to write when you know some people -- maybe more than the rest -- will spit it out and toss the rest in the trashbin. 

it's hard to write dark chocolate. 

{photo via pinterest}

but I am learning to realize that some people like dark chocolate, if not on their tongues, then in their souls. they grip the bitter and savor the sweetness. they allow it to assure them that they are alive. they swallow it down and let it enter their deepest parts. they let it change the way they taste the world. 

cotton candy is good sometimes. it's good to soak in the lightness. it's good to flit. but dark chocolate is good for your heart. it's antioxidants. there is health in identifying with what your heart is saying, with what your soul needs. 

I'll tell  you a secret, loves. I think we all have dark chocolate flowing inside us. every single one of us, every writer, has this ability to bring out the strong and the bitter and the lingering hints of sweetness in every bite. 

oh writers, rise up. don't run from the sharp flavours that creep between your words. know that there are people waiting for your words. know that, for some, the best taste in the world is your brand of dark chocolate. 

know that the Creator lives and moves and breathes within you. 

so those dreams? risk them. 

those words? write them. 

those hopes? believe them.

:: Elora Ramirez

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.

knowing him with the lights on

{via pinterest}

I want to talk about sex.

again.

on Monday, I wrote about Beyonce and her husband-lover and the way they held each other close and moved as one flesh at the Grammys, and the way the Christian world rose up against them. I wrote about redemption of sex and of freedom to wrap arms wildly around the neck of marital lust.

and that was when I realized. I've found a voice and I've started wondering things...more things.

I wonder why we're made so afraid of sexuality, as though being sexual creatures is not something Holy-Created, as though whispering the words or leaning too close on your husband's arm within the confines of Church is scandelous. we look at the wedding rings and we know, we see the pregnant women and smile at their joy, all the while refusing to acknowledge what brought this new life into being.

I wonder why we can read the words laid out in Biblical black and white, but then cringe and giggle and find ourselves whispering the names for our body parts in sheepish undertones, as though they are not there if we don't pronounce them, as though our sexuality is non-existent if we do not speak its name.

there's safety in the darkness, quietly tucking ourselves into dimly lit bedrooms, curtained off like voting booths, every action a secret and never discussed. it's as though we expect our bodies to burst into flames if their flesh is exposed to the light. sexuality is the new vampirism.

but there's that Hebrew word :: yada. that word that comes up whispered in the early pages of the Word, when the first man took the first woman into his arms and knew her. that's yada. that's knowing. and then comes the word, the whispering of be still and know. that's yada. same word, same holy hush falling.

I delight to sit in his shade,    
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
:: song of solomon 2:3

we as woman are told that we are dangerous. each morning as we dress, we cover the danger, and the more we wear, the safer we become. we press our palms against the man-hands beside us and blush, hesitant in that affection, that rare bit of skin allowed to brush in public. there are expectations, and being Beyonce isn't one of them.

{via pinterest}

and so we go home and turn down the lights and slip down to our skin in darkness and slide under covers, less for warmth of body and more for safety of soul. who are we protecting? is it ourselves, the shame from the outside carrying into this marital room where only you and he will ever lay? are we protecting the man that shares this mattress, that burden placed upon our bodies for all male creatures...how are we supposed to turn it of for him, for one hour or two or six, and then make sure that we put the vixen away, and carry on as normal for everyone else that we are supposed to call "brother"?

I want 
to do with you 
what spring does with the cherry trees.
:: Pablo Neruda

and so we come back to yada. being known, the deepest and most intimate knowing of all. it's holy ground. shaking is appropriate.

so you, oh woman, you are not dangerous. your body is not a wrecking ball and your touch is not acid. your loving him is not a sin, and your wildness need not be hidden. not here, not with him.

did you know that silence is not required here? it is allowed, of course, but not required.

it's in those moments when bodies meet, not passing like ships but merging like an eclipse, that the loudest crashes are heard. because that is the sound of walls tumbling. every move he and I make together is a pass around Jericho walls, and with a mighty shout, the fortress crashes.

so, oh woman, blow out the candle and flip the switch.

he can call me Peaches with the lights on.

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.

the year of the Lion

{photo by Rachel}

I started 2014 with a bang. literally, as that is a very good emulation of the sound made by my knee striking the corner of our coffee table precisely at midnight. the pain was enough to reduce me to tears as my husband put his arm around me and spent the first minute of the new year kissing away tears.

the irony of that hasn't escaped me. it was a burst of pain that brought this new year in :: this precipice year, this year of big things. I am fully aware that birthing requires pain, and this year is already brimming with the anticipation of pain.

this year is precipice. that is the word He gave me, once against without consulting me, as He so often does. and it's a good thing that He buried this seed so deep within me, because I might almost be tempted to dig it up and throw it away. because this is so damn big. so damn big. 

this is the year of letting go, of falling because there is nothing holding me back anymore. I'm anticipating some stumbling and some bumping, some air currents and the occasional thunderstorm. to say that I am expecting smooth sailing and an easy ride in this coming year would be a lie.

if anything, I'm expecting things to be hard. 

I wrote this post in the early days of December for the new Story Sessions internet home. I didn't have any idea what my word would be for 2014. I had barely an inkling of all the things that I would start to understand, that I would resolve to write a book in this coming year, that some of my words would be accepted for publication right at the cresting end of 2013.

she whispers at my core, deep inside me,

“I am midwife to freedom.

now push.”

{shifra :: featured on Story Sessions}

but I think I understand now. I think I'm finally grasping this impossible thing that I've been feeling since before this year truly began. it was pressing against the seams of the old year, like a wild thing, a wave that knows the sea awaited behind the wall. and it wanted to go home. 

{photo by Rachel :: art by Mandy}

now we are here, eleven hours into this new year. eight days away from publication. already pouring through and attempting to understand how to expand myself, how to make the needed changes, how to write this book and spin these stories. 

it's all about embracing a calling :: about figuring out what is it, exactly, that He and I have been struggling through and warring about for the past twelve months. it's about being a writer, a mother, a sojourner, a wife. it's about being a wild one. it's about falling. 

it's about letting the roaring :: His roaring :: soak into my skin like salve and smear across my cheeks like war paint. it's about saturating myself in faith, not religion. it's about letting go.  it's about understanding that I will most likely be completely vulnerable, that I will be putting myself out there this year in a way that is borderline terrifying. 

it's 2014. the year of precipice. the year of big things. the year of holy days. the year of sacredness, of continued thrashing.

the year of the Lion.

{one of the big things that is happening this year is my all exclusive content newsletter. you can subscribe here :: also found on the right side of the blog in the sidebar. the first issue goes out on Monday, January 6th. I plan on writing more about this in detail in the coming days. I deeply hope that you will join me on this sojourn} 

the quivering curtain {on being published}

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

I bought a calender on Saturday.

actually, technically, I bought two of them. one is the kind you hang on the wall, with beautiful pictures to look at each day of the month. and then there's the day-planner sort of thing, with each day marked out in lines with space for me to write my plans for the day, the week, the month.

we're at that midpoint. the darkest night is behind us and the bright burst of Epiphany is in front of us, coming closer and closer. closer still is the new year. I always marvel at the way a new year can feel so incredibly fresh, how burning one calender and hanging up a new one can conjure up such a profound change.

and I'm wordless.

I got the email one hour into Sunday morning. the one that started with "dear Rachel," and then the words blurred around me and my blood started pumping so loud in my ears that I could barely focus on anything else. I zeroed in on certain words :: thank you for submitting, we'd like to accept your piece for publication in our next issue...

it's surreal, I think. I say I think because I'm not even sure how I feel about this yet. 2014 is coming, fast, and it's the year I've pledged to open my mouth and put my words out there. I've decreed myself a writer, claiming the title that has been waiting for me to accept it for years. and then, right before the end of 2013, it started.

it's that light, pressing around the edges of the door. we're in the middle between the darkest night and the startling light of Epiphany. it's eager, excited, whispering of magic and wonder and intense power. I can't remember the last time I have felt this level of anticipation and enthrallment over the idea of a new year.

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

it's been a wandering year, a year of thudding and pulsing and weeping and keening and throwing things away and putting others in places of honour. and the further we get, the deeper we slip. I'm starting to understand why.

the stripping isn't over. the pruning and the baring and the birthing is far from over. in some respects, 2013 was the prologue, the overture, that quiver of the cast moving behind the curtain. He and I, we've done battle this year. and we're not done. it's been that slow peeling, that agonizing flailing. and I've stopped apologizing...at least, I think I have. but it's not like He and I are backed into our own corners just waiting for the next bell that supposedly comes when the bell drops. that's not it at all.

it's just the end of one calender and the start of another one.

it's huge and wild and sacred and so intensely huge. I can feel the ground shaking

and I can hear Him roaring.

{more is coming in regards to my being published  by Literary Orphans on January 8th. I'm still processing the joy and the fear that comes with this. words are brewing.}

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. 

laughing at Jesus

{photo by jennifer upton}

I remember the first time I went to the mission. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember it was cold. I was with my grandfather and his friend, a chaplain whose name I can't recall. I know I was young.

and I remember the first time I ever heard someone laugh at the name of Jesus.

I had never seen a prostitute before. I don't think I even knew what the word meant. but I remember her clothes :: black leather jacket, hot pink shirt that plunged lower than anything I had ever seen. I remember her hair, box-blonde with obvious dark roots, piled up on top of her head. I remember the cigarette dangling from her fingers.

she was sitting behind me on the plastic chairs. the chaplain asked, when you hear the name Jesus, what do you think? and the woman laughed and screamed, holy schmoly. effing Christians!

the chaplain kept in stride, never breaking for a second. I remember that. he pointed to her and repeated the first part of her words like a teacher accepting answers from a crowd of boisterous students, glad they were speaking at all.

I don't remember anything else that was said after that. 

I had never heard someone respond that way to Jesus. I never even knew that existed, never knew that people thought that way about Christians. I was confused, hurt, a little girl who had grown up with Jesus from day one and never even dreamed that someone wouldn't like Him. why didn't she love Christians?

{photo by jennifer upton}

and then I grew up. and I started seeing that woman more often.

obviously it wasn't the same face. but the eyes were identical. I saw her everywhere, in crowds and in churches. I found her in the supermarket. I noticed her at the post office. I realized that I was friends with her.

and now I understand that laughter. I hear it differently. it was mocking, caustic, and was laden with so much pain. it was the sound of a woman who had been slapped and kicked and knocked down a thousand times, had reached out her hand, and had someone spit in her face.

she had been given up on by the ones who were supposed to be the hands and the feet. I don't know every step she took. but she is familiar to me now. her story is one I understand, her words are ones I completely comprehend.

He didn't come for us to look down, to refuse to meet the eyes of humanity. He was born for lifting up. for getting dirty. for putting on skin and blood and pain. He touched.

can't we?

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. 

the Holiness midwife

{photo via dramaticelegance}

dear you,

yes, you, the one with the Charlie Brown Christmas tree and the pile of tangled lights. you, with the expectation piling up in droves around you while sparkling decorations and Christmas carols threaten to drown you in a haze of grief and overwhelming fog.

it's okay.

it's okay to shut down Pinterest and buy cookie dough from the store. it's okay to leave the elf off the shelf and the cardboard star hanging sideways off the top of the tree.

it's okay to bury your head in your hands and sob to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock because you're too exhausted and worn down to turn the radio off.

because that's not the point, is it?

this is the season of Word becoming Flesh, the season of being stripped down to beyond the nothing. sometimes, it's even a time of fear. because waiting can be scary when you can't see beyond that curve in the road. it's a pregnancy, an expectant quivering. it is a cracking, an opening cervix through which blood will stain and Life will come.

it's the time of imperfection. if we were perfect, there would be no need for this season, for this waiting for the cry of One who came to gather us into Himself. for the One born of blood who came to bleed. He was born to stain, to leave a mark on all He touched.

He was not born for tidy.

it's okay to let go. to relax and let it come. we scream through the contractions and labour through the waiting. the Holiness is the midwife to this birthing, strong enough to bear it all.

and so you, you dear beautiful expectant soul. there is so much permission here. there is permission to breathe and pause. there is permission to quiver. there is permission to be imperfect.

sometimes you have to fight to find the sacred in the Advent. sometimes, you light a candle amid the piles of dishes on the kitchen counter and close your eyes and whisper,

i am waiting, i am listening. 

{this is another in my Story prompt series. would you joint us? there is always room for you}

throwing down {a poem of sorts}

{via perspective artista}

i've decided to throw down the sword, the one that they put in my hand from the minute i took a breath to see how well i could lift it. they called it Truth, but it didn't match the Words He whispered on the parchment page. they told me that was okay, it wasn't possible for me to understand. not really. they’d tell me, and then it would make sense. 

they promised.

i've decided to cut the cord, to let it go, to turn the hands of the clock back until they hit the point when i shut my eyes so tight that they knew they’d never open again. or at least, not until I turned my head in the direction of the Sun and let the wax melt away.

i don’t know when I looked down into the chalice and saw the wine turned to water because someone decided the miracle was too strong and that it burned going down. it's safer this way, they said, you must be set apart, but never let them smell it on your breath.

there's a lovely gag already fashioned for your feminine mouth, they said. it tastes like sweet things and silence and contentment. you should try it on. we made it for you special. 

but see, i’d rather be covered in dirt and know what the edge of His robe feels like than hold onto the neat and tidy pew-back and never know the way that Israeli dirt and forgiveness smells when it fills up my nose. i’d rather have them make me walk the line because the aroma of Him is so strong on me that they can tell that i’ve been even without me opening my mouth. 

that thing about gripping His robe :: it's been inside me for a long while. it's been ever since i figured out that my hand fit better inside of Rahab's than it did Mary's. i used to want to sit on the alabaster throne with my fingers clutching a scepter and clad all in white, a princess over a kingdom of my own choosing. 

but it didn't take long before i realized that the only alabaster that fit within my grasping fingers was shaped like a perfume jar. 

my tears and i found a safer lodging at His feet. 

and then He breathed. and my bindings caught the wind and flew as far as the east from the west.

i haven't seen them since. 

no more plastic Jesus

i'm sitting on big words.

i have been a lot lately. even since i let myself swing open long-locked doors and start to let the river of Story flow out. and it's refreshing, crashing waves on the bank of my soul. but every time i bend to take a drink, i start to become afraid that i'm going to drown.

i told you all the things i wanted to tell you about my story, big pieces of me that came from years of standing in a place of not understand what it was that i believed. i wrapped myself up in what i thought was the blanket of Christianity, only to find out that it was actually something completely different, and it was suffocating me.

i was disillusioned by a plastic faith. my Jesus was dime-store cheap with a wind-up key in His back. and i was the one with my fingers around the key, watching Him toddle wherever i pointed Him. and in the process, i tied the strings around my wrists and ankles and became a wooden puppet with a hand-sewn faith core. 

when i talked about how i can't call myself a Christian anymore, many people recoiled, as i knew they would. how could i say such a thing? many people applauded because i didn't quite fit that "good Christian girl" look that they were going for, and of course, it would be better if i sat this one out. it proved a thousand points in my heart. it validated everything that i'd been feeling.

because i've watched what the Church has done. in truth, i've done more than watch. i was never a stone-thower. i made a point to never do that. but i held the coats and stood on the sidelines. i never picked up a rock, and that made it okay. i wasn't like that. except that i was.

i can't escape this now

unless You show me how.

 demons // imagine dragons 

and i refused to let myself realize it until my story matched up with the ones that were receiving the beating. and it it echoed like a howl across the wilderness. i melted.


this is what makes me want to tell my story. this is what makes me need to tell my story. it's what makes me stand up and say :: He knows what kind of woman i am. and He is letting me touch Him. 

it's why i've thrown my plastic Jesus into the trash and shut the lid. it's why i've ripped off the blue and white label clinging to my chest, the one with the scribbled Sharpie name that says, please don't touch me, you might get blood on my righteousness, and red is impossible to get out.

i'm sitting on big words. huge words. words that used to be lodged deep in my throat, in a prison that i didn't even know existed. and they're trickling out, becoming a brook, and then a stream, and then a river, bursting over its banks and pooling at my feet and there's a Voice whispering, I am calling to you. jump in. 

and this voice is Raw. Alive. Flesh.
there is nothing plastic about Him.

i'm kneeling there, beside the water, and there's mud and blood and messy wildness covering me from head to toe. and the Lion is there, breathing and real and wilder than He's ever been, crouching at my side. and He's whispering still,

it's not really drowning, lioness
when the Water is alive. 

i want to tell you

{via pinterest}

i want to tell you my story. but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that my parents tried, that they were wonderful people who heard a word and let it twist inside the wrong direction. i want to tell you that i still love them, and they still love me, even though i'm still healing from some of their raising choices. i want to tell you that they're changing too, and they're not the people they used to be anymore either, that they're beautiful people with His hand-print etched deeper than it ever was.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i grew up in purity culture where modesty was more important than personhood, where my worth as a woman was measured by the length of my skirts and the height of my neckline. i want to tell you that i followed blindly because i was too scared to take my sunglasses off inside the Church.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i courted my husband and we have so much regret from the way we were guided into love. i want to tell you that i look back and i think, why didn't i just kiss him a thousand times before i finally took a breath of courage, and why did the fear have to come so strong afterward? i think, why didn't i press that Joshua Harris book back onto the shelf and whisper, it's okay. i'm going to hold his hand and we're both going to chase the Lion instead of legalism...why didn't i?

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i found a way back into love surrounded by a tribe of women who helped peel the duct tape off my mouth that the well-meaning Church slipped over my lips when i wasn't looking. i want to tell you that i've sobbed my eyes out for the nearly twenty-one years lost in blindness before i dared to look straight into His eyes and whisper, i don't know You. but You know me. 

{via pinterest}

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i realized that i was a Jesus feminist when they placed my daughter into my arms and i looked at her face and thought, i can't let her endure what i did. i want to tell you that stepping out as a feminist was like my own personal closet with helpings of shame and grief that came alongside the breathing.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i love you. i want to tell you that i love Jesus. i want to tell you that i see Him as a Lion because He isn't safe, and i can't do safe faith anymore. i want to tell You that i'm messy, and so is Jesus, and that's why i can lean on Him so fully, because i'm not afraid that me will rub off on Him. :: if anything, He's rubbing off on me. 

and like i've said, i'm scared.

but i think i'm going to tell you anyway. because He has made me a wild thing, a lioness renewed with the wings of an albatross at her back.

*deep breath* 

permission to write {page four}

{via pinterest}

ever since i started writing, i've had that little itch. the one that leads to names on covers and best-seller lists and signings in book stores where people match face to paperback and whisper, "that's her. she's the author."  

i can't help it :: i want my writing to mean something. i want to make it onto lists and to be seen, for that hand to go around another's shoulder and point, "see her? she writes for Glory." i just wish i knew how to leave the fame-wish behind and put the influence dream in my pocket for later.

but then, maybe i don't want the fame. because i'm messy, and messy is it's own thing. see, people want to see that woman behind the table as someone put together, something just like them except way more collected and tidy. they want the ones with the smooth hair and perfectly straight-lined scars, the ones that speak softly, i was broken, but i'm okay now. everything is in place. 

but i'm not like that. my scars are jagged, messy. there's nothing tidy about my story, no straight lines and smoothly paved roads. my roads are the country ones, up and down with hills that keep the valleys invisible until you're in them, with twists and turns and the occasional pothole. there's paint in my hair and one of my heels broke on the way up that last cliff. 

it's like there's an invisible line of church people, queuing out the door, murmuring in that way that blends together in that strange buzzing roar where the words can't be distinguished. i don't have know what they're saying, not really. i can see it in their eyes.

she has a lot of questions. she said...that word, that one i can't say. she doesn't fit, not anymore. her veil is falling off, it's sideways. someone should go fix that for her. 

my hair is a mess because i've been wrestling, and there's dirt on my face and tears in my eyes and it's streaking down and dripping muddy water off my chin. i'm wearing Grace and not much else, and there's fingers pointing from all directions. and sometimes, i'm so raw that it hurts to be touched because i've been clawing off one layer after another and it burns like Fire. 

then it comes, the ripping, the throbbing, the tearing. and it's not pretty, it's bloody and messy and there's scales on the ground like broken glass and i don't recognize myself. and then i see the flash of gold behind me, and i know. i'm being reborn, and everything is shredded and sideways, and those scales are gone, right off my eyes and i'm blinking into beams of Glory.

and that's how i know i need to write. how i know the permission that has been set in my soul since before i learned to hold a pen. i need to write :: for the imperfect, for the ones clinging to the hem of the only One who sees them. for the dirty, for the messy, for the thrashing. 

for the ones like me. 

permission to rest {page two}

{photo by dramaticelegance}

sometimes i feel like i'm on the edge of this giant stone wall, a step of sorts, doing my very best to climb up and reach my long-ingrained goal. and there's the Christian crowd behind me, cheering to the point of a din behind me, that's it, you can do it, keep climbing. don't stop. 

what i need, though, is someone to come alongside me, grasp my hand and whisper, it's okay if you need to stop. it's okay to breathe. it's okay to stop. then comes the gasp of horror. they're telling you to stop? no. wrong. no.

stopping is not what we Christians do.

but maybe it's what i need to do. i feel like we so often focus our magnifying reading glasses on those words of Jesus teaching and walking and travelling and performing miracles and doing that we forget the resting. 

come to Me, and I will give you rest. 

i forget that i am Lucy. i am Peter, plodding diligently ahead, ignoring the signs and never resting, only ever traversing on. but He came to her at night, in the selah of the woods, and called her lioness. He promised her great renewal. 

as she rested. 

sometimes i wonder if we can even hear Him anymore through the din of our own good intentions. there's things expected of us if we bear that moniker of Christian,fingers intent on pointing out exactly which stones should be walked on, and which ones are too sacred to touch. 

we have made Jesus untouchable. and in turn, those of us who find the gasping bravery to reach out and grasp Him have become the whispered ones ourselves. we've wandered into the building wearing sunglasses and perish the thought we take them off and actually see. 

we have made following Jesus less important than following the rules. 

in telling my story, i can look back at where i've come from. i wish i could reach back and tug the sunglasses off my eyes and take the gloves off my fingers and whisper, Jesus doesn't mind fingerprints on His face. you can touch Him, dearheart. 

you can stop and breathe. it's okay. 

{day one} thirty one days of Story-telling permission

{via pinterest}

:: this is a post of deep breathing // this is the start of 31 days of Story-telling permission ::

until last week, i had no idea i would be undertaking this project. i attempted to do 31 days of sacred seeking motherhood this time last year, but faltered very shortly after starting, due to my pure exhaustion + the change of having a newborn.

but now, i'm starting fresh. i read a post by Elora this past week that gutted me, sent me to the floor. and in it, she wrote six powerful words that have thrummed deep in my soul.

let's be writers?  

yes. let's really be. 

:: elora nicole :: 

and then i had a conversation with her, a beautiful meeting of souls. it was her that turned my floundering words into something concrete. she didn't put her words into my mouth, not at all. instead, she took my words and put them back into my mouth in a way that flowed. she laid His words and mine together on my tongue, and said, 

now write them down. 

you have permission. 

{photo by dramaticelegance}

and those words came slipping back in. let's be writers? and there it is, my Story, curled up like a cat at my back i'm finding that i've always had permission. it was waiting, resting at the edges of my soul, holding sacred space and waiting for me to realize that it's been there all along. 

and so i'm exhaling and doing something i'm not sure that i'm brave enough to undertake. i'm starting thirty-one days, barely into my twenty-third year of life, and i'm quivering inside. i know it's going to be messy and i know it's going to be vulnerable and i know there will be times that i simply will not want to do this. 

i am giving myself permission to miss a day. or ten. i am giving myself permission to live, to breathe, to tell my Story in the time and the space i need. 

this is less of a rule book, less of a laundry list of "31 ways to give yourself permission to tell your story." this is a journey, hand-in-hand. and if you want to sit down here and hold space with me at the edge of the water, there's room, right here. 

so this is day one. a messy, wild mishmash of faith and thrashing, of art, of writing, of freedom. expect to see Aslan here, because this is far from safe, but He is good. 

day one :: i have permission to tell my Story. 

do not dare not to dare //

{photo by dramaticelegance}

i feel like the world has been chasing me with this thrashing. honestly, i think it's really comical that this thing that i have been hiding from for so long is now pursuing me, or at least putting itself in my path. i turn twenty-three in little less than a week, and i am just discovering. someone told me that it's because i'm aware of it, in tune with myself now.

but i don't think that's entirely the reason. i think that my eyes are finally open enough that the calling, the pulling, has finally allowed itself to crawl out from the cave and whisper i'm here. i've always been here. can you see me? 

part of me really wants to write about this. i feel like i've been waiting for my entire life to feel this strange warring freedom. but then comes that fear, the familiar flavour that weighs my soul down. it almost makes me want to let go and let the current pull me the safe way, the way that doesn't make my arms ache.


i wrote some time ago about taking off the veil and looking darkness in the eyes. i don't mean evil darkness :: the Lion already holds the key. i mean the strange unknown, the part that lingers in the  shadow when i've been too scared to pull back the curtains and let the light trace over my skin.

i'm not ashamed. i am afraid. but i am pressing my forehead against the stone wall while i seek solace from the din.

sometimes being on the ground // means a new season is coming

{photo by dramaticelegance}

it's autumn. there's a lot of death associated with the falling leaves and fading grass. but there's something resurrecting about this season. it's been hot, pressing, almost suffocating, with air so thick that i almost wanted to push it off myself like a constricting garment. 

and then comes the whispering cool air, taking my hair and floating it across my face. it's like some ethereal veil reminding me, you are seen, if only by He that holds the Wind

and He is not threatened by your questions. 

it's a digging in. it's painful. it's reaching deep into yourself with gently curling fingers and digging into the dirt. and it makes me shudder and gasp. it's gorgeous. 

sometimes He digs in His claws and flays me wide. but that's not what He's doing right now. my soul is whispering, echoing soft Lion-growl :: do not dare not to dare. (lewis) i am humming His name like it's the last melody i know. i am reaching up.

{to learn more about Mandy's book, visit messy canvas. to read all the posts in my personal thrashing journey, visit here}