born from crushed aluminum

{via flickr :: creative commons}

I crushed a soda can last night. you can see the exact shape of my hand in the aluminum, the swirling white letters bent inward to form something more akin to a prayer than a brand name.

my not-so-tiny girl needed stitches, right on the even of her second birthday. three small black lines, twisted up with flesh. she cut her foot last week. it wasn't so bad. there was blood, but it washed away. there was a scab, but it was closing. and then last night, she tripped. and it opened anew, worse than before. so we bundled into the car, my husband + me + Marian (her in squawking high spirits, us not so much).

and the doctor said "stitches," and something inside me dropped so hard that I thought it might actually come out through my feet. they washed her foot and I cringed, holding her hand. they said "needle" and "Lidocaine" and I  made a hasty and less than dignified retreat. he made me sit, the doctor did, pressing a can of soda into my hand for sugar. I was white, he said.

and I sobbed on one side of a clinic wall while my daughter wailed, clutched tight in my husband's arms as he bear-hugged our fierce fighting child. they were hurting her to help her, and it made my momma-lioness roar vicious. and I crushed that soda can in my fingers until they were white and the can was twisted metal in my grip.

then it was over, and she was drenched in sweat but bandaged, sniffling into my shoulder. I buried my nose in her head as I rocked her, inhaling the scent of tears and sweat and strength and bravery, as much as a little-yet-fierce creature can exude.

this morning, I pondered as she nuzzled into my breast, an eager face at 7:02am beside my bed. it's been two years with this child, nine months before that of her nestled under my skin. motherhood is a funny thing. you can read every book in the world, and still realize that you know absolutely nothing when that child is born. and you have to learn. and they say that you learn from experience and doing and "as you go." but really, it's your child that does the teaching.

cliche? maybe.
true? entirely.

and so, as my Marian-girl begins her second year of life, my heart is swelling full of  holy hopes + wishes for her.

 :: I wish for her bravery to be acknowledged. she is not fearless, she is brave. 

:: I wish for Holiness. 

 :: I wish for delight in small things and joy in big things

:: I wish for her pain to be allowed. I do not want her to hurt, but when she does, I want her aching to be FELT instead of being brushed over or dismissed. 

:: I wish for a drawing near to Grace and the Throne upon which it sits. 

:: I wish for might. not power or fame or glory, but might. 

:: I wish for laughter (have you heard this child laugh? music.)

:: I wish for Kleenex and ice cream and shoulders and companions and light and Glory abundant. 

:: I wish for LIFE.

happy second birthday, my beautiful girl. 

I love you. 

the blessing of more

{via pinterest}

"can you show me the sign?"

my own words hit me in the face as I asked my toddler daughter to recreate the ASL word for "more," tapping her tiny fingertips against one another. she was asking for another cracker, another drink of water. we've been teaching her these simple little signs since she was barely old enough to hold up her head on her own. and now here, as we approach the second year of her life in a matter of weeks, she still knows every gesture.

please. thank you. milk. more. 

that last one still takes my breath away.
let me tell you why.

::

I remember seeing her, sitting casually on a too-tall barstool, her tattoos clearly visible, her blonde hair fresh with pink and purple streaks. she looked like a vision of everything I wanted to be. there was about fifteen of us gathered around her, listening to her speak over us.

her words caught me off-guard.

I want you all to see me as more than just the founder, more than your coach, more than a published author. I want you to see me as more than just that. see me as me, okay? 

the concept was so foreign. it didn't feel right. surely she misspoke. because how could any of us do that? she was all these amazing things, this powerhouse badass of a woman who had come up gasping from grief + destruction + hardship. she was a phoenix. how could I see her as "just her"? that was a disservice to her greatness.

wasn't it?

and this thing of her -- just her -- being more. I didn't understand it.

except then I sat down on the couch with her and looked into her eyes.

// how are you? 
// how are you? 
// how are you?

and then it started to click.

::

"can you show me the sign?"

that simple little phrase knocked me back. as I watched my daughter's baby fingers form that word in the chaos of my lunchtime kitchen, I found myself breathing a blessing over her.

you are more, Daughter of Eve. 

you are allowed to ask for more

and that more is you. 

you are Lion-breathed, filled with wild Holy breath from the lungs of the Most High

what more does anyone need but 

just simply you? 

dwell in your muchness, your more-ness. 

oh my daughter, accept the blessing of more. 

cleaning the mirror :: my messy-beautiful

{photo of me, by NikkiJean Photography}

I cleaned the mirror last week. it had been a while.

frankly, I was okay with the smudges and the fingerprints at toddler-height level and the lip-prints at momma-height level. her fingers like to poke at her round belly in the glass. her lips like to give the baby in the mirror a kiss every morning as we come down to start the day.

she sees differently than I do.

because honestly? me? I might never clean that mirror.

:: ::

I bought new jeans today. it had been a while.

I was pushed to the brink by the ripping sound right in the most unfortunate location, that mostly hidden spot where the seam glides up the leg. and I only have one other pair. it would not do to be without pants entirely. it's nearly skirt weather in my corner of the United States, but not quite.

under complete mental protest, I went shopping.  my fingers flipped through the piles of stiching and denim that carelessness had allowed to muddle together, size 6s and 2s and 16s and 22s all playing together. they didn't care, those perfectly folded pairs of pants. only the people buying them cared.

only the people who had to wear them cared.

and so I found myself standing in front of another mirror. this mirror was clean, no fingerprints and no baby-made smudges. but there was another kind of dirt clinging to the edges and seeping over the glass.

I could see a thousand little girls reflected in that glass. I could hear the words, see the downturned lips, feel the poking fingers.

does this make me look fat?

:: ::

{via pinterest}

I held my daughter in my arms this morning, her hair shimmering golden-red in the sunlight. she curled against my chest as she nursed, her fingers idly straying down to the hem of my shirt. she pulled the fabric away and sat up with a grin.

momma.
oh, may those words from her little lips never cease to turn my soul to water.

she leaned forward and planted a smacking kiss on my belly. right there on the dappled purple stretchmarks that she left behind. right above the scar that cuts a jagged line across my stomach that shows how they pulled her from my body like Moses drawn from the water. it's a life-mark, that scar.

:: ::

I stood in front of the mirror just a minute ago, the same one that I cleaned last week. I have my new jeans on, a perfect fit. the number on the back, nestled in the teens, is irrelevant. what matters is the way I see myself.

what matters is the way I refuse to let the Darkness convince my that my worth and that number are somehow connected.

shame might have lived in that mirror. but I ran a Windex rag over the glass. I'm speaking Light and Life over that piece of glass. I'm revoking the privileges of the Prince of Lies in the name of the One who saw me before the dawning of time and whispered to the assembled angels,

oh, she. 

she is made in the Image. 

I am God, and I call her good. 

{I am linking my Messy Beautiful at Momastery}

in which I want to talk about the lambs

I want to talk about the children. I want to talk about the little ones, the least of these, the ones with single-digit years on this earth who have already lost more than any adult should endure. let alone them.

I want to talk about hills to die on and covering Blood and swords and flailing arms. I want to talk about planted flags and crossed arms. I want to talk about little ones caught in the crossfires.

I want to talk about politics and the Church, how somewhere in the middle they merged into a hydra with foaming mouths and breathing fire. I don't know where the Bride went, and I think her Groom is grieving.

I want to talk about eyes. I want to talk about the way the world is watching our every move. I want to talk about how a leader who identifies with Jesus Christ and also with the ugliest of hate died this past week, and how the world rejoiced and danced in the streets. because they hate us, and we wonder why. they taste the word "Christian" on their tongue and spit it out. His name makes up the first part, and they're spitting Him out because of us.

it's rending me.

{photo via pinterest}

I want to talk about how this day left me short on words. I want to talk about the grooves that heels are grinding in the dirt with the kicking and the screaming while He is writing in the dirt right beside us, phrases familiar and convicting.

He says, let the little children come, and do not forbid them. we say, but Jesus, we're doing this for You. 

a friend of mine called it "holding the least of these as hostages in [a] culture war," and he's right. because where you stand on the issue isn't the point. it's really not. the point is that we are commissioned. to set the captives free, to tend to the widows and the orphans, to give a cup of cold water to these little ones.

did we forget? did somewhere, somehow, the footprints on the beach and the trace reminders of the Son of Man serving breakfast on the beach disappear? because I can't stop picturing His face, the gentle lift of His head, His meeting Peter's eyes and softly speaking, "oh Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me? feed my lambs."

we've missed something big, something intrinsic to who He is, this Son of Man, this Prince of Peace. today made it clear.

I can't stop hearing His voice.

do you love Me?
feed my lambs.

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. 

the girl I was once

{photo credit unknown. do you know?
tell me, won't you?}

the girls we once were are coming back to us now. 
whispering their stories, our stories, in our ears. 
let us hear.
:: brandy walker

the girl I was once is the Statue of Liberty, standing at the entrance to my path with a torch raised, whispering, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, except her voice is my own and it's stronger than I remember.

the girl I was once is a shadow turned concrete, the whisper of what could have been turned solid for me to wrap my fingers around and pull in close. she is a monument to growth, a grave-marker for silence, standing cement vigil so that I do not return to the shadows again.

the girl I was once is a blind figure of Justice, a flowing painting of Venus born, a fractured mirror made whole in the Light streaming from behind two beams of splintered wood. she is the fabric of the aerialist, giving wings to the earth-bound. she is the needle and thread in the hand of the Tailor, pressing fresh back against flesh as holy Blood flows in reverse from ground into veins.

the girl I was once is speaking words, repetition on her tongue of phrases once forgotten, turning shame into a dead language and self-deprecation into a dialect that even the Rosetta Stone has scratched from its surface. I close my eyes and she is singing His song, words familiar even if I do not yet completely understand them :: go deeper, little daughter. without borders, wander. 

the girl I was once is cracking. the layer of mud all on the outside is cracking, flaking off in pieces, in powder, in ash, in manure. she is filthy and she reeks of death, of abandonment, of uncovered skin and mocking cries. she is scarred, each line and each raw spot seen clearer when the shell falls away. she hid it once, but no longer, because they are breadcrumbs on the path and she follows them back with a tracing fingertip to remember the way she never wants to go again.

the girl I was once, she is still part of me. she is my calling, the reflection in the looking glass when I don't recognize myself. she is the thing that pulls me back. she runs her fingers through my hair and pats my cheek. I see her reflected in the eyes of my daughter, and I gasp at the way she is beautiful now in a way that was unrecognizable when I looked through her eyes.

the girl I was once, she's coming back. she's a reminder that night brings morning. she shows me that stepping into a dark room can make things muddled for a moment, but there is light peeking through the cracks that cannot be seen when the sun is blinding.

she is renewed. she is Lion-breathed. she is coming back and rising up. she is pressing tentative fingertips into the nail-marks on His palms and realizing that His breath is turning the doubt into straw on the breeze. she is building stone houses on solid ground.

That voice inside of us? She knows where the shalom is. 
May we trust her
and let her lead.
:: brandy walker

{today is National Women's Day. today, we are joining hands across the world. we are reconnecting with the girls we once were, and there is room for you, a space for your flag to fly strong in the Holy wind. join us and share your story, beloved.}

the ashes

today is the day of ashes. today is the day where sins are spoken aloud for the sake of repentance from Dark and a purposeful turning toward Light. today is the day when fingers brush against foreheads and the sign of the cross lays plain in a darkened smudge upon skin. tradition speaks of palm fronds from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration being used to create the ashes. it's cyclical, symbolic if not literally done. 

the ashes are made by His coming. 

this phrase evokes a holy hush within my soul. sins are spoken and forgiveness is sought, and the ashes are smeared in the shape of the instrument that smothered the air from His lungs as His life drained out. for me. and the ashes were made from the waving fronds of the King's entrance into the city. 

when He comes, the Darkness bursts into flame. the blackness becomes Light and redemption is spoken in a voice once whispering but now rising in volume. that is what this season is. it is a whispering start that lifts and intensifies with each passing day. this season is not about what you are giving up, it is not about forty days of enduring life without internet or caffeine or breakfast. 

this day is the calm that settles before the storm. this season is the rumble that comes to alert all who hear that there is a bursting coming, a breaking forth unlike any other. 

so this year, I am pursuing Lent with an air of anticipation. I am leaving shame, expectations, guilt, self-loathing, and scarcity on the skull-shaped hill. I am wearing the ashes on my soul because they are a reminder that darkness is brief and that Water is stronger than dirt. 

this is the day of ashes. this is the day of repentance. this is the day of heads bowed to the floor, ears pressed flat to the earth, listening. this is the day of the whispering.

my Deliverer is coming. 

my Deliver is standing by. 

in which I write to remember

{via pinterest}

I write to remember.

I write to remember the way my daughter's head smelled the first moment they laid her in my arms, even as my body still groaning from the opening and the pulling and the needle stitching flesh back to flesh.

I write to remember the way his arm encircled my shoulder and his fingers dug into my hair as I sobbed into his chest the day they called and said that the matriach of my paternal family had slipped from terra firma to life abundant.

I write to remember the way that my calling put down roots in the same moment that a woman looked at me and called me reprobate, called me voice of distention, and the friend I had brought to defend me somehow slipped from my side to hers while I blinked.

I write to remember the freedom that started way  back when tears streamed down my parents' faces while my sister and I planted our feet and shook our heads, done with navy blue skirts and rules that added up to leave us too far from Jesus to be the right way.

I write to remember the heartache because it twisted my road like a snake shedding skin, whisking away death like rain washing mud from the base of a splintered cross but leaving the blood-stains. the death has to be remembered to celebrate the life.

there are days I'd rather forget, things that seem better to slip away through my fingers like an hourglass in reverse, days I'd rather use feeble fingers to push the hands of the clock backwards, even though they leave dents in my flesh. if someone invented cocoa butter for the soul, the kind that fades stretch marks and scars back into oblivion, there are days I would be tempted to buy them out of stock.

but I write to remember the way that Glory tastes on my tongue when all I've been eating is mud for a month. I write to remember the way His fingers feel on my cheek, the way His mane breezes like a whisper of be still and know, better than a hankie for wiping tears away.

I write because my cat chases beams of light on the carpet and my daughter giggles at her own reflection. I write because Holy is unchained and death flows backwards through the cracks in the stone.

I write so I don't forget the way home.

{this is my answer for all those times when I'm asked "why do you write?" this is where I have found myself, and this is what Story Sessions has taught me how to capture and hold tight. there is a seat for you with us, dear one. come join us}

in which He did not call us to be jerks

{photo by Jennifer}

there's a picture going around my newsfeed, a cartoon drawing of a bleeding man dressed in a rainbow shirt being bludgeoned by men holding Bibles. these caricatures were drawn to make us think, to draw the nodding heads and the "mmm"-ing and then "how true, how true" from those who identify as Christians. but I feel like it gets forgotten that the idea of the Sword of Truth being wielded like a butcher knife is more common, that we're good at passing out scarlet letters, carved into the chests so that they never forget they are sinners.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: they know us by the things we hate instead of by our love, and that's the opposite of the way He meant for things to be.

do you really wonder why they hate us? why when someone hesitantly says, "I'm a Christian," there's groans and eyerolls and muttering?  I've heard the laughter myself, heard the mocking voice of the ones trodden undo so-called holy feet. there should be something different about us, the ones who don "small Christ, wandering followers of the Rabbi" as our moniker. and unfortunately, there is something different :: the fact that we so often choose to us Truth as an excuse to cleave flesh from bone and then drag them by the hair to the foot of the cross.

you're forgiven and you're going to like it. or else. 

you want bluntness? you want transparency?

Jesus did not call us to be assholes. He did not bleed Himself dry to raise a horde of sanctified jerks, to lead an army of righteous indignation. when He said to turn the other cheek, He didn't mean by slapping one until the head bows in apologetic pain.

{photo by Jennifer}

it breaks me down when I think back to the hearts I turned, the way my own words sliced and my own hands slapped and my nails clawed frantic to make them see their sin. but instead, I scratched the corneas of their souls until things were blurred and tears streamed and they stumbled away into fog. I pray someone else came behind me and loved them better, loved them like He would have done.

sometimes I look at the story of the Crucifixion, the way they ripped His body into shreds and spilled His blood on the courtyard stones, and I think, maybe there's more of a picture there than at first glance. because that picture, it's visceral and holy and grace personified. but I can almost see Him looking up from beneath the thirty-ninth lash, thorns pressing into His skin, and maybe I can read His lips.

I took this already. I'm doing this for them, for you, for all. 
it's covered. it's taken care of, once for all.
please don't do this to anyone else.  

He died to make us alive, died to tear down walls and bring separation to a minimum. He cradled the broken ones closest, touched the untouchable, and laid the twisted paths straight. there is Truth we seem to forget :: this thing of grace, this thing of mercy, this thing of Love that passes through death's grip and into Life abundant.

and this, this is the marvel of marvels. 
that He called me beloved. 
{c.s. lewis}

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.

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. 

anticipating scarcity

{photo by Jennifer Upton

I am vibrating. 

there's really no other description for the way I'm feeling than that. vibrating :: a quivering, a throbbing. it's more than just anticipation. in a sense, it's an overwhelming soul-tremor. 

this season is a cracking. it's foreshadowing of the next season of Holiness, for the breaking and bleeding and the tearing from top to bottom. there will be an earthquake then, too, as angel feet brush against stone. it's an opening in the darkest of places. it's a springing forth in complete darkness. 

there's a reason this is my favourite time of year. it's the time of the year where the darkness is not only expected, it's accepted. there's a word that flutters around the December page on the calender :: scarcity.

but then, that's been a theme over the entirety of 2013. a thousand things happened this year, things that filled me with more conflicting emotions than I thought a person could contain without exploding. there was grief so great it threw me on the ground, there was euphoria beyond my wildest
imaginings. there was loss and love and a mighty settling. but there was a scarcity.

a scarcity of knowing. 

there was peace, even amid the tremors. but there was barely any sort of knowing. and honestly? I'm not expecting 2014 to have any more knowing within it than 2013. I stepped into 1/1/2013 with a word on my tongue: release. and oh, every time I take a word, I wait for the impact. it always comes. and this year was no exception.

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

there was so much releasing. there were times that the letting go was pried from my tightly clenched fingers. I did not want to let go off the house that I was sure was the perfect one, my magic purple dream house tucked in the woods. I didn't want to let my grandmother go, but then, I didn't have a choice on that one, either.

but then, He was a table-toppler. He didn't come to settle into a corner with a cluster of lambs gathered around His feet. He came to stand in the gap, to stretch His arms out and shake things up. but He came in silence, first.

it's so appropriate that we end the year on this Savior-coming note. this Advent, this expectation. that's how every single year ends, wrapping its arms around us and crooning gentle against the ears of our souls.

yes, things will be scarce. and there will be such weeping, and such shouting, and such laughter, and such brokenness that you fear you will never stand again. but breathe, dearheart. there will always be air. and there will always be Me.

my word for 2014 :: it's coming, slowly. it'll be here when it needs to be. things never happen the same way twice. but there will be scarcity, this I know. and maybe it's time that I sat in the light of a candle, incense smoke swirling, and allowed it to settle here with me.

there is a scarcity of knowing. 

but never a scarcity of promise. 

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}

a letter to December

dear December,

you begin on a Sunday this year, and i love that, because that's symmetry and my heart likes that. it feels right to begin at the beginning of the beginning.

you're permission for me. this is Advent, expectation of newness. it's always been sacred for me. it's not just you, December, with your specially marked pages and the little square boxes all in a row. because i'm more than just boxes, and you know that.

but then, so is He.

i feel so often like all the mystery has been drained out of Faith, that is is left only to words from experienced mouths, eyes that have read the same words but understand them "better." they tell us what to see, and our eyes must find focus or else we are assumed to be wanting.

but you, December. you, season of Advent. you, Son of Man. you, Word made Flesh. you are permission to embrace the mystery. you are the entryway into all the things that so many who walk in and out of those familiar doors find to be sacrilege.

but you come with a breath of icy cold and nights so dark they are almost blue and glittering whisper of a thousand stars. you come with heartache and tears and pain just as much as you come with sacredness and magic. you come with devastation and you come with expectancy.

but you are also a promise.

oh come, oh come, Emmanuel. 

{this is another in my prompt series from story sessions. we are a community of women, of writers, of seekers. join us?}

holy ground

{via pinterest}

it's holy ground when the darkness comes and you're sitting folding laundry and picking up dropped Apple Jacks while your husband sleeps. on the couch.

it's holy ground when you find yourself barefoot on the hardwood steps realizing that you're in the place you've dreamed of being your entire life.

it's holy ground when you find yourself shaking because the honesty and the vulnerability is coming out in gushes and waves, and you're lifting your eyes to see through the veil to the Holiest of Holy places and you realize the veil is hanging in shreds and you can see His land uninhibited. and through the tears, it glitters.

it doesn't have to be beautiful to be holy ground. 

sometimes we forget that Moses found himself barefoot on the side of a mountain with wilderness spreading vast and wild all around him, and there was a bush that burned and it was not consumed. and He was in the fire.

sometimes holy ground is burning without being destroyed.

i slipped into the mentality, somehow, that holy ground was safely tucked within the four walls with a cross on the top, and that was the only place it could be found. i remember slipping my shoes off and wandering through the grass around my parents' property and thinking, this could be holy, this right here. too bad there isn't a church here. 

but it was consecrated ground from the moment i lifted my eyes up and whispered, find me here. i've been clinging to Narnia my entire life. i cried His name over the meadows and fields that spread behind my parents' house, and i reached out for Him.

i called for Him as He had been calling for me.

we declared holy ground.

{this was the first of many weekly prompts from Story Sessions. join us, won't you?}

standing with the five

{via PerceptiveArtista}

two years ago, a soul-sister reached through the letterbox and pressed a book into my hands. the title spoke a name so often spoken with accusing acid within the church :: Havah {Eve}. 

i got lost inside that book. it wove a familiar story into a new pattern and wrapped itself around my shoulders as i wept. it's always the way when you're reading something well-known, where you know the ending like the back of your hand, but somehow, you think if you beg a little louder, things will change. 

:: but they never do. 

she's one of those women that gets a lot of grief from those of us who have carried their stories in our pockets from the early Sunday School days. we point 21st century fingers back with 20/20 vision and wag them back and forth with clucking tongues. tsk tsk tsk. she should have known better. 

all we see is the bite-mark, the belly curved with her father-in-law's unborn twins, the rooftop bathtub. and so we toss our heads and murmur, we can learn from them. we must not do what they have done. i would have never...and we find our paths crossing with modern day women just like us, just like them, and we cross to the other side of the road. 

but we leave the biggest part out :: the mother of He. 

nothing they did erased the lineage of the Lion from their blood. nothing they did made them untouchable or unworthy in the eyes of the One who would one day touch the hand of the broken, bleeding, unclean ones and whisper daughter. 

{via PerceptiveArtista}

you will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms. 

the rim of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson. 

and your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. 

:: Anna Akhmatova

a wise friend of mine spoke to my heart this week :: how can we love the ones we avoid? and it made me gasp aloud. i see so much of me reflected back from the eyes of these scarlet-lettered ones. but He tugged and tugged at the sewn-on letter and let it unravel, wild and loose, and tied a scarlet thread into their hair so that the world can see their eyes. 

there is so much existence in Him. i've said it before, and i'll say it here again because i cannot remove this reality from my heart. He is not a statue of marble, rigid and cold. He is breath and blood and Light and Wild. He is touchable-sacred. 

i'm finding my place at His feet, curled up against His warm side. there's me, and there's the five women from His line with their woven stories wrapped around their shoulders. and there's you, too. 

i am telling my Story. 

right beside theirs. 

the start of the melting

{via pinterest}

i remember the day that i melted. i think i will always remember. it was the very first day that i dared to question what was laid in front of me. i was seventeen with eyebrows tinged white from the missionary mime make-up. it was merely days after the quietest moment of my life. my toes were on foreign soil, in a land that has forever woven a spell over my heart.

it was the night of the talk. you know the one. we were gathered together, boys and girls and men and women. the words spoken to us were inspirational. at the time, they conjured something different than they would now. it was a type of shame, it made us blush. but we knew the drill :: we'd all heard it before, and the feeling it brought was familiar. they talked about shirts too low and jeans too tight, they looked us dead in the eye and told us to protect our brothers.

they taught us how to hug, arms draped around the shoulders from the side, never too long. they taught us about closed doors and warnings and dreaded plane trips home should we embrace too long, should a boy-toe ever enter the room of a girl. 

and then the talk ended and the mood changed. there was laughter and friends chatting during a short break, an appropriate hug exchanged here and there, but everyone was careful. it was ingrained. we knew what to do.

and then came the mention of the yearly mother-daughter cruise. there were cheers. there was excitement. and then the lights dimmed and the slideshow started to roll. and something inside me melted like wax.

the fabric was bright. blues and whites and yellows and greens and pinks. typical bikini colours. it was a cruise after all, all full of mothers and daughters bonding together. and they were on a ship in the ocean, and BarlowGirl was singing, and the girls were wearing bikinis.

i felt his hand on my shoulder, my friend, my heart-brother. i remember the look in his eyes, the way he whispered with head buried in hands, peering up at me through his fingers,

are they watching me? is this a test? i don't know where to look.

i remember when the lights came up and the burst of courage filled me. i was seventeen. i had never questioned anything before, not like this. but i couldn't let it go. i couldn't forget that look in his eyes.

with shaking fingers, i walked to the woman who ran the show, the one whose face we all knew, the one who smiled at the door each morning and spoke God to us each night. i touched her arm and took a deep breath.

"i'm sorry. but that didn't seem right. not after what you just said. all those girls in bikinis, the guys were confused. i was confused. i don't understand. it felt wrong."

i knew what i was expecting. i was expecting an answer, an easy one, some sort of explanation as to why. but she looked at me and pursed her lips and said, the Devil likes to cause turmoil at times like this. we don't need that kind of attitude here. 

i cried that night into my pillow, my roommates gathered around me with their hands on my back. it didn't feel right to them either. they told us not to look, they told us to keep our eyes closed and bodies covered. they whispered shame but screamed contradiction in our faces.

but what could we do? we were just teenagers. we were just girls.

i was so confused, everything all twisted up inside. was this what purity meant? i always thought it was something holy, something bright and white and glorious. i didn't know it then, but this was the start of my uncovering. my casting aside the millstone and taking a lighter yoke on my shoulders.

at the airport, two days later as we all winged our way from South America to long-missed families, my soul-brother hugged my neck.

i've never forgotten.

this is why i'm a Jesus feminist.
this is why i fight.

slow-stepping out the shadows, allowing the dark soul-night to teach me something. i'm learning how to put a face to the shame, slipping a voice against the palm of the voiceless.

{this is a piece of my journey. join with the wild mystics for a deep journey into the dark night}

sufficient wildness

it's official. i've decided that this thing of being gutted is apparently what i'm supposed to be doing. i never intended for my thrashing journey to become this public, this observed by the world around me. in some respects, each post i've written and each personal snapshot that i've shared has caused me to withdraw, to pull back into myself and against His wild mane.

it's not that i'm withdrawing fully. if anything, i'm drawing close for shelter, for comfort. it's remarkable how my path is straying closer and closer to the Lion's keep while those around me seem to feel the need to pull me back to the "right path." it's answering my questions, in a funny sort of way.

there are words that He spoke, words about a gate and wide and narrow paths. someone recently spoke to me on a friend's Facebook post about wildness and Christian mysticism, and i made a remark to this stranger who was taken aback that God might just have wild things.

i've quoted Lewis before in this place, and i'm going to say it again because it's the epitome of what i believe :: safe? of course He isn't safe. whoever said anything about safe? but He's good. He's the King, i tell you. 

do you know when you walk a wild path behind a wild Lion, you're going to get dirty? and there's going to be leaves in your hair and blisters on your feet and stained berries in patterns down your arms? and there will be tears in your eyes, but they glisten and reflect the light right back, so you're never blinded. He has a bottle for each drop, and He keeps it close. not to look back and gloat in your suffering and your weeping, but to work into the watercolour palate and smear them across a canvas :: see, I am doing a new thing. 

the more i write, the more fingers point, telling me that i'm not "doing faith" the right way. i've sat on those words since the minute they were spoken to me, agonizing and pacing back and forth within myself. i was at the water's edge, panting from self-exertion. i started to wonder, to worry, how could i love Him and still please all these others around me.

it simply wasn't working.

and that's when i discovered that His mane was wild with a few dreadlocks of His own. there is so much existence woven into Him. somehow, i keep forgetting that He is Man as much as He is God. His growl echoes in my heart :: if you had felt sufficient, it would have been proof that you are not. 

and so this withdrawing is not hiding. it's not an attempt to get my clothing in a line and my shoes on the right feet and my face appropriately hidden. oh no, it's allowing Him to breathe Life into my lungs and to refuel me in a way that only He can.

i'm still thrashing, diving deeper and splashing until i'm soaked, even to the ends of my hair. and i'm going up the path, riding on His back, inhaling the wind.

and the path behind is littered with broken chains.

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. 

permission to not be a Christian anymore {page six}

{photo via dramaticelegance}

i've been sitting on what to write in this post for more than a week. i was so excited when i wrote my last post, so excited about my own bravery to share pieces of my story, that i wanted to share more and more and more. and then the brave went away, and i sat in all the silence. 

because i've come to a realization over the past several months. it's something beyond what i ever thought i would acknowledge :: something i never thought i'd be brave enough to say. 

i can't be a Christian anymore. i just can't.

and i know those words cause a certain level of discomfort to billow up in the stomach of those Christians who read them. there's something that sits wrong, the instinct to grip me by the shoulders and say, no, wait, no, don't say that. that's not right. don't do that. don't say that. 

but before you throw a rock at me, ask me what i mean. ask me what i'm giving up. because honestly, it's not Jesus that i'm giving up. not by a long shot. i refuse to give Him up. 

but i'm giving up my supposed white robes and taking the Israeli dirt covered one instead. i'm spending time with the unclean ones instead of the ones that whisper. and I'm picking up the lame ones that the Church has hobbled one too many times. because i feel like the Church is locked in this childish game, the one where fingers grasp an arm and connect hand to face over and over with the chant, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself. 

and then they wonder why the bruised ones don't return.

it makes me cry, hard and long, a keening wail into the night. i feel so like Him in these moments, screaming, oh God my God, why have You forsaken me? because i feel so alone, like i have love smeared all over my hands but everyone else is afraid to get the stains on them.

it's that word, that strange word that has become so warped and twisted. they will know us by our love. it's written there, in black and white. but why do they know us by all the things we hate? the laundry list of the things Christians won't touch is too long. it's like whiplash, what i'm allowed to eat or drink, where i'm allowed to shop. because we should be making a stand, right? they should know that we don't give money toward this and that and the other thing.

but instead, i'm closing my eyes on the deck of the ship, and i can hear the roaring of a dragon. it's me, with scales on the ground and skin ripped and bleeding. and He has claws and eyes...piercing, calm, quiet eyes. and He's tearing, and rending, and gashing, and i'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller still.

{via pinterest

the point of being with Jesus is not to be made bigger. the point isn't to be seen on the streetcorners with signs of broken bloody babies and screeching murderer into broken lives. the point isn't to grasp the arms of the ones with rainbows on their cheeks and glare into their eyes to make sure they know that they're sinners and we hate them.

and people on the street are catching my arm. do you know Him? do you know Him? and i say no, i don't. but He knows me. and He knew me before i was the Christian definition of desirable. He knew me when they dragged me out and flung me in the dirt. and He wrote in the dirt and they walked away in silence. He knows me. 

i'm tired. i'm so tired of being forced to act like i know Him, all of Him, every in and out and twist and turn of this thing called Christianity. if this is what Christianity is, then that's not a title i claim. i claim one thing, and one thing only.

i'm still thrashing. but i claim Him.
and He claims me.