• One Word 2021: Embodied

    Every January, in lieu of resolutions, I choose a word to help guide the coming year. It helps inform my thoughts, my words, my actions; it reminds me of what to spend precious emotional energy on. Sometimes, the word is directly linked to my hopes or desires for the coming months. At others, it’s more of a lesson that I began to learn, and I want to walk it out in the new year. Such is the case with my 2021 word: embodied.

    This past year, I learned a lot about the body. I walked away from diet culture and came home to my body through intuitive eating. I took up yoga, a practice I had shied away from for years because I was afraid I didn’t have the right body type for it–and in doing so, I realized just how strong and powerful my body truly is. I spent time barefoot outdoors, literally grounding myself in the earth’s energy. I focused on rest, and nourishing myself, and moving joyfully–the very basics of what it is to be a human. I read, and I researched, and I realized that the body really does keep the score*, and much of my C-PTSD is tied up in the physicality of my own body; every time I treat it with gentleness and grace and remind it that it is safe and cared for, I heal a little bit more. Dan Siegel says, “Where attention goes, neural firing flows,” which refers to neuroplasticity, the changing and regrowth of the neural pathways in our brains; essentially, what we focus on can literally alter our brains, ultimately impacting how we feel about ourselves and the world around us.  I struck a balance between treating my body with traditional Western medicine and more homeopathic and holistic remedies, and I saw how both are essential. I tracked my feminine cycle, and I discovered how it was linked to natural rhythms, like the phases of the moon, or the seasons of the earth. I felt my feelings. I took my meds. I asked my body daily what it needed, and I gave it exactly that.

    But there is so much more I want to explore this year, particularly when it comes to the role of the body as a person of faith. Because here’s the thing: Jesus, The Greatest Mystery of our faith, entered this broken world the way we all do: in a body, in flesh and bone and sweat and muscle and organs and pushing and pulsing and screaming. The body is not shameful to him; it is literally how he chose to come to us. God had a body, a body very much like my own. A body with knobby knees, one that got tired and needed sleep, one that hurt and bled, one that needed sustenance to survive, one covered in pores and hair and veins. So the body, it seems, is good to him. All bodies, even, not just the ones that look a certain way. There is such a holy healing in that. All bodies are good bodies.

    This year, I want to lean into embodiment even more. I want to discover how God communicates to me through my body, through the injustices that make me rage and cry, through the beauty I see with my physical sense of sight. I want to pray not just with my mouth or my wallet but also with my feet. I want to re-read the Gospels, the story of the man Jesus who healed with spit and mud, who cooked his friends breakfast on a beach, who napped in a boat, who flipped tables in the temple. I want to use my hands to mother, to cook, to soothe, to heal, to write, to clean, to welcome–because it all matters; there is no separation between sacred and secular. I want to be an active participant in this thing we call the Christian life. I want to live it as embodied.

     I need the body, the body who knows my limitations and expectations and fractures and failures and desire and disappointment and hunger and need because it has felt them, too. I don’t want impractical faith, faith that acts like God is some ethereal force somewhere out there, like God is there but not here. I don’t want a faith that’s too far removed to be attained, a faith that acts like it exists only in my head and my heart without paying any attention to the skin that inhabits them.

    How could a faith like that speak to an epidemic that has claimed over a million lives?
    How could a faith like that speak to the blood of black and brown bodies that soaks the earth?
    How could a faith like that speak to children who feel the angry gnaw of hunger in their bellies?
    How could a faith like that speak to inmates on death row?
    How could a faith like that speak to refugees who traverse the deadly desert or the dangerous waves of the ocean in search of freedom?
    How could a faith like that speak to the one who has cancer?
    How could a faith like that speak to the AIDS patient?
    How could a faith like that speak to the families in cages?

    Humanity is embodied, and so we need an embodied God. Our pain is embodied, and so are our struggles. We don’t need a God who floats around in a far-off mansion in the sky; we need a God who feels the hurt, who knows the ache, who understands the weariness. We need a God who plugs the bullet holes and feels the bony ribs, who shields our bodies with his own, who weeps, whose body tore, who knows what it is to choke out the words, “I. Can’t. Breathe.”

    So here’s to 2021, the year of living embodied.
    I’m curious: do you choose a word for the new year? If so, what did you decide on?

    * I highly recommend reading the book, The Body Keeps the Score, by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk.
    ** Sketch of the body is from BlekPrints on Etsy.

  • Peacemaking during an embodied Advent

    It’s the second Sunday of Advent, a day when Christians traditionally focus on the signs of Peace. Christ himself, in our holy scriptures, is given the name Prince of Peace, denoting that Peace is embodied, not some vague or nondescript attribute with no particularity. Whatever Peace is, we feel and experience and live it out in our bodies. As with everything, the body always matters, even and perhaps especially in Advent.

    Peace, though, is often misunderstood, I’ve found. In fact, many people of faith seem to translate it to mean that we’re called to be peacekeepers when, in actuality, Jesus is calling us to be peacemakers. Peacekeeping looks at what is and aims to preserve it. Peacemaking, on the other hand, is active. It takes Jesus’ words seriously about the Kingdom of God being a bit of yeast in some dough; it kneads and rolls and stretches and gets its hands dirty as it works to create something new, something beautiful, something good.

    Peacekeeping looks at the world and declares it to be “good enough.” Don’t rock the boat. Don’t get angry. Don’t be divisive. Peacemaking, on the other hand, looks at the world and remembers that Christ taught us to work for the fullness of the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Peacemaking sees the job is not yet finished. Peacemaking works for change.

    Peacemaking means we use our bodies to live out the stories. It is marching with our own feet in the protest line, serving meals with our very hands at the soup kitchen and food banks. It is shielding the bodies of our neighbors with our own. It’s putting the pen between our fingers and writing letters to our representatives to call for justice and equitable policy. It’s using our mouth to declare that the welcome of God is big enough for all; it invites everyone to the table, tells them of the Great Feast.

    This week may we remember we are called to be peacemakers, those who enter the unjust and unfair parts of the world, set up camp, and get to work. May we not settle for what is, for the “good enough for some” — may we not tire until the good enough is given to all. May we not be afraid of what others might think or others might say, because we don’t work for the approval of men, anyway; may the flourishing of God’s people matter more to us than our reputations.

    They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.

    Jeremiah 6:14, NIV

    This week may we roll up our sleeves and make peace. For the Light is coming, friends; let us work to prepare him room.

  • An embodied Advent

    The moments just following my son’s birth four years ago were some of the most holy ground I have ever experienced. As his full-bodied screams pierced the room, the very space between heaven and earth felt thin, and hallowed, the lines between sacred and worldly bleeding into one another, much as the elation and the pain coursed simultaneously through my body.

    Birth is an altogether spiritual experience, and so it seems fitting that one of the most holy days of my faith tradition is characterized by a baby–a baby who was covered in blood and fluid and vernix, a baby who cried and tore Mary’s flesh and suckled at her breast. A baby who had an umbilical cord, who soiled himself, who had wrinkly toes and patchy hair, a baby who was helpless and wholly dependent on his teenaged mother. The Greatest Mystery of our faith entered our broken world the way we all do, in a body, in flesh and bone and sweat and muscle and organs and pushing and pulsing and screaming.

    And we sing come, let us adore him.

    Christianity’s Advent begins tomorrow, November 29th, and it is a season where we will wait, expectantly, much like a pregnant mother, for the miracle of Christmas Day. Christ-mas. Christ’s coming. A season where we ready ourselves and prepare him room, much like a pregnant mother who nests and washes tiny infant clothing in preparation and arranges a nursery.

    And this Advent, I find myself coming back to the body. I need the body, the body who knows my limitations and expectations and fractures and failures and desire and disappointment and hunger and need because it has felt them, too. I don’t want impractical faith, faith that acts like God is some ethereal force somewhere out there, like God is there but not here. I don’t want a faith that’s too far removed to be attained, a faith that acts like it exists only in my head and my heart without paying any attention to the skin that inhabits them.

    How could a faith like that speak to an epidemic that has claimed over a million lives?
    How could a faith like that speak to the blood of black and brown bodies that soaks the earth?
    How could a faith like that speak to children who feel the angry gnaw of hunger in their bellies?
    How could a faith like that speak to inmates on death row?
    How could a faith like that speak to refugees who traverse the deadly desert or the dangerous waves of the ocean in search of freedom?
    How could a faith like that speak to the one who has cancer?
    How could a faith like that speak to the AIDS patient?
    How could a faith like that speak to the families in cages?
    How could a faith like that speak to the woman who is starving herself to be thin?
    How could a faith like that speak to the ones who accidentally overdose or the ones who die by suicide?

    Humanity is embodied. Our pain is embodied, and so are our struggles. We don’t need a God who floats around in a far-off mansion in the sky; we need a God who feels the hurt, who knows the ache, who understands the weariness. We need a God who plugs the bullet holes and feels the bony ribs, who heals with mud and spit, who shields our bodies with his own, who weeps, whose body tore, who cooked his friends breakfast, who knows what it is to choke out the words, “I. Can’t. Breathe.”

    We need an embodied God.

    So as Advent begins tomorrow, I’m not looking for the sparkly lights and the shiny presents. I’m not looking for angels singing in the sky, the joyful carols, the sanitized and white-washed version with the cherub child and a glowing halo.

    I’m looking for the dirty manger, the stench of the stable, the mother who is leaking milk, the baby slick with fluid. I’m looking for the tears, the screams, the flesh, the exhaustion, the thin and holy places. I’m looking for an embodied God.

    O, come let us adore him.

  • Wandering in a place called home.

    I first heard about the theology of the wilderness from Sarah Bessey. Biblically speaking, the wilderness was often a place of wandering, of exile, of exodus. It was for the misfits, the poets, the prophets, the outcasts. It was a place outside of the city gates, cities where inhabitants lived comfortably with their families and friends and communities. The wilderness was a land of unbelonging. Wanderers were far from any place they had ever called home, the distant memories of safety, of security, of inclusion only a far-off glimpse in their rearview mirrors.

    And yet. The wilderness was where Jacob wrestled with God and received his blessings. It was where the Israelites were led by pillars of fire and cloud. It was where Elijah heard the still, small voice, where Hagar sat down to die but instead was met by “the God who sees,” where the Lord spoke to Moses, where Jesus was tempted but ultimately overcame.

    The wilderness might seem a lonely, barren wasteland. It may feel unfamiliar, or perhaps like a punishment of some sort. And yet. If only we had eyes to see, we might find for ourselves springs of water in the wilderness. We might find flowers in bloom. We just might hear a voice calling out, cries of straight paths and God among us.

    We just might see that the wilderness is the perfect place for God to do a new thing.

    I’d like to think I’m pretty well acquainted with the wilderness. I’ve been a Christian for all of my adult life and have spent more time than not outside of those city gates, sometimes of my own choosing, but more often because the religious gatekeepers said I couldn’t come in. I was divorced from my first husband, so I was sent outside for a season to think about what I’d done. I asked hard questions, challenged the status quo, demanded better of a faith that claimed the brown-skinned refugee from Nazareth. I was sent outside again, told I was being “divisive” and “angry.” At one point, I left the city all on my own, walking away from what felt like a dry, dead religion that made me deep-in-my-bones weary. Always, I eventually heard the voice of Love calling me back home. Always, I assumed home was found where I had left it — probably because I had never known anything else. Not once did I consider that maybe, just maybe, I could make my home in the wilderness.

    Until recently.

    I’m in another wilderness season these days. I’m tired of and disappointed by capital-C-Church. Our family has its roots in ministry, and isn’t it funny how the things we love most are also always the ones that hurt us the deepest? I don’t feel safe or secure or even welcomed anymore in groups that say they love our trans-racial family to our faces but then criticize us for saying Black Lives Matter behind our backs. I’m sick of political parties using my faith as a pawn. I’m sick of fellow believers confusing their faith with a party affiliation. I’m weary for my LGBTQ+ friends and family, for indigenous rights as we violate their land, for those who are unhoused and uninsured and food-insecure, for a planet that I want to leave for my sons and daughters but is showing the signs of our abuse more and more these days. I hear the ground crying out with the blood of Michael Brown, of Tamir Rice, of Philando Castile, of George Floyd, of so. many. others. I look around at what we’re doing to one another, to ourselves, and I think: if this is Christanity, then I want nothing to do with it.

    Except there’s Jesus. I know Jesus. I love Jesus. And I want everything to do with him. 

    And the Jesus I read of in scripture, I find, seems to be chasing me down out here in the wilderness — not to bring me back to the city, but to set up camp here. To enlarge my tent, to plant my gardens, to build my home, set my table, to drink wine from new wineskins. To cling to him alone as my guide. To remember what’s beyond the veil and live, as Audrey Assad wrote, in the rhythm between two worlds. Someday, as she says, I will set sail for what is Eternally Next. But for now, I wait, and I remember.

    There’s a beautiful community out here in the wilderness, one of dreamers and lovers and peacemakers and poets and creators and prophets and painters and farmers. One of people who have started to wake up and remember they were destined for more. We thought we were being sent out here to die, but instead we found we’ve never been more alive. The table out here is vast, and it is long, and it is wide, and when we say all are welcome, we mean all. Justice is our heartbeat, joy is our song, resurrection our harvest, and we feast continually on the goodness of God.

  • an embodied story

    back in my baby Christian days, i hated tattoos.

    at that time in my life, the world around me was very much black-and-white. there was good and bad, “Christian” and not, and i hadn’t yet learned about the beautiful in-between, the sacred tension that comes from the gray areas.

    tattoos were sinful in my book because of that one little verse in Leviticus that had been taken out of context, twisted to fit a certain ideology and wielded as a weapon by the mainstream church.

    and then i got divorced. and then my whole world came crashing down around me. and then the very “brothers and sisters in Christ” i had so proudly linked arms with for nearly a decade deserted me.

    and then i started to see that perhaps this faith-walk is not meant to fit into neat little boxes. i realized that life was messy and beautiful and hard, and maybe all the things i had been so sure of i didn’t really know all along.

    so i got a tattoo, the word “faith” in small, delicate lettering on the nape of my neck. at that point in my life, faith was the only thing i had to hold on to. everything i had known, everything that had been comfortable and supposedly secure had been stripped from me. i was hanging on by a thread, and that just happened to be the last little bit of faith i had in me. it seemed fitting for me to mark my body with that one little word, to serve as a remembrance in later years that faith as small as a mustard seed truly was enough.

    213_30277030190_8340_n

    two years later, i got tattooed again. the word “hope” was etched into the thin skin of my foot, big and bold, hinting of promises of a better tomorrow. i had come out of the fire, tested and still standing on the truth. i understood that though i couldn’t change my past, Jesus could somehow make good of it and give me a new story in exchange for all my broken pieces. i came to know something of this Living Hope, one that could not be taken away by pain and circumstance. hope had become a mantra of sorts, something to cling to as i walked through my healing, and i wanted my body to tell the story.

    6329_239959135190_8147265_n

    shortly after, i packed two fifty-pound suitcases for a journey that would forever change me. i left behind the memories of another life, the woman i used to be, and traveled halfway around the world, settling in the small nation of Liberia, West Africa, to serve Jesus by loving orphans. in the nearly four years i lived in Africa, i healed, i laughed, i cried, i prayed, i loved. in the midst of poverty and the aftermath of war, with death and sickness and injustice all around me, i learned what it felt like to have my heart break for the very things that broke the Father’s. as i held dirty, hungry and dying children in my arms, i would weep silently, rocking them and praying that somehow my love would be enough to heal their heart-wounds. i grew to embrace a culture so very different from my own, a people who deserved so much more. Liberia took a lot out of me, and i have since left the mission field full-time. i gave when i felt like i had nothing left in me; i was stretched to the point i was sure i would break; i loved deeper, fiercer, wilder than i ever thought possible. but each time i look at the wrist of my right hand, i see a reminder of the place that taught me what true love looks like, a land of red earth and green trees and blue sky that i will carry with me for the rest of my life.

    IMAG0941_1

    and this i know, friends: my story is not over. there are chapters still being written, still unfolding, even as i write this today. i may not mark each of them with ink, but they will be no less real, no less permanent, no less a part of me. i regret not one of the tattoos i’ve gotten; i wear them proudly, my battle-wounds from the crazy-beautiful mess we call life. and i believe one day i will sit at the table with my Jesus, and i will show him these scars, and he will show me his, and we will talk about them and laugh and cry and remember.

    {this post was inspired by the A Deeper Story synchroblog. for more information, check out this tribe of inked storytellers who have embodied the good parts, the bad parts, and everything in between. xo}

  • when we’ve come undone

    can i just be brutally, completely, in-your-face honest with you for a minute? this whole being a missionary thing is no joke. it is hard, you guys. really hard. and there are some days where i would rather be anywhere but here, doing anything but this. some days, i feel so totally, completely done. depleted. empty.

    i’m having one of those days. only this day has gone on for the past three weeks. i’ve been struggling–a lot. i’m tired, more than tired, really. i’m lonely. i’m homesick. i’m over the heat, the sweating, the sleepless nights, the fatigue that follows me day in and day out. i don’t feel like myself. i worry i have nothing more in me to give. i know that i only have a few months left and yet, somehow, those few months seems like they’re years away.

    i don’t tell you this to play some sort of sympathy card; i’m not looking for pats on the back or pity of any kind. i’m sharing this because i want to show the world that all of us, every single one of us, even (and perhaps especially) those of us in ministry–we have a bad day once in a while. or a bad week. maybe even a bad year. whatever; it happens. it doesn’t mean we are weak. it doesn’t mean we’re failures. it doesn’t mean we’re not spiritual enough, not depending on God enough, or that we don’t have enough faith. it means we’re human. it means we have hearts and souls, and they’re messy and sometimes maybe we come undone. 

    and it is there that i find myself, in that undone place, where i don’t have the answers and i don’t know how to get out of this and it hurts, but i keep hearing the whisper  telling me to just hang in, hang on. and i try, and i fail, and i collapse in a puddle of tears and disappointment and somehow, i get back up again. i’m in that place where words fail me, where my language has become the deep groanings of the heart, and yet i know that even those are some sacred prayer, a holy utterance.

    i have come undone, and instead of hiding away all the broken pieces, i’m letting you see them.
    i have come undone, and instead of attempting to explain it all away, i’m sitting down in the aftermath.
    i have come undone, and i’m talking about it.

    because perhaps you too know this feeling, know it well, and you wonder if anyone else in the world understands. perhaps no one has ever given you the permission to have a bad day. perhaps you’re stopping yourself from falling apart because you’re afraid that you’ll be too broken to ever be put back together.

    i get it. i really do. but may i suggest that, though it may feel like it, you will not be undone forever? i know right now you may not be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and, to be honest, neither can i. but our limited vision doesn’t change the Light’s existence; that i can promise you.

    be gentle with yourself, and remember: you are human. you are beautifully flawed, and that is the mystery of your heart and soul and flesh and bones. if you’re having a bad day, it’s okay. if you’re falling apart or breaking down, it’s okay. i promise you; it really is.

    you, dear one, will not be undone forever. and neither will i.
    because if there’s one thing i’ve learned about Jesus, it’s that he loves to stitch things back together.

  • when there are no more words

    as my time in Liberia comes to a close, i look back and reflect and remember. i know people back home are going to ask questions. they’re going to want stories, want to hear of my life for the past six months.

    the problem is::
    for the first time in a long time,
    i don’t have words.

    maybe i haven’t fully processed all i’ve seen and heard and felt here yet. maybe once i do, the words will come.

    or maybe some things are simply so full of raw…feeling that they exist outside of language.

    i don’t have words to speak of grieving families who have lost loved ones too soon.

    i don’t have words to speak of fear that grips in the middle of the night when you realize your neighbors are being robbed.

    i don’t have words to speak of lifeless bodies in the aftermath of a car accident, bloody and broken on the road.

    i don’t have words to speak of how guilty it feels to have a full stomach when so many around you go hungry.

    i don’t have words to speak of children starved of affection, desperate for human contact.

    i don’t have words to speak of a crippled man sleeping in the garbage and the dust, abandoned and left to die.

    i don’t have words to speak of the vacant look in a child’s eye who is merely existing and doesn’t know how to thrive.

    i don’t have words to speak of thirteen year old girls raped by men in their twenties.

    i don’t have words for the silenced voices of so many children who have been told they’re worthless and that they don’t matter.

    i don’t have words for the dozens of amputees wandering the streets, victims of a war that is over, and yet they still bear the scars.

    i don’t have words for being sick in bed with malaria while at the same time realizing how many lives have been lost from the same illness–simply because they didn’t have access to the medicine.

    i don’t have words to speak of children laid out on a table to be whipped or pushed up against a wall to be hit.

    i don’t have words for little girls literally starving, for bony shoulders and skinny legs and how frail they feel when you hold them.

    i don’t have words for an education system that has failed so many of its children, for fifteen year-olds in the fourth grade or a second grade student who can’t even write the alphabet.

    i don’t have words.
    i have a heart that bleeds
    and tears that fall
    and knots in my stomach
    and hands that wring.

    but more than that,
    i have hope.

    because while this place can be filled
    with pain and poverty and sorrow,
    i have also seen::
    seen that Jesus lives here.

    i’ve seen Him in the prayers of a mother for her children.

    i’ve seen Him in the grateful look in a dying man’s eyes.

    i’ve seen Him in the healing of kids who were once frighteningly sick.

    i’ve seen Him in the sheer joy of the Church praising Him.

    i’ve seen Him in kind eyes and warm handshakes.

    i’ve seen Him in a nation full of people looking forward to brighter tomorrows.

    i’ve seen Him in students who realize they’ve been given a chance, who start dreaming for their futures.

    i’ve seen Him in the whispered prayer of a teenage girl who has begun to recognize her value.

    i’ve seen Him in blazing sunsets and soft sunrises, in blue sky meeting green tree meeting red earth.

    i’ve seen Him in children who cling to the leg, rest heads on the shoulder, intertwine fingers with mine.

    i’ve seen Him in the faces of little boys and girls who finally understand that they are loved.

    i’ve seen Him in the dreams of those who want to grow up and transform their country.

    i’ve seen Him in the innocence and excitement of children who, for once, are just allowed to be children.

    i’ve seen Him in unity and brotherhood and acceptance.

    i’ve seen Him.

    i don’t have words::
    but i have seen
    .

    and because of that,
    i have a heart that hopes
    and eyes that look up
    and a growing faith
    and a tongue to encourage.

    it is in the ugly that i have found the beautiful.
    it is in despair that i have found strength.
    it is in the hard places that i have found new life.

    i don’t have words,
    but Jesus is here.

    and so i know that one day,
    somehow,
    (because of He and not i)
    everything is going to be alright.