Saturday, November 30, 2013

Hurting for the Holidays: A Candle in the Darkness by Heidi Faith

Comet Panstarrs  13.03.2013
photo by ched cheddles

For the 2013 holiday season, I am hosting a blog series called Hurting for the Holidays.  Twenty-six amazing guest writers are sharing their hearts, hurts, and helps to help those of us who carry an internal ache to navigate this celebratory season.  Find all posts in the series here, and participate via social media through the hashtag #HurtingfortheHolidays.


Sometimes, from the bottom of the chasm of darkness, we discover the only place there is to look, is up.

Through this holiday season, we are beckoned to behold Venus, known as the goddess of love. Venus will be burning her very brightest this month, making for a very bright looking star in the western sky.

And as we peer into the dark sky, we are also invited to see if we might find comet ISON.

This “sun grazing comet” has been referred to as “the lone traveler” moving from the very edges of our solar system on a path heading directly past the sun. Originating some 100,000 AU away from Earth (1AU, for comparison, is the distance from Earth to the sun), this chunk of rock and ice is being shaped into a burning oval – a zero shaped flame – the nearer it travels toward the sun.

As the chunk of rock and ice melts, it endures a process called sublimation, turning from solid to gas. Sublimation releases dust, and it is this dust that creates the bright light.

It is the dust, you see, that makes it not only visible, but beautiful.

Comet ISON isn’t the first sungrazing comet to find its way just past Earth during the holiday season. Comet Lovejoy of 2011 is another, and even years before, the Great Comet of 1680.

Some cometary experts believe ISON to be the brightest comet of the century.

Traveling over the North Pole past Thanksgiving, it will be close enough to view with the naked eye just before dawn and just after sunset, through the holiday season.

If comet ISON survives perihelion, that is, the closest approach to the sun, we will be able to see it fade into the heavens into the New Year. Jim Green, the director of NASA’s planetary science division says, “ISON really is a holiday comet. You ought to be able to see it well past Christmas, but it’s got to survive it, that’s the only thing about that.”

We can feel like that sometimes. “If we can just get past this…”

Maybe, though, you won’t see the comet. Maybe you just won’t be motivated enough to wake up early or maybe you try and through the clouds of the sky or the clouds in your heart, you just aren’t seeing any light out there. Nothing moving. No spark of hope moving through the heavens. Just a rock in your spirit and ice in your weary soul.

image by Heidi Faith
 Whether you find the heavenly candle ISON burning above you or not, ISON is there. Rock and ice, burning, moving, falling apart, turning into dust and dust giving light, a rainbow in the dark, a zero candle burning through the heavens, pushing, pushing, from the outermost edges of our solar system, moving just above us through this very season. With lenses pointed from all over the world – and the sky – ISON is the international word on the street this holiday season. How long has it been travelling? Will there ever be another like it? Will it survive the holidays? But the truth is, you and I, when we beg for a flicker of hope, some stirring from the realm beyond, for a glimmer, a spark of light, some acknowledgement that our babies matter, that they live, that we are not alone…

When we learn about this heavenly candle burning through this season, you and I, we get to take it personally. We get to receive this as a gift, an acknowledgement, a whisper of truth, a reminder, that things unseen still count. Our babies count, are worthy of celebrating because they are real.

This journey is a painful one. We give of ourselves and we give of ourselves and we fear we are losing our babies all over again as the memories fade and we continue to be refined in the fire of social pressures to move on. It is when the heavenly candle has nothing left – when it breaks down to dust – that it shines the brightest. You have a light within you. And when you feel you have nothing left to give, you too just may be shining your brightest. And it might not seem like the world has taken any notice of your journey, of your painful sojourn, of your refinement, the cosmos are certainly mirroring the path. 


Let’s move forward, together. We’ll get through this holiday season. We’ll find our way through the dark. And no matter what happens, no matter how much or how very little we may feel we have left, we’ll be brighter for it.

I love how Heidi draws a comparison between the treacherous path of comet ISON and the pain-filled way that the grieving must take through the holidays.  But -- together, we can survive.  No matter who or what you're aching for, let us link arms and hold one another up.  Tell me, who or what are you missing this year?

* * *


Heidi Faith is the an international speaker, writer, and the founder of Stillbirthday, an online resource and digital school dedicated to the support of mothers who have endured the loss of a baby before, during, or after birth.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Hurting for the Holidays: Black Sheep Holiday by Heather Annais

photo by Jennifer Upton

For the 2013 holiday season, I am hosting a blog series called Hurting for the Holidays.  Twenty-six amazing guest writers are sharing their hearts, hurts, and helps to help those of us who carry an internal ache to navigate this celebratory season.  Find all posts in the series here, and participate via social media through the hashtag #HurtingfortheHolidays.


by the time this post goes out - thanksgiving will be over. and I will be able to breathe. just a bit lighter. it wasn’t always like this for me. the triggers didn’t used to feel like books piled high on my chest.

panic attacks?
they weren’t real.

that was then. this is now.

as the black sheep of the family,
the one that went astray, extended family gatherings no longer feel magical.

the twinkling lights dimmed and pumpkin pie left a sour aftertaste.

until I learned how to manage the things that triggered me.

here are three things that get me through the holidays as a black sheep

  1. set boundaries for yourself.

it’s okay to say no. it’s also okay to say yes. sometimes, I just can’t manage a the holiday hooplah. and that’s okay.

with relatives coming into town I know (for myself) I can’t be there more than one evening. I take the kids to play with their cousins. anything more than one night steals my energy.

  1. you have permission to leave whenever you want to.

I go into this house full of people knowing that if at any point I feel like I’m being attacked by a den of lions I have permission to leave. I even tell my husband and kids to be ready when I say it’s time to go.

if we are heading to the husbands parent’s I make sure he’s on board with leaving whenever I feel ready. this permission leaves me feeling more relaxed.

  1. be the example.

in my case, extended family, they just don’t know what to do with me - the rebel. so I show them. I walk in, embracing them all one by one, I want to show them how even though we are totally different and even though they want nothing to do with me when it’s not the holidays - I still adore them.

my love is not conditional on us believing the same. or worshiping the same. I have hopes that one day my actions might become contagious.


Do you see yourself as a "black sheep" (or are you seen/treated as one)?  What are some of your strategies for dealing with related triggers?  Also, I love Annais' advice to "be the example."  What are ways that you practice this strategy, or would like to?

* * *


Annais spent many years being good. Repenting. Walking on her knees through the desert. Until she realized there was truth in Mary Oliver's words:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Annais sojourned into the wilderness of soul and began learning how to listen to her own intuition. She embraced both yes and no as a complete sentence and evolved into a woman who was/is unapologetically {her}self. She dig into each chapter of her being with poetry, art journaling, and photography as she searches for meaning and inspiration.

She has a gift: she sees the good in others and encourages each person to see themselves as she sees them :: magical, powerful, beautiful, and gifted. Annais believes we can take all the hard and broken shards of our past and put them together - (re)creating ourselves as luminous mosaics . She invites women to look into their own eyes and see beauty in the midst of chaos. This is her passion for all women.

Annais shares her self portraiture and notes on returning to oneself at www.soulskinsong.com

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Hurting for the Holidays: Introducing a New Blog Series

photo by Jennifer Upton

Today is Thanksgiving.  Happy day!

I mean . . . it is happy, right?

Well, in theory.

A day off from work and school, gathering with loved ones, delicious food enjoyed together, and a host of other holiday traditions to relish?  That should be amazing.  And for a lot of folks, it is amazing.

But there are some of us for whom the holidays are a less than happy time.

For me, the holiday season, and particularly Thanksgiving, has been hard for all of my adult life. Painful family dynamics, pressure to eat copiously and decadently, and my eating disordered history combine to create the perfect storm of anxiety and general miserableness.  I tend to spend the majority of November fighting off triggers, resisting the urge to binge or restrict or overexercise.  I make it through Thanksgiving with clenched fists and teeth -- only to have to do it all over again one month later when Christmas rolls around.

And that's before factoring in the painful truth that my daughter died and was born four days before gathering around the Thanksgiving dinner table two years ago. 

It is something of an understatement to say that I do not look forward to the holidays.

And -- I know that I'm not alone.  That I am far from being the only one who dreads the holidays, whose dinner table is missing a much-loved person, who cannot stomach the culturally-approved gluttonous consumption of food and things, whose stomach is knotted up in anticipation of seeing that person or being in that place or faced with those memories. 

Maybe you are one of those who greet the holidays with rather less relish than others.  Maybe you are estranged from your family and will be spending the holidays alone. Maybe you have no food or money and will count yourself lucky to survive until January, much less enjoy any sort of holiday meals.  Maybe your faith is feeling threadbare and you have no church or temple or sacred place to welcome your heart. 

If the holiday season fills you with a deep ache rather than a deep joy, then this series is for you.

Starting today and running through the end of December, I am hosting a series here on the blog called Hurting for the Holidays.  I am honored to have twenty-six amazing guest writers from many different walks of life sharing their hearts, hurts, and helps with us.

I feel so grateful that we can honor our griefs and pains together this holiday season instead of letting our tender, wounded places throb on in silence, alone.  Let us link arms and hold one another's brittle-feeling bones upright.  Let us stand in respect for these wounds that are breaking us open to (dare I say it?) a better way of being.  Let us not ignore how crushing this time of year can feel to ourselves or others.  Let us come together in love and with grace. Find all of the Hurting for the Holidays posts here, and contribute via social media through the hashtag #HurtingfortheHolidays.

Are you hurting this holiday season?  I would be honored to read your ache's story.  Leave a few (or a lot of) words in the comments.  This space is for you, friend.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

When I am Not Afraid of the Dark

#sacredspace #art #folkart #museumwander

In the babyloss community, there's a lot of talk of riding the waves of grief.  The pain, it churns and rises and grabs you, hauls you under and then . . . ebbs calm again.  You kick, pull water with your arms, propel the surface to gasp water.  And soon you're breathing normally and the stitch in your side is gone and you can swim steadily toward shore again.  Then there is sand beneath your feet and you can walk and the sun is shining and --

that wave of pain floods high and the current yanks at your ankles and you're beneath the water, floundering once again.  Eventually the space between the waves widens, but I hear that they never stop coming.  Not ever.

That's what my God-wrestling feels like.  I thrash with Him, with my ideas and doubts and preconceptions, with the words of others and the words of the Bible writes, and everything feels upside down, inside out, and I'm groping for solid ground that I'm not sure even exists..

And then -- I'm there.  I find my feet.  My toes press into soil and sand, and there's calm, cool breath flowing through me.  I have arrived, I have found my new faith and --

then it's gone, I'm tumbling through a shock of salt water, spinning in the suffocating dark.

I think it happens when I'm tired.  And I am so tired.  I don't get myself to bed on time, and more than that I am tired of thrashing, of fighting it out with God or the devil for a grip on hope.

And it's not that I'm ready to leave God behind.  I believe He is there, loving me, you, all of us.  I believe that He is an artist.

It's the rest that I'm tired of trying to sift through.  Maybe you know what I mean.  It's the words in the Bible or on the lips of my brothers and sisters that sound like the words of abusers, dysfunctional-sounding words that I'm supposed to embrace as pure love, no questions asked.  And it's the rules, the absolute knowledge that is claimed about things of mystery, the conditions tacked onto Christ's unconditional love.

I am tired of trying to sort all this out, of all the should's, of all the extras when I just want Him.  I  want people to love unreservedly, and I want to love like that, too.  I want to climb a mountain and howl joy and grief and worship and love, to hear Spirit howling with me.

Instead I fold my hands and open those wispy pages of Words again and squint, trying to read Love between the lines.  I take my place in the pew, keep trying to force my boundless heart into my allotted space.  I call this "showing up," but really it is me trying to win the affections of my friends ahead of the approval of God, although I'm not sure all would agree with that assessment.  Not many think I can find God in the dark, and sometimes I let those opinions sway me from making my wild way toward Holy.

But it's a sacred dark, this black sea I am submerged in still, or again.  Womb-dark.  I don't know how long my soul's gestation will be in this deep and secret place, but I do know that I don't have to be anymore afraid of this darkness than a baby is afraid of the velvet black of his mother's womb.  I am in the belly of the beast, and maybe that scares you, but I am learning that the beast is really Beauty, and didn't Jacob wrestle with a glory-beaming angel until his body's breaking was his soul's mending?

I am not afraid of the dark {mostly}.  Are you?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/168118487/fine-art-print-8-x-10-giclee-magic-wall?ref=shop_home_feat

Saturday, November 23, 2013

When We are Boundless in Him

"Moonflower" mixed media art by Beth Morey - Epiphany Art Studio

I shouldn't be able to feel this happening, the roots tendriling down from my soles, my toes, through black loam and soil and an eon of earthy strata, drawing up moisture that rehydrates my dry and desiccated heart-places. 

I shouldn't be able to feel this growing, this growing down and deep to stretch tall, but I do. I do, and it terrifies me and thrills me. I'd grown so intimate with living knocked down to the floor, my limbs sprawled disjointed and the skin of my cheeks permanently impressed with the shadow of the ground-dwelling gravel and lint that became my most intimate companions. Time and tiredness peeled back my clutching fingers one by one by one until my palms lay open and exhausted and released my hope of renewal or healing or happiness in Him.

But I do.  I feel it.  I feel the queasy months of brambled, pricking doubt shed a harvest of faith and renewal. A harvest of life.  Can you believe it? 

And perhaps I am still down here on the ground, weak and gravity-bound, but my roots are growing down deep and I feel them stretching the earth aside and it is a force that cannot be stopped because it was set into motion by the One whose name is Unstoppable, and anyway I don't want it to end.

Because there is nothing like the feeling of your own soul growing wide and sky-deep, an ocean of fierce fire pushing out from between ribs swollen tight with exhilarated gratitude. There is nothing like thinking that you are the basest lost nothing, slidden away from all thought of rescue, only to blink and feel that inexorable pulse emanating from your Holy-breathed soul and know –

I am not dead or dying. My skin creases and folds, the pulse of my organs dwindles away day by day, but the I AM is burning brighter within me every single day, the glory that ages only to perfection and no more, no matter the body's crumpling.

And yes, maybe I am quite crumpled myself, maybe I am writing these words askew, cheekbone still hard against the searing frozen ground. But my soul, my soul is flying, tumbling through air and eternity, and I am boundless in Him.

I am boundless in Him.

You are, we are boundless in Him.

Don't you forget. Don't you forget what we are, stardust and resurrected breath and blood running in the dead. Don't we forget.

Does it look like, feel like we are crushed to the floor, faces ground into grit and filth? Don't you forget. Don't you forget. Our souls are expanding, toward Him, in Him, and the whole wide universe can't hold us.

tired right down to my soul. #365days #365daysof31 #tajselfie #tajmagic

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

When My Daughter is Dead, and It’s Her Birthday

Untitled

[Today] is my daughter’s second (still)birthday.

I don’t know what to say.

If you're reading this, you probably know what I mean.

How to describe the rippling ache whose circles widen but never disappear?

How to communicate how she is still an important part of my family, my life, even though she is dead?

How to answer those who tell me to move on, that it’s unhealthy and uncomfortable, and couldn’t I just shut up about this whole dead baby thing already?

How to celebrate her birthday when she is not here to enjoy it, when the decisions I must make of how to remember her are incapacitating?

Today I'm writing  over at Still Standing Magazine.

* * *

Remember how for Eve's birthday last year we banded together and provided over one hundred copies of a bereavement book for our local hospital's labor and delivery?  This year, we are raising money for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and drawing or wearing birds on our bodies, to celebrate my sweet girl.  More details here!

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

God, Depression, and Me

#365days #365daysof31
The depression has returned. Silent and stalking, it crept up on me even though I was keeping an eye out, in spite of already seeing a therapist each week. Its weight pressed down and down upon me, until, eleven months after my son’s birth, I desperately booked myself an appointment with my OB/GYN to beg for anti-depressants.
 
She prescribed them. I drove straight from her office to the pharmacy to pick them up. My therapist later endorsed my being medicated for depression and anxiety. And – I didn’t swallow a single pill for another month.

I don’t know many people who are eager to take medication, especially for those “invisible” psychological needs. And in the church there is often a peculiar bias against mental unhealth, an implicit or explicit message of “If you had enough faith, depression would not be an issue.”

But it is an issue. A very real issue. And sometimes, those of us who suffer from this or similar issues need a little help (or a lot of it).  And help can look like taking medication for a time, or maybe forever . . . .

I'm so thrilled to be writing  over at Thorns and Gold today, starting a conversation about anti-depressants, mental health, and faith.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Pathways to God

war paint.  #365days #365daysof31

I thought it was supposed to be straight and narrow, this way.  That's what everyone said, after all.  He said it, too. 

So I tried to live straight, tried to walk that narrow line.  I clenched my jaw and my buttocks and pushed away all questions and the not-knowing that threatened to cross my tightrope path.

They told me to walk this way, and keep walking.  But when I looked down and saw that the way that I had been following had cut off like the end of a movie reel, film flapping freely as it circles and circles and circles, they didn't have much to say.

Not much that was new, anyway.

What now, I pleaded.  My narrow way has left off, and the world is howling wild around me.  Can't you see my bleeding places?

No, they said.  You are not bleeding at all . . . .

I'm honored to be writing  over at the Secret Rebel Club today!

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Coming Home to a Better Way

245/365

Today I went the pharmacy to pick up a prescription.  The pharmacist rang up my order, and I pulled my wallet out only to hear that my total was zero dollars.  I stared.  How could I be purchasing something for nothing?  Your insurance covered it, she explained.  Your deductible.

I still could not wrap my mind around it.  Didn't the year just start --

And then I remember.  It's November.  Halfway through, in fact.  If I had a calendar, it'd still be hinging open to February, I think.

November.  Not only the eve of my girl's birthday, but also the threshold of the holiday season.

And -- I'm dreading it.  The crazy lines at Target, tinsel-laced everything, the cultural/consumerist pressure to enjoy rather grotesquely opulent holiday dinners. 

I'd rather skip it.  Stick my head in the sand until January.  Most of the folks I chat with about it these days are feeling the same way.  Overwhelmed.  Looking for meaning.  Longing for quiet.  And the words of those who try to answer are drowned out by the sound of cash registers and emptying bank accounts.

Just about two years ago now, I was walking through every minute of every day as if I was stepping barefoot on shards of glass.  My baby had just died inside me, and I'd birthed her, and we'd held her and then handed her over to be burned away to ash.  Our firstborn became our first deceased.  And all this just days before Thanksgiving.

When Black Friday arrived, my husband and I found ourselves at Best Buy.  Not because we wanted to shop, but because I (we) needed -- something.  Comfort?  Answers?  To feel not-alone?  But the churches and meeting places were closed and everyone was out buying and buying.  So we went to the shops, witnessed the madness, because excessive purchasing is apparently what we do here in America.  What's more, we do it the very next day after (and, increasingly, the day of) giving thanks for the enough that we enjoy. 

There has to be a better way. 

I don't want to dread the holidays.  Because there is such a richness there.  A day of gratitude?  A season of anticipating and celebrating Holiness donning humanity?  The freshness of Epiphany and a new calendar year?

There is so much.  So much mystery, and beauty, and story, and questions, and meaning.

And instead of asking the questions, instead of leaning into the mystery, we're buying a lot of stuff that we don't need.

I want to do it a better way.  Because up until now, my reaction has been to trudge around grumpy and wholly grinchy, fully of complaint.

This year I'm going to try to do it a better way.  Want to join me?

http://www.anamcara.com/coming-home-2013/

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

When Death Comes Near

Untitled

Today one of our dogs came close to death.  Or maybe it was death that came close to him.  Either way, it was not comfortable.  It seemed like one minute our Cody was okay, and the next he was whining in pain and trying and trying (and failing) to vomit.  Within a half hour we had him at the vet; in another hour he was undergoing major abdominal surgery for bloat

He could have died.  He still might die.  Nothing is certain, although we are hopeful.  He really is the best snuggler.

Throughout the day, as we waited (and waited...) for news of Cody's condition, it was interesting to note my reactions to the situation.  Because I had two, and they were quite distinct, and also familiar.

The first was anger.  I was mad.  Mad.  A pessimistic mantra of f*ck you, life, f*ck you, life ran through my head like a cadence more than a few times.

The other was -- well, I'm not sure what label to put on it.  Faith?  Prayer?  Brokenness (the good kind, that points toward the Holy)?  All I know is that I lay myself face down on our living room floor after I put our son down for the night, words failing.  I felt like I was tugging at the hem of God's robe -- are you there?  do you see all this mess?  please see.  please care.

And these two states are familiar.  Excruciatingly so.  Because I think they are largely how I've handled Eve's death -- either stiffing-arming God, or folding myself into Him (or trying to).

Eve's birthday is coming up fast.  In about a week, it will have been two years.  Two years.  Two years that feel like nothing, no time at all, and that are everything.  And to have death stalk close again during a season when it pressed close before and did not leave without taking such a precious someone with it?  It's hard, and it feels unfair.  It feels like being kicked when my knees are already bloody against the pavement. 

All day today, as I tried to prepare myself for the very real possibility of having to say goodbye to Cody, flashbacks to our few hours with Eve kept slipping in.  It's strange how close her memory is when all of who she is that matters is so far away. 

I have nothing more to say.  I am processing out loud here (again) (as usual).  Cody comes home tomorrow afternoon if all is well, and we should know within a few days if the surgery is a success. 

(I will tell you this, though: I am tired of thrashing, of wrestling with God, of trying to get to the bottom of me and what I believe and why.  I am exhausted.  Life feels heavy these days, even before Cody's emergency.  I want to stop, to take off my wrestling belt, go back to when everything was easy. 

(But not really.  There's too much at stake, and I won't put myself and my God back into a too-small box.  I just need a bit of a breather.  God, come near enough that I can feel you and see you and smell you?)   

Cody pondering

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Reading the Bible with my Glasses Off

i feel my{self} disengaging  #365days #365daysof31 #tajselfie #tajmagic

I am starting to read the Bible again.

I'm not sure if I told you that I'd stopped.  But I did.  Every time I'd open those gold-trimmed pages, I'd come across a string of words that would make my stomach swoop with nausea.  The kinds of words that abusers use to excuse their abusive actions.  I couldn't read God's word without it pouring salt into my deepest wounds.  Which made me think a lot of scary thoughts about God.

So I closed my Bible.  Walked away.  Looking for the holy in other texts, with other ways of seeing.  It hasn't even been that long of a sojourn.  But to my soul it's felt deep and far.

And now . . . I find myself staring at those Words again.

The abusive-sounding words?  They are still there.  They are still knife-edged, still grinding salt into pulverized flesh. 

But something is changing in me, I think.  I think.  (i hope.) 

I used to come at the Bible hard, looking for absolutes.  But now . . . it's all feeling a lot more fluid.   Less about the bottom line, or the party line.

deep inhale... #365days #365daysof31

I used to squint and frown and peer at the wispy pages, and now it's more of a letting go.  I try to let my eyes unfocus and read what's in between each line, what images shimmer beneath the garish and clumsy Sunday school pictures that my brain has paired with the verses.

I am mining for mysticism, for the divine not-knowing.  Scouring the familiar text for the sacred mystery that is the holy trinity.

Because if we are talking about the God who made everything -- our sticky innards and infinite glimmering galaxies and the Moeraki Boulders and my sweet son's eyelashes -- the pat answers and biblical cartoons painted in limited colors are soul-killingly wrong.  If we are talking about the God who made all life, uncountable everyday miracles, then the safe and santized way we (I) approach faith in the American church is cutting off our air.  If this is the God that we're talking about, if this master creator of a God is real . . . then the banal, Caucasian Jesus that I've constructed from my Bible reading and church going and do-gooding is devastatingly wrong.


I've been worshiping a Jesus of cardboard and glue, when really he is cosmic and wild and tastes of metal and smoke and wood.  He smells of sweat and dirt, lilacs and rain -- but that's not what I read in the Bible.

I really love having ink on my skin. it feels like a map. #365days #365daysof31  

I'm starting to think that maybe the Bible got some things wrong.  It's written by people, after all, and so the Word of God is filtering through ancient patriarchal synapses and styluses and two thousand swirling years of translation and opinion and editing.  But the heart of the message is as the sun's filigree warming my skin and the night doming wide and deep above me -- solid and great and majestic and mysterious.  It's in there, in the Bible, but it's paired with a whole lot of humanity.

So I let my vision go a bit blurry so that I can see Jesus through my baggage, through the writers' baggage.  And I am beginning to make out the edges of a form that is visceral and ecstatic and muscled and bright.   

This is Jesus at last, I think.  This is Who I have been seeking.  This is the Jesus I can and want to love and honor and talk with and worship and and ask forgiveness from and bow before and give my whole self to.  

He's not safe.  He won't live in my boxes.  But he is good.  I believe this. 

The questions are leading me Home.

I miss God. #iamthrashing #365days #365daysof31 #tajselfie

* * * 

If you are interested in exploring the dark places of faith, God, and mysticism, this upcoming new ecourse might be just what your soul is crying out for:

I may have just died of happiness. #thewildmystics