Remembrance toward Freedom

Why is it such a challenge to be the people we are created to be? It is my belief that we each innately hold the knowledge and truth of who we are deep inside our hearts. It is always there whispering to us what we know to be true. Often, however, the whisper needs prompting to move the truth out of storage and toward remembrance and life.

We are well aware when the truth shows up. It is the moment our heart sings with recognition—a smell, a sight, a voice. You know you are home. You know you are safe. There is intimacy in memory. It sustains us and nurtures us here and now so we can remain rooted in the midst of this crazy life. It is memory of Christ. Memory of home—the truth of our very being. The knowing that we are whole and pure.

We spend so much time wallowing in the mud and muck of life. The truth, however, remains rooted inside us like an everlasting friend whose voice is always a welcome sound. It is a song for your heart beckoning you to remember who you are. To walk daily in freedom, we must remember our past stories of both tragedy and redemption, we must dream of future hopes, and we must choose to love God, our neighbors and ourselves in the present moment.

We are anchored in Christ—through humanity—through the magnificence of the universe. There is a great knowing of something that we can’t quite seem to remember yet know is ancient, everlasting and true. This knowing holds me above the waves of life, buoyant as a bird in flight, cradled in the embrace of a friend.

It is my desire to remember the anchors of my life. The smells, the tastes, the sounds and sights that draw each of us toward becoming the people we are created to be. It is through remembrance that we can walk in freedom.

photo by bill hughlett

Breathing is Hard Today

Breathing is hard today. For several days I have been plagued with a horrible cold and have not felt my usual self. I wish I could breathe deeply, but I cannot. Longing for breath consumes my days. I went out for air and sunshine and a milkshake yesterday. The milkshake machine was broken. I drove to the beach but could not make myself pull over and park. I stopped for a Diet Coke and bought Cracker Jacks when I really wanted Crunch n Munch. Desires that seem so simple and inconsequential become heaps of angst. “The ground is always littered with our longings.”

I am grieving and I don’t even realize it. My friend Dawn has died. She is younger than I. My son feels abandoned and I cannot rescue him. My health feels crummy. My house needs cleaning. My daughter is 14. My world feels numb and since writing my Lenten prayer, I’m not sure I have given myself fully to anyone. “The ground is always littered with our longings.”

Longing for connection. Longing for wholeness. Searching too hard. Can I just be? Just rest and be me? What am I doing? Searching. Looking. Asking. Seeking. Flat dull spaces block my path. And then I hear my own words, “Let us not move too quickly to the Good News and thus dismiss our pain and sorrow.” Can I sit in the sorrow for a while? Will I allow myself to be present for myself? For my losses?

Death and dying. New birth. New life. Breath seems so important. My mind is muddled. The rhythm of life speaks to me. The pendulum. The ground littered with our longings. The question is how to remain faithful to all the necessary deaths while leaving room for resurrection. The only way to get through grief is to grieve. The only way to take in fresh air is to breathe. Breathing is hard today.

"I write to discover what I know." Flannery O'Connor (& me)

photo by bill hughlett

My Lenten Prayer

“People who pray stand with their hands open to the world.” (Henri Nouwen.) Their arms wide open to the world. May my heart break wide open so that the world may fall in. Come all who are weary and burdened. Come. Let me be with you in this. Let me be there for you. (Words I penned yesterday morning as I continued to meditate on what my Lenten practice would be this year.)

I am continually amazed at my need to get out of my own way so I can hear God. While it is only recently that I have become more aware of the practice of Lent, I decided this year I would be prepared and consider well in advance what my Lenten practice would be. I read up on Lent a bit and even ordered a daily meditation book several days before the season was to begin. I considered giving up wine or sugar, exercising more…you get the picture. And then I ran out of time to think about it (hmm) and left for Brazos de Dios on Ash Wednesday.

No phone service. No internet. No i-pod or t.v. No interruptions from the outside world. Only ten people with the sole purpose of re-discovering the truth and beauty that lie deep inside each one of us.

That is my work, my joy, and (finally I realized) my Lenten prayer (my Life prayer)—to be fighting with and on behalf of truth and beauty for myself and others. Seeking the beauty and glory that we may not be able to see in ourselves. Digging through the armor of lies we believe—“I’m not good enough.” “My feelings aren’t important.” “I am nothing.” “I don’t matter” etc., etc. Fighting the battle alongside each other. While I know we must do it for ourselves, we do not have to do it alone. We can travel this path together—learning from one another.

My heart is filled with joy and my cup overflows. This Lenten season I choose to give away Me. Thankfully, gratefully, joyfully. My Lenten practice is not giving up drink or sugar or reading and exercising more, doing more, but rather I choose to be present to the world and to those around me. Living intentionally and bringing myself fully. Fighting side by side the battle that is ours together.

I invite you to join me for I cannot do this alone. Together let us seek the beauty in each other and break through the armor of lies that keep us in bondage. Together, let us move toward Resurrection this Lenten season (and always).

Art

"What I like about art is the very thing that makes people fear it. It enlarges us. I am a better and more honest woman for having taken to the page today and admitted my locked-away feelings of the years. I am larger and better and softer and kinder and more open than I was resisting knowing what I knew. It is always this way with art. We say the unsayable and in saying it we name not only ourselves but also the human condition. By being willing to characterize our lives in art, we begin to have the character necessary to make living itself an art. We rise to the occasion that life offers us." --Julia Cameron, The Sound of Paper

These words brought tears to my eyes this morning as I felt their trueness. May you find a way to express art in living today.

painting by Claude Monet

Dance or Die

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Romans 12:15

And dance like there is no tomorrow.

What are we to make of this life we are offered? Daily we are faced with choice. Get up or stay in bed? Smile at the sunshine or decide it is too bright and close the blinds? Are the birds singing a joyful song or is it noise that hinders my sleep? Each minute is a choice. Will I choose to rejoice with gratitude for all I have or will I weep from pity at what I think I deserve and do not possess?

Choice. It faces us every minute of every day and often we are pushed to our very limits. The point where it feels like we can take no more. The edge of life where a choice must be made. Dance or die.

“Death pushed me to the edge. Nowhere to back off. And to the shame of my fears, I danced with abandon in his face. I never danced as free. And Death backed off, the way dark backs off a sudden burst of flame. Now there’s nothing left, but to keep dancing. It is the way I would have chosen had I been born three times as brave.” --Mark Nepo

There is room in life for both rejoicing and weeping, but not for dancing and death. Today there is a choice to be made. Dance or die. What will it be?

photo by bill hughlett