Shaken

Someone I dearly love was in a car accident a few days ago. She’s okay, mostly. She will heal. But I had just realised how much I care for her and how kindred our spirits are, how much we both need this friendship in our lives. And then she almost died. I thought I was okay. She’s strong. She’s fighting and laughing about it and her wounds are healing.

But the emotion of it? Delayed. For her… and for me also.

Three days after the fact, I walked into my room and burst into tears and collapsed. My limbs just lost the will to hold me up. I didn’t know love, not even romantic love, could feel like this. I didn’t know I could love someone so much that it would hurt to even THINK of them not being alive somewhere on this Earth. She’s in California and I am not. But knowing she exists makes me smile. Because we are so connected.

This living life lead by love thing is very squishy and intense.

I’d appreciate prayers for my friend, if you pray. For her speedy recovery from this ordeal.

letter…

Dear Jesus,

I don’t want to be a Christian anymore. In fact, I reject everything to do with Christianity and you know that doesn’t include you. I hate religion. I want to turn the tables and rip all my clothes off and dance in the rain. Would you come with me? I think you’d like the rhythm of my song. I think you’d like the laughter you’ll hear.

I know that you have a plan. I know that you have chosen many of us, and that good things are happening in those walls and sanctuaries where holiness is taught as a guidebook and shame and rejection are passed on due to fear or worry or just humanity’s inability to see you for the beauty of what you are and to try to contain, categorize and comprehend that which is beyond comprenshion. I know that your truth and love are there even still, but I cannot find the trees in the forest of conformity any longer. I want to flee from mass and enter the masses.

When I walk home in the sunshine, tearing off the bits of rock and stone that religion has held me in for all these years I can see humanity for the beauty and mess that it is and I want to be apart of it. Are you with me? In this moment I just want to have the courage to drink the wine and not worry whether the spin in my head makes me kiss a stranger and whether that’s right or wrong.

You said the truth will set me free. I have not been free. We both know this. I have not believed your Truth, but only a truth.

But on this precarious precipice with the sheets of stone falling my eyes are wide open and my skin is ready to touch and be touched and Holy Holy Jesus… Father creator of all things. I am coming unravelled. Would you kiss me and show me the way?

I cannot do it any longer. I cannot taste the bitterness of betrayal and watch the crowds gather in your name to worship a you they do not know or believe in and try to put you in a tiny box of something they can wrap their heads around. I cannot do it. I am done with guilt and shame. I am done with religion. I am done with the small truth and turning to your Truth.

All my love,

Yours truly (respectfully leaving the Christian label at the door)

At the risk of being offensive…

I had the most awesome day with someone who I dearly love and was reminded of how much I am fucking sick of guilt and shame and religion. And how angry I am getting about some of the craptacular badness that went down and has gone down as far as me and church and christianity and how un-Christ-like that is and how angry I need to get, to allow myself to get, in order to find the ability to move on and be free and to be released.

It’s like here in the barren wasteland where the fences are torn down? Here I get to scream and loose the chains of guilt and all of the burden of worrying about sin and right or wrong because I am loved. And love is the whole point. And so many people miss the point and I am tired.

I just… yeah. I think things are going to change. For the better.

Fuck guilt. And fuck shame. I’m done.

***

Something is happening in my spirit that’s hard to sum up. It’s like an earthquake or an explosion or a breaking apart. It’s scary because it feels like I am turning my back on everything I’ve ever known. Maybe I am actually. But not on God, or perhaps just on the God I manufactured and the God I thought was God but wasn’t. The one who thinks of me as a screw up or a failure or unlovable… that God I am turning my back on. Because He’s not real. The big scary meany in the sky? Doesn’t exist.

The beautiful, creative, awe-inspiring, loving artist of the world and eternal father? I do believe in Him, more each day.

And it’s absolutely insane what this feels like and odd how much I want to say ‘fuck everything to do with Christianity’ and ‘God, you are mind-boggling and awesome’ all at once. The conflict/tension? in it is very very weird. I am not entirely sure what to do with it or how to respond because it feels wrong/scary (guilt trying to pound on me and tell me I am gonna go to hell for this breakthrough) and so very right at the same time.

I wish I had a better way of describing it. Maybe I will eventually.

not living in defeat

I am not defeated but I often tell myself I am or will be.  I seem to be wandering into a place in life where there’s more and more victory mainly because of love and openness with other human beings.

A dear friend who I haven’t seen in four years is coming to visit me this week. I had thought I was going to have to work Saturday while she was here. The managers tried all they could to get the time off for me but it seemed impossible. Despite the apparent odds, I began a quest to find someone to take the shift from me so I could have a much needed mini-holiday AND time with my friend. I assumed I would fail and had already accepted defeat because it seemed all avenues had been tried to no avail, but then someone came through for me and decided to take the shift. When this happened my managers and I all cheered. It was a shared victory. Everyone knew I was willing to take the shift and work it with a smile if need be but I was trying hard to find a way to spnd the time with my friend instead and the victory in the end was a group victory and not just my own. That made it all the better.  This experience, and others like it recently, have taught me something.

Especially during the last couple of years, I have tended to approach life with this attitude of defeat, assuming I will fail either because I have before or just because I lack confidence or am fearful. It’s interesting to have a few occasions back to back where I have succeeded and found mini victories in the face of assuming failure or defeat, often when working with others who are able to help me shine or reach my goal. It shows me that I can suceed. I can be blessed. I can find joy in rallying people together for a good cause. It also shows me the truth that speaking your desires and still living in joy regardless of the outcome really does enact something in the spiritual realm. It’s amazing.

I rode home on the bus, in the dark gloomy rain, with a smile on my face. It was a smile that welled up from deep within, a smile born from love and knowledge that things are working in my favour and that some of the favour came from me putting myself out there and not staying on my own in the dark.

We should not wait and simply expect greatness and great things. We should move with boldness and kindness and dedication. And maybe, just maybe we’ll get to win and have people around us to join in the cheer.

Happy Canada Day!

love and healing and dreaming

Sometimes it is so easy to dream. You feel free, open, and enegetic.

Othertimes you feel tired, worn out and if not captive just not entirely able to release your dreaming.

The other day I started to cry, lying on the floor with arms out tears flowing and words spilling out. Confessions and shadows and things in myself I wish I could evict. But in that moment God reminded me of the fence and the things we’ve been working on in my heart.

We tore down the fence. I let Him in and now there’s no going back. Now if I rebuild the fence He’s got permission to destroy it. And all the things I held in that prison sanctuary are up for grabs and up for destroying and being brought to the light. It’s a scary thing when you realise that by asking for healing you have opened the wound.

Today I am not energetic. I don’t feel free but I know that I am free. I know that even when I tired His life and love can push me to greater things and places than I can imagine. I should be free to dream. I am always free because of Him.

If only I would let my humanness stay a gift and not keep seeing it as a curse. How we twist things and damage ourselves!!

His love is so simple and so vast and huge it’s easy to forget it because we cannot compute it, and it’s so desperately important that we don’t forget or dismiss it. Love fuels everything. Love is everything. I need more, Lord.

okay, so…

Do you ever get the urge to just stand somewhere high and out in the open, throw back your hands/arms/head and yell:

“It’s not about you!!!!”

I do. Often.

I want to yell that to myself when I get selfish and self centred; I want to yell that to people who make assumptions or twist my words to their own meaning; I want to yell it to the people who think company policies are set out just to annoy them; I want to yell it to people who sit in churches taking notes on how to better themselves only, and ignore their neighbour…

It’s not about you. It’s not about me. It’s about truth. And the truth is I need more peace, joy, freedom, and compassion. I need more release, more ability to be graceful and giving and honest with myself so that I do not enter into places where I allow myself to be untrue and then have to deal with the aftermath later. I’d like to love boldly and truthfully and with all of the authenticity and confidence found in knowing who He made me to be. Cos you can’t give yourself away if you don’t know who you are. If you do you’ll lose more than you gain because you are giving from empty reserves and not full ones. I’ve learned this the hard way.

Curiosity killed the cat but set the bird free. When I figure out which I am today, I’ll let you know.

my heart in this season

I’ve been in Vancouver for three months now and it’s still strange. It’s so good, really, to be so near family and to sort of reclaim myself, my old stomping grounds and my roots. But there are constant reminders in this city of things and people I once ran from.

And yet in the quietness of a day which has featured little more than kite flying, coffee, tea, a little bit of form filling out (for student loans), and random conversation… I find myself again pondering the gift of being here, the gift of my job, the restoration of relationships, and the coming weeks full of friends, family, and hopefully a promotion at work.

Did I mention my manager suggested I do this three month contract gig? Something normally which only goes to people with alot more seniority in the company than I? Yeah. Exciting. I’ve never been looked highly upon at work so I am pleased, and especially pleased given what the contract gig actually is for (I’ll give more details when it’s official)!

If I could summarize what is happening in my heart right now I would say that my heart is sloughing off the lies and the pretenses and just becoming true and true enough to accept the truth of who I am and who the God of love is and what it means to be loved unconditionally, for real. It’s as though all the things I could be are being replaced simply and delicately and heroically by the truth and the authentic me.

It’s exciting and strange.

I have to keep reminding myself to just be present because that’s what He told me to do. Be present. And be at peace. Everything will be sorted in due time. Right now we’re working on my heart.

It’s crazy how everything comes back to love.

play

They always said the truth will set you free, but I didn’t feel free. I was caught, trapped, surrounded by guilt and shame…

But for the last few weeks I’ve been feeling a growing strange sort of lightness. The kind that comes only when your heart is free. For weeks I felt caught in a crux, pressured down to make a decision and totally strangled by fear. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t dream. I wasn’t me.

Then God began to change things. He started to show me what freedom really is. He told me in a way at long last my heart could understand.

I AM LOVED.

I think the most powerful thing about that statement is the release that comes with it. I wander around trying to decide what is right or wrong, what I should or shouldn’t do and meanwhile the Creator of the Universe is standing there just saying repeatedly ‘Hey, I love you. Stay still a moment and hear me tell you. I love you.’

My heart is good.

I have not believed this. I have always, due to lack of affirmations and lack of confidence believed there was something wrong with me that I needed to make up for. I thought I knew grace but I only knew one side of it. I thought my heart was bad but He said my heart is good. In fact, he treasures it. How crazy is that?

I have begun to play. In a way that is both child-like and spontaneous and releasing. I’ve begun to discover the power of love, of being present, of being open and giving to those around me and the result is freedom.

I am definitely a late bloomer but I am glad at last to throw back the fence and the walls and the broken record player telling me I am wrong and unlovable and begin to believe that I am loved no matter what.

I feel free because of love. I feel awake. I feel alive.

There’s so much to do. So many prayers not yet answered but I am here and present and willing to know and learn deeply and intuitively and consistently that I am loved no matter what and that makes ALL the difference.

spoken word

Two poems, spoken/performed by me. Music by Patrick Watson and Bear McCreary.