In packing my life up to move across the country, I’ve been carefully considering the pieces of me that I most want to bring. I feel a lot like Nichole Nordeman’s song, The Unmaking, sorting through what stays and what should go. Space will be at a premium in my NYC apartment, so the list is short. As I wrap each item in paper and label it like a present to my future self, I think about how if I was the anthropologist version of a medical examiner and I autopsied my life up till now, these packages would tell my stories.

One of the first things I wrapped is a beautiful limited-run print of a painting by Chicago-based artist Tina Figarelli entitled In This Hallowed Place. Although, up until I double-checked today, I’ve been under the impression that it was simply called Grief. Whimsical and gothic, it features the artist sitting on a wood floor with her face in her hands beside a dead bird. The bird is the most colorful part of the piece, but in death the edges of it are starting to fade. Behind the artist and the bird is a piece of furniture, draped in a white cloth like a ghost. When I first saw it on Instagram a few years ago, I was immediately captivated by its storied emotion. It feels sacred and heart rending in a way that words cannot convey. I feel a kinship to this piece as if it sees and honors grief in a brutally honest and organic way.  

Similarly, I wrapped a framed postcard I bought at the St. Louis Art Museum last month. I was with a friend at the time, which adds to my love of it. I’ve noticed many of my most treasured possessions are special because of the people I was with when they came to me. On the postcard is a painting of St. Francis in a black monk’s hood, his head bowed reverently towards his hands which bear a skull, tucked almost in complete shadow. The shades of grey highlight the saint’s bowed head, then leads us to follow the saint’s gaze as he beholds death and mortality in his hands. There is grief here, too, but also a sort of sacred awe and wonder.

Another thing I wrapped up is a framed pressed leaf I once brought back from a hike with my mom and brother. I think it was Mother’s Day during one of the pandemic years and hiking in the woods was one of very few safe ways we could mark the occasion with a change of scenery from being home so much. I don’t even know offhand what kind of tree the leaf is from, but it’s bigger than my hand and even dried out it’s a lovely deep burnt orange – one of my favorite fall colors. I have pictures from that hike with me holding the leaf in my hand, a simple souvenir from a tenderly lovely day.

Then there’s the Ben Wildflower carved wood block print of a dove and a uterus, entitled Blessed Be the Fruit of Thy Womb. When I went to label the paper I wrapped it in, I intended to shorten it to Blessed Be the Fruit before I came to the conclusion that avoiding an awkward Handmaid’s Tale reference outweighed brevity in this case. I particularly love this print because it reminds me that there is a place for me in the work of alchemizing a soulless world into a sacred world. Having come from church spaces that taught that my gender as a woman dictated how I was allowed to show up in this world, I feel a sense of liberation in sacred art that honors the feminine qualities of the Divine.

There’s also the cyanotype of yarrow leaves one of my friends commissioned an artist to make for me. The deep blue from the chemical reaction is interrupted by the negative space from the imprint of the spiky leaves. In folklore, the yarrow plant symbolizes everlasting love. It is part of an herb wreathe tattoo I have where yarrow, sage (for protection), laurel (victory), and thyme (courage) encircle the birthdates of my Nana, mom, brother, as well as my own.

Here and there, as I’ve considered the things that mean the most to me, I’ve written on the backs where I was when I found them. The wooden sacred heart covered in miraculous medals I got in Santa Barbara while I stayed there for work; my mom had flown out to visit me and we were exploring an old mission when I bought it at the giftshop. On that same trip, we drove through the mountains to Solvang where I found a ceramic sign with my favorite benediction, the Numbers blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you… Even the little things I like to think of as my crow shinies, mostly rocks and other small trinkets, I’ve been delighted to recall where they came to me. A labradorite palm stone from Puerto Rico. A tourmalated quartz point from Main Street St. Charles. Acorn caps scavenged at a park. A tiny metal icon of Mary Magdalene from Saint Meinrad Abbey. A little pennant that says You Are Magic from a friend. A mountain scene painted onto a tree slice made by another friend…

As this move has caught like wildfire from a distant idea to materializing in less than a month now, I’m trying to be mindful of my anxious brain. This practice of methodically going through my things, taking careful inventory and balancing it on a scale of utility and sentimentality, is helping me feel more steady in a choppy sea of nervous excitement. I’m both ecstatic and terrified, in varying measure at any given moment, as I look ahead to this next chapter. I’m learning that some things have to come to an end, something that as practiced procrastinator I’ve never been good at. As someone who is very true to my human nature in seeking stasis, I’ve never been good at dealing with change. I love routine and order. At the same time, I love the idea of the unknown, even though in practice it terrifies me. There’s a part of me that I’ve been glimpsing more and more since I made this decision that is yearning for the unknown. I was touched recently during a conversation with a friend where she observed that the self-awareness she’s seen me develop over the past few years she sees being a vital asset for me in this change. Not only is it an honor to be seen, it feels really good to actually see progress in the amount of self-reflection I’ve done so far in my 30s. I feel like I’ve been in a dreaming phase for so long and now it’s finally time for me to reach out and experience what I’ve been waiting and preparing for.

I don’t fully know what’s coming next for me. I have some general ideas, sure, but I have been practicing embracing mystery. So far this has looked like unfurling my fists around the idea of needing to plan everything. Jesus’ teaching about “Do not worry about tomorrow… for today has enough trouble of its own” has taken on new depths of meaning for me in this. I want to be careful not to be so focused on trying to plan too many steps down the road that I miss the voice of the longings within me reaching out. I want to explore and seek and be.

As I consider all these pieces of me, I think of them as little points of light that constellate the mosaic of who I am, suggesting that I am ever changing and evolving, gathering new experiences, remembering and learning along the way the Love that has always been with me.

here I see you

and you see me

behold and beheld

/

the ways in which we

Love one another

are as the alcove of

a chapel

holy and dark

marked by incense

ash and oil

and icons

flowers and bones

and vultures bowed

humbly low

whispering an

ancient prayer

that knows

of stardust and

infinity

One of my best friends, Kat, has been my sister since high school. We were raised in the same Evangelical Christian spaces and have walked very similar paths through deconstruction and reconstruction. One of the things we’ve shared over the years is a deep love for the somber reflection the season of Lent offers. We have a tradition of comparing notes on how we plan to observe the season each year. In sharing our plans, we often have found new ideas in each other’s ponderings and from that has sprung some of the richest experiences of faith.  

This year, while I was considering giving something up and adding a practice in its place, Kat told me about how the idea of giving something up is not serving her this year. So she went onto our St. Rachel Held Evans’ blog for some ideas and found a suggestion to connect with a saint during Lent by studying and praying for their intercessions. So Kat did some exploring and found herself drawn to St. Margaret of Antioch. When I asked what drew her to this particular saint, Kat told me about how she was disowned by her pagan priest father for converting to Christianity and she went off with her foster mother to keep sheep in peace. Meanwhile, the governor of the Roman Diocese of the East wanted to marry her and for her to renounce Christianity. When Margaret refused, she was tortured and fed to a dragon who swallowed her whole (big Jonah vibes). While in the dark belly, Margaret used a cross to irritate the dragon’s innards and she escaped. Thus she is traditionally depicted emerging from the dragon’s mouth. Kat reflected on how there was something powerful about a woman being swallowed by a dragon but never giving up, holding onto the cross in the belly of the beast; and how sometimes it feels like we’re in the dragon ourselves, and all we can do in the darkness is lean on that cross.

In hearing Kat share these holy ponderings, she gave me the words to describe how I too have been feeling like I’m in the belly of a beast: On a personal level, my experience with depression and anxiety, my body and self image, my finances; on a social level, one of our dear friends who came to the US as a refugee and had to move away from us and go no-contact for her safety; and over all of it, the events that have been unfolding in Palestine while we watch with helpless horror.

This past weekend, I had the absolute joy of co-planning a series of interfaith events featuring the inimitable singer, song-writer, composer, and Torah teacher Alicia Jo Rabins. It was a gift to be able to work alongside my parish priest, my diocese, the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, and rabbis and lay leaders from several Jewish congregations and organizations over the past few months. The events were held at a collection of synagogues, my church, and a Jewish community center. The first event I was able to attend was a Havadalah service on Saturday night, at a synagogue whose building was once a church – serendipitously, a transitional sort of Evangelical church that I once attended before joining the Episcopal church. We moved through the Havadalah practice of transitioning from the time of Sabbath to welcoming the week, and then Alicia Jo Rabins led us in a beautiful time of music and midrash – the Jewish practice of creative imagining while engaging text. We engaged with the stories of Hannah, Vashti, and the Proverbs 31 woman, the Eshet Chayil. Alicia led us into our own wonderings of these stories that both Jewish and Christian traditions hold; and she shared her own holy wonderings which she has crafted into poetry and song – her midrash. After going through the story of Hannah, Alicia offered that if anyone while hearing her wonderings felt drawn to a different part of the story and felt a different wondering spring within them, that they too had a midrash within them to share.

What holy, beautiful fire.

It occurs to me, and I wonder, if it is in these communal practices of wondering and pondering that we create safe spaces while we’re in the belly of the beast. This dynamic between community and environment, between people and the situations of fear and oppression they find themselves in, is an age old human experience that has shaped the texts that our religious traditions have held and passed down through generations.  

I’m reminded of lyrics from the musical Hadestown: Show the way, so we can see, show the way the world could be. Perhaps, we show the way when we share in community. I wonder, too, if when Jesus said, Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20), if when we engage in community, we are showing eachother the way the world could be. If Gd is love and we’re made in Gd’s image and the breath that fills our lungs is the same breath that hovered over the formless deep before time and creation, we get to be co-creators of a more just and equitable society.

We get to show the way.

blessed are you

who sometimes feel

all that you are

is a deep pit of

sorrow

and fear

and longing

for something you can’t name

and to be honest

sometimes doubt even exists

blessed are you

for yours is the way of mystics

finding unexpected answers

in unexpected places

ancient prophecies

and swirling cosmos

and a humble cradle

ministered to by misfits

and angels

and gifts of worship

and praise

and grief

blessed are you

still

for yours is the way of your spiritual ancestors

who also had nothing to give

but despair and decay

yet still

turned their faces to the light

of a star

of the dawn

and witnessed

what our G-d

uses

to make life

out of death

amen +

For those who are baptized, most probably remember little to nothing of the actual event.  I was three and while I remember some of standing on the altar, looking at the baptismal font, and feeling the cool water on my head, I can’t remember the exact words that were spoken over me when I was named as received by my community as a beloved child of G-d.  I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be told now that my baptism was invalid because the pastor used the wrong word.  An unknown number of people are in that very position in a Catholic parish in Arizona.  

Yesterday I read a CNN report that a priest in Phoenix has used the wrong word in his baptism liturgy over the course of more than 20 years and now every baptism he performed is considered by the Catholic church to be invalid.  

The word?  Instead of saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” this priest said, “We baptize you…”  

The Bishop of Phoenix wrote in a recent message to parishioners: “The issue with using ‘We’ is that it is not the community that baptizes a person, rather, it is Christ, and Him alone, who presides at all of the sacraments, and so it is Christ Jesus who baptizes.”  

In the Catholic church, since baptism is considered the first sacrament, if a baptism is later considered invalid, then any subsequent sacrament is also considered invalid; Like some version of the fruit of the poisonous tree legal doctrine.  But while the legal doctrine is meant to protect a constitutional right, I’m not so sure we can say the same for this church doctrine.   

I realize that my opinion on this matter is not the most relevant – me being a non-Catholic, woman, preparing for discernment to holy orders for priesthood in a different denomination and all.  Yet, here I am with an opinion.  

Sacraments are outward signs of inner grace.  When a clergy person officiates a baptism, they’re not bestowing grace or transferring grace.  They’re naming that grace that is already there.  Grace isn’t some sort of holy currency.  Grace is intrinsic to all human beings as G-d image bearers.

This is not to say that liturgies don’t matter.  In speaking ancient words and old orders of faith, we join into a mysterious communion with all who have gone before us, all who are with us now but in different places, and all who will come after us.  These words matter, but it is their spirit and not their literal verbiage that thins the space to invite us to see the holy present.    

It may seem useless to question a church body with a storied history of dogmatism, but these are the moments where the concern for getting things right gets in the way of naming each other’s belovedness.  These are the moments that can cause real harm to people.  I think one of the most crucial tensions in the Christian religion as a whole is the tension between continuously assuring a held belief or practice and realizing the spiritual damage we’re capable of causing when we lose sight of Jesus’ imperative to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Jesus didn’t put exceptions on this imperative.    

As someone who has experienced my share of religious trauma, and seen it over and over again in other people, I can’t overstate how serious it is when we lose sight of this imperative.  Bad theology is toxic and the stakes for causing trauma are high.  

I fear for the individuals at the heart of this decision: those who are being told by their church – a place of safety and community and love – that their baptisms, confirmations, communions, confessions, marriages, and holy orders are all invalid in one fell swoop.  I’m sure that some of the involved baptisms were for people who have already died, and their loved ones have to face the anxiety of what this all means now.  

In his explanation for the church’s decision here, the Bishop said that “We baptize” implies that the church community along with the priest is doing the baptizing. But what if the “we” speaks to the Mystery and Largeness of G-d?  There’s a curious creation narrative in Genesis that says, Let us make man in our own image.  Then, John’s gospel describes the Mystery of G-d: G-d’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes.  You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where  it is going.  It is the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.  This baptism revelation should have been an invitation to consider the Mystery of G-d, not to limit it because of human error.  This should have been an invitation to marvel at the way G-d uses dust and ash and Breath to form us, the way G-d takes death and turns it into life, the way G-d shows up in all the places we never imagined or thought they would be.

It is my hope that even now, in this decision that has and will undoubtedly impact so many in unfathomable ways, G-d will redeem this ash and dust.

May all who are weary and burdened find rest in the knowledge that we are still beloved. We still bear the image of G-d. We still remain. And nothing can take that away from us.

Amen +  

Image is from Gardening Know-How website.

a reflection on Deuteronomy 16:1-11

When you’ve been in the wilderness

that place where the flame 

that burns within you is just enough 

to illumine your steps

and stars constellate the inky black sky

and all around you is the swirling mystery of genesis

it is here that you may rest

and realize that the place you’re in 

is not the same as the place you once were

– that desolate and lost place of dry bones

here is wilder and stranger 

than you could ever have imagined

and the Breath that spins the velvet night

is the same Breath that hovered over

the waters before time began

and then in the desolate place

whispered promises of returning

and still fills your lungs now

dwelling within you

fanning the flame of the Image

that you bear

and here

you may build an altar

and share your flame

as an offering 

back to the One

who is evergreen

+

Mother Mystery

may we remember the Breath

that circles through us

is the same Breath

that hovered over the water

when your voice spoke into motion

the cosmos

the rotation of heavenly bodies

the divine swirling of beginning

which our seasons and days and bodies 

echo in symphony with you

and may we remember

that Breath is with us still

in every new

beginning

amen +

Image is from The Herbal Academy website.

Beloved

You

Who hold the cosmos in your bones

You are beautiful

Radiant

The very breath in you

Is holy

Breathe in

The Sacred breath

That hovered over the waters

In the beginning

And meets you now

Honors the Sacred image within you

Breathe out

The breath of life

An offering back

To the universe

The stars and planets

Your celestial siblings

In the ancient

Iridescent dance

Of breath

And behold

You are

Beloved

Amen +