On Why I Can't Love Football

I actually really wish I could love football.

I honestly do. While the hero-worship aspect of athletics might confuse me, I really do understand the appeal of, the fun, and camaraderie that can come from sports fandom. And I certainly don't delight in being a joykill. But the fact is, as some aspects of the culture and policies of the sport and (in the NFL and colleges) currently stand, I simply cannot bring myself to enjoy it. 

There are several reasons, but I'm going to tell you about two of them more in-depth:

1) The incredibly prevalent instance of brain damage and lifelong injury amongst former players. 87 of 91 deceased NFL players have tested positive for the degenerative brain disease CTE, which is known to cause severe depression, a life time of severe headaches, early-onset dementia, and can be misdiagnosed as ALS. It's very difficult for me to understand how we can cheer the hard hits and revel in the brutal nature of the game when we have the technology now to see exactly it's irreparably damaging the bodies and the lives of those playing it-- not to mention its effects on the lives of their loved ones. Is our entertainment that important?

Until the league starts taking serious steps (such as rule changes, comprehensive research on the risks, and medical care for retired players) to fix this horrifying reality, I won't be able to watch a game without a cringing face and a hurting heart.

2) The culture of excusing violence against women. While domestic violence and sexual assault are certainly horrifyingly widespread across the country, they do seem to be particularly endemic and tolerated within the world of football. I *personally* know of multiple girls who were raped and abused by college football players at major universities, and the players almost always go unpunished. And I'm not just talking "he said, she said"-- I'm talking cases where there were videos, photographic evidence of bruises, police reports, and rape kits. Even then, the universities side with the players at the expense of the victims.

They continue to recruit players who are *known* to be violence, known to have assaulted, and who go on to assault again. I can list multiple recent example of this from Baylor alone: Sam Ukwuachu, Tevin Elliot (who had a previous sexual misconduct charge and went on to be accused by SIX women of sexual assault at Baylor), and another player who I can't name for the sake of privacy for his victim, who's a friend of mine. And this pattern is far from new. Check out this partial list of known sexual assault cases involving football players at major universities, and the outcomes of the cases. Spoiler alert: it doesn't seem to go well for the victims. I can't help but wonder how it feels for the hundreds, if not thousands of women, who have to watch as hundreds of thousands of people cheer for their attackers-- how it feels to have their trauma shoved back in their faces as the ones who tortured them are lauded as heroes.

Would schools be so passionate about "second chances", about "benefit of the doubt" (for the players rather than for the women) if these men weren't football players? Almost certainly not. Would these girls have been silenced, asked by coaching staff not to report (what happened to my friend), and denied the chance to heal? Not as likely. Because universities and the NFL continue to show that players that could help them win games and thus make money are more important to them than the safety and wellbeing of women. And by continuing to tune into the games, buy tickets, buy merchandise, voting with their dollars instead of making a fuss, fans continue to show that they do, too.

After the Ray Rice incident, the NFL made a bit of hoopla and started the "No More" campaign-- but it turns out that's all talk and doesn't even purport to do anything.

While they say they'd never tolerate violence or silence victims, stories from the actual women say otherwise-- they say that team personal and police tell them to keep quiet.

They say that they'd never harbor abusers, but in 2012, a reporter found that 21 out of 32 NFL teams employed at least one player with a domestic abuse or sexual assault charge *in that same year alone*.

The continue to draft players with known histories of violence, even when those players were kicked off of college teams, even when there are multiple witnesses who saw a beating take place, even when there were graphic pictures of a woman's bruised and bloodied body in police reports. They show with their actions that they do not care if a player has hit or raped a woman.

As it starts, football culture and rape culture are intertwined. This doesn't have to be the case though. As writer Jessica Luther says in her piece on the overlap of football culture and rape culture,

I can imagine a football culture that does not work this way. It would involve including a lot more women in all kinds of roles within teams, university athletic departments, and league administrations. It would include mandatory annual rape prevention training focused on teaching consent and empathy for the victim. (That we don’t teach these things already was a takeaway from the Steubenville trial.) It would ban the use of college women in recruitment, and it would treat women as regular fans of football.

In the end, whether or not Jameis Winston is guilty,
we know he is deeply invested in a football culture that is incredibly problematic, especially where it intersects with rape culture. Football culture clouds our ability to see him as anything other than a famous kid with a nice-guy persona and amazing athletic skills. Rape culture demands that we mistrust the victim, question her credibility, and try to poke holes in her story. It creates this familiar narrative in which people who have invested their own hopes and dreams in Winston claim his innocence immediately and refuse to hear anything else.

No matter what happens in the Winston case, I do know this: Money will continue to flow, and games will be won. Football will march on and over whatever bodies it must. And many will cheer it on as it does.

Until teams start to follow through on their promises to protect victims instead of harboring rapists and abusers, I can't bring myself to be one of those cheering.

Look, I don't think that liking football makes you a terrible person who doesn't have morals. I also know that there are plenty of players and personnel and maybe even fans who do care deeply about these issues. But these are systemic issues that aren't going to change without decisive effort, and that effort will not come until the fans, those who make football the insanely profitable beast that it is, start speaking out with their voices and dollars. If you care about the players, their loved ones, or the women who've been victimized, I highly encourage you to click on some of the above links, do some research, and start using your voice. 

May we become a culture who values human lives and wellbeing over entertainment and dollars.

When I'm Not Sure How To Breathe

I’m not sure how to breathe.

There must have been some kind of mistake—

My chest was never made to be torn at like this. So many things are broken, and I don’t know how to fix them. I do not know how to fix them. My insides tie themselves in knots and knots, my chest is too tight, I am sick with it all sitting inside of me. My frail bones are trembling under the weight of this world—of shootings and explosions, us versus them, of groups being reduced to stereotypes, of black bodies lying in the streets, of voices silenced, of the tear filled and far away eyes of girls who have been violated, of the way the shoulders of the men who get away with it square up as they walk away, of the brown and dust-caked hands of refugees reaching out with stretched fingertips, only to be shoved away, of the eyes an orphan that are beginning to harden with hope lost, of betrayal, of trust broken, of cruelty, of broken relationships that evade reconciliation. Of silence when their should be outcry, of silence when their should be shouts of joy. Of the way I stumble and stumble and stumble, of the way I walk so wrong. I can’t stop staring and the mirror that’s held up in front of my face, that shows me what I dread with my whole being: I am reflected in all of it. The knowledge that I am the wounded but also the one who wounds, that I am helpless, that I am the problem rushes through my veins like thick mercury. My frail bones are trembling. They are about to break.

There’s been a mistake.

And I’m not sure how to breathe.

I cannot hold platitudes right now. Theology slips through my fingers. I could open my mouth to sing praise because you are sovereign, but I have no breath to sing. I could open my mouth to wail, because You are near to the brokenhearted, but no sound will pass my lips. I can only sit in twisting silence, softly rocking back and forth, doing my best to draw air in as evenly as I’m pushing it out, which is not evenly at all. I’m not sure how to breathe.

I close my eyes.

I bow my head.

I realize that the space around me isn’t empty: it’s moving, it’s filled with life. I feel it gather and gently wash over me. You are here. I don’t think it makes sense, but I see that You are here now. I don’t think I can pray right now.  I can’t glorify you with my words right now. I can’t form a lament to you with my lips, begging you to hear me. I can’t even yell at you right now, even as I realize you’re here.

You don’t speak, either. Your voice does not arrive booming with rage or disdain at the idiocy of your children, even as you see my blood stained hands. You don’t tell me that Your ways are higher than my ways. You don’t say that everything happens for a reason, remind me that the world is broken, that one day things will be better, so I should to keep my chin up… you don’t speak at all.

I feel You coming closer still. You are not floating in the highest of heights, you are coming to me, looking at me so intently that I can feel the concern in your gaze. I see You. I see you sitting down next to me, covered in dirt, lowering yourself into the dust. You don’t stop looking at me. I look over and my eyes meet Your, and I see that they are filled with tears. I see that You’re crying, even as I can’t, but you aren’t giving me words. All I see is tenderness. All I see is  Your own broken heart. All I see is Grace. You haven’t brought me answers or Proverbs, but You were present even before I noticed. But You are here.  

You are here, You are here, You are here. We don’t speak, but You sit with me. Another day, we might talk about “why”s.. We might talk about theology another day, about humanity, about how exactly this mess gets redeemed like You’ve said it will. Because You have said it will. You have said it’s already begun.

Love came like madness,

Poured out in blood-washed romance.

It makes no sense, but this is Grace

And I know that You are with me in this place

Here, now.

All I know is I know that You are here, now

Still my heart, let Your voice be all I hear now

Spirit breathe like the wind

Come have Your way

I have no bow to wrap this up, tidy and clear. I am a mess right now. In so many corners, this world is a mess right now. I don’t understand. I can’t understand. My heart is broken still. But you sit with me, turning towards and turning towards. You run to me, and you stay. Finally, a sentence materializes in my mind, the words of another: “Will love songs one day no longer be laments?”

“Yes,” You promise me.

“Yes.”

And I draw a breath in deeply, and exhale soft and slow.

I breathe. 

(quote by Nicholas Wolterstorff)

For When You Forget (A Letter For My Little One)

We talked last night, as we do most nights--my little friend and I.

She is far away, and that we talk at all is a small sort of miracle. Not only because of the insanity of technology that allows us to exchange words in real time when there are many thousands of miles between us, but because of all the improbabilities that had to gather just so to form a path for the two of us to meet on. If I hadn't been sitting outside that building to see an old aquaintance walk by, hadn't sent that one seemingly random text message to connect with a girl I'd vaugely known many years before, if I hadn't been in that garage that one night and become digital friends with that boy who I didn't speak to for a year, if I hadn't spoken that one sentence that caught his eye, if one of a hundred seemingly arbitrary clicks and "hellos" had not happened before I'd ever seen her name, I would not have this little friend. But I do, and with each moment that resonates between us, we get to step back and marvel at the ways that we're woven into clandestine constellation; we get to see the bright mischief twinkling in the omnipotent eyes of the Divine, reminding us with delight how we're invited into this Grand Conspiracy. Sometimes we casually volley messages about our new favorite songs or mundane details of the day, and sometimes I pull myself out of bed at 4:30 am to trade the keyboard on my phone screen for the one on my computer, because Real Realness regarding theology, secrets, questions without easy answers, insecurities, fears, hopes, struggles, and goodness is happening and I need to be able to type with both hands. It's a good friendship, an important friendship, and I am thankful. 

She's a breathing work of art, this little one. She has poems in her hands and songs saturating her skin. She is both sharp and beautifully soft, exquisitely tender and so ruggedly brave inside of that, or even perhaps because of that. She is charmingly, endearingly awkward and embraces it so fully that it turns into grace. She is fully of wisdom and she shares spiritual truths with eloquence and profundity, and the work she does daily is explicitly Kingdom oriented.  Because of this, she has many who admire her from afar, who hold her up as a sort of saint: as a prophet whose admissions of humanity must always be drenched in the divine, whose frustrations and questions should be presented only when wrapped with the tidy bow of a parable. As someone who spent time living with and loving on orphans daily, I have a degree of empathy for what it's like when people assume your work makes you holy, when your it becomes such a large piece of your identity that you can (and perhaps are expected to) let your sins and struggles be covered by it, when it becomes your primary identifier. I know how the assumption that you are somehow inherently holier than others--even as you insist as loudly as you can that you truly are not-- can make struggle and sin feel like it needs to be a secret, how sometimes you feel like you're not allowed to show how dirt-stained and depravity-prone you are-- how every one of us is. But she has blessed me with her rawness, as I also try to share mine with her, and it's gorgeous. She's gorgeous. We remind each other of things we know, but need to remember afresh. I am thankful. 

We talked last night, as we usually do. We talked about art and our favorite movie, about strange but not surprising new connections, about what it means to wrestle with our own flesh, about longing for intimacy and the self-hatred that can come when we feel we're failing to be holy. And this morning, I woke up with these words in my inbox: 

it's so frustrating and unfair. why do I have to be evil? why can't I be good? why is it so f**king hard? why isn't the simple gospel actually simple when God doesn't answer or help or intentionally distances from me so that I need him more? what is that? how is that love? I'm so frustrated with God and frustrated at myself for being frustrated with God. like obviously it's futile. he's God and I'm scum and whatever. but it's frustrating. the rules of this universe make no sense to me.

like Jesus is supposed to be enough. but he isn't. he so isn't. and I'm so sorry for thinking that. 

I wish so much that I could sit with her, take her hands in mine, and talk with God together until Peace meets us; to run my fingertips across her back, to stare at the stars until we're smiling, to be Presence for one another, because I think that's the best and holiest thing. Alas right now I cannot, so I am writing her this letter. The questions that she's asking are ones that I know very well, that echo in my own heart, because I still remember asking them so clearly myself not so very long ago. I will probably ask them again before I make it Home. I know that she doesn't need the theological answers, because she knows them already--she just needs reassurance and clarity; a set of eyes to see her and lips that aren't her own to kiss her palms and cheeks until she remembers. 

So Little Friend, brave and bold and gorgeous in your honesty, this is a letter for when you forget. 

Please know that I see you. I see the generosity of your spirit and the love for every part of creation that shines out of your eyes. I see the messy and mundane and holy work of your hands. I see that you hold so tightly to the belief that you aren't worthy. I see not only the hope, but the pain and confusion that swirls inside of your chest. I see the fierceness and the defiance that flings itself against the walls of your heart when the fear creeps under your skin, wild-eyed and filled with doubting. I know that the voices get loud and unnerving, but I can tell you with certainty that they lie: you are not failing, Little Friend. Your ardent desire to love God with everything that you are is so beautiful, but please don't let your constant striving for holiness make you forget that you already are. 

You are holy, and wholly cherished in this very moment. Sanctification is a road, but you were breathed from stardust by the Creator of universe and He holds his perfectly beloved one in the center of His palm. You measure and mark your steps and hate yourself for your stumbles, but He watches you with eyes aglow, so well-pleased with you and overwhelmed with delight each time you move towards, singing Grace and adoration over your ever move and eager for you to hear it. Please try not to grieve the hearts of those who love you by burdening yourself with shame. It's okay that you wrestle, it's okay that you doubt--God would far rather you wrestle than shake His hand, I think, because wrestling inherently mandates a proximity, and He wants you nearer than you can imagine. 

But don't you dare call yourself, the fiercely desired one of The Author of Life, "scum" ever again. No matter how much you feel you fail at loving, no matter how inadequate or depraved you feel, your identity is written in stone by the finger of the Devine, spoken over you before you took your last breath, and will remain through the end of eternity: you are The Beloved. Let yourself believe it. Remember it. And if you forget again like you have now, I will speak it over you without ceasing and ink it into your skin over and over until you let it sink into your heart. I know that you don't believe it right now, but I won't leave until you do. 

I think sometimes when we say that "Jesus is enough", we imagine that no other unsatisfied desires should pull at us, that we should be happy and clappy and singing to Him all of the day. But this isn't heaven, Little Friend. We aren't yet in the perfect union with our Lover and with all of creation. When we are there, then yes: not a single desire will remain unfulfilled. Glory! But we are on earth, and we designed for intimacy, designed to crave, and your heart's longing is nothing wicked. Maybe when we say "Jesus is enough", we don't mean that there will never be times when you feel how you're feeling now. Maybe this is exactly when He is enough: not when we feel the closest to God, but when we feel far. Not when we're already walking on water, but the moments when we're sinking, and He reaches out His hand and pulls us up, pulls us closer. I know it feels like God has moved farther from you right now, but that is not the God that Jesus showed us, not the God who is near to the brokenhearted and the lost, who leaves the 99 to seek the one, who does nothing but turn towards and draw in with His goodness over and over and over. I know that you can't feel it right now, but you are so, so held, Little Friend. 

I know that you know these things in your heart. I know that this probably isn't fresh, new truth that you've never heard. But things that we know sometimes slip our mind, we frail and fickle human things. But Love and His Grace do not fade, and The Father whispers and softly sings the truth over us until we can hear it and feel it, until we remember. And because He's wilder than I can understand, He invites each of us into the work of building and holding and lifting and reminding one another, of being the singers of the Great Song one another here on this earth. So although I ramble and falter, I'm doing my best now to lift up the melody of The Gospel. I know that you know the song, and this is a letter for when you forget. You are loved beyond your wildest imaging, Little friend. 

And I will write and sing until your heart remembers. 

On Highlight Reels

I was going to make this a post about how grateful I've been feeling the past week or two: I'm a new home that I adore, I'm no longer living alone and my roommate is already a friend and a Godsend, and it feels like a fresh chapter, and I'm really thankful and excited.

But then I was thinking about how when people only share their the happiest things online, it can create a lopsided picture of their lives that can end up making others feel like their own lives are weirdly challenging or empty. I get that not *every single thing* needs to be shared on social media, and I also understand the value in sharing predominately positive things, but as a pretty regular sharer I also want to make sure that my online curating isn't leading to that thing where only sharing my highlight reel gives anyone following me a false impression...

So in light of that, here are some things that you probably don't know from social media: Moving to Austin was cool, but also really hard. Starting over somewhere new with virtually no friends, working from home, and living alone was brutal. I went through a break up the week after I got here. The other party involved, someone I cared about very much over the course of years, immediately started dating someone else, and I've been trying to process the emotional realities of the situation. God has been growing and teaching me so much through it! But that doesn't mean it hasn't been painful. I still haven't found a church home in Austin, and I've taken a break from looking, because it's tiring. Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing by leaving Guatemala. Visiting a couple weeks ago was awesome, but leaving is still terrible. I miss my friends and community there, and the kids of course, daily. I have some wonderful people in my life, but maintaing friendships into adulthood is tougher than I expected, and I'm getting to the point where I'm needing to learn when to stop trying and let go of some of them, and that's not fun. My family is amazing! But sometimes I argue with them, and I don't think I show them gratitude enough. Despite my love of God and my (I've been told) confident demeanor, I regularly struggle with anxiety and fear and am very much still in the process of learning to trust fully. I need to pray and read my Bible more. I practice yoga! And it's still really hard. The bunnies are really cute, but man, cleaning out their cage sucks. I haven't been walking my dog enough because it's so dang hot. The other day I dipped a spoonful of peanut butter into coconut sugar and I called it lunch. I'm looking forward to the future, but I often worry that I'm not using my life as well as I should be, and I'm scared of not living up to my potential. And I'm also feeling really, delightfully grateful. The awesome, happy things in my life are so real! The cute animals, smiles, sunshine, God moving, and gratitude. But the above stuff is all real, too. There's a lot more going on "behind the scenes", and I'm guessing that's true for a lot of other people, too.

Social media may be a place for highlight reels, but LIFE is so much more. It's complex, confusing, often mundane, rarely black and white, full of more joy than a status could ever convey, and absolutely a journey. So if you can relate to my confessional at all, I guess I just want you to know that you're not alone, God's got you, and we are very much alive smile emoticon

On Hard Days and Embracing Pain

Today was a hard day.

Today, I woke up with an ache in my chest that pulsated throughout the rest of my body, as though my heart was pumping blood tainted with pain. Today, a sense of loss is tangible-- an awareness of the fact that this fallen world is filled with goodbyes that I don't think we were originally designed to withstand. The realities of being so alone in a new city wear at my bones, bones that ache for a Home I haven't found yet. Today the weight of distance pulls at my limbs, and my legs want to run across oceans, and my arms want to stretch and stretch across thousands of miles until they can reach the souls I'm missing so very much, until I can hold them close to me and not let go.  Today my heart mourns being let go by a heart I wanted to hold onto-- a pain I was doing so well at not feeling by refusing to acknowledge it, by covering it in thin coatings of anger and bitterness and nonchalant utterinngs of "good riddance". 

Jesus tried to nudge me towards gently uncovering it the other day. As I sat in my living room and flipped to the Gospel of John in hopes of meeting with and refreshing my picture of Jesus, I asked Him to meet me in a tangible way. The Bible that I was using had a previous owner, and that previous owner just happened to be the person I had been doing so well not thinking about. I noticed a word that must have been underlined by him, and I felt a tiny twinge. Don't, my mind told my heart. Don't even go there. Then I heard another Voice, one that didn't belong to me, say, "Hey, you should pray for him." Pray for him? At this time? Nuh-uh. Wasn't gonna. First off, my fleshy side wants him to suffer. Not badly, I'm not going to wish ill upon him or anything, but I want him to feel to proper consequences of his actions, and apparently I think I'm the universal administrator of justice. #JesusHaveYourWay #MostlyWithHimThough #BecauseClearlyHeNeedsIt #AndI'mSoGracious. …Whoops. Jesus and I had to have a little chat about that one. And second, anyone who's ever taken Jesus up on that "Pray for you enemies and bless those who curse you" thing knows that it's a sneaky, sneaky trick. What it does is work on your own heart, drawing out the anger and bitterness. What it does is soften you. And I had no interest in being softened just then. 

The aforementioned person and I both both enjoy the X-Men franchise. He's always been a big Magneto fan, and I've always appreciated Dr. X. That should tell you a lot about our personalities, I suppose. I particularly resonate with the young Charles Xavier artfully portrayed by James McAvoy in the most recent reboots. In the last film, Days of Future Past, there's a plot line where Charles has regained the use of his legs through a new serum-- a serum that happens to also quell his powers. A disgusted Wolverine asks him, "You gave up your powers so you could walk?" And Charles shoots back, "I gave up my powers so I could sleep," his voice cracking as desperate eyes betray what he's really running from. Oh Charles! I wanted to hug that fictional character, because I knew. For so much of my life, I've been there. Xavier's power is telekinesis, which includes hearing the thoughts of others, which means hearing, and thus feeling, their pain. I've always felt very deeply. I understand wanting to run from that. I've always had an interesting sort of gift where walking with others in their pain isn't very burdensome for me--but dealing with my own pain is.

How much time have I spent in the past weeping, overwhelmed with pain with no end in sight, begging God to make it stop? The past five years I've worked towards becoming a person who's not overwhelmed or controlled by my emotions, who doesn't let them move me towards unhealthy actions. I've made very steady progress and I'm so proud of myself. Much of that has come from the realization that the deep shame I carried, the internal voices constantly telling me how unlovable and awful I was, amplified pain to unnatural and unbearable levels. A break up is always going to hurt, but for me it would turn into You ruin everything, you're so hard to love, and everyone is going to leave you. When you believe those kinds of words, of course it's going to be overwhelming. I've been learning to acknowledge there's a huge difference between guilt ("I did something bad") and shame (I am something bad), and now I can catch myself when I jump straight to the latter. Recognizing and correcting those thought patterns has been revolutionary for me. But I guess recently I've also started employing another tactic: the "hardened heart" method. In some ways it's been a welcomed respite--I am far more even-keeled than I've ever been. But of course, I'm also less compassionate and less trusting than I've been. I also get angrier much more frequently--an emotion that used to be reserved for very rare occasions has started to become a constant, low-grade presence in my days. Bitterness. Lack of grace for others. Far less concerned with actively loving on others, far more concerned with self-preservation and what I'm getting out of relationships--an immature sort of love that I don't think can be called love at all. The numbing effect has come at a cost, but I haven't felt eager to stop paying it. So when Jesus met me like I asked Him to and tried to nudge me in the direction of softening, I wasn’t having it. I thanked Him for His input, and informed him that I was disinclined to acquiesce to His request at this time. Ha. 

God is not quite so easily deterred, however. I've found that when you sincerely pray to be molded into the person that you were created to be, God will answer that prayer--even when you're not feeling cooperative and not stoked on that path that means taking. 

So, God allowed me to find a slightly more straightforward route through my hardened hard. A couple nights ago, I happened to come across a picture of the discussed person (don’t ask me how/ it’s whatever/ stop judging me) … and in said picture, he had his arm around a girl who he’s apparently dating now. That cool, calm, detached, hardened heart thing I was talking about? Yeah. I totally lost that. It’s been five weeks. Five weeks ago we were talking about a potential future, and now he’s just happily hanging with a beautiful girl who I’m sure totally takes his mind off of any missing he would otherwise have been doing? It was like a punch to the gut. A hard one. I’d kind of figured he might be talking to this girl, but seeing it with my own eyes was a completely different experience. I was horrified. I was angry. I started feeling anxious. And then, I hurt. 

The reality of the loss started to sink in: the loss of the person who’s been my closest, most consistent friend and confidant for the past three years, the one who I shared my thoughts and fears and hopes with. The one who knows my secrets and who held me when I cried. The person I laughed with, played with, fought with, prayed with… even if what we had was complicated, it was real, and I’d actually been hoping for a time when it wouldn’t be complicated anymore—where it could be straight forward, light-hearted, easy, and good. But we couldn’t agree on how to get there, so we had to say goodbye and let go. And he's already found someone else. Now he's getting to know her mind and heart. Now he's kissing her. Now she’s going to get to celebrate his birthday with him next week. And maybe he’ll fall in love with her. Maybe he’ll choose her as his One. My stomach twisted and I felt like I might throw up. I was choked with tears and I started to feel overwhelmed. I wanted to run from it, run somewhere, run anywhere, I wanted my hardened heart back…

Then the words spoken to me years ago by a most beloved mentor were brought back to the center of my mind:

"I think I have a word from God for you. I think God's telling you that you need to embrace pain." 

Um… What was that? Almost all of the words that were spoken by this mentor, Maurice, resonated deeply with me and carried peace with them, but these did not. I did not understand these words. I was coming off of one of the hardest years of my life thus far, and just barely holding it together. Pain and I were already pretty damn intertwined. I couldn't imagine that God wanted me to live in that state constantly, much less accept more pain—I had already reached my threshold. So I refused the word, because I didn't understand. But oh, God is tender and God is good. Years later, finally ready, the soil of my heart was able to receive it last night:

Embrace the pain. I've finally realized that God wasn't trying to tell me to take more pain when He said that, God was lovingly trying to tell me not to be so terrified of the pain. You've probably been through a situation in which the dread of the experience ended up being significantly worse than the experience itself. Well, now I've realized the other thing that coupled up with shame to amplify pain in my life: the fear of it. When something hurtful would happen, my heart would seize up in an attempt to protect me from pain, but in reality, that clenching fear would turn what might have been a quick, sharp pain that passed fairly easily into a drawn-out, agonizing experience. Perhaps because I feel so deeply, my instinct when I see pain approaching has been to thrash with wild and desperate eyes, fighting, begging to not have to go through it. Now God is putting His hands so tenderly on me, holding me, encouraging me to see that maybe I've been causing much more pain than necessary by dreading and fighting. God was trying to ease my pain, not multiply it. Wow. 

So today, I did not try to run from pain. I embraced it, and I treated myself with tenderness.  

Today, I did not judge myself or chastise my heart when it ached. I honored the validity of my feelings. I didn't let my mind carry my heart to the possibilities of what could happen tomorrow--tomorrow will have enough troubles of it's own. But today, I let myself mourn. I was gentle on myself when I slept in longer than I meant to. I reached out to dearest friends with honesty, appreciating the privilege of being lifted in prayer by brothers and sisters who care. I nourished my body with food when I didn't feel like eating. I stood in the sunshine and began making a list of things that I'm grateful for.  I signed up for a workshop that I think will be very good for me. I finally got myself to a yoga studio and practiced, something I've known I should do for quite awhile. And when tears wanted to come in a heart-opening pose, I let them come without judgment. I cuddled with my dog, I saw a movie with friends, and when waves of sadness hit me during the move, I accepted them, leaned my head on my friend's shoulder, and let them pass. I held onto their hugs for extra long as we were leaving. And I started shifting my focus away from my own emotional experience and towards how I can build the Kingdom and bless and love on others. 

Pain is a reality in our broken world. Just because something hurts doesn't necessarily mean it's bad--sometimes we grow though it. Sometimes we need it. Sometimes it is simply the by product of living in a world we weren't originally designed for, sometimes terrible things happen and we can't possibly accept that any good would justify them because the loss is so tragic. I do not want to downplay that. But even then, we aren't left hopeless. Even in the darkest nights, when everything is broken and burned to the ground, there's a God who revels and delights in making things new, in bringing things back to life in a better way than we could imagine, in making beauty from ash and dust. I’m ready to stop being so scared of hurting, and embrace pain as a healthy emotion that’s a part of living and loving. Tomorrow might end up being a hard day, too. But I trust that as I hand over control and submit to a God who Loves, who doesn’t delight in grieving our hearts but desires our deepest good, He is are more than capable of guiding, equipping, and holding me through whatever it takes to complete the good work that He started in me. I’m ready to run with Jesus, ready to carry light and life and love. I’m ready embrace the ache when it comes, let it pass when it’s time, and to stop being afraid. I'm ready to let Perfect Love cast out all my fear, so I can stop being held captive by fear of pain. I'm ready. And I'm grateful. 

How precious it is to be so deeply, wholly, and profoundly loved by a mighty, intimate, and tender God who loves us so extravagantly-- even through the pain, even on the hard days. And how wonderful that through those things, He will bring beauty. From the ashes we give Him, He will make beautiful things. And in that, we'll see His goodness. In that, we will see His Glory. 

I Know the Way You Can Get

Poetry: realized I really miss it. Found some that speaks to my soul. I think we can all get this way when we're lacking Love. What would my life look like for me to be able to replace Hafiz's name here with my own?


I Know the Way You Can Get 

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been out drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep Remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me, For I am a Sweet Old Vagabond
With an Infinite Leaking Barrel
Of Light and Laughter and Truth
That the Beloved has tied to my back.

Dear one,
Indeed, please bring your heart near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!

On Going Back to Church and What God Said

I went to church last weekend. 

If you've been following my journey at all, you know this is a pretty big deal. I've tried to go to church back here in California a couple times since being back, and since my really bad church break up, a break up where I was madly in love and the other party seemed so apathetic and indifferent to my pain and departure that it wrung my heart out... 

And my previous attempts at attendance didn't go well. I felt kind of nervous driving to the churches, but I thought, eh, it'd probably be fine. I've been to hundreds of church services before, so even if I wasn't feeling it, I could just phone it in, right? Turns out, not so much.  I'd get within about 100 feet of the doors and I'd start to panic. Heart racing, knots in my stomach, PAIN. When I tried this past December I involuntarily started muttering "I hate churches, I hate Christians, I hate churches, I hate Christians, I HATE CHURCHES..." under my breath as I walked up the stairs into the builidng. Charming, I know. I'm not proud of it, but that's what happened. I felt like I was going to throw up and was shaking. It was actually like some sort of PTSD. I'd manage to sit through a portion of a service, generally with tears streaming down my face, and then I'd get as far as I could as fast as possible so I could breathe, and then cry some more. So yeah-- project Get Jazz Back In A Church wasn't exactly inspiringly successful at first! 

But I went to church last weekend. 

I miss communal worship. I miss growing and learning in that setting. I have many critiques of the mainstream notion of churches as buildings and pastors and brands, but I also have experienced firsthand the growth and goodness that can come out of them. When you're burned down to embers, the best thing you can do is be around others who can warm you with their own fires and fan your flames, and while I still talk to God, I miss community and I miss the walls of my heart being soft to Christians. So I tried again. I went by myself this time, didn't meet anyone I know. I actually went to another campus of the church I had the break up with. I didn't know anyone there. It's about a 10th of the size of the church I attended before, and I was intentionally late to avoid meeting and greeting. I stood in the back, cautiously, listening, waiting for worship. The pastor sounded laid-back and genuine... I was doing okay. Pacing a little bit, but overall decently at peace. Okay, progress. When the lights dimmed, I made my way to a folding chair in an empty row near the front. A girl I know who clearly has an anointing to lead worship approached the mic with her guitar and I bowed my head, and soaked it in. There is something sacred about this space, about taking time to intentionally come and meet with the Divine in a room of others who are doing the same, and my heart drank it in, thirsty for it.

After a song or two the pastor came back up and said we were going to use a technique used in pre-marital counseling in our relationship with God: he encouraged us to practice actively listening, to hear what's being spoken to us and repeat back what we think we're hearing for clarity. Okay. I was down. I wondered what God might say before I quieted my thoughts... 

"You know you haven't been loving Me the way that you should." 

"Where have you been?" 

"'Bout time." 

but as I let go of my conscious thoughts and waited for that familiar voice that I hadn't heard in too long, the clear and simple message I received surprised me: 

"I loved you already." 

What? 

"I loved you before you came in here. I loved you last Sunday and yesterday and when you were muttering about people sucking. I'm happy you're listening, but I want you to know that I already loved you fully, and that won't change. " 


I finally sat in a church without panicking, and God wanted me to know that was nice and all, but far more importantly: God loved me already. 

And I knew this, I suppose, at an intellectual level. That agrees with my theology. But I walked into that church carrying not only pain, but also guilt, and also shame. I walked in with a part of my heart believing that maybe God wasn't as crazy in love with me right now, because I wasn't feeling the Spirit stirring my soul on a daily basis, wasn't prophisying or interceding or seeing the world aglow with God's love like I have before, wasn't really doing much at all to nurture my relationship with Jesus. So maybe if you would have asked I would have said that yes, God loves me, and yes, I am the Beloved... but I walked in with shame.  And I don't think God is a big proponent of shame. God loved me so deeply and wildly and wholly already and wanted to flood my heart with the reality of it. Like a wayward daughter I approached my Parent with arms folded across my chest in protection and head hung down... and waiting for a verbal slap before I was allowed back home because "I mean you'll always be my child even when I'm disappointed in you or whatever" or something, God lifted my chin and looked me straight in the face with everything good flowing out of those eyes, and told me He/She loved me already. Jesus and the Holy Spirit stood behind God, smiling and nodding in agreement. 

Going to church was good for me for many reasons, and an important step in continuing to grow and heal... but those words were hands-down the most important part. And I guess if you're wandering or angry or hurt or confused and you're wandering in the proverbial woods like I was/still am, whether or not you're interested in finding you're way out yet, you are loved already. I am loved already. 

We are

Passionately, 

Wholly, 

Wildly, 

Tenderly, 

Perfectly 

Loved... 

already and still.