Sausage and Seminary

I've been carrying the thought of what's next with me for a while now. I wonder if it's seminary or university or becoming a barista. It's an ever present question for myself and others, what am I moving toward? I keep wrestling with the tension of wanting to be somewhere other than where I am, even though I know I'm exactly where I need to be.

Today I was cooking with my beloved friend, H.
H: "You know that sausage is never going to cook if you don't stop stirring it."
Me: "What do you mean? I'm giving it all of my attention to make sure it does cook."
H: "Yeah but if you don't let it sit still for a while the heat will never actually sit in one spot long enough to cook it. Your stirring is slowing it down."

There you have it, my stirring is slowing it down.

I over water plants...
I over love relationships...
I over think decisions...
And I over stir the sausage.

I've never wondered if I was not enough, instead I wonder if I'm just too much.

The problem is I get anxious in these liminal spaces. I look for constant movement and progress in the hopes of finding something new. What I don't realize is that it is my over seeking leading to more and more unanswered questions. If I could learn to sit in the stillness, maybe the answers would find their way to me. Maybe I just need to let the heat soak in for a while.

The Callback

The Divine passed through, 

and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains

 and broke the rocks in pieces before the Divine,

 but the Divine was not in the wind; 

and after the wind an earthquake, 

but the Divine was not in the earthquake; 

and after the earthquake a fire, 

but the Divine was not in the fire; 

and after the fire a still small voice.

Suddenly a voice came, and said, 

“What are you doing here, my child?”

1 Kings 19:11-13 Paraphrased

I've been wondering lately about what's next for me. What am I doing here? I'm finding that I don't fit into my dreams anymore. The person I want to be, the person I am, and the life I wanted to live are at odds with each other. Picking a new path feels constricting. Every direction feels too small, because it means walking away from everything that was up until now. I've been looking for some great sign in the breaking and wind and fire. Something to tell me what to do, so I can release the anxiety of deciding for myself.

Instead I keep finding a still, small voice. A callback. It's that feeling you've known before, the echo that keeps repeating over and over throughout your life. A moving mantra. It is that which has not yet happened, yet points to all that has happened up to this point. It wraps its arms around your story. The entire story.

It is the one Truth I can hold onto when nothing else makes sense.
You could call it the callback...
Elijah calls it the still small voice...
Paul Tillich calls it the Ground of Being...
Gerald Manley Hopkins calls it the Golden Echo...
I boldly choose to say it's God...

So I'll stop trying to make a decision. Instead I'll decide to be fully awake, listening and loving and living. Eyes wide at all times- looking for the golden echo, listening for the callback, living for the Ground of Being. Knowing with that deep inner knowing that it is so much more than I could ever plan or hope for.

Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,

And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver

Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death

Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, 
beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.

See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair

Is, hair of the head, numbered.

Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould

Will have waked and have waxed 
and have walked with the wind what while we slept,

This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold

What while we, while we slumbered.

O then, weary then why

When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,

Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept

Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder

A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—

Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, 
yes yonder, yonder,

Yonder.

-Gerald Manley Hopkins

Section of The Golden Echo

I gave up.

I grew up believing that if I wasn't actively fighting for something, I was giving up. And I hate giving up. In some ways it was good, it gave me the strength to fight depression and hold on when it hurts. But it was also toxic in other ways. I held on to beliefs that belittled me. I refused to give up on destructive people and situations, and in the process I became smaller.

Then slowly but surely, I began giving up.

I gave up on being the caretaker for my family. I realized the best thing I could do for them was let them see me chase my dreams. I found that by leaving I gave them room to breathe and gave myself room to become.

I gave up on my religion. I let go of all the rules, spoken and unspoken, that told me what to do and who to be. I found that outside of that box was an entire world of meaning and depth and holiness. I found God.

I gave up on helping people. I let myself be the helpless one, and in doing so I found that loving will always bring more healing than helping ever could.

I gave up on my dream. In a country I loved with the job I always dreamt of, I decided to leave. Because I realized that the whole world means nothing if you aren't experiencing it with your full self. I'm finding myself.

I gave up on fighting against the current and decided to give in. I'm learning that giving up is sometimes the strongest thing we can do. I found that the flow of this current will take me where I need to go. 

Your head is the last to know.

When you're sitting in the back of an old blue van, looking up at the stars. When your heart starts to beat faster and your body is completely still. In that moment you sense that life is meant to be big and it is meant to be connected.

Your head is the last to know.

When you're praying in a Buddhist temple and suddenly the world falls away. As you get up your body is shaking and deep down you know you are about to move across the world.

Your head is the last to know.

When tears start falling as you listen to a podcast. When you aren't even sure what it is that hit your heart. You have to rewind to find out that they're talking about a place for people who seek like you do.

Your head is the last to know.

When you're on hands and knees cleaning the tomb of a saint. Tears streaming down your face and laughter on your lips. Your heart beats slow and sure, and you know that you are called to clean your own sacred spaces.

Your head is the last to know.

When you're falling for her. When your heart starts racing every time she walks into the room. Your body keeps moving in closer, looking for any excuse to be near her and hear her stories.

Your head is the last to know.

In the moments when your incongruent pieces are sewn together into something bigger. When you become more than the sum of your parts. These moments don't make sense, they never could. This whole experience is far too big for the mind to comprehend.

So eventually you finally begin to let go. You let your heart lead the way and rely on your body to keep you fully present, and accept the fact that the head will always be the last to know when it really matters. 

Take Courage

Richard Rohr told us that the Latin root for courage came from the word for heart. Like we so often do, we made this word small by making it practical. Courage became defined as the actions you took rather than the experience you felt. But really, an act of courage was always meant to be an act of the heart.

And let me tell you, I've learned a lot lately about living out of my heart.

I've realized that courage is found more in the descent than the ascent. It's found in crawling down the mountain rather than reaching the mountaintop. It's found in facing your darkness more than shining your light. It's found most when falling in love and falling apart. Courage is found in the moments that no one ever sees.

Courage is forgetting what you should do and chasing what you must do. It's moving forward because if you don't, you know a piece of your heart will die. Courage is living with a heart that is full.

May we live a life that requires courage.

May we seek situations and people who set our hearts on fire.

May we fight and learn not for a desired outcome, but for love of living.

May we take courage, for courage is ours to take.

Down The Mountain

I went hiking with a dear friend this morning. I had a blast climbing up the mountain. It was hard work, but it was worth it. Climbing up works your body, it challenges you to keep reaching forward, looking at what's to come. Sitting at the mountaintop you can rest in knowing you have accomplished something amazing, you have witnessed something beautiful. The hard part begins when you have to climb down, it's hard on your mind instead of your body. It's the fear of falling.

I think a lot of my life has felt like climbing up a mountain. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, and when the terrain was too steep I would use my hands and crawl. The rocks ahead of me were leveraged to pull myself up, using the future as reassurance as I leave the rest behind.

And it's been incredible. I have had my mountaintop experiences, I have seen and felt things that I will never be able to put words to. I have known all of the light and beauty that exists at the peek of life.

Lately though, I've been climbing down the mountain. That's the painful part. Constantly on the edge of falling. Knowing one wrong step means a painful tumble. Going down the mountain requires bravery.

It's worth it thought. I've realized I can't begin climbing another mountain until I am willing to reach the bottom of this one.

The mountaintop is the most beautiful point, but it is not the most full. Because at the top you realize there is such a long way down, you have so much to lose. It is only when you reach the bottom and look up at all you've been through, the strength of climbing and the courage of falling, then you know that you have conquered the mountain. 

The Most Human of Holidays

I have such a deep love for the Christmas season, I always have. I have a collection of ugly Christmas sweaters, I know where all the best Christmas lights are, and most Christmas songs will make me cry if I listen to them enough.

But lately Christmas has taken on an entirely new depth of meaning for me.

It has become less about cheer and more about chaos...
Less about expectancy and more about defying expectations...
Less about holiness and more about humanity...

There is a certain absurdity and grittiness to the Christmas story. The world expected a messiah who was a warrior, they expected prestige and purity. Instead we were given a child from a nowhere town, born into a shameful engagement and fleeing an oppressive government. It’s messy, scary, and not at all what anyone expected it to be.

But isn’t that usually where holiness is found? In the places that we are most afraid of, where we come face to face with our brokenness, when no one else understands... that is where Christ is found.

Because Christ is so much more than a baby in a manger. Christ shows us that it is possible to be fully human and fully divine at the same time. Christ is evidence that God is found in all of the wild beauty of our humanity.

Christ is holy human.
Christ is wholly human.

My dear friends, I pray that in this Christmas season you find the holiness of your own humanity.