2018 reflections (on death and the promise of rebirth and why I think we need to have more messy conversations)
Sometimes I think someone should give me a pulpit. I think I could preach a really good, impactful sermon. I mean factor in that I never went to seminary and usually to become a pastor you have to have a belief system that is a little less... abstract and I'm completely disqualified from the role. But none the less every once in a while i get all fired up and imagine myself speaking to a room full of people that have to listen to me and usually this fantasy ends somewhere with inspirational music playing and people shouting "Amen" in the aisles and usually some tears because cue the waterworks when someone gets something right about your life you haven't been able to realize for yourself.
Ok, maybe pastor is the wrong calling for me. I think you have to be a little more humble and less focused on self to take on that job title, and in all honesty I don't think I'd want it anyway because I've heard its not all its cracked up to be.
Inspirational speaker maybe. Influencer. The kind of people that hang out with Oprah. That's the kind of job I want. I think mostly this means I have something to say. I heard once that if you're looking for someone to have written something or say something about your personal situation and you can't find it, its usually because the voice you're looking for is your own. Let it be known I have something to say. Let it be known I'm adding my voice to the thousands of people who think they have something to say because despite having read thousands of books and listened to hundreds of podcasts I still can't find the voice I'm looking for and that's probably because it's my own.
I don't have a pulpit and I haven't get gotten the opportunity to speak to groups of people from a stage but what I do have is a blog. A tiny little square of the internet dedicated to nothing else but the sound of my voice. Whether anybody will read it or not is a different story, but having something to say doesn't depend on who is listening.
I have a sign in my house, the kind where you can change the quote, and currently it simply says F you 2018! I tried to write happy new year but there were too many letters, and i figured this was a good second best. It sums up my thoughts exactly.
2018 was HARD. I know it was hard for a lot of people, but speaking from personal experience 2018 completely kicked my ass.
I attended a new years intention setting workshop yesterday and during the guided meditation we were asked to envision two screens in a theater. One screen played our highlight reel from the last year and one screen played our lowlight reel. Except when put on the spot and bring to mind my highlight reel without having time to give it thought, my screen was blank. That should give you a picture of how 2018 went for me.
2018 was the year our firstborn was delivered into the arms of heaven. Before he even took a breath, before he existed outside of my body. The pregnancy was a life threatening situation for me, and the surgery that saved my life ended my son's.
I spent many weeks of 2018 in the hospital and many more very sick.
Grief broke me. I lost my job, then I lost my job again (having to take many weeks off due to hospital stays tends to do that). I lost so many friends (lost? or should I say they left me because I became a raging, inconsolable grieving mother? What? I'm not bitter at all). Due to a crazy turn of events I walked away from teaching yoga (for a season, I hope. I'd love to return to it someday). And shortly before Christmas, I ended up in the hospital again, as if I needed another reason to have the ground beneath my feet shaken.
If you couldn't tell, this isn't going to be one of those cheery we've-come-so-far end of the year reflections. Bear with me, I promise this is going somewhere.
What 2018 was for me was a very long, in depth conversation with death. Not the kind of thing one puts on their highlight reel. I lost, and then I lost again, and then I lost again. And just when I thought I could have a moment to catch my breath, more losses came.
I was sitting in church this morning (a new turn for me, and a whole new post) and I was listening to the pastor talk about God's will and our priorities and I realized we (at least in my experience) are presented a very narrow view of the gospel. Jesus came to bring you life and now you have more life. Everything seems to be neatly presented and tied up in a bow and even a struggle story doesn't end without a good dose of hope at the end. Jesus, life, miracles, yay! this is one of the reasons I walked away from church in the first place. I love a good redemption story as much as the next girl but after a while it started to feel... fake. Lacking authenticity and genuine feeling. It painted a pretty picture but I wanted more than a pretty picture. I wanted guts, blood, mess, feeling!
Motherhood opened me up to the story of the Divine Feminine. It broke me open into the very heart of God. Which is something I miss when I'm sitting in a pew on Sunday. I miss the heart of God. The bloody, messy, overflowing, pulsating, broken heart.
I think if we had more women pastors and teachers, we would have a lot more stories about birth and motherhood and feeling. I think if more women were empowered to teach and share and tell their deep, aching, beautiful and sacred stories it wouldn't be the story of life and more life. It wouldn't just be about hope and possibility and a future.
The most beautiful things are born out of pain. Of guts and gore and bloody messes and screaming.
I think every kind of motherhood illustrates this better than any long winded sermon ever could.
Because the gospel story isn't just about life and more life. It's about death and rebirth.
I've become intimately acquainted with death this year. The pain, the death, the loss, that's when we begin understanding the central metaphor of the gospel.
When you are knee deep in death, the idea of rebirth becomes very important. It's not just another good thing. It's vital, necessary to survival.
2018 has been a year of death and loss for me and I am over here begging 2019 to come with some rebirth. It's not just a want. It's not just another good thing. I'm hungry for it the way one is hungry for food when they are starving. That is what the gospel is about, friends.
That is the story we need preached from our pulpits. That is the embodied truth we need to be telling. Enough with the hope filled endings and the hushed way we talk about our struggles.
I want blood and messy and gutsy and earthy and stories with feeling. I want death and rebirth, not life and more life to be what we offer to the world. I want the story of birthing screams and heart wrenching losses and how on Christmas day it was never really a silent night and how Good Friday is just as important if not more so than Easter Sunday.
Don't skip over the death to get to the rebirth. When you do, you risk sounding the horn of life and more life, and you'll gloss over the gospel message entirely.
in 2019 I'm clinging to the promise of rebirth. I need it like I need oxygen. I'm trusting that its as real as death is. And that the gospel story is made from these messy, hard, brokenly beautiful and sacred stories.
Ok, maybe pastor is the wrong calling for me. I think you have to be a little more humble and less focused on self to take on that job title, and in all honesty I don't think I'd want it anyway because I've heard its not all its cracked up to be.
Inspirational speaker maybe. Influencer. The kind of people that hang out with Oprah. That's the kind of job I want. I think mostly this means I have something to say. I heard once that if you're looking for someone to have written something or say something about your personal situation and you can't find it, its usually because the voice you're looking for is your own. Let it be known I have something to say. Let it be known I'm adding my voice to the thousands of people who think they have something to say because despite having read thousands of books and listened to hundreds of podcasts I still can't find the voice I'm looking for and that's probably because it's my own.
I don't have a pulpit and I haven't get gotten the opportunity to speak to groups of people from a stage but what I do have is a blog. A tiny little square of the internet dedicated to nothing else but the sound of my voice. Whether anybody will read it or not is a different story, but having something to say doesn't depend on who is listening.
I have a sign in my house, the kind where you can change the quote, and currently it simply says F you 2018! I tried to write happy new year but there were too many letters, and i figured this was a good second best. It sums up my thoughts exactly.
2018 was HARD. I know it was hard for a lot of people, but speaking from personal experience 2018 completely kicked my ass.
I attended a new years intention setting workshop yesterday and during the guided meditation we were asked to envision two screens in a theater. One screen played our highlight reel from the last year and one screen played our lowlight reel. Except when put on the spot and bring to mind my highlight reel without having time to give it thought, my screen was blank. That should give you a picture of how 2018 went for me.
2018 was the year our firstborn was delivered into the arms of heaven. Before he even took a breath, before he existed outside of my body. The pregnancy was a life threatening situation for me, and the surgery that saved my life ended my son's.
I spent many weeks of 2018 in the hospital and many more very sick.
Grief broke me. I lost my job, then I lost my job again (having to take many weeks off due to hospital stays tends to do that). I lost so many friends (lost? or should I say they left me because I became a raging, inconsolable grieving mother? What? I'm not bitter at all). Due to a crazy turn of events I walked away from teaching yoga (for a season, I hope. I'd love to return to it someday). And shortly before Christmas, I ended up in the hospital again, as if I needed another reason to have the ground beneath my feet shaken.
If you couldn't tell, this isn't going to be one of those cheery we've-come-so-far end of the year reflections. Bear with me, I promise this is going somewhere.
What 2018 was for me was a very long, in depth conversation with death. Not the kind of thing one puts on their highlight reel. I lost, and then I lost again, and then I lost again. And just when I thought I could have a moment to catch my breath, more losses came.
I was sitting in church this morning (a new turn for me, and a whole new post) and I was listening to the pastor talk about God's will and our priorities and I realized we (at least in my experience) are presented a very narrow view of the gospel. Jesus came to bring you life and now you have more life. Everything seems to be neatly presented and tied up in a bow and even a struggle story doesn't end without a good dose of hope at the end. Jesus, life, miracles, yay! this is one of the reasons I walked away from church in the first place. I love a good redemption story as much as the next girl but after a while it started to feel... fake. Lacking authenticity and genuine feeling. It painted a pretty picture but I wanted more than a pretty picture. I wanted guts, blood, mess, feeling!
Motherhood opened me up to the story of the Divine Feminine. It broke me open into the very heart of God. Which is something I miss when I'm sitting in a pew on Sunday. I miss the heart of God. The bloody, messy, overflowing, pulsating, broken heart.
I think if we had more women pastors and teachers, we would have a lot more stories about birth and motherhood and feeling. I think if more women were empowered to teach and share and tell their deep, aching, beautiful and sacred stories it wouldn't be the story of life and more life. It wouldn't just be about hope and possibility and a future.
The most beautiful things are born out of pain. Of guts and gore and bloody messes and screaming.
I think every kind of motherhood illustrates this better than any long winded sermon ever could.
Because the gospel story isn't just about life and more life. It's about death and rebirth.
I've become intimately acquainted with death this year. The pain, the death, the loss, that's when we begin understanding the central metaphor of the gospel.
When you are knee deep in death, the idea of rebirth becomes very important. It's not just another good thing. It's vital, necessary to survival.
2018 has been a year of death and loss for me and I am over here begging 2019 to come with some rebirth. It's not just a want. It's not just another good thing. I'm hungry for it the way one is hungry for food when they are starving. That is what the gospel is about, friends.
That is the story we need preached from our pulpits. That is the embodied truth we need to be telling. Enough with the hope filled endings and the hushed way we talk about our struggles.
I want blood and messy and gutsy and earthy and stories with feeling. I want death and rebirth, not life and more life to be what we offer to the world. I want the story of birthing screams and heart wrenching losses and how on Christmas day it was never really a silent night and how Good Friday is just as important if not more so than Easter Sunday.
Don't skip over the death to get to the rebirth. When you do, you risk sounding the horn of life and more life, and you'll gloss over the gospel message entirely.
in 2019 I'm clinging to the promise of rebirth. I need it like I need oxygen. I'm trusting that its as real as death is. And that the gospel story is made from these messy, hard, brokenly beautiful and sacred stories.
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