Category Archives: Invitations

Love Everyone, and Everywhere Love

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Love Everyone, and Everywhere Love

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for Your rooted, yet whimsical, love.
It stands, unmoved by my inner turmoil;
it moves, to stand wherever I am.

Blessed are You
for taking up residence
everywhere, like air.
I breathe Your life
when I remember You
and when I forget You.
I dine at Your expanding table
where there is room for one more
and then one more.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe, for this:
because You are a safe place, so am I.
We are haven of emotional safety,
home for anger and doubt,
aware that despite their bulky size,
they are effortlessly held within love.
Love is a home big enough,
always big enough.

It Has Been a Year Since We Left Church, for the Second Time

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The first time, it was all rather unexpected. Friends invited us to start a house church with them. We could provide a place for people who didn’t feel safe in traditional church, people who had too many questions or doubts or painful memories.

So we left church to create church.

What followed were six years of beautiful upheaval. Often kids outnumbered adults, two to one. Treasures in the chaos were a sense of purpose, relational Bible studies, conversations over lunch.

But, five years in, I got tired. Bible studies irritated me. Sabbaths felt long. My husband and I watched ourselves interacting with people and noticed how empty we were—selfish and short-tempered and irritable.

Uncertainty hovered around our house church commitment for many months, until it became clear to me that fear was holding me there, not love. Quitting would leave us without a church family, it would disappoint our ministry partners, and, quite frankly, it would look pathetic. I really wanted God to call me to something new, so it could be about going there instead of leaving here. But He didn’t.

Last April, after six years in house church ministry, we made an abrupt exit. We left church, for the second time.

We became the unchurched.

At first this unchurched place of neutrality felt unspiritual. But somewhere along the way I accepted an invitation to my own wholeness.

Now I work with God in a never-ending vocation of inviting people into their wholeness. It’s small groups and coffee dates, reading and writing, praying and listening. It’s group texts and play dates and learning that my identity is not in how people respond or don’t respond to me. It’s not empty, it’s full. It’s not certain, it’s curious. It’s not settled, it’s in motion. It’s not so much about leaving church as it is about finding my holiness and realizing that, as Gregory Boyle would say, there is no “them,” just “us.” We’re all in.

What Is God up To?

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What Is God up To?

Reflections – week 8

It’s the final week of reflections inspired by my current small groups. We’ve been exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. I have a feeling I’ll be going through these books again in years to come. They invite me to occupy my own wholeness, to live in my Spirit center. I’m honored to read the words of folks who are truly alive, and to offer my own words into the great expanse.

Many thanks to the authors of these books—to Karen McAdams, Rachel Faulkner Brown, and Gregory Boyle. You are Spirit wind blowing in my life.

I have long been certain that God is crazy. Here’s proof, from the mouth of Jesus: “Whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). I could write pages on what I think this means, but I honestly have no idea. Regardless, it blows the doors off my measured world and invites me to a wild curiosity.

Gregory Boyle writes, “I hired a homie named Julio once who was in possession of the worst attitude to ever walk through our doors. Julio was not the first homie who told me where to go and requested I do things with myself that I don’t believe can be physically done. I do remember, as I hired him, that I deliberately chose to be intrigued by him rather than get defensive. Instead of dreading his arrival and the implications of his belligerence, I opted for curiosity. Way better. It worked out.”1

I find myself in a place where I’m liable to get defensive with God, so I’m opting for curiosity. Curiosity keeps me from “furiosity” and fear. Father’s House Session Seven is about how we were “made for more,”2 and that “more” may look like healing people and exercising power over spirits of darkness and oppression. Exercising spiritual power feels like one more chance for me to mess things up, in a very public way. If I pray over someone for healing of a physical malady or for the removal of a spirit of fear or depression, it’s no longer private. And I probably need an answer for when it doesn’t “work.” I don’t have one, and I hate all the usual ones about whatever God’s will is and maybe I misunderstood what to pray for, or maybe I needed to pray longer or with more people or with more faith, blah, blah, blah. I’ll pass on looking like an idiot and I’ll pass on making excuses for God not showing up.

So obviously I have some things to work through. In the meantime, curiosity keeps me present. Curiosity holds open the possibility for things to happen that I don’t expect or understand. Curiosity invites an awareness that God may be up to something of which I am totally unaware. Curiosity lets God out of the box, to see what He’s going to do. I’m not sure why God lets me keep a lid on Him. But I’m kinda ready to take the lid off. Or at least open it a crack and see what comes out. Curiosity allows me to wonder instead of worry. What is God up to?

In the early chapters of the book of Acts, Peter is beginning to inhabit his spiritual boldness. One day when he walks with John to the temple for prayer, they encounter a man begging for money. The man was lame at birth, and presumably made money to help his family care for him by begging at the temple. He asks Peter and John for money, and instead they heal him in the name of Jesus. He gets up on those legs that didn’t even work in utero, and runs around praising God.

So God’s house can be a place for beggars to come, and to receive something different than what they’re asking for. Through His Spirit, God gives us good things we don’t ask for. This is why I want to be curious. What is God up to?

I suppose I was made for this. It’s not like flying to the moon so much as it’s like walking or eating. I am naturally supernatural. The adventurously expectant life is not my posture toward God, nor His posture toward me, but something we experience together. I am a trusted daughter in this partnership.

* * *

As I look back on Father’s House, having now journaled through it twice in small groups, I recall the story I shared at our final meeting last fall. I journaled it that morning, just a couple hours before we gathered for our Father’s House finale.

November 1, 2022

Saturday our family spent the day around the fire pit in our back yard. The freestanding metal fire pit and all the chairs are still out in the lawn now, on a Tuesday morning. Yesterday it sprinkled a bit and I thought about moving the fire pit, but I didn’t make it a priority. As I fell asleep in the evening I could hear it raining more, and each time I awoke in the night it was raining. I wanted to enjoy the sound of rainfall, but I couldn’t help thinking about the fire pit out there and how easily it rusts. When I got up this morning and it was still raining, I remembered that our two favorite lounge chairs rust also, and I started feeling anxious and frustrated with myself.

Then Papa reminded me, “no condemnation.” And I thought, “but doesn’t letting that stuff rust mean I’m a bad daughter? Doesn’t it make me careless, wasteful … and just really really wrong?” And the answer was, “no. Leaving stuff out to rust has nothing to do with who I am.” I faltered as I tried to say that in my spirit. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, but with some effort I said it. I wonderingly turned it over in my mind and as I accepted it to be true I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I felt light. Amazed. Loved. Free. Then, as is my custom on Tuesday mornings, I weighed myself. 114.6 pounds. As I entered it on my smart phone I felt good about keeping my weight in the 113-117 range for several years now. And then I knew in my spirit that weight management says nothing about who I am. If I weighed 200 pounds I would be just as beloved. And I knew it in my heart. And then I just felt spoiled.

I am spoiled by knowing I don’t have to get life right, and I don’t even have to get spirituality right. There is no “right” incantation or posture or actions. There is no deserving. He is the one doing—the Giver, the Filler, the Inviter. My role is to receive (and there is no “right” way to receive) whatever extravagance He extends to me. He elevates me to where He is, and invites me to a life of amazement. In living that life, I extend the same invitation to the people around me who are still trying to get it “right,” or who have settled miserably into the mire of getting it “wrong.”

“God stands with the powerless not to console them in their powerlessness, but to always remind them of their power. … Jesus invites us to this anarchy.”3

Endnotes:
1The Whole Language, page 130
2Father’s House, page 136
3The Whole Language, page 135

A Need to Need

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A Need to Need

Reflections – week 7b

Welcome to week seven (part two) of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. Next Wednesday’s post for week 8 will conclude this series.

I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

Father’s House. Lesson seven. Myth #41: God turns His back on me when I have needs—especially needs that are annoying or ongoing.

Having needs is a no-go for me, for many reasons. Needing is vulnerable. If I need, I’m giving another person the opportunity to help or ignore me, and that’s way too far out of my control. Needing is weak; it happens because I didn’t plan right, or I made a mistake. In short, needing is never safe. Never. If I’m not strong, I’m worthless. Needs are more likely to create distance than bring connection. I don’t feel safe within my own self to have a need; heaven forbid I need something from my husband or friends, or from God Himself.

Father’s House points out that, “Everywhere Jesus went we encounter His immeasurable goodness—healing ALL who came to Him, delivering people from demonic torment, raising the dead, forgiving sinners, loving the unlovely and dining with the disreputable.”2 Yes, but this is all about doing, and I get hung up there. It sounds like Jesus went around fixing things, but my spiritual experience tells me that’s a mis-read. God hasn’t been much into fixing me. I think the Bible, the way people talk about the Bible, and the way I understand Jesus have given me the wrong idea of Father.

There is a God I know and trust, a Father I have encountered in my anger and fear and self-loathing; in music and friends and words and quietness. I have found His abiding presence in my knotted heartstrings, and in the cadence of my day. But there is also a Father who isn’t going to help me live my life, who is okay with me running on empty and doing only what I can do in my humanness. I am terrified to approach Him with deeply felt needs. Does God actually respond to a person’s real, tangible needs? What about the intangible needs I don’t even have words for? How often will God “meet” my needs, whatever that means? If it’s one time out of ten, I’d rather not ask.

I want a loving Father’s help, but the stakes feel high. I always end up angry at Him, at me, or at both of us—probably because I have expectations. I want a contract. In fact, a prenuptial agreement would be nice. I’d like to know what I get out of this when God stops showing up.

But I also want to know what it’s like to be cared for. I want to trust, to settle into what is better than a contract.

Father’s House. Day Two. Page 125: “Now climb up in [Papa’s] lap in His big chair and tell Him what you need from Him. Lay it all out.”3 I’m terrified to admit that I need to be lavishly loved, that I want to be celebrated. But I know I will settle for less if I keep clutching my needs, unwilling to hold them out, to allow someone else to see them. So I follow directions. I make a list of what I need from Papa.

I need You to bless me.
I need You to see me.
I need Your seeing to precipitate action on my behalf.
I need You to remind me it’s okay not to be useful.
I need You to move toward me with interest and intention.
I need You to want to hear from me as much when I’m doing poorly as when I’m doing well.
I need You to like being with me.
I need You to behave extravagantly toward me.
I need to be wedded to You—a forever kind of togetherness.
I need “enough” to be out of the equation—no evaluating.
I need to order takeout and waste time with You, in my pajamas.
I need to hold hands with You.
I need You to ask how I’m doing and listen without an agenda.

My list surprises me. It seems I’m more interested in being seen and loved than being served or dealt a fair hand. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I know relationship is better than rules, but sometimes I want God to follow the rules. Sometimes predictable feels safe.

Maybe predicting is rather like weather forecasting. You end up with a mix of everything, undefined no matter how hard you try to define it. But, every day we know there will be weather. I don’t know how God is going to show up today, but I know He’s going to show up. It might not be the sunshine I prayed for, but I need never fear I’ll wake up to a day with no weather at all. God is alive and I am alive, and there are days when all that aliveness is unpredictable, stormy, maybe even disastrous. But no one will wonder if anything happened that day. We’ll know. So I don’t need God to run my life, or predict my life, or change the forecast to be in my favor. I just need Him to like me and see me and bless me, and keep showing up.

It is safe to have needs in Papa’s house.

Gregory Boyle writes that when we are “held by a no-matter-what-ness” we can “reidentify and accept [ourselves] with a mystical wholeness. You can then discard all those things that previously you held back. The places where you used to get stuck. … After that, it’s not so much smooth sailing as it is resilient and integrated enough to deepen the sense of your own truth.”4 My truth is that God’s Spirit joins with my mine to affirm that I am His child (Romans 8:16). I hear His affirmation, and I make another list.

God says,
I’m so glad you’re here.
I love holding you.
I love being with you.
I am and I have all that you need.
Together, let’s rest in what is finished. Let’s rest for a long time.
Let’s be together with no distractions. Let’s have fun together.
Let’s go for a walk, get ice cream, love every person we see.
Let’s enjoy and create.
Let’s take everything that burdens and stresses you and put it on my docket. You’re free.
Let’s do relationships together. Let’s parent together.
Let me spoil you. Let me do more than you “deserve.”
Let me warm you and feed you and provide a feast of beauty for your eyes.
Let’s be alive together. I release you from the identity of responsible servant-child and name you sparkling heiress. I’m your Daddy. I made this world and the people in it. You can’t break anything or anyone in a way that I can’t re-make.
I always have your back (and your front and sides).
I know you. You don’t ever need to hide, or explain yourself to me. You make perfect sense.
You’re exactly where you need to be. Every moment.
You are not bound or caged. You are wild and free and alive.
You cannot lose my favor. I would never think to say that, because it seems silly to me, so thank you for letting me know what you need to hear.
“I’ll love you forever. I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living [which will be a long time], my [daughter] you’ll be.”5

I have believed I am worthy of having what God perceives as my needs met, but not worthy of having what I perceive as my needs met. Now I’m less sure that’s an important distinction. God is listening and loving. He is not measuring and monitoring. That’s about as safe as it gets. So I will practice bringing my needs to the table, and I will take comfort in being “held by a no-matter-what-ness.” In Papa’s house, needs are a point of connection. They are a meeting place for intimate friends. They are safe.

Endnotes:
1See Father’s House, page 120
2Father’s House,page 127
3Father’s House,page 125
4The Whole Language, page 110
5Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch

Brain Be Quiet, Let The Heart Speak

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Brain Be Quiet, Let The Heart Speak

Reflections – week 7a

Welcome to week seven of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. I’ll be referencing material from Session Seven for two weeks (7a and 7b). And then Session Eight will conclude this series.
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

Mostly I have believed that my head should rule my heart. Doesn’t information come to me via my head? Then what I know will inform my feelings and impulses, my way of being in the world. There’s just a tiny little problem. This trickle-down effect hasn’t happened. When I first noticed, I figured it must be a matter of management—I need to take a strong hand. My heart may or may not agree with what’s in my head, but my God-given will allows me to choose how I behave in the world, based on what I know to be true. Except this never worked either. So how the hell does my software work?

Karen McAdams, in this week’s Father’s House video, says, “If there’s a battle between your head and your heart, your heart is gonna win every time.”1 So I’ve had it backward the whole time?! This clears up a litany of questions I’ve had over the years: Why do I pray for patience and then try hard to be patient? What makes it so difficult to truly love another person, especially when I’m spread thin and they’re a hundred pounds of trouble? When will my beliefs about God start impacting the way I interact with Him and with people? Why am I always at war with myself, exhausted by listening to the arguing factions and trying to reach a conclusion?

Answer: “If there’s a battle between your head and your heart, your heart is gonna win every time.”

Karen McAdams suggests it’s critical that I give my heart permission to speak.2 So I opened my heart room and started picking things up and asking questions. I spent a long time learning how my heart pictures God. I refused the right answers, and listened for the felt answers. The honest truth is shocking, sometimes sacrilegious, always insightful.

God,
I don’t trust You. I want to be in charge of my own self, my day, my time, my family.
You don’t want me to be kind to myself because that would be selfish and sinful. I was made to think of others and do for others.
I’m angry at You for not changing me the way You said you would.
You’d rather be with me when I’m in a good mood.
You’d prefer I figure things out on my own; and also, get them right the first time.
You want me to be dependent so You can control me.
No matter what I do, You’re gonna be volatile, unpredictable. I never know if you’re gonna show up.
When I get lost in myself, You look the other way and wait for me to find myself again.
You like to watch me fail because it reminds me that I need You.
No matter how hard I try, I will fall short. The standards are always changing, just enough to keep me ashamed and aware of my sinfulness.
Your so-called perfection is made perfect in apathy. You are neither warm nor cold, loving nor angry, approachable nor distant, kind nor harsh. This middle ground protects You from criticism, and also from getting too close to me.
I’m furious at You for promising abundance and then giving me stale trail mix.
You’ve really fucked me up by promising You love me and then forgetting to hug me, ever.
The only reason I still believe in You is that my daft head tells me to, and keeps cramming stuff at me until I can’t breathe.
When things get hard, it’s my fault, so I ought not to expect a handout from You.
You’re actually an alcoholic because looking at me and the rest of this world is so damn overwhelming You need to numb it however You can.
You’re so sick and tired of my slow transformation that You can’t stand to look at me, and You’d rather not talk again until I get my act together.
I’m supposed to just let You do whatever the heck You feel like and be okay with it because You’re God.
I’m invisible to You unless I’m useful.

Lonely heart, I hear your pain.

My heart was at capacity, but I didn’t know it. It was full, full, full. Whatever my head sent to my heart, my heart sent right back, unopened. Return to sender. I foolishly thought my heart had unlimited capacity. It never occurred to me I might need to do a good old-fashioned purge and let a couple of boxes go to the second-hand store.

Oh my heart, I’m sorry I have rendered you voiceless, and therefore powerless. But now that you have some room again, and we’re talking, what do you think about some new things? Not too heavy, not too many things. Pick a few. Leave space to breathe.

God,
You don’t mind that I curse at You more than anyone else.
I have Your undivided attention and unmetered affection.
You want to give to me more than you want to take from me.
You see how often I run on empty, and You notice my weary body.
You don’t expect me to change because You love me.
You are more interested in being present with me than You are in molding my character.
You favor me and bless me when I reject You.
You don’t expect me to figure things out on my own, but neither do You expect me to rely on Your advice.
You like to laugh and joke with me, read books together, write together, sit together and look out the window.
You feel the pain I feel, and You bless it.
I am important to You. When You’re dancing with me, You don’t let anyone cut in.
You like to hug me, and You’re always up for a celebration.
You are such a God that I cannot permanently mess even one thing up.
You are not politely neutral toward me. This is a love story, not an agreement to shake hands and keep the peace.
You come find me when I’m curled up in fear and self-loathing, holding a sign that says, “Fuck Off.” You are not fooled, and You’re not offended. You come close enough to feel the tension and see my eyes flashing, and You stay, gently.
You always see the real me, the truest me, the me You made in Your image, unshakably good. You are disinterested in my performance or mistakes and fully aware of who I am as Your daughter.

“Homegirl Inez says, ‘At Homeboy, we don’t check boxes, we check pulses.’ And if one of our trainees misses, we don’t ask, ‘Where you been at?’ but ‘How ya doin’?’”3 Imagine a God who doesn’t ask, “Where have you been?” but “How are you doing?” That’s the God we actually have. The too-good-to-be-true Father, who can witness everything in our hearts and still want to hold hands.

Homeboy Ricky said, “I’ve come to realize that I never need to drown in the shallow end of my own beliefs ever again. Been standin’ up ever since.”4 After living in the fetal position so long, standing up is like becoming a whole new person, unfurled, alive, looking around in wonder at all the beauty.

I will keep giving my heart a voice. I will engage with hope by letting God encourage me. Boyle writes, “… we are meant to both feel encouraged by God and be a source of endless, hopeful encouragement for the downhearted.”5 Dialoging with my own heart will teach me how to dialogue with other beautiful hearts. And I will keep the conversation open. I will be tender with myself when I find more pain in my heart, and I will pray:

Okay Father, I’m gonna talk directly to You. I have a hard time picturing a Father who delights in me, whose countenance toward me does not change based on my performance. But I know that being kind to myself is a way to remember Your kindness, and that remembering Your kindness is a way to be kind to myself. We are in this together. Your authority is my authority—not standing over me, but always backing me up. You like to have fun with me. You always have time for me. You do not hand me a to-do list in the morning and check it over in the evening. You invite me to be with You, creating or enjoying. Just by being You and being my Dad, You remind me who I am when I forget. I belong in Your house. I receive You as my Father, Jesus as my brother, and Spirit as my truest self, my center. Thank You for hearing my heart, and for giving me courage to hear it too.

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, Session Seven video teaching
2Father’s House, Session Seven video teaching
3The Whole Language, page 103
4The Whole Language, page 118
5The Whole Language, page 116

Mess to Meadow

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Mess to Meadow

Reflections – week 6

Welcome to week six of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is week six of eight.
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

“Messy.” This word resonated with me as a descriptor of my inner world for most of the past ten years. Also, “Complicated” and “Untrustworthy.” Being at home with a newborn baby introduced me to my inner world, and brought to light a toxic relationship with myself that had been flying under the radar most of my life. Twenty-one months after quitting work to stay at home, my second daughter was born, and in between cuddling warm, squishy babies and washing loads of laundry that left only pink lint in the dryer screen, I learned to hate myself.

Self-hate is like having the world’s worst roommate, and reading only bad news in the paper. On some level it feels normal, but there is always the hope that things will improve. I had no idea what would be involved in learning kindness to myself. Mercifully, it was not a journey I took alone, but in the company of my husband, favorite authors, music, and God.

I didn’t know it, but I needed to learn what parts of my inner world are truest. What parts can influence or control other parts? Why did I feel powerless so much of the time, and why did I increasingly try to control myself, my children, and my husband to combat those feelings of powerlessness?

One aspect of learning to be friends with myself was practicing acceptance of all the parts. This has been a vital key in finding peace. But I still want to know, when different parts are at war, what is the most real part? In a broader sense, who am I?

Gregory Boyle writes, “When the homies arrive, they have not been properly introduced to themselves.”1 I can relate. While caring for two little ones, I was introduced to myself, but it wasn’t a proper introduction. I got acquainted with what Father’s House calls my soul—made up of mind, will and emotions.2 These always seemed at war with one another. I thought my will was the control center, the part of me that could call the shots for everything else. But it didn’t work. My emotions jumped into control, my mind spent most of its time cowering in fear, and my will unceremoniously shoved me through the duties of each day. After a few years of getting to know myself, I was thoroughly done with being me, and I was madder than hell at whoever said my will was supposed to control my mind and emotions. I was also angry with myself. So angry, from trying to control my emotions with my will, and my will with my mind, and failing. Always failing. Defeated, lying on the ground, exhausted, dirty.

In the video teaching for Father’s House Session Six, Rachel Faulkner Brown introduces the idea of a spirit center.3 The soul (mind, will, emotions) is around the spirit center, and is informed by the spirit center. In other words, everything moves outward from my spirit center. This means I don’t rule myself with willpower. I cannot tell you what a relief this is. Willpower is an unfaithful partner, an accident waiting to happen. I either wield it to the detriment of the soft parts of myself and my children, or I don’t use it, also to the detriment of our most tender parts.

A spirit center changes everything. There is a whole and holy part of me, a quiet place, a finished place. After being properly introduced to myself, the haggling between my will, mind, and emotions took its proper place outside my spirit. The authors of Father’s House write, “In the Kingdom, who you are releases what you do. The enemy tries to convince you what you do determines who you are. That’s why Satan attacks what you believe about yourself the hardest.”4 I have been caught in a vortex of doing, not knowing that being comes first. Spirit is my center, and my center is Spirit. I don’t need to control my spirit.

So, the truest—by which I mean the most unwavering—part of me is my spirit center, around which all the other parts find their places, and the whole becomes a residence of freedom and meaning.

Rachel Faulkner Brown suggests that I ask God, “What do You call me?”5 This is Papa’s response: “Meadow. You are now a place of beauty, stillness, rest, wonder, creative activity. Seasons may change the blooms or the flow of water, but you will always be these things.”

Mess to Meadow.

Wrestling to resting.

Despicable to divine.

The coming hours of this day are not a treacherous trudge over land mines, but an adventurous afternoon in a meadow.

Endnotes:
1The Whole Language, page 94
2Father’s House, page 100
3Father’s House, Session Six video teaching
4Father’s House, page 99
5Father’s House, Session Six video teaching

Taste and Swallow

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Taste and Swallow

Reflections – week 5b

Welcome to the second half of week-five reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is week five of eight.
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

Communion as Helplessness

Babies get spoon-fed. Adults with declining health get spoon-fed. Those who can feed themselves, feed themselves. Except at wedding receptions. Bride and groom hold out thin slices of cake for each other, while family and friends hold their breath—will it be romantically delicate, or smash-in-your-face fun? If they’re really brave, a couple will do the same with drinks. God bless them if they stain the wedding dress.

Holding a drink to another person’s mouth, or putting a bite of food on their tongue, is an intimate interaction. You’re participating in the entrance of a substance into another person’s body. The muscles in your hand and arm are ultra-focused, working in awkward tandem with another’s lips and tongue and throat.

In the Father’s House week 5 visualization, I’m invited to see myself at the table in Papa’s house, receiving communion from His hands.1 Imagine God Himself putting food in my mouth, holding drink to my lips, intimate, connected. This involves so much receiving, which I have never been good at. It involves not doing it on my own. Does God have time for such shenanigans?

As I swallow bread and drink, it occurs to me that tasting and swallowing are nearly the only bodily sensations I will experience with this food. After esophageal muscles carry the food to my stomach, it travels through my body unnoticed by me, yet is giving of itself for hours, sustaining my well-being. But over all this I have no control and very little awareness.

I wonder if my goodness—God’s gift to me—is this way. I hunger for belonging, rest, wholeness, so I open myself to receive. After tasting and swallowing, my mouth may return to neutral—no sensations—but a hundred things are happening inside me, producing life. Resting my hands in my lap and allowing God to feed me, trusting that I was made to receive, and trusting receiving to be life-giving and ongoing—maybe this will calm the hustle and quiet the perfectionism. Maybe being dependent will feel like peace, not prison. Maybe receiving as if I am helpless to do it myself will usher me in to abundance.

When I receive, I’m not generating something new. I’m depending on what already is. Swallowing is a surrender. I have invited something into my body, to become part of me. In the same way, receiving God’s goodness—my goodness—is a surrender to life. It’s not a structure I build brick by brick, but rather a piece of toast with butter and honey, sweet to the tongue, trusted to enter my body and do me good.

As Gregory Boyle says, “Then we stop being ‘spiritual,’ moving from here to there. Instead, we want to move from there to here.”2 God is inviting me to take up residence in myself and to taste my real life and allow it to nourish me. I am not trying to get somewhere so much as I am opening my mouth to partake.

I Declare

Father’s House encourages declarations—statements we can write down and speak aloud in order to internalize new ways of thinking. I’m not much for formulas, and I haven’t been practicing my declarations with any regularity, but writing them even once can be impactful. I had fun this week re-writing in my own words some of the scripture-based declarations from the book.

I am innocent.

I am powerful in my own self.

I live within the walled city of God’s love, my refuge and place of peace.

The greatest power in the universe is for me. All powers against me are lesser.

I am an abider.

I am whole, because this is Jesus’ gift to me.

I am alive. Good things flow through me.

I am an enjoyer of abundance.

God is never on the other side.

Jesus’ faith is my doorway out of law prison.

Slavery to the law falls off me like water off a duck’s back.

I am spirit-inhabited, married into the trinity.

My Papa is compassionate with me. Always.

Let Him Sing

Every week of Father’s House closes with a letter from Papa God, fresh with edibles for my hungry spirit. Excerpts from this week’s letter:

I am singing My promises over your soul. Let them wash over you and fill your mind and body with confidence.
I am putting opportunities in your life to grow your trust and faith in Me. How do I do this? By giving you endless encounters with My goodness.
The prize of My promises is a relationship with me.
… practice the language of possibility! You’re learning to be content using a new muscle – the muscle of rest and trust.
As you wait on My response with a carefree heart… I am holding you in my perfect embrace.

All My Love, Abba Daddy.3

Here’s to endless encounters with God’s goodness—bread and drink—and bulging muscles of rest and trust.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto: https://www.pexels.com/photo/girl-feeding-her-father-with-a-cake-4815325/

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, Session Five video visualization
2The Whole Language, page 84
3Father’s House, page 94

“Holiness is a contact sport”

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“Holiness is a contact sport”

Reflections – week 5a

Welcome to week five of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is week five of eight. (Next week’s post will also be based on material from week 5—hence, this is 5a and next week will be 5b).
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

As a good Millennial, I’m not much for limits. Limits feel like judgements. They make life smaller; make me smaller. Any good proponent of limits would tell you that healthy limits actually open up possibilities. Could be. I’m not there yet. I’m still shedding layers of limits that have gripped me too tight. When I come across this question in Father’s House, it triggers my limit-aversion: “Do you think you can ‘fall from Grace’? Read Galatians 5:1-4.”1 Falling from grace definitely does not fit in my paradigm of an expansive God, a Love big enough to hold everything. But okay, I’ll read Galatians 5:1-4.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

“Falling from grace” makes it sound like there’s a limit on grace. I look for a different angle, a way forward that’s not triggering. I have trouble finding an analogy I like. What if grace is air and not-grace is water? I’m breathing air naturally and it sustains me. But if I stick my nose in water and breath in, things go haywire. Breathing in water compromises the flow of air. In the same way, grace is abundantly available and sustaining, but if I stick my nose in performance and good behavior, I’ll no longer be breathing in grace.

Perhaps I’m not able to partake of grace at the same time I am trying to be good enough, get it right, obey the rules. This “fall from grace” is actually a loss of intimacy, a feeling of disconnect that is inevitable when I try to be good.

Oddly, I’m often “good” in order to connect, not realizing it has the opposite effect. I have settled for false, transactional “intimacy.” When I show up as a performer, it’s the wrong currency for connection. No experience has taught me this more than marriage. There is no way to “get it right.” The only way to connect is to show up as me. Damn, I hate that. The curated, filtered, controlled version of me seems so much better than actual me.

Father’s House puts it this way: “Jesus and Father God only relate to you based on the Covenant that you are in, and that is the New Covenant based on His matchless grace and mercy.”2 I can perform all I want, but when I do I’m not occupying relational space with God. Also, “Grace is not a superpower to fulfill the old covenant.”3 Say what? I thought that was the whole point. Faith and grace and Spirit enable me to do what I’m not able to do on my own, and that is to be good! Or not.

I’m not super clear on what I’m supposed to do, if not try to be “good.” But Gregory Boyle seems to have an idea:

What if holiness is a contact sport and we are meant to bump into things?

If we allow ourselves to “bump into things,” then we quit measuring. We cease to Bubble-Wrap ourselves against reality. We stop trying to “homeschool” our way through the world so that the world won’t touch us.

A homie told me once, “It’s taken me all these years to see the real world. And once ya see it—there’s only God there.”

With any luck, we don’t protectively encase ourselves from surprising tenderness. We announce to each other that we are alive and kicking, ready to be bumped into.

We don’t want to distance the secular but always bring it closer. It’s only then that ordinary things and moments become epiphanies of God’s presence.

God holds out wholeness to us. Let’s not settle for just spiritual. We are sacramental to our core when we think that everything is holy. The holy not just found in the supernatural but in the Incarnational here and now.

– The Whole Language, excerpts from pages 81-82

This view of life is about as limitless as it gets. Bump into things. See God everywhere, including in me, sacramental to the core.

So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

– Romans 8:12-14, MSG

Okay Papa God, I’m ready to shake hands on this. I’ll accept Your deal that self-righteousness and good behavior are a no-connection zone, but everything else is on the table: bad behavior, the moment I’m in, my body, the life of each person I know, the tree outside my window.

Maybe “they” are right after all—a healthy limit is freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

– Galatians 5:1

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 89
2Father’s House, page 83
3Father’s House, Session Five video teaching

Fierce Presence

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I’m beyond excited to be across the country at a writing conference, so I won’t write this week on Father’s House and The Whole Language. Instead I’m sharing an invitation to spiritual intimacy.

Fierce Presence

I have separation anxiety with God. I’m sure He’s in this for the long haul, but faith in my ability to mess up often outpaces faith in Him to keep showing up. Somehow I got the idea that Jesus’s faithfulness is contingent on mine. Or at the very least, my salvation is contingent on my faithfulness.

It’s possible I reversed good news and heard bad news. I got gravel in my filter. When “Perfect love casts out fear” goes through my filter, it comes out, “If you fear, God is not in you.” When “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” goes through my filter, I hear, “If you could only master an awareness of God, you’d have perfect peace.” Verse after verse mocks me, standing sentry to the heart of God, announcing that if I have fear or discontent I don’t belong there.

Who spread the lie that God is available only in goodness? That He is best found in happy marriages and productive members of society? If that is true, then every time I have a bad day—or worse, a week or a month or a year—I am no longer a vessel. I’m on the naughty list. I sleep in the attic with the others who don’t get it.

Love that heals is weaponized against me, suggesting that when I am not healing it is because I am not in Love. Rather than an invitation to healing, I hear condemnation for not being good enough at getting healed.

But what if I don’t have to faithfully choose Love? Maybe it chooses me. Maybe it gives me the room with an ocean view, extra fuzzy blankets, and a hot tub. It includes breakfast in bed and free parking, pool access and complimentary snacks. Love always embraces first. And second. And third. It is welcoming, and it is gentle with my insecurities.

Yet Love is as fierce as it is gentle. It knows how to walk through death and divorce, addiction and abuse, scarcity and loneliness, depression and anxiety. This Love that has tenderly pried my white-knuckled hands free and taught me to rest is the same Love that hung naked on a cross. It is not afraid of anything, yet it is not offended or repelled by the presence of fear.

I’m beginning to be persuaded, along with Paul, that nothing can separate me from the love of God.

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39 NKJV

Powerful words. But I get thrown off when I realize I don’t know what a principality is, and I’m not sure how height or depth are interfering with Love. I’ve also not had a lot of angels trying to come between me and God. Rather, I get jumpy when I make mistakes or feel depressed or snap too much at the people I love. So I wrote a personalized version of Romans 8:38-39:

I am persuaded that neither anxiety nor depression, nor anger nor arrogance nor mistakes, nor ignorance nor knowledge, nor tantrums nor passivity, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.

The voice whispering that anxiety or fear will separate me from Love is the voice of a specter, of that which seemed real to me before I became real. Maybe Love sees fear and anxiety and depression and says, “I embrace you in this,” and it says, “This isn’t the final word.” Maybe that’s what the verses are for. Love is not afraid to hold the tension of hope—the space between what is and what will be—and it holds that tension both peacefully and fiercely.

This fierce presence provides the faithfulness I thought I had to come up with on my own. God’s ability to show up always outpaces my ability to mess up. I am faithfully and fiercely loved, separation anxiety and all.

Photo by Josh Willink: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-carrying-a-baby-286625/

Righteous Rest

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Righteous Rest

Reflections – week 4

Welcome to the fourth week of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House, and The Whole Language. Gregory Boyle, author of The Whole Language, founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention and rehab program in the world. The Whole Language is his third book, and my favorite. Boyle frequently refers to “mysticism,” and if—like me—you’re not sure what that is, I invite you to just roll with it. Thank you for journeying with me.

Dead

I have a tenuous relationship with metaphors around the cross of Jesus—bridge, sacrifice, torn veil. I’m also unsure why we’re excited about a symbol of brutal, torturous death. We don’t wear miniature gold guillotines or electric chairs on delicate chains around our necks. But even if I can get past crucifixion pedantry, I still have questions. Did Jesus die as me or for me? Did He take punishment, or natural consequences, or did He simply enter into human suffering? Did He free all humanity, or only those who confess His name? Do I reap the reward of what He accomplished today, or only in the afterlife?

The authors of Father’s House believe that Jesus died as me, and while I don’t share their certainty, I love where they go from there: “The old you, the you that is still trying to measure up, died.”1 Now that is good news. Performing me is dead. Striving me is dead. Ashamed me is dead. The apostle Paul believed we were crucified with Christ, and exclaimed, “Could it be any clearer that our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power!”2 Having spent the last decade imprisoned by my own self, the possibility of leaving that behind is tremendously appealing.

The New Testament talks about the “old” and the “new” person. I like to think of them as a fake self and a real self. I was a facade. Now I am genuine. This moving into righteousness is not a move from bad to good, but a move from fragmented to whole, death to life. Behavior is always and only a side note. Good behavior centers me on shaky ground; bad behavior centers me on shaky ground. When I mess up, and when I have it all together, I need to be reminded that it’s not about behavior. “Righteous” is not a tally sheet, it’s a birth certificate.

Righteousness is Mysticism is Connectedness

Week #4 in Father’s House is all about righteousness, and the belief that “I am as righteous as Jesus Christ.”3 I want to short-circuit the voice in my heart and head that believes it’s all about behavior. I want to confuse, divert, or undermine my pesky inner parole officer. I have been imprisoned by my humanness, convinced I can only get out on good behavior, so each reminder in the Lesson Four video teaching is hope:

– Righteousness is not a verb, it’s a noun

– Righteousness is simply received, not achieved

– Righteousness is not dependent on my obedience

– Righteousness is about who I trust, not what I do

– Righteousness is received by faith, not by feeling

Righteousness ushers in a whole new way of seeing. Gregory Boyle writes, “The world will focus on outcomes or behavior or success. Mysticism glances just above what the world has in its sights. It puts judgment on check. It develops a warmth for everything that comes its way and rests in the center of it. When we are whole, that’s what we see in others.”4 Then we all warm up around the radiant heat of connectedness.

Boyle continues, “This culture of mystical tenderness holds every soul in high regard. …high performance is not the goal, but rather, a surrender to healing is. Then everyone finds this gentle road and practices, with each other, the pathway home.”5

Papa God is relentless in His passionate devotion to my wholeness and healing. When I soak in this—in the crazy truth that I am righteous—transformation is loosed, I live from a seat of rest, and I begin tapping into my heart’s desires instead of listening to my inner parole officer. I become confident in God’s presence to do the impossible with and through me, to invite everyone home.6

Righteous Conviction

In John 16:8, Jesus says the Spirit “will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment” (NKJV). Day Two reading in Father’s House shocks me: “This [John 16:8] is the only time in the entire New Testament that there is mention of the Holy Spirit convicting of sin… and it is in response to those who do not believe in Him! As a believer, this says He wants to convict you of something completely different: your righteousness. Holy Spirit knows that reminding you of who you are, the righteousness of God in Christ, empowers you…”7

So the voice inside of me that points out how much I fall short is NOT the Holy Spirit, or any part of God? Why am I listening to it? Instead, I may hear a voice that convicts me of righteousness, a voice that notices all the beautiful things in me and says that is who I truly am. This voice looks for goodness and finds it. This voice spends its time bringing to light righteousness (not sin).

Embodied Healing

Another analogy I’m not fond of is the “robe of righteousness.” Robes are not attractive, they don’t keep my feet warm, and they are not all-day wear (except when it’s cold in the house and I wear my robe over my clothes). It’s quite possible royal robes were more common than bath robes in Jesus’ day, but having no experience with royal robes I’m not sure how to relate. Also, a robe can be taken on and off, and I’m not keen on transient righteousness. But, because I’m just a wee bit compelled to follow directions, I explored my thoughts about a robe of righteousness, as instructed in Father’s House. To my surprise, I found a thought that fits me.Skin is the largest organ of the human body. Clothing is intimate. It makes sense that God would draw near to me in a way that touches my skin. Touch keeps me present. It draws me out of my head and into my body, and God knows I need all the help I can get to stay present in my body.

Our bodies carry pain, and sometimes we divorce ourselves to get away from the pain. We do a thousand things to survive, many of which we don’t even realize we’re doing. It takes time to sort this out and let love into the picture. The folks Gregory Boyle connects with carry unimaginable amounts of pain and trauma. Extravagant tenderness creates space for that pain to be seen. “When you enter the program,” a homie said, “you need to bring your pain with you.”8 Connection and healing happen when we allow our wound to be seen, and then to be touched. Boyle suggests that “Healing takes a lifetime but surrender to this moment can carry you.”9 Love creates the space to surrender to this moment, to stay present to ourselves. “To be nurtured is to be reverent for what is happening to you.”10 Grace is reverence for pain.

Rest and Love

Striving to be “good” takes a boatload of energy. I remember when my oldest daughter began full-time schooling in first grade. She came home from school each day totally spent, and often spiraled into tantrums, tears, and yelling matches with me (I’m a superb yeller). She spent every ounce of her energy to behave well, learn well, and get along with others at school, and when she came home there was nothing left. I, too, have “melted down” over and over because I empty myself in my attempts to perform well, and to be “good.”

Papa God, Jesus, and Spirit are a whole new paradigm—a home where behavior is beside the point, a distraction from the real deal. Trying to become whole is a tiring pursuit. Knowing I’m already whole is energizing. Resting in righteousness creates a foundation for love. “The mystic’s quest is to be on the lookout for the hidden wholeness in everyone,”11 including me.

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 65
2Romans 6:6 TPT
3Father’s House, page 66
4The Whole Language, page 51
5The Whole Language, page 53
6Father’s House, Session Four video teaching and activation, pages 66-68
7Father’s House, page 71
8The Whole Language, page 54
9Father’s House, page 53
10Father’s House, page 50
11The Whole Language, page 55