Category Archives: Relationship

Love Does Not Cover Faults; It Exposes Them?

1 Reply

With more stops than starts, I’ve been practicing Lectio divina, a meditative reading method I discovered in The Big Book of Christian Mysticism. Although my faith tradition doesn’t go much for Latin phrases or the term “mysticism,” this practice sits comfortably within Christian tradition. It consists of four parts: 1) slowly and carefully read a small portion of a sacred text, 2) deliberately consider the message of the text, 3) respond honestly to God in prayer, and 4) allow prayer to dissolve into restful contemplation in God’s presence.1

To begin this practice, I chose as my “sacred text” the book Reduce Me to Love, by Joyce Meyer. Each chapter is divided into sections one or two pages in length, ideal for slow reading. In the third chapter, Meyer writes, “Love does not expose faults; it covers them.”2 I immediately feel uncomfortable. Covering a fault sounds equivalent to lying. What about honesty and repentance, naming our errors and confessing them? If we cover faults with love, won’t they develop an odor, or grow out of proportion like the rumor-weed of VeggieTales fame? The title of this post feels more comfortable: Love doesn’t cover faults; it exposes them.

The gospel message I learned depends on faults being exposed. It goes something like this: God identifies “right,” and also “wrong.” Once we have right and wrong, it naturally follows to avoid wrong and adhere to right. As wrongs are identified, the way is made for transformation and healing. God is light, light exposes faults, and this is important because if our faults aren’t exposed we won’t pursue a relationship with God. The more we see our bleak character, the more we depend on a Holy God. Who needs God, except as a knight in shining light to rescue us from ourselves?

I’m struggling with this narrative, but I can’t disown it entirely. I do have characters flaws and God is Savior. Maybe it’s both/and more than a division that requires a move from one side to the other. Perhaps black and white—right and wrong—share the same spaces. Could it be that in God’s presence we know our faults, and at the same time know that love is bigger? When the prodigal son returned and looked into his father’s eyes, I think he saw tragedy and pain there—but in small measure compared to love. The father covered his son’s body with a robe and his soiled reputation with the family’s good reputation. A multitude of sins, covered. Love has meaning when it is layered with tragedy and pain.

A covering of love empowers us to offer love. It is out of insecurity—the nagging fear that perhaps we are not worth loving—that we point out the faults and foibles of others. There are two words for this: middle school. Insecure, pubescent young people, feeling suddenly naked in comparison to their younger selves, find solace in laughing at the vulnerability of others, forming cliques, and keeping secrets. It’s a tough time, and even the kids who are covered in love must ask again and again if they really are safe and whole. But, when those questions are answered with a resounding Yes, love becomes a superpower. In finding themselves well-loved they uncover the courage and desire to cover the faults of their peers rather than expose them.

Let’s go way back for a minute and think about about Adam and Eve. Did God expose them and point out their misdeeds? Certainly He could have come in with sarcasm—“Wow guys, way to listen to what I said.” Or anger—“What is wrong with you?! How hard is it to obey one little thing?” Or overblown emotional distress—“I can’t believe you did this to me. How could you seek out the only thing that hurts me and do it? This ruins the whole world!” Or disgust—“I should have known you couldn’t handle this. What a mess. It’s going to cost a fortune to clean this up.”

Certainly, if God was like me, he wouldn’t have come in the evening, allowing time to sew clothes. He would’ve been there at the first bite, to point out their nakedness, ridicule their vulnerability, and mock their lack of self-control—“Do I have to watch you every second?” But God was in no hurry. Nor did He appear angry, arrogant, or distraught. Doesn’t that seem odd? His masterpiece just got spray-painted. It will never be the same again. And what does He do? He covers the perpetrators. He sees their fear, confusion, and sorrow, and provides clothing.

I don’t get this. Maybe I got stuck in the middle-school mindset. I walk into a beautiful room or a put-together group of people and find the one thing out of place. I’m quick to point out faults. The way every smell draws a dog, every imperfection commands my attention. Clean the kitchen and I’ll show you the two spots you missed on the counter. Tell me a memory of last year’s Fourth-of-July potluck and I’ll correct you on the details. To leave a task undone is a liability, and to make an incorrect statement is a lie. Accuracy is more important than love.

The brave souls who love me call this philosophy into question. As friends accept my imperfections—arriving late, overstating things, laughing too loud—I come to know that love is more important than accuracy. My husband, Michael, has opportunity to expose my faults more than any other person. But he chooses to cover with love. When he tells the story of how I plugged our camper incorrectly into our vehicle, causing over $8,000 of electrical damage, he says, “We plugged it in wrong.” When I correct him for the hundredth time on how to straighten the bedcovers, he smiles and teases me. When I get cranky and overbearing, he quietly finds a way to ease my load—fill the dishwasher, spend time with a distraught child, run an errand. My faults have hurt him over and over, but he doesn’t expose them.

Christmas, I think, can be a time of covering. Holidays may bring up painful memories or remind us of broken relationships, and often there’s not much we can do about those things. But this time around let’s find courage to cover up a bit of fault—our own, or the fault of another—with love. In time, maybe we’ll even kill the fatted calf.

Endnotes:
1Adapted from The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, by Carl McColman, pp. 193-194
2Reduce Me to Love, by Joyce Meyer, pg. 30

God Is Not in Control, Part 3

Leave a reply

When one person wants good things for another person, does that lead to a desire for control? In my relationships with my children, my parents, and my spouse, I’d say Yes. I have felt controlled by every family member, and in my turn I have tried to control them—often because I want good things for them. I want my kids to develop skills that will help them thrive as adults. I don’t want anyone to hurt them. I want them to be kind and confident and responsible. I want my spouse to get plenty of sleep and maintain a healthy weight. I want my parents to enjoy life.

But is the basis of all these good desires the fear of what may come if these things don’t happen—if things aren’t this way? Do I want a better marriage for my friend because I fear the marriage she’s in? Do I want better health for my spouse because I fear what poor health would do to our lives? Do I want my friend Alana to have better mental health because I fear her depression will affect the atmosphere of our small group? When life goes off the rails it may cost time, money, reputation, quality of life. Isn’t it better to stay on the rails?

I used to think so, but now I’m not sure. At what cost does a person stay on the rails? What is lost to the god of control? I don’t want to admit it, but likely what is lost is what I was trying to protect—peace, safety, belonging.

God’s way of moving in the world hardly resembles mine. He wants good things for us but has no desire to control. He is not fearful, because He is love. He is not trying to guard His resources or His reputation—He already gave both to us. God’s love is a love intertwined with loss and longing. It’s a love that accepts pain, and repeats the same loving action a 100th time even though there was no response the first 99 times. It is a voracious love, eager for more encounters.

Stacey Bess spent seven years teaching transient or homeless children, grades K-12, in a homeless shelter. Many of these children attended The School With No Name for only 90 days, the typical length of stay at the shelter. In her memoir, Nobody Don’t Love Nobody, Bess introduces Karen, a woman she connected with at the shelter through conversation and nights out. Later, when Karen had a baby, she moved in with Bess’s mom, who helped care for baby Liza. Bess and her mother provided safety, midnight taxi service, food and clothing. They did everything they knew to do to help Karen create a healthy life. But things didn’t turn out how they hoped. In Bess’s words:

Karen brought us to feel and know about tragedy in a completely new way. We wanted desperately to fix her. I picker her up every time she called, day or night, and my mother put up with her tantrums and drug use, both of us full of hope and confident in the power of love alone to heal all wounds. But what we learned from Karen was that sometimes the giving has to be enough.

Nobody Don’t Love Nobody, page 42

Karen didn’t lean in to a healthy life. Love didn’t “do the trick.” My immediate response is that Bess and her mom were overly optimistic. They needed better boundaries and a reality check.

But Bess’s conclusion was, “sometimes the giving has to be enough.” In other words, what they did was enough. Nothing was lost.

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest upon reciprocity.” This feels right and true to me, but … isn’t the value of God’s love that it saves us? What is the point if no one responds? Bess and her mother loved Karen and Liza, but it sure looks like the saving part didn’t happen. It is often said that Jesus would have died to save only one. What about none?

After “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,” we have, “so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” Everlasting life—even if interpreted as fullness of life rather than living for billions of years and then more—is an outcome. Love does something. What happens if there is no “so that”? Could it be that God’s love affects us even if it doesn’t save us? Is that effect worthwhile?

I have no record of Karen’s inner world, but I’d bet she knew those women loved her. She certainly trusted them. Does God covet our trust more than a change in our behavior? More than a longterm relationship? Does He want us to know He loves us, more than He wants to save us? That could change everything.

A quick look in my Strong’s concordance reveals that the word “plan” isn’t in the Bible. I’m not by any means an advocate of returning to the King James Version of the Bible, but I find it intriguing that much-beloved Jeremiah 29:11, usually quoted as, “I know the plans I have for you,” reads this way in the KJV: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.” Maybe God’s will isn’t a plan, so much as it is His thoughts toward us. Maybe Jesus showed us what God’s will looked like, more than what God’s plan entailed. Maybe love, the absence of control, leads directly to spontaneous liking, which is the soil of belonging.

Spontaneity is the antithesis of control. It requires presence more than planning, and curiosity more than control. As humans we often forgo belonging in pursuit of acceptance, “the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable, typically to be admitted into a group.” Pursuit of acceptance gives us control. If I can perform or conform my way into a group—if I can make myself suitable—I have some control. Belonging cannot be wrangled, and has a rather slippery definition: “an affinity for a place or situation.” I looked up the word “affinity” to put some flesh on that very short definition of belonging. Affinity is, “a spontaneous or natural liking for something or someone.” So, belonging is spontaneous or natural liking for a place or situation—or, I would add, for a person.

“Spontaneous liking” sounds terribly out of control. But it leaves room for imperfection and it embodies joy. If love is the pain of not being in control, is belonging the joy of embracing imperfection? Maybe I can want good things for a person—work for them, even—but ultimately allow the giving to be enough, and allow trust and belonging to matter more than saving.

God Is Not in Control, Part 2

Leave a reply

“God is not in control” opens a can of worms. Worms don’t line up neatly or make a sharp illustration, but they are certainly alive. Over the last few weeks I’ve jotted down a number of quotes, and perhaps each one is a worm in the can. In this post I’ll pick them up one at a time to observe and question, before putting them back.
Next week I’ll wrap up with Part 3 of “God Is Not in Control.”

“The God we’ve settled for is red in the face and pretends he doesn’t know us at parties. But the God we actually have is never embarrassed by us.”1

Beginning with my parents, and right on down the line, no human has exactly wanted me to be me. I don’t even want me to be me. But God is cool with me being me, despite the fact that on some level it costs us both. God would rather know me than control me.

“It seems clear there’s no way to manipulate God with how we pray or what we say.”2

This statement feels obvious, but when I came across it in the book I was reading last week, it stopped me. Somehow it doesn’t match what I’ve learned in church and Scripture. Doesn’t God respond to prayer based on our persistence, faith, and asking according to Her will? The Bible tells us to pray in these ways—for what, if not for results? Yet anyone who prays with regularity finds out there is no formula and God is unpredictable.

Do I really want a formulaic God? Although the unpredictability irritates me at times, manipulating or controlling God would put our relationship in a tenuous position. Once I’ve manipulated someone, I no longer know if they’re doing what they’re doing because it matters to them—or because I whined or threatened. I want to know that God does what matters to Her, and I suspect she, too, values authenticity from me. He is willing to accept some amount of pain and chaos as the cost of not manipulating or controlling. He actually wants me to be me.

“… love is wild territory. It’s where people who don’t have control go and linger … Finding the self inside the skin.”

How does a person love when they are alone? What does love look like when I’m awake in the middle of the night? Did the saints in solitude—whether by their will or against it—love while they were alone? Did they love anyone other than God?

Could I give another person my attention when I’m not with them?

Perhaps loving when I am alone is a practice, a lingering in love’s wild territory. Rehearse forgiveness. Remember my favorite things about my husband. Release control of situations I want to fix. Would loving someone while I’m not with them have an impact on them? On me?

If love is attention, could I gift myself my attention? Find “the self inside [my] skin”? Can I love when I’m brushing my teeth and notice my mind overheating, trying to make everything logical? Receive God’s love when I’m alone? This might look like peace or enjoyment—knowing I am centered, enough, delighted in, and aware more of who I am than what I am doing.

That love gets me every time / My heart changed my mind / And I gol’ darn gone and done it.4

Does a heart change a mind, or does a mind change a heart? I suppose it doesn’t matter. God is active in my mind to change my heart, in my heart to change my mind, in my body to mold my spirit, and in my spirit to touch my body. He may not be in control, but He makes up for it by being the thing that wouldn’t quit. What doesn’t yield to control may yield to loving persistence. Like the woman in Jesus’ parable who kept after the unjust judge, God keeps after us. She persuades us, not because of our morals, but in spite of them. He connects to our center, from which everything else grows. She is with us to be with us, not to control the future.

“Then he said to the woman, ‘I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.’”5

I’m not sure I believe in the devil, but let’s assume for a moment that s/he does exist. Is the devil in control? Certainly his character doesn’t preclude control. And if love is not control, I’d say the devil is controlling—the opposite of love. From the Serpent’s first appearance in the garden, she has been suggesting that God controls us—“Don’t eat that.” “Don’t go there.” I can believe the lie and slip into a life attempting to manipulate God and hoping He’ll control me into salvation. Or I can say, “Love’s not like that. Love moves toward me with goodwill, not to force my hand, but to hold it.”

I’m made in God’s image, with agency and love. This leaves the devil in a difficult position. The thing she wants most is out of her grasp. It is only in deception that he has power. And what better way to deceive than to promote the message that God is in control?

“The one thing all of us—gay, straight, male, female, conservative, liberal, and on the continuum between the absolutes—have in common is the fear that we won’t be accepted, the fear of what we’ll lose if we are ‘known.’… being known is worth fighting for. It’s worth betting everything on. It’s risky. It’s terrifying. But it’s the only thing that matters.”6

God knows this, and it’s why He won’t control. He’d rather know me than control me, and He’d rather be known by me than controlled by me. God is not in control. She’s in something much better. She’s in love.

Endnotes:
1Boyle, Gregory. The Whole Language (page 7)
2Hill, Jeffrey D. Seeking the Triune Image of God in You (page 144)
3Raybon, Patricia. My First White Friend (page 12)
4lyric from Shania Twain’s song, Love Gets Me Every Time, https://www.musixmatch.com/
5Genesis 3:16, NLT
6Davis, Cynthia Vacca. Intersexion (pages 223, 232)

Get To Know the Couple

Leave a reply

November 20 marked 30 years since Pastor Bryson baptized me at the Milo Adventist Academy Seventh-Day Adventist Church—my home church. I attended that church, beginning in utero, until I moved away for college at the age of 18. An evangelistic series in the school gymnasium pulled me to baptism in an emotional rush. Less emotional were the pre-baptismal Bible lessons. On a cold day in November, my older sister and I donned baptismal robes and took the plunge in a warm baptistry.

I’ve never looked back. Although today I’m less certain about the words on the baptismal certificate I signed, I’m more certain about the relationship.

To celebrate thirty years with a little fun, I’ve compiled questions from “Get To Know the Couple” games and answered them for God and myself.

Where did they work when they met?
Tobi was a full-time child and God was a full-time lover

How long have they been together?
Pretty much forever

Where did they get engaged?
In the Milo Adventist Academy gymnasium

What did they do on their first date?
Go to church (sorry it’s not more glamorous)

Are they cat or dog people?
Tobi is a cat person, God can’t decide

Who said “I love you” first?
God

What is something they have in common?
A desire to create safe spaces where people can share their inner world, their stories

Who is more high maintenance?
Tobi

Are they morning people or night people?
Morning people, although they can have a good time at night too

Who is the most patient?
God

What is the bride’s middle name?
Danielle

What is the groom’s middle name?
He has too many to list. One of the bride’s favorites is El Roi

What is their favorite type of food?
Fruit

What are their pet names for each other?
Tobi’s current pet name for God is Love, and his current pet name for her is Meadow.

What is their favorite place?
Anywhere still and quiet—especially a chair by the window

How old is the groom?
Nobody really knows, but he still looks good

What is their favorite thing to do together?
Write

Who is the better cook?
Tobi

Who is more stubborn?
Tobi, she hates changing direction

Who takes longer to get ready?
God, he has no idea how to hurry

Who spends more money?
God

Where was the bride born?
Canyonville, Oregon

What does the groom do for work?
Still a full-time lover.

What was their wedding date?
November 20, 1993

What is one thing they want to do together in the next 30 years?
Start a nonprofit writing group

As I mentioned, God has lots of names. Also—and this may seem weird—he doesn’t always look the same. So if you see me out with someone you don’t recognize, or hear me talking about a guy with a different name, text me before you freak out. It’s probably God in one of his other bodies or using one of his other names. He’s a dynamic fellow. I’m honored to be his bride of 30 years.

I Will Change, I Will Not Change

1 Reply

I fear Christian belief will have no real impact on my life. I’m aware that addiction, divorce, and abuse in the home wreak havoc among Christians as well as non-Christians. And the things we do to feel better about ourselves happen among Christians as well—keeping our stories and our houses as clean as possible, consuming coffee and sugar at alarming rates, moving from one place (or church) to another to escape the consequences of a damaging lifestyle or broken relationship.

Until recently, I spent little time considering the opposite fear—that God will influence, transform or otherwise impact me and my life. Carl McColman, author and fellow blogger, suggests, “Our deepest fear is not that there is no God. Our deepest fear is that God does exist and wants to become an intimate part of our lives, changing us forever.”1 I want to argue with him, but I can’t. I do fear God’s influence in my life. Chances are, He has a different list (does God have lists?) of priorities than I do, and His presence will affect change. I cannot sit with Him and expect to remain the same. This is unnerving at best, terrifying at worst, but also the thing I want more than anything else.

I hold both fears at once—that I will be changed, and that I will not be changed. McColman puts it in relational terms—the fear of loneliness/abandonment, or the fear of being engulfed. I want to keep God, and my dearest human companions, in a safe little space between those two realities. In this space, I will experience a controlled situation in which I am neither left nor overwhelmed.

There is no such space in intimate relationship. It’s not that God is in the business of leaving or overwhelming people. Rather, relationship is consent to be influenced. I am changed by the people I spend time with, and I, in turn, affect those same people. Is this also true in divine relationship? The Apostle Paul wrote, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV)

I’m not sure I want to be unveiled with God. Isn’t that dangerous? Maybe we can work something out where I get to wear a veil. I’ll submit my list of prayer requests without approaching God. No need to bother Him; I know He’ll take care of things. Also, if His activity in my life is based on me doing a good job, I don’t need to spend time with Him. I can focus on being a kind and productive person, and He’ll take it from there. There are countless ways to avoid the influence of relationship. Keep it professional. Make rules. Perform. Retreat.

I suppose “influence” would be a good word to describe what happens when two people spend time together. Where does that leave control? “To have control is to have the power to run something in an orderly way.”2 Does God have this power? Is the universe orderly? Yes, it is, and no, it isn’t.

Influence is “the power to change or affect someone or something—especially the power to cause changes without directly forcing those changes to happen.”3 If I say God has influence but not control, have I emasculated Him in my view, or am I getting closer to freedom?

In a previous post I wrote, “Perhaps love is the pain of not being in control.” At the time of that writing, I explored what this means in terms of fearing my own feelings. Feelings often run free of logic and control, and therefore, I have tended to avoid them. Now, as I consider this statement in terms of relationship with God, it occurs to me this is a two-way street. God relinquishes control of me, and I relinquish control of Him. I believe this is painful for both of us.

At the same time, it is comforting. I approach God without the intent to control Him, knowing that likewise, He will not control me. I do not consent to be engulfed; I consent to be influenced. I do not consent to abandonment; I consent to a life that is not well-controlled, which is messy because love and free will are messy. Proximity includes vulnerability.

It is here that I may begin to love God. Also here is the shocking possibility that God allows me to influence Him. I don’t know how to love the Lord my God with all my heart. The best I’ve come up with in the past involved being respectful to Him, and nice to the person in front of me. There’s nothing wrong with that. But is it relationship?

I find no tidy conclusion, but I’ve stumbled upon a desire for consensual relationship with God. And so, I consent to be influenced. I consent to the pain of love, which is the pain of not having control. I accept that knowing God will change me, and it will not change me. I receive the fear of being an average human, the terror of becoming more, and all that it means to love because He first loved me.

Endnotes:
1McColman, Carl. The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, page 204.
2https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/control#:~:text=To%20have%20control%20is%20to,remote%20control%20for%20a%20television
3https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/influence#:~:text=In%20modern%20use%2C%20the%20noun,something%20in%20an%20important%20way

When I See God Glowing

1 Reply

“It would be a good sign of our spiritual well-being if, when asked to describe a moment we felt close to God, we said, ‘When I loved another.’”
– Philip Gulley, Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe

“Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
– the King, speaking to the sheep, as told by Jesus in Matthew 25:40

Intimacy with human beings is intimacy with God. When I interact with the “least,” I connect with God. This is humbling. This is not light beaming from heaven, or a pipe organ in a cathedral, or gallant green trees, or even my favorite books. Yes, God is in those things. But He makes a point to tell me He is in the least.

Who are my “least”?

My bickering, balking, button-pushing children.

Friends I avoid because they are “too Christian.”

The folks I pay money to—cashiers, wait staff, contractors, plumbers, produce stand vendors.

People asking for money at the entrance to the Walmart parking lot or sleeping in shop doorways downtown.

I’m good at hiding—behind a smile, a book, “safe” sharing. When I tap my credit card, I don’t have to see the person behind the counter. When I’m on a phone call—to the bank, dentist, tax office—I hide behind the professional relationship. I scurry down the soup aisle at the grocery store to avoid greeting an acquaintance. My kids get the short end of the stick as I shield myself with anger and control at home. I give money to charities because it’s easier than being charitable.

Then again, I keep bags, packed with snacks, water, and toiletries, in my car, and hand them to folks on street corners. I give a stranger a ride home. I pray with the cashier at the grocery story. I forgive my children before they ask.

I don’t know if I’m a nice person. I lean in; I pull away. Does this mean sometimes I have time for Jesus and sometimes I don’t?

Are there tally marks in the Book of Life?

Does it matter?

Human tally marks are about control, about externals. If there are tally marks on the cosmic whiteboard, they’re a kind I’ve never seen before. If God is measuring, let Him measure. I wouldn’t know what to measure anyway.

How well am I loving Jesus in the flesh and bones before me, wearing leggings and sweat and weariness? I do not think God is worrying about this. He is busy inhabiting arrogant leaders and polarizing politicians; beggars and cheaters and liars and beaters; starving children and sex slaves; and that guy who drives too fast down my street at 10pm most evenings. God is holding hands with humble pastors and hardworking husbands, earthquake victims and suicidal teenagers, relief workers and therapists, and mothers worn so thin you can see the light through them.

I rest assured that I will find Jesus today—at lunch with girlfriends, at school pickup, in text messages and emails, at the dinner table, and while the kids brush their teeth before bed. Intimacy with God is built into my existence. Intimacy with God is the breath of life in my own warm body.

The world is pulsing with light—a heat map of warm bodies—in the layers of houses I can see from my front window, the drivers of cars, the shoppers and walkers, glowing. Everywhere, God is glowing.

For 18 Years

1 Reply

For 18 Years

Blessed are You
Lord our God
King of the Universe
for 18 years of marriage,
of love—
bitter / sweet
comforting / unsettling
lonely / intimate
full

Blessed are You,
for I have seen You
in Michael’s face
in his words
his steadfastness
forgiveness

Blessed are You
Lord our God
King of the Universe
for duck pond dates
pillow talk and pillow tears
Ted Lasso
role reversals
one-liners
friendship

Blessed are You
for we have loved and endured
each other
and each other’s families.
We have learned by participation
what hurts and what heals.
Seeing, seeing
seeing each other
and then again
forever

Naked, Sacred Spirits

Leave a reply

Friendship drama. I feel it in my body. I watch my daughters ride the waves of acceptance and rejection in the classroom or at play dates. I listen to adult friends struggling with relational tension. I talk about my own social anxiety and parasitic desire to look good and be right. I try to help my children understand their own and others’ behaviors, to see with a heart of grace. But when there’s nothing left to do or say, tension lingers in my body. Why?

Relationships are tenuous and fragile. I don’t like that. The clock ticks, lies are believed, trust breaks, narratives are written into the brain, and suddenly I am aware that I still question my value, my belonging, my place. Maybe I was skating by on trusting that everyone, including myself, would behave maturely. Then a moment of triggering or misunderstanding cracks me open, revealing a child who is still asking if she belongs here. Is she worthy of love?

Seeing through the crack to another person’s inner child is as frightening and vulnerable as being seen through my own cracks. I don’t feel authorized to talk to another person’s inner child. I sense the import of this mutual seeing—my inner child gazing at hers through our cracks—and I freeze. The stakes are high. I know that even if she is gracious to me, I may hide in fear; and even if I reach a gentle hand toward her, she may perceive a monster, commissioned to hurt her or keep her in her place.

How will our spirits see and feel and hear each other? I have no control over this. Maybe our faces and our words will look like friendship, but our spirits will henceforth sleep with one eye open when the other person is in the room. Maybe our spirits will come out of hiding, hold hands.

Her naked spirit and my naked spirit are sacred. They live in the company of the Great Spirit, God who shaped and breathed and spoke them to life. The connections I make to prove myself, or break to save myself—God imparts holiness to each one.

The overused analogy about how we’re all God’s children may be useful here. We squabble. We finagle to divide God’s affections or allegiance, but He is unaffected. “You are my favorite,” He says. “You are my favorite,”—to a sibling who took the lion’s share of ice cream, or lied about what I did, or made a face at me when He wasn’t looking, or apologized in a sour tone. Ugh.

God is 100% on my side. God is 100% on her side. I will lean in to this challenge. I will say Namaste—the divine in me greets the divine in you.

Hopeful Loyalty

Leave a reply

God suggested that I love Her with loyalty, and it didn’t take long for fear of myself to surface. Offering my loyalty to God is essentially agreeing to fail. I will not be perfectly loyal. My loyalty will ebb and flow as it rides the waves of selfishness, embarrassment, and fear. Memories of rejection, and the possibility of future rejection, will poke holes in it. Rejection lends credence to my spectral but faithful companion, shame, who points a judging finger at me, and with her other hand beckons crowds to gawk at my failures, to know I am a fraud. Rejection turns her back on me, not to walk away, but to stay, as a reminder that a back is what I deserve. No face has time for me.

Perhaps loyalty to God involves agreeing there is a face with time for me. It involves looking at His face when I would rather serve time for my crime before I show my face.

Loyalty means I show up in our relationship even when my own divinity seems tarnished beyond the redemptive powers of a polishing cloth, or love.

Loyalty means I give up being the poster child for God so I can be the friend of God.

Loyalty means I will stick with the relationship when I fail, and when God appears to fail.

Loyalty means I will practice allowing myself to be seen, and I might stop to see God, stop when everyone else is running.

Yes, fear of loyalty is fear of myself. But it is fear of God, too. Fear that I will show up at our meeting place and She will not be there. Fear that He is easily distracted, easily frustrated. Fear of misunderstandings and loneliness. Fear that She is greedy and I will never be able to satisfy Her demands. Fear that He’ll like me better when I’m not the way I am right now.

Loyalty involves accepting these fears and allowing them to be in the story, to swirl around my divine center and say their piece. Loving God with loyalty is knowing that She is not the fears or the feelings, the knowing or the not-knowing, the intimacy or rejection. God is the floors and the walls and the roof. She is the foundation holding it all steady. She is the home where our story takes place. Her loyalty begets mine, because these walls see failure, ego, and embarrassment, and they remain standing. These walls also witness joy, inclusion, and peace. They are walls of hope.

And hope is fuel for the next moment of loyalty to God.

Holy Homemakers

1 Reply

Holy Homemakers

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for taking up residence in me.
I don’t think You are an implant,
sewn to the tissues of my brain, or heart.
You must live in that part of me
we humans fail to define,
the spirit or soul,
breath of life first passed
from Your lips to Adam’s
all those years ago.

Blessed are You for co-signing
on the mortgage
for these bones and flesh,
and putting Your name
next to mine
on the mailbox.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for showing me how to belong
here in myself,
trusting what Your presence indicates—
that this is home—
my spirit, my body, and Your divinity
as homemakers.