What if asking more questions could help you find a way to save lives? Would you do it?
What if it cost you something?
I haven’t been writing much lately.
I sometimes open up my blog and I push the “Write” button and then I sit in front of my computer and I wait. I wait as if I’m hoping someone else will show up and write the words I need to say.
But no one is going to do this work for me.
So what am I waiting for?
’m tired. Really tired.
I’m tired of helping people understand why I should be allowed to exist. I’m not supposed to say that, either. I’m supposed to be happy to do this work.
But I’m not always happy. This work is sometimes dehumanizing. It’s often exhausting.
And I keep doing it. Over and over and over again. Giving to the people who hurt me. Giving them time. Giving them energy. Giving them patience. Because what else am I going to do? This is worth it – this fight for more justice.
More people need to understand so that fewer people have to be hurt. And I’m sometimes not bad at this work. And I really do think it is worth it.
I never got to know my brother Kento. He was already dying and in a hospital when we first met in person. Just a few days later, he died. He was unable to speak or move, but he was there. I got to touch him. To see him. Finally.
Before that, there had been too much distance. I remember when I first learned of his existence. Then I found him on Facebook, and when he accepted my friend request, it felt like a miracle. I could see pictures of him, read his statuses, see all the people who loved him. I wanted to be able to love him, too.
I only ever knew Kento’s hesitance behind a keyboard. I only ever knew his inability to deal with me.
I hoped he might make peace with us, his birth family, that he might decide to meet us. I told myself to not be anxious, that life would inevitably bring us together. And it did. In a hospital in Italy. In a bed in that hospital. Surrounded by machines.
This last fall was the first election I’ve been able to vote in, and it was a doozy. It stirred up feelings for me, but everywhere I looked, people seemed to be saying, “Don’t worry, the world isn’t ending.”
Which stirred up more feelings for me: disbelief, disappointment, anger.
Because what I was hearing was, “Hey, I see how you’re feeling. But here’s why you shouldn’t feel the way you are feeling: (insert reasons for why people shouldn’t feel the way they are feeling.)”
You know what’s worse, though? People who invoke God as the ultimate emotional shut-down: “God is in control.” As if that’s even helpful.
I need you because, in spite of everything, God isn’t enough.
During a semester of student teaching, my whole life changed. And the time I used to have as a student was suddenly gone. I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I didn’t have control of my schedule. And I couldn’t find the time for people that I used to take for granted.
It was hard. I didn’t see my friends at all when I stuck to my daily routine, my roommates were rarely to never in the room when I was both home and awake, and my teachers had all gone home by the time I got back to campus every day. What had been a life filled to bursting with people who love me, turned into a life filled with professional relationships, teacher-student confidentiality, and hallway gossip. I moved further from the center of the church. I could feel the difference.
I was lonely. I was also busy. When friends asked about getting together, I’d hedge. Because I had to calculate how much sleep I was willing to give up in order to see them. I’d hedge. Because I was already so tired.
I’d talk to God in between things – down time in the classroom, while driving to and from school – and it was good. God’s good. I like talking to God. But it wasn’t enough.
I haven't sought to speak in the storm, because I am not rain, nor wind, nor shaking earth or crashing waves. I find my giftings in other places, much like the gentle breeze in 1 Kings that causes Elijah to emerge from the cave because he knows it is God.
And so it is with this image that my spirit resonates, thinking of myself as a breeze that caresses each and every person and calls them to know their Belovedness--and to cast off all that holds back from this Knowing. This is the tender compassion the Lord has given to me--one that seeks to protect the space for the journey of healing in each and every one of us, for we have all experienced trauma and fragmentation in our spirits.
Now that I have hooked you with that provocative title…
I’ve been thinking a lot about self-care lately, especially in the context of activism and non-profit work. I’ve found there is A LOT of talk about self-care in these circles, and a lot less follow-through. Often I find myself wondering if the self-care that I do see and experience being practiced here is actually aiding in sustainability, or if we’re putting bandaids on something that will never be healed through bandaids.
I have chronic pain. I have a headache every moment of every day, and depending on the hour, stress levels, and how much I’ve tried to do, it goes from being mildly annoying to intense pain that blocks everything else out. I also experience anxiety, which similarly goes ranges from something that I’m tending to on the edges, to hours of debilitating panic, often accompanied with nausea and increased headaches.
For a long time my mode of operation was: go and go and go, and give all my energy to the world and my ideas, and do all the work, and have all the fun and then…
CRASH BURN CRASH
I would get sick, or have such a bad headache that I had to stay in bed for days. After repeated attempts at smaller nudges, my body pursued more dramatic measures to get my attention. And so I would give in and rest, intensely and deeply for a few days.
I've come to realize that I am not a very patient person. I always thought that I was, but over the past two years, I have come to realize that perhaps I am horrible at being patient. I can sit for hours by a lake, with a fishing rod in hand, I can wait for days knowing the first spring rain is on its way to quench the dry Texas ground, I can wait for months knowing my best friend and his fiance will be down to visit me from Seattle... but I cannot wait any longer for my family to realize that nothing on or in this world, made me a lesbian.
I can no longer listen to my parents and grandmother say that me going off to a State University made me gay, that the bullying I went through in middle school is the reason for my "same sex attraction," I no longer have the patience in constantly telling my Mom and Dad that they didn't do anything to make me the way that I am. I no longer have the patience in trying to convince my family that I am still the same decent, god-fearing, family centered, healthy, generous, loving and independent woman.
We know we want to live unmolested, but the truth is we’re ashamed, hiding and skulking in scat while the world rattles by, holding you secret down in our bellies,
something we'd seriously rather not talk about
a disgusting agora of fear, a hissing entrail of shame.
I can’t figure out what’s wrong. God, help me. I am a twinge in the setting sun.
More often than not, folks who say they want unity don’t want the hard work that comes with making it a reality. We’ve seen, for example, political leaders and private citizens alike from across the country respond to the phrase “Black Lives Matter!” with “All Lives Matter! Why are you dividing people by race? We need to come together! All lives are important!” Yet we know that historically, Black lives have not mattered, so responding with “all lives matter” seeks to simply erase the trauma and historical experiences of Black people.
This kind of unity – the kind that asks marginalized voices to stop making people uncomfortable – is not unity.
I remember falling in love with Jesus my junior year of high school. God received me, embraced me, didn’t ask questions. God loved me.
And then I started getting to know Christians.
I went to an end-times Bible study most Saturday mornings my senior year of high school. We listened to recordings of teachings from Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer – Kansas City, a charismatic ministry with a mission of praying and worshiping 24/7.
It was a small Bible study. Usually there were just three or four of us. We ate bagels, sat in fold-out chairs in a circle, often huddled around a space heater. We listened to Bickle describe the dreadful days that were coming, and every so often one of us would exclaim “Wow!” or “Amen!”
But there was this one moment. I looked around the room. Nobody had their eyes open. They were concentrating on Bickle, trying to soak up every word. It dawned on me that they really believed the end times were approaching, that the day was near. I didn’t know if I believed that.
Trigger warning: rape. The National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7: 1-800-656-4673
I think I’ve known for a while that this piece was coming. It seems inevitable. It’s too important.
Things are hard, but they are too important to avoid. This is a resounding cry in my life right now.
This is hard. Writing this is hard. But it is too important not to.
I was assaulted the second week of my freshman year of college.
I remember it.
I was sober. I remember what I was wearing. I remember where I was. I remember being carried by a man I didn’t know into a room. I remember saying no. I remember checking out. Counting to 50 and then counting down. Please make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.
Back in eighth grade, a friend and I got lost while exploring.
“If we have to spend the night in the woods,” Amelia growled at me, “I’m going to have to kill you.”
I smiled nervously, calculating how best to escape should it come to that: “Maybe if you climb that tree, you’ll be able to see which direction we should go.”
I didn’t know if this would be any better than my original idea of letting the dog lead us home (we’d ended up going in circles for an hour), but it put a little distance between us. Just in case. We were in the woods not far from my house. I should have known how to get home, but I didn’t. Up in the tree, Amelia thought she could see a break in the forest, so we walked in that direction until we finally found the road.
There’s this picture of me sitting in an old photo album at my parent’s house. I am probably four and I’m standing on a patio chair outside with my brother and my dad. I’ve got a popsicle stick in my mouth with red juice stains surrounding my lips. We must have all finished swimming because the three of us are all shirtless, wearing swim-shorts.
Being shirtless isn’t a huge deal when you are a four year old girl. It’s probably not preferred, but it is not the worst. I remember my mom would frown at me as I refused the pink and purple swimsuits and demanded to wear swim-shorts just like dad. We were just in our own backyard and nothing was growing on my chest yet – but still, it wasn’t proper swimwear for a girl. However, with the picture as evidence, I had gotten what I wanted. I swam in those swim-shorts and was just like the boys. I stood proudly on the chair with a popsicle in my mouth, my thumbs up in the air. I was a girl, but I was a girl who could do what the boys could do too.
I was 16 when I stumbled into speaking in tongues. I was praying. Some words fell out of my mouth, and I wondered if this was The Gift. But I didn’t know what to do with it, and I wasn’t sure what was supposed to come next.
I tell people that’s how I found the Quakers. Let me explain.
I met with my pastor, who took an “open but cautious” stance on the charismatic gifts. My best Christian friends had mixed responses and no experience. Several of them disapproved of all charismatic phenomena. Nobody I was close to knew much outside of YouTube clips of hotline preachers. But I was desperate to nurture whatever God was doing in me, confident that she was.
I sought out people who were involved in a Filipino charismatic Catholic community. I sought out everyone. Any inkling that somebody was into tongues, and I found a way to talk to them.
A woman at my church heard from her son that I was talking about the Holy Spirit. She affirmed what God was doing in my life and gifted me with a box full of DVDs, CDs, and books from John Wimber, a founder of the neo-charismatic Vineyard denomination. I discovered in John’s words an integrated Evangelical spirituality that valued mysticism and biblical authority; tradition and new wineskins. The way John ministered was not typical of charismatics; it was grounded in deep listening. His theology celebrated God being present and alive but also embraced the eschatological tension of the “not yet.” He was different.
I'm having a hard time. People won't look at me. They won't make eye contact.
The university I attend discriminates against gender and sexual minorities in its policies. My friends there have been forced to endure racism. When confronted, faculty and staff choose to turn away.
The problem is, these are people. And the "turning away" isn't a metaphor. People I’ve worked and worshiped with won't look me in the eyes. People I have known for years now turn away from me.
I'm not trying to shame anyone. I'm pointing this out because I need to see where I am situated in the system I operate in and where others are situated. This helps me understand what is happening and why.
But people I care about won't acknowledge my physical presence. And every time it happens, I feel a little more erased. A little more like I’m not supposed to be here. A little more like this is really my fault. After all, how can all of these people be wrong? It makes me wonder if I’m really a human.
Maybe my purpose was to validate, approve, and prop up others. Maybe I’m only valuable as long as I am useful. Maybe I’m not useful anymore because I am not silent.
Put it down: the phone, the pen, the keyboard. Sit with yourself a minute.
What's missing? What are you holding onto? grasping? rejecting?
White nationalism, harassment, greed, and fear... these elements are rising. When will we have courage to speak?
Fake news pours from every faucet, and the real news hurts. It's easy to retreat. It's easy to get lost when we try to escape.
The world is changing; it's not an infinite supply; it swirls and rattles around us. We don't want to look to the realm of nightmare and open up that cellar door. No, we are right, and that rightness kills us. We scuffle back into our closets and hide from the light.
I know some might say there’s no need to add to the noise. That it’s not that big of a deal — that staying silent is some sort of testament to the unapologetic inherency of who I am. I understand those arguments, and I can comprehend their validity. I don’t mean to nullify them in any way. But when I lay my head down at night, something continues to reverberate within me; to pull me deeper into the tides of its freedom, its power, its incredulous vulnerability. The world is supposed to know our stories, and I have believed for quite some time now that its only by them that we can liberate others to live out the sheer and unguarded beauty of their own.
I don’t mean for this to be a big, hairy deal. I hope it doesn’t come across that way. Sometimes, culture and truth simply collide in a way that demands of us a moment that pushes history forward, both personal and corporate, and leaves upon the soil a mark that otherwise would go unseen and unscathed. I believe these moments exist to define a generation, to reshape our culture, to bring truth back out unto the frontlines — where it has quite honestly always belonged. But most importantly, I believe they exist to liberate ourselves. To let our shame slink away like a weighted necklace at the bottom of a deep, deep ocean. And yes, I realize I just pseudo-referenced a James Cameron movie in a relatively momentous blog.
I imagine you’ve heard a sermon about the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. It’s still regularly preached in Evangelical churches I attended. Still, from the dozens of Acts 8 sermons I consumed, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about this famous eunuch.
What is a eunuch anyway? Eunuchs in the Bible were typically castrated before puberty, sometimes with their consent, but usually not. They retained high voices. They didn’t develop body hair or facial hair like men. They looked and sounded different from the men and women around them.
They were also mostly single and childless. Never having children myself, I feel drawn to these solitary eunuchs. In a world where everyone seemed to be part of a family unit of some sort, they stood out as loners.
I pride myself on my ability to remain calm under pressure. I’m generally a fairly quiet, composed person.
But some things really get me.
About a month ago I found myself lacking composure in my workplace. Fuming and crying, I sat in my office exasperated and said, “I am a real human being with feelings.”
I wonder if everyone feels the need to declare themselves a human.
I feel the need because I am treated like a token. Being treated like a token is not fun. Because a token is an object. And the people who have tokens normally get to decide what their tokens are for.
The local builder leading our work team in rural Guatemala resisted help from a group of volunteers. He took pride in the quality of his work, and he knew these volunteers didn’t have the experience or precision necessary to complete the water filter system correctly. One volunteer was angry: “What is this? I didn’t pay all this money and come all this way to stand by and watch someone else do the work.”
Another volunteer stayed out of the way. She busied herself pounding bent nails out of old boards, and calmly remarked how great it felt to be hammering out the injustice in the world.
These comments illustrate the attitude so many of us carry: we think that our money, effort, and good intentions earn us the right to help people we don’t know in a place we don’t understand.