Incarnation in Ordinary Time

"...And the way one can find oneself strewn

so inattentively across life, across time.

Those who touch us, those whom we touch,

we hold them or we let them go

as though it were such a small matter.

How even know in truth how much

of mind should be memory, no less

what portion of self should be others

rather than self? Across life, across time,

as though it were such a small matter."

--a portion of "Lessons" by C.K. Williams

I first read the words above while in a book shop in Palo Alto, California. It was 2009. They call to me again and again. There's some phenomenon "got at" in that poem. It's about the carelessness of physical regard, the lax way of touching and neglecting intimacy we so easily embark on as humans. I don't think it's conscious. Until it is. Even then we still do it. Why? I don't know. But it's spiritually disastrous.

There's this thing about poems: they time travel. The words from "Lessons" came back to me this morning as I recalled my father dying in 1994. (I had two fathers; he was the non-biological one) He'd slipped into a coma on a Friday night. A few days later his two biological children arrived to say their good-byes. It was like he resurrected from the dead upon their entering the room. Sat up, straight, after weeks of falling, laying flat, moaning in discomfort, being spoon-fed liquids and finger-fed ice chips--he looked like an erect embalmed mummy. Their presence lifted his dying, decaying body and he mumbled "So happy," and he wept.

There they all were: father, son and daughter, grasping each other, holding on tight, in anticipation of the end they all knew was coming. It was a reunion of the highest order. It's the physicality of that moment I can't forget. I stood by the bedside, a step daughter, witnessing the homecoming in my midst. It was homecoming of the physical. I knew in that moment that whatever relationship I had with him was not the same as the relationship they had with him. It's like my father was reconnecting to his own limbs in that moment. Like parts of his rhizomatic body came back to their primary shoot. Profound. Holy. It reminded me of a domesticated, hospice-version of the sacrament of communion. "This is my body given for you." Yep.

I wasn't his by flesh and blood. They were. Never had I realized the expansive gap between blood and choice family like I did in that moment.  Realities of blood and choice are different. We don't have to place quantitative value judgments on that difference. But failing to acknowledge that difference strikes me absurd. There is nothing like flesh reconnecting to flesh after a period of absence or in anticipation of annihilation to prove just how not separate we are when we have biological links between us. Those links matter immensely.

Why do we forget about how entangled, interconnected, inextricably bound our bodies are? Is it too much to live with/in?

My biological brother and I never laid eyes on each other, touched or met in the flesh until he was in his fifties and I was 30. But when we hugged for the first time on his doorstop in Stockton California--both as adults--there was no denying that some corporeal thread linked us together. I felt it physically when hugging him. There was "home" there. It was our (biological) father. It didn't matter that we hadn't been raised together. It didn't matter that our relationships to our father were on different planets. We were from the same physical source and when we finally found each other, that common source, still alive in our flesh, could be felt powerfully. I imagine my biological father, my ancestor who holds me from the ground up, felt his own life powerfully reconnected in that moment.

Yesterday I talked to a friend who is discerning becoming pregnant. I kept wanting to tell her about the incarnation of it. How your body becomes something else, entirely new and different, during the process of creating life. And then when birthing happens, all the illusions of planetary separations go away because the Wild Animal of Life itself takes over, you being a mere vessel of its power. Then your body moves around the world multiple from there on out. Little beings, apparently separate (but not), gaining their own life force, both from you and apart from you, making their way into some specificity that is at once recognizable and entirely mysterious.

My favorite time of day is mornings on the couch with my children. The three of us, before the rituals of day time begin, are linked by limbs. Their little bodies resting on my bigger body. The stillness of breathing in sync. The rest in reunion after a night time apart. They snuggle into my chest which protects my heart, but truly my heart bursts with the sensational convergence, albeit brief and never lasting. Just for that moment I feel like all parts of my Body are in the same place. Then they bounce away, to get dressed, to go to school and I am left wondering "those who touch us, those whom we touch, we hold them or we let them go as though it were such a small matter." And I am left "strewn so inattentively across life, across time," held together here and there by poetry, memory and brief moments of togetherness (again) in the flesh.

Married In Ordinary Time

I'm married in Ordinary Time. Okay, I'm married in every liturgical season. But there's something about being married in Ordinary Time that compels me to write about it. Yesterday my spouse and I turned a corner in our relationship that I didn't even know existed. It was magic. Granted, I wish we hadn't discovered this new territory at 2 a.m., but…toddlers.

This got me to thinking about what it means to commit to someone and stay with them—I mean, really stay. This is the first time I've really stayed. I'm still not sure about the whole institutional marriage thing. That's another post for another day. But I am committed to loving this human for as long as we are on the planet together, and hope, sincerely, that our souls go on loving each other through our descendants and beyond the Ether forever (real talk.) I must admit that I have no idea what loving him means on any given day. Some days it means leaving him alone so he can get his work done. Other days it means listening more deeply than I ever have with as little judgment as possible. Some days it means getting my gloves shovel. Most days it means picking up after myself before I go to bed. Every day it means making coffee and putting it on the dresser before he takes a shower. My favorite days are when body and spirit align so that "you and me" turns into Us.

Honestly, there are days when I look at him and think "Love you? How the hell do I do that?" Reasons for this posture/orientation: 1) I can barely love myself most days 2) You pissed me off and don't deserve it 3) Seriously clueless about a concrete movement of love in that moment 4) I'm too scared to mess up 5) I'm busy and tired, so busy and tired that even contemplating the question makes me want to take a nap.

Some of those pack more weight than others, but they're all real in the life of committed love.

I'm most interested these days, in Ordinary Time, at how often #3 reoccurs. I live with this person. We've made little humans together. We sleep next to each other, know each other’s' extended families, idiosyncrasies, voice inflections, triggers and ticklish spots. And yet with all this knowing, the unknowing still abounds. Seriously, last night, the stuff we ventured into--I had no idea. Not a clue. Felt completely in the dark. What a compelling, magically mysterious, luminous darkness. But they don't tell you that. They tell you, “Get married because it's the thing to do.”

I took some vows a few years back and asked God in and to bless. I stated my intentions, made promises and swapped symbols. Weddings—you've seen these events, I'm sure, or even participated in one—where people get all dressed up and witness some fairy tale about unconditional, eternal, faithful bliss. Hate to puncture any high floating naive balloons, but even the most mature humans are signing up for the impossible at that threshold. I don't care who you are, it isn't possible to get loving another human being right day in and day out. We humans are way, way, way, too messed up, selfish, insecure, and debased for all that.

You know what I wish? I wished we promised to be honest about getting love wrong at weddings. I wish that we promised to fail each other but to stay curious about those failings. I wish that we'd promise to draw closer to one another in those moments when we feel insecure and to be forgiving when we step on each other's vulnerability. I wish we kept it real in our culture about marriage: that you never arrive, that even if you're the best student of your partner's needs, wants and deepest desires, you're not always going to get them right in the moment nor fill them on a regular basis. How you and how they respond to that truth makes all the difference. I wish we made vows about what we do when we don't get it: don't get each other, don't get ourselves in light of the other. I wish we got married to mystery. That would feel so much less like lying.

It's been quoted before but it bears repeating: "Let's face it: we are undone by each other. And if we're not there's something missing.”—Judith Butler. Here's the point: Jerry Maguire was wrong. We don't complete each other. We are undone by each other. This means we are brought to the dust in our relationships. But in the dust we are also capable of becoming new if we keep trying to get tangled with one another from the ground up. That feels so much more worthy of our trying.

All Dogs Go to Heaven but Smart Ones Go to the Doctor

My five and a half year old Mastiff-Chow mix (who everyone, except me, mistakes for a Pit Bull) broke her finger two weeks ago.

Cue the sympathy.

After returning home from her normal Sunday morning walk in the park, Gaia began tracking blood on the floor. She probably cracked something on some ice patch somewhere. If you haven't noticed in previous posts: it's winter in Michigan. Winter disasters abound. Three weeks ago there was a pile up on I-94 that included blizzard, fire, death and massive destruction. Skiing accidents throw people's limbs out of whack. Slipping on the sidewalk is a routine affair. It's dangerous out here, y’all. Gaia's injury is just one of the many. But nonetheless, she's my dog and her pain matters to me. 

At first I thought she was just nursing a split paw which has caused her to bleed in the past. She wasn't limping, just bleeding. I figured it would stop on its own. It didn't. My spouse called my attention to a dark circle forming on the top of her injury. Hmm. That wasn't normal. Again, she didn't seem to be suffering, so I didn't do much. Then one morning I watched her lick that wound for 45 minutes straight. She didn't stop. It was a lesson in mercy if ever there was one. Relentless, committed tenderness--sometimes your dog teaches you about self-care. I admired her healing powers and went about my day. I even took her for another Sunday morning walk which she seemed to love. Then my husband's level of concern reached its peak. 

After 10 days had gone by and things didn't seem to be getting better (or, frankly, worse), we decided to call the vet. Turns out she had broken her top finger, but wasn't limping because said finger is high enough on the arm that she doesn't put pressure on it while walking/running/jumping. They diagnosed her, wrote a prescription for an anti-biotic and sent her home. I'm not sure how an anti-biotic cures a break, but I'm not asking questions. I’m just grateful to have my pup on the mend. 

Here's what I learned by loving a broken animal in Ordinary Time. Sometimes no matter how much self-care salve you apply, things are broken beyond self-repair and need professional attention. Sometimes, even though you're capable of going through the motions of your normal life, you're still in unnecessary pain completely invisible to those around you. No matter how much your loved ones feel concern and responsible for your care, sometimes they literally can't find the source of your pain and they will need help too. Sometimes healing is all about surrendering to an intelligence that is tried and true and beyond your own.

Seems so simple doesn't it? 

Hard Hearts on the Path

If you read much Mary Oliver, you'll notice that she pays attention to the natural world and then delicious poems spill out of her in response. It's routine. And delightful. I consider myself a disciple of Mary Oliver, that is, I try to walk in her ways. Going outdoors and letting what grabs you become spiritual content is a discipline, but it can also be a way of life. What I love about her discipline/way-of-life is that it leads to greater reverence for this world, as opposed to other kinds of spiritual disciplines and ways of life that seem to pose themselves at odds with this world in favor of...I don't know, some other world? I have yet to encounter another world. Whatever. This isn't about that.

Yesterday in Oliveresque fashion I found myself delighting in dogs off leash, way back in the woods, trailing where no other humans could be found (except for the one hiking alongside me). The sun was shining like a prize. The sky was crystal blue, with thin, long, knit-blanket looking clouds scattered about. In Michigan, in January, you pray for this scene. Your body's need for vitamin D creates hunger and thirst for this scene. When it arrives--blue on white with shine--you lace up your boots, grab the leash and go, no questions asked. At least that's what you do if you have any sense. Yesterday, after five winters in Michigan, I finally had some sense.

Upon arriving on the path, a friend of mine who is a lifelong Michigander started talking about the conditions of the trail. There was slick and crunch. She explained this by citing the fact that several days of differing weather had resulted in a layering of sorts, which now confronted our feet. In the beginning was dust and grass. Then soft snow packed by hikers before us on the trail. Next, rain fell from the sky and created slush which hardened after a few hours because freezing cold set in. Slush was then topped by another round of not-yet packed snow. All that, right here. Obviously one has to step carefully, plant dutifully, land mindfully in these conditions. It's an ongoing exercise in call and response between ground conditions and one's bodily agility.

Out there on that mixed layered ground environment influences and impacts the form of substance. All of the soft snow, slush, ice, and all those conditions, slick, safe, packed, hard, and soft are about the form water takes on. But it's all water. Its. All. Water. The form and conditions of that water are immensely different based on how they came into this world and what happened to them once they were here.

A couple days ago I got an email from a colleague that pissed me off. She seemed so hard-hearted in her words. I felt shaken reading them, resentful of her, and began questioning the relationship. How could she be so hard? I asked myself in authentically honest meandering. Just a day later, a friend of mine, after having a couple interactions with me that didn't sit right with her, asked me almost the exact same thing. What's up with this hardness?

Going outdoors and letting what grabs you become spiritually content is a discipline but it can also be a way of life. It's a way of life that grows reverence and love for this world, including the hardened hearts you encounter on the path. Water becomes packed, slick ice based on the temperature of its context and whether or not it’s been stepped on (repeatedly). Such a helpful reminder when I'm judging others for their hard ass behavior. Such a helpful reminder when I'm in need of mercy for my own.

Conversing: A Spiritual Adventure

How many conversations does the "average" human being have in a day?

Unless you're an extreme introvert and have the luxury of excessive quiet, alone time, there's a chance that you have multiple conversations in a day. Some short. Some long. Some surface. Some deep.

Interactivity and communication appear to be innate components of life, for better and worse. Not all conversations are created equal. Perhaps they are not supposed to be. Some serve a purpose. Some play a role. Others appear to be a creative endeavor. Conversations happen so often, it's easy to lose sight of how packed with potential each one can be. However, I think there's something to be said about getting mindful of conversations as conversations in the midst of having them. At their best, they can be delightful, creative, nurturing, transformative and powerful for both/all parties.

Yesterday I had two profound conversations with someone I love. This is a person I have known for a long(ish) time and know relatively well. We talk multiple times a day, every day. We frequent the same places and know a lot of the same people. We have heard each other's good ol’ stories multiple times. We can probably name everyone in each other's extended families. Point being: when I have conversations with this person, I don't expect much in the way of thrilling and new information. We've been there and done that, with everything. Besides, "there's nothing new under the sun," right? Wrong.

The content of yesterday's dialogue isn't the point. The point is that we went to profoundly powerful places with each other, not once, but twice in one day. The second one could not have been possible without the first. The first could have stood on its own in terms of courage in vulnerability, sanctified listening and scope of conversational material. But it didn't stand on its own. We came back to it later after we'd had some time apart. The threads from the early morning conversation wove an even more beautiful and fulfilling conversation in the late morning. I found myself looking at the tested and worn relationship with new eyes.

It also made me ask myself, “If we are capable of unearthing this level of new insight and connection with one another, what does that say about our capacity as individuals and as a dyad to make meaning?” Further, how often am I sitting on that kind of gold, that kind of potential for conversational connection and relational engagement and don't know it because I don't plow down to see if it's there?

Conversations are ordinary. They happen all the time. Maybe that's part of the problem. They are so readily available that we take them for granted. But in each one, because there are multiple players, who are ever-dynamic in a world that is ever-dynamic, there's potential for new, riveting, life-enhancing stuff to come out and go down. Pretty snazzy, right?

Maybe it's not just snazz. Maybe it's sacred. Maybe there's Intelligence in this creative life that fashions us capable of unearthing new content within and between us with ever-dynamic outcomes. Creative genius seems capable of such a generous design. If only we were more willing to trust that generosity and plunge into its offering for us and our other/s.

In Ordinary Time, try on conversation as a spiritual adventure. Take a risk. Bring someone closer. Push gently into some of your own vulnerability. Invest in intimacy that's already there but could use some nurturing. Linger in the door way. Make intentional, loving eye-contact. Offer somebody a cup of coffee and tell them to "pull up a chair" while they drink it. Ask a question you actually don't know the answer to. Share gaps of quiet between sentences as honoring the sacred space that connects you. Make love with words. Just because you can. Even if it's someone you know extremely well. Especially if it's someone you know extremely well. You might find yourself surprised by how all things can become new again. 

Love in Ordinary Time

I come from a religious tradition that often espouses love but does not practice it. In fact, we are often bold enough to say that God in Godself was, is and forever more will be love. Those boldly proclaiming such theology will then utter judgment and condemnation from pulpits, Bible studies and "Christian" Facebook groups. They do so swiftly enough that the discrepancy is hard to call out. It's a conundrum but Christianity isn't the only realm where such conundrums about love abound.

About three years ago, I was having a conversation with a friend who told me flat out that she would not have one-on-one coffee with a married man, whom she was mentoring at church, because of "how it would look." Not because anything was going on there, but because it might look like something was going on there. Heterosexual normativity even limits cisgender heterosexuals. What a pity.

Recently I had Sushi with a mentor of mine who is a lesbian, partnered, and in her 60's. As the conversation got deeper--intimacy going and back and forth between as stories of truth, suffering and power enfolded the space--I found myself wondering about how much I love this womyn sitting across from me. For just a second, I felt shame. Am I supposed to love this much? She's partnered. I'm married. There's almost a 30 year age gap between us. “Is this right?” I wondered internally. Where does such a question come from? Both of us have queer sensibilities when it comes to economies of love—meaning we believe there is enough to go around (abundance) and we don't have to relate to one another from guardedness (scarcity). So why was I questioning the wealth of love between us?

Conditioning.

My place of employment just had a staffing change. Our former Office Administrator Vickie, retired and we hired Jaimie to take her place. For weeks I kept struggling with how I could possibly talk about how much I was going to miss Vickie without offending Jaimie and how excited I was to start working with Jaimie without offending Vickie. It's not a zero sum game.

Two days ago my son, who is one year old, was prancing around the house in a diaper, dancing to Bruno Mars' latest hit "Uptown Funk." The whole scene was so dang adorable that I blurted out "Oh little one, you are my favorite!" before scooping him up and giving him kisses all over his baby belly. Before too long I felt guilty about calling him "my favorite" and thanked God his sister, who is almost 3, was sleeping when it happened. But why? He was my absolute favorite iteration of reality in that moment. That moment of adoration didn't take an iota of love away from his sister. Later that day while rocking the 3 year-old sister to sleep I decided to compensate as I was rocking her to sleep: "Oh Waya (her nickname), you are my favorite in the whole world." Guess what? That was totally true.

Often I hear people lament aloud and openly express fears they carry about human civilization not being able to get along. There are so many cultural, religious, generational, class, gender, dis/ability, sexuality, and personality differences among us. How can we possibly get along? How can we live without killing/destroying each other? When I watch the news or hear pundits going on about global realities, I can ask these questions too. Even more than questions about the capacity to get along in our difference, I wonder about the extravagance of love we feel across difference.

I think we love each other way more than we admit or live into. For some reason that feels a lot less scary and a lot scarier all (at the same time) than conversations about destruction and violence.

Love in Ordinary Time. 

Bodies, Food and Feels

Recently a congregant posed this question to her extended network: “Do you view your food choices in terms of potential effect on your weight or how you feel?” It was a powerful question eliciting meaningful, engaging dialogue. I had my own reactions, of course, but I sat on them and let the question have its way with me for a few days before responding.

Every day we take in and we put out. Every single day. We take in and we put out. Talk about Ordinary Time. All the time we take in and we put out. It's the rhythm of life, perhaps the most ordinary truth there is. We eat food. We poop it out. We drink water. We pee it out. We take in by listening. We put out by speaking. We take in by benefiting from the labors of others.

For instance, somebody somewhere made sure that the laundry detergent in my basement got packaged and delivered to the store where I could consume it. I took that in. But I then also use that detergent to do laundry for my family. That's output. Life is this rhythmic spiraling of taking in and putting out.

But how do we know what to take in and put out? And when should we consume versus produce? This gets more complicated.

There are all these maps out there, socially constructed maps. They tell us about the proper ways of taking in and putting out. With food, it's grown increasingly hard to follow directions because the maps keep proliferating and they all seem to say different things. There's the food pyramid. There's "3 meals a day and light snacks in between." There's gluten-free. There's certified organic. All these sources of enlightenment are chiming in about the perfect way to consume. They bank on science. They use before and after pictures to justify their claims. And, like a man behind the curtain, directing all of this, there's an ideal body we all should be aiming for. The ideal body is one that looks like something perfect. But apparently, it doesn’t feel perfect.

As a Christian, I wrestle with the increasing pressure in our society to ignore the body's inherent wisdom. There is no ideal body. There is only your body, and my body and their bodies. These are all we've got and they're frickin fabulous! It took me a long time to figure out that incarnation--divinity of the flesh--is real. Our bodies are worth listening to, worth tending to, worth caring for, not because of some pop self-care craze that only lasts 2 weeks, but because God made them and they are ours. Oh and because they inherently deserve it.

The body is a perfect, albeit complicated and complex barometer. Feelings are full of information and the body is full of feelings. Given that food is something we have to take in every day, maybe we ought to pay attention to how our body feels in response to consumption, as a means of making wiser and wiser choices. That means fretting less ahead of consumption time about our choices, and paying more concrete attention to how our choices feel as we exercise them and in the aftermath. 

I see and hear a lot of folks talking incessantly about what they do and don't want to eat. But I hear very little attention paid (besides the, "Oh I'm so full!" hands-on-the-belly routine) to the way our bodies respond to what we do eat. That requires present moment attentiveness to the body and the ability to integrate what we feel in our bodies in ongoing discernment of our choices. But before all of that, we have to consider our bodies worthy of that attentiveness. So, to that end, an offering, for you, so full of extraordinary power in an ordinary body:

"We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God. (...) we always carry in the body the struggle of life so that that the glory of life may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to struggle for God's sake so that glory may be made visible in our mortal flesh." (A re-write of 2 Cor 4:7ff)