#jifc

[designimperfection]

A responsive reading based on Matthew 5, written for the Safe & Sound worship series at Journey Imperfect Faith Community, 2.10.19.

All: I affirm that my surroundings have at times made me feel unsafe and uncertain.

Leader: May we create safe spaces by cultivating safe practices in our relationships with ourselves and with others.

All: I affirm that my “yes” and “no” have not always been respected, and it has hindered my ability to trust and be vulnerable.

Leader: May we be more trustworthy than those who’ve hurt us, and more willing to meet pain with care than our abusers.

All: I affirm that my reactions are not always about the person or situation I’m addressing, and when my needs are unmet, I’m more likely to treat others carelessly.

Leader: May we honor our needs for self-care and emotional regulation, in order to love others without attachment to our expectations of what they should be.

All: I affirm that this process is not easy. At times, it is tempting to disengage rather than bring mindfulness to my unhealthy patterns.

Leader: May we honor the hard work each of us is doing. May we become vessels of safety through our actions and reactions. May we value the safety of ourselves and our community by investing in those around us.

All: I offer gratitude to those who are patient with me through my process, and ask for grace and care to be reflected in my treatment of others through their process.

All: Yes.

[designimperfection]

A meditation on anxiety & release

(Originally written and facilitated for Journey Imperfect Faith Community in Austin, TX, 2.3.19)

Close your eyes.

Take a breath. And another.

Allow the air to cascade into your lungs as they inflate.

Notice the movement of your stomach, chest, and shoulders as you breathe. Allow your body to soften and make room for the air, oxygenating your blood, nourishing your body as your lungs expand, then expelling the stale air to make room for more of what you need.

As the oxygen flows through your body, notice where you’re holding tension. Scalp. Temples. Forehead.

Neck, back, hips.

Our bodies hold each event we’ve experienced. Storing the memories in muscles and fascia and patterns of movement and behavior. Shoulders holding the first day of school, and job interview, and test result. Fingers tensing and fidgeting around the task that needs to get done today, or yesterday, or 20 years ago. Jaw clenched in resistance to the past, or present, or future.

Breathe. And acknowledge the tension. Thank it for its service; it once kept you safe, or alert, or on guard. It allowed you to survive your experiences.

But at this moment, you are safe already. You are held in this space and its energy. Your protective layers do not serve you in this place of healing.

Breathe. And release. Let the tension slide out of your body and into the earth beneath you. The earth is ancient and sacred, and it welcomes your energy.

Breathing out, releasing air and tension. Making room. Breathing in, accepting fresh air to fill up the space you’ve created.

Continue breathing.

When you feel ready, sit up a bit. Stretch those muscles you’ve been oxygenating and releasing. Notice how the blood flows differently now; where your body wants to move. What parts of you are waking up in this new, safe reality?

Take one more deep, nourishing breath, and reorient yourself to the present.

May safety and security pursue you on your path of healing.

[designimperfection]

Directions for becoming a multidimensional being:

Conceive of your own future. Determine what will happen in the next minute, hour, day, week, year, lifetime.

Wrap your mind around every holiday, birthday party, graduation, anniversary, funeral, date, test, fight, flight, turn, blinker, blink, breath. Repeat for every moment in any future that might potentially lie ahead of you.

Breathe.

Know that every moment you just anticipated will never happen. There will be a bump; a breeze; a breakup; a breakdown. Someone will surprise you on Christmas with a massive check, or total your car on the way into work one Monday morning.

Reconsider and rework your calculations for every possibility in the universe. Galaxy. World. Country. City. Workplace. Home. Hand of poker; roll of the dice. 2am phone call and flashing red traffic light.

At the same time, remain awake to and accepting of your present experience. This is you, in this moment – the product of infinite possibilities coming together just so, to create the you who is breathing this air that just inflated your lungs.

Breathe.

At the same time, conceive of the person next to you. Consider the possibilities that birthed them into this crazy world and placed them here, now, to influence your experience as it is being influenced here and now, and earlier this morning when you sensed them sit down, and later this afternoon when you’ll remember some nothing they said in passing and wonder at its marvelous complexity.

Conceive of the neurons firing off infinite probabilities at a comparable rate in both of your brains, considering every breath and cough and weird look and contagious laugh that has, and will, and may influence those patterns.

Know this human. Feel the weight of each of their convictions and questions and irrational fears and butterfly-stomach-stares and understand why they believe with every fiber of their being that they are right. This is love.

Breathe.

Repeat for each being in each world that has ever existed, and that ever will. It will go so wrong. It will go so right.

At the same time, know that none of these futures will ever exist. There is an almost imperceptible thread that weaves together each fraying infinity into a tapestry of life.

This is God.

[designimperfection]

WIPs from my developing series, "Racist Me," being presented at the Dunamis Black History Month art show & open mic tonight, Feb 24. Please join us at Journey Imperfect Faith Community in ATX from 6:30-7:45 for art, spoken word, and healing discussion.

[designimperfection]

A blessing written for and prayed over outgoing minister, mentor, and friend LD.

From the book of Matthew, Chapter 5:

3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

Spirit, we can offer your servant Leslie no greater blessing than this: that she continue to embrace these uniquely powerful ways in which she shows up in the world.

Thank you for the moments when she’s been at the end of her rope, for us, and for the moments when she’s despaired that she’s lost what’s most dear. Thank you for the way she’s modeled what it is to be content with just who we are – and how to bring our authentic selves to Your altar. Thank you for the way she indulges her appetite for You, and for the abundance of her feast that has overflowed into our lives, and so many others.

Thank you for the way Leslie cares, and loves, and seeks out ways to shine the light of her inside world on so many of us present here, and so many present elsewhere.

Thank you for the ways she’s taught us to cooperate, instead of compete or fight. And thank you for the times when her commitment to You has provoked persecution. Because we have had the privilege of watching her rise time and again, and know that with each rebirth, she fortifies the power of a woman after God’s own heart.

It seems impossible to bless LD more than she has already blessed herself by seeking You, but, Spirit, we offer both You and Leslie our eternal gratefulness for allowing Journey the immeasurable blessing of her service, and on behalf of all those whom she has served, we lay our blessing upon her:

We pray for courage and wisdom for Leslie as she opens this new chapter; we pray the same for ourselves as we rise up with the lessons she has taught us in Your name.

From the book of Matthew, Chapter 28: Jesus…gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life…Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”

Amen.

[designimperfection]

A Meditation on Grace

In my heart there is a room that stores my inadmissibles. 

Those bills. That debt. Her disappointment. The pressure in my throat and stomach as I push an unwelcome truth into my neck and shoulders. 

Malignant. Entwined. Snaking past my subconscious and invading each system that seeks the intimacy of vulnerability. I shut myself down one reservation at a time - resolutely weaving isolation into a narrative I can endure.

In my net there is a tear that holds redemption in its weakness. I gaze through the hole and wonder at its openness. Fragility echoes through the negative space. 

In my room there is a floor. Walls. Seams. Light sources and beams. My hands worship each crease and texture, marveling at the concepts I have arranged into such finite boundaries.

When heat is applied to matter, the molecules vibrate faster, and space between each atom increases. Mass remains the same, but the essential structure shifts in response to an external influence. 

In my heart there is a room that trembles and quakes in awareness of its own existence. Nature’s lines are wholly organic, and linear insistences crumble into potential as an avalanche of forgiveness moves mountains. 

In my awareness, there is acceptance. Integration. Wholeness and healing.

Grace brushes aside my insecurities and restores my soul.

[designimperfection]

Theology of Snacks: Popcorn

Sure, there are a lot of other grains that can pop – rice, millet, sorghum…quinoa. But only one – POPCORN – is the real deal.

We Popcorns are proud of our heritage. We grow up together, are harvested and shucked together, dried together, caged and shipped together, oiled and tossed together in those round shiny pans. It’s all we’ve ever known, and we like it that way – identical little teardrop-shaped grains in our dark metal world.

But then one day we sensed a shift – heard a kind of clicking sound – and began to shake as heat rose up from below. Something was changing, and we rolled around in confusion and fear. Our perfect corn-o-topia was changing, and we reeled in fear as our golden shelled friends disappeared, one by one, replaced by unrecognizable beings of astounding size and shape.

I didn’t know what to do…but then I begin to feel a change inside of me, like a fuse being ignited. Warmth enveloped me, and I sensed a shift in the rigid structure of my being. As if the kernel I had always been was being transformed into something more than just another grain in the mill – like I had more potential that I’d ever known!

Finally my skin stretched tight, and for a moment, I was terrified that after my shell burst I’d never be the same again. Being a hard, closed kernel was all I’d known – what if it’s all I can do? What if this was all there was?

At the final moment, I realize that I have two choices: hold in the heat and smolder at the bottom of the pan, or embrace the energy flowing through me and transform into something new.

There’s no going back now – I can’t resist the promise of this new life. I choose to pop.

[designimperfection]

8.21.16

Theology of Snacks//Pretzels

Element: live weaving during worship experience

Designers: SPO, LD, RD

Notes: As a creative, I’m constantly exploring new mediums - I wouldn’t quite say obsessively, but potentially compulsively - and I love that Journey gives me an outlet to put those to use somewhere other than my craft closet. This technique came from a macrame necklace design that ps-imadethis.tumblr.com posted a few years back, and which my friend IR and I experimented with on laid-back weekends in Jacksonville, with pastry in the oven and Doctor Who in the background. We played with yarn, bamboo thread, twine, and ribbon to see what would come together, and learned the technique by wrapping yards of the stuff around and through our fingertips.

For this worship element, I modified the technique a bit, incorporating a repurposed metal door hanger for a loom and weaving the yarn around the prongs. Blue yarn was woven loosely and untied at one end; white yarn was woven tightly over the loom and tied off completely; and multicolored yarn was woven with a consistent tension and tied in at either end. As each piece was completed, LD took the pieces from the loom and placed them on the altar.

A reading on enmeshed families introduced the element, followed by a reading on fiercely independent child rearing, after which I took all three pieces and laid them out for a visual demonstration of the concepts presented.

Enmeshment leads us to rely too heavily on others for our identity, I explained, while unraveling the blue piece. It prevents us from evolving into our genuine selves by entangling us too intricately with those around us.

Independence, at its most extreme, winds us up too tightly to accept the help of any outside influences, and as I ripped the white woven piece in half, I couldn’t help quoting Bilbo Baggins’ line about feeling like butter scraped over too much bread.

The key to relational health is interdependence - a balance of growth and support which allows us to explore ourselves and our world from a place of reciprocal emotional safety. It’s not perfect, I reflected while displaying the multicolored weaving, but it offers us the invaluable gift of vulnerability.

Driving to JIFC on Sunday morning, it was impressed on me that health isn’t a choice we make once; it’s a choice we make over and over again. Like following Christ, it’s an opportunity that presents itself with every decision we make - strengthening or severing our connection to Spirit with every neural pathway we choose to reinforce. It’s not often perfect, but it’s valuable and complex and has the potential to weave itself together into something beautiful.