shadows and light.

Sometimes, I feel as though I am fading into gray. I am stuck, watching my body slowly turn from the outside in, the ashes painstakingly taking over until I feel like I am suffocating on the shadows of my soul. It feels like I am disappearing, dissipating into a nothingness that leaves no reminders, no question as to whether I was actually ever here.

I am being consumed, by this nothingness.

By this feeling, that I cannot feel anymore.

This need to be apathetic, to be uncaring, is strong.

It is a protective measure, a measure of disassociating, that is easier and safer and--

cold.

It is lonely, the process of disappearing, The letting go of colors, the attempt to make ourselves smaller and smaller until there is nothing left.

But we do it anyway. Because the alternative is to feel, to love--

to break.

to fall.

to hurt.

To be afraid of losing.

And we must not, at all costs, experience loss.

But we do anyway.

We lose ourselves.

We stop participating in our own lives, we stop feeding our souls. We starve ourselves as a way of preparation, convincing our hearts that we don't need anything but the necessary to survive.

We fall asleep, I think.

We lay down and say, please, please please don't make me take anymore.

I don't want to see anymore.

I can't hear anymore.

So let me be here, alone.

Let me go.

Let me drift through this life unaware and unharmed, let me be free from the responsibility of sorrow.

But we cannot.

Jesus wept.

So do we.

Jesus felt.

So do we.

And we must not, must not lose heart.

We must not lose courage.

We must not let ourselves turn to stone, let ourselves willingly numb and dull and disappear into the night.

We must feel.

We must remain human.

We must love with everything we got, we must hold on to one another in the dark. We must reach out and reach in and pull pull pull for the light.

We must not stop dreaming.

Not stop hoping.

And while we may feel as though the darkness will surely, surely win, we must remember that it has not. 

That for every ounce of us that has been taken over by the dark, there is an ounce more that has been saved by the light.

That it is as true as ever that even the tiniest spark can illuminate the night sky.

We are that light.

And we are still burning, still fighting, still finding a way to breathe in the air to keep ourselves running.

We may feel the night.

It may be well worn and easily traveled.

But we have not let go.

So hold on.

Hold on and push back and believe, believe believe in the light.

It is yours to hold.

Let it make a home in your heart.

The shadows may still be there.

But without light, there would be no shadows.

It hasn't gone out yet.

identity and comparison.

“There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.” 
― Fernando Pessoa

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t myself. I think we all wish this, at times. We wish we were smarter, more motivated. We wish that we were prettier, more full of grace. Stronger, happier, healthier. We wish. We dream. We sink.

We drop, farther and farther down, until we no longer know who we are anymore. We spend time trying to be someone else, trying to be anything else but the person we are afraid we are. And in this, we know what we do not want to be. We fight, frantically, to avoid what we feel is inevitable. We shrink away from our past, away from our shadows. We worry that we are not enough. That we will never be enough—or worse, that we will be too much.

We compare and contrast, we poke and we prod, we shame and we hide and we hope that we can pull it together enough to be acceptable to someone.

We spend so much time trying not to be ourselves.

We look around and say let me be this or let me be that, but please oh please, do not let me be me.

And I wonder, when it became a bad thing to simply be.

To let ourselves fall apart.

To say, I’m glad you’re this, but I’m that.

We try to force ourselves into performances and cultures and groups and is it possible to be yourself in a world that is asking you to categorize your soul?

I am ME. I don’t fit anywhere or belong to anyone or know who exactly it is I am becoming.

I am here, trying to figure it out.

I’m going to meet people who don’t like it and people who are uncomfortable and people who tell me 

I’m doing it all wrong.

I’m also going to meet people who are telling me I’m doing it all right.

But I am learning, to listen.

To listen to the small, growing voice inside of me and the big big God who tells me be still.

To stop striving.

To remember that I am I am I am enough.

I am changing.

I am growing.

And I am loved.

I do not have to be anyone.

I do not have to wish I was different.

I am messy and cranky and tired and loud and even a little bit mean sometimes.

And I am hopeful and joyful and compassionate and full of love some other times.

I am becoming.

And that is OK.

So I am learning to rest.

To stop the tug on my heart that is screaming SHAME and DISAPPOINTMENT and FEAR.

To stop trying so damn hard to fix myself.

I am learning, instead, to open my hands and my heart and whisper—you are OK.

I am OK.

I am being held.

I can let go.

I can hold on.

I can rest knowing my twenty-six year old self is exactly who she should be—

Herself. 

bitterness and grace.

I write about fear and love and emotional vulnerability because those things are easy for me. They are getting a lot of attention in the media, and the new thing is to be brave in our feelings. And I think this is great. We are making space to view courage differently, we are saying that it's OK not to be perfect and all glued together. We are making room for community and reaching out and holding on to each other when the going gets tough.

I am trying, to connect in this way. I am trying, to be OK. And I am finding, that it is very very hard.

Because what I am learning as I feel the fear and do it anyway is that under my fear is a load of bitterness and rage.

Yup, I said it.

Bitterness and rage.

I want to be the "love" person. I want to be the gracious and compassionate, the hugger. The one who everyone needs and everyone adores, the one whom not a soul has something bad to say about.

I want to be wholesome and steady and pure.

And instead, I find myself dirty and cranky and side-eyeing the crap out of everyone who comes near me.

I find myself jumping when someone leans in for a hug unexpectedly, and cringing when neediness rears its head. I hear myself saying things I don't like, doing things I don't respect. I wake up in a bed of self-loathing and regret.

I wake up stuck.

I've seemed to have lost the meaning of grace, for both myself and others. It's like I've misplaced it, or like it never existed to begin with. I've seen grace, I know what it looks like. I would even say that much grace has been extended to me, with open and forgiving hands.

It's just that I haven't managed to accept it.

We know grace. We are supposed to live it. And I think I practice it, or at least try to. I know that I can have compassion for the hurting, love for those in need.

But at the end of the day, grace has not found a steady home in my heart.

It lingers, at the door, waiting patiently to be let in. And I, like a faithful hostess, refuse the company until I can have the place a little more together.

Being open and vulnerable and honest is hard, but actually believing that you are still valuable in the midst of that is harder.

It's impossible, sometimes.

To fully acknowledge and lean into your own goodness.

To believe in the power of grace.

Because we say we do, but then delegate our self-love to a corner and tell it in so many words that is is not welcome here.

That we are not worthy.

That our bad stuff outweighs the good.

We tell ourselves this over an over, and we tell ourselves that we are incapable of change.

That we are not loving enough, happy enough, stable enough.

That we are not enough to make someone stay, but surely enough to make someone leave.

And we buy into this story until it becomes the only one in our head, until we think it's the only one worth telling.

But it's not.

It's the wrong part of the story.

The real story is that love is not performance-laden.

The real story is the one of grace.

The grace we are refusing to accept for ourselves, but quickly hand to others.

Or, the grace we haven't internalized, and thus cannot externalize it to others.

And this makes us bitter. Angry even.

But today, today it must stop.

We must know grace to know our self-worth.

We must believe that we are accepted and loved, we must know this first before we can give it to others.

We cannot make others feel that which we have not experienced.

Grace.

Don't give up on it.

Don't give up on yourself.

You are worthy despite your bitter and aching heart.

And grace?

It's waiting, just outside your door.

what i learned in the forest of fear.

Halloween is supposed to be a scary time, but if you ask me, most of life is scary. Real stuff happens out there man. We like to think we can protect ourselves from it, harden our hearts and shield ourselves from the constant arrows flying through the air. The truth is, it's not that easy. We are messy, and our mess gets everywhere, splattering the walls and turning our insides out for everyone to see.

I make a practice of not being vulnerable. I am a safe person. I'm very skilled in this area. If I do not show fear, if I don't move too quickly, maybe I won't scare everyone away. Maybe I'll be more attractive this way, more appealing to those around me. To me, emotions are bad. They're scary. We are supposed to be cool and uncaring, confident in ourselves and sure of our worthiness in this world. But mostly, I'm scared.

My guess is you are too.

I'm scared that I'm alone. I'm scared that who I am is too much or too little to make someone stay or leave. I'm scared if I love too hard, my heart will be broken into a million unmendable pieces. I'm scared, all the time, of everything. 

I work with men who have experienced unspeakable, irreversible trauma. Their scars are the loudest thing about them, presented by a silence so deadened you wonder if they've ever heard love at all. But they come, to my office, and slowly let me see them. Sometimes only for a minute, sometimes longer. And what I learn in that moment is that their scars are the most beautiful thing about them. In them there is truth written, real truth, truth that changes everything. There is meaning that inspires and encourages, tears that show hope and promise that even in the pain, even there, something is being made. 

Something is alive. 

And I've come to find, that we cannot do fear alone, because fear feeds itself in isolation. 

This weekend, I had the joy of taking a weekend trip with some of the best people I know. We decided to go to a haunted forest for fun, braving the woods for a thirty minute walk through a literal forest of fear. And I thought to myself, this is my chance to prove how brave I am, to show that I can overcome my emotions, to show that I am unafraid, unfazed by it all. 

To show that I can't be hurt anymore.

So I began the journey in, huddled with my best friends who have become my family, taking the lead and pridefully saying, I can do this alone. 

But what I saw in those woods was not fearlessness, but love.

I was surrounded, both in reality and metaphorically, by people who know me inside and out, by people who have seen me through thick and thin, by people who have embraced me in my pain.

People who love me, sacrificially, wholly, and without exception.

And as we moved forward, together, we let our fear of the forest become a courage rooted in love.

We found ourselves not hiding our fear, but expressing it, accepting it, and encouraging each other through it. We made sacrifices as to who would go first and face the path in front of us, and who would go last and watch our backs. We laughed and we got frustrated and we yelled at each other and we almost cried but we did not leave one another behind.

We stayed. 

When it was hard. 

When it was unpleasant.

When we ourselves were afraid.

When the insane people chased us with chain saws and the pumpkins came to life and that shirtless man threatened to cut off my face.

We stayed.

And this, this is what life is about. Not hiding, not covering up. But loving. Moving toward. Showing up and not letting go.

Perfect love drives out fear. 

And we are all very afraid. 

But love...

Love changes things.

Love is brave.

Love is vulnerable. 

Love feels.

And courage?

Courage is found in community. 

Let yourself be afraid.

But never walk alone. 

gratitude's gift.

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." Thornton Wilder

Gratitude feels like your whole world is so full it could burst with color and light. It feels like love in its purest form--like laughter that never runs out and hope that never runs cold. It feels like everything in the universe has come together and you can see for miles and miles things which you could never have seen before.

It feels whole.

These days, its hard to be grateful. I am the first person to say that more days than not I find reason to see something wrong with my life. When I was younger, my nickname used to be "Debbie Downer". I'm not joking. It was in my nature to see impending doom before it ever arrived on my doorstep. I wanted to be able to prepare for the worst--to see it coming and accept it happening so early on so that if it actually did, I wouldn't be thrown for a loop. I lived a great deal of my life this way. I still do, in many respects.

But what I learned from all those years of fear is only that fear keeps us from being able to live fully in the moment. It robs us of our joy, and in doing so, can rob us of our reality. While we can very easily spot and label the reasons to give up hope, we can also do the opposite. Listen, I know this world is a shitty place. I have many examples that I could share with you that seemingly create a strong argument for why we should believe that the darkness has certainly won. I have seen things my eyes cannot unsee, experienced shadows that we don't think exist until we have touched and felt them, until they have become apart of our immediate existence. I have seen my loved ones suffer and children cry out for mothers who aren't there and unspeakable injustices that permeate entire generations of people.

I have seen what the world should not be.

And I have seen what it is.

I have seen love that cannot be broken, strong and true and generous to the core. I have heard laughter in the midst of sorrow, felt the hope rising in the room. I have been cared for, deeply, by those who know me and those who do not. I have seen the kindness of strangers and the compassion of the poor, I have known the sacrifices of parents who want the best for me and the embrace of friends who will never, ever let me sit alone in the dark. I have known hope so real and so tangible that it echoes throughout my soul and down to my feet and then back out through my fingers in such a way that I feel I might explode with light.

With peace.

And this is what it means to be grateful. It does not mean that we ignore pain or grief or sickness or death. It means seeing the darkness and light at the same time, recognizing that beauty is rare but present, that our pain is even now creating a promise for someone else. It is saying "I'm afraid" but believing that our hope is strong. That our patience in affliction, our reaching out for all that is good and bright is not wasted. That we will continue to fight, continue to press on, continue to look up when everything everywhere is shouting for us to look down.

When we stop being afraid of loss we become open to the life that is in front of us, right now, right here. We shift our perspectives and see the things that are hidden--the things that are real. The things that cannot be taken away from us no matter what happens, no matter how bad it gets.

Fear empties us.

Gratitude makes us full.

And we cannot exist without it.

the secret of the poor.

Though I have known for many years, somehow I had forgotten that to give your life away is to gain it. I think that sometimes, this world gets the better of us. It is very easy to self-sacrifice and to serve when things are easy, or when it is popular to do so. I spent the better half of my years going on trips to Nicaragua or working at a camp for low-income kids from the city. At that time I didn't know any different--I couldn't imagine my days any shorter or simpler or less crazed.

And part of this was good. It was good to learn how to live within the minimum of my needs because it left all this space from which to experience the tangible intangibles of life--love, joy, peace. I remember when I went to Nicaragua our trip leader spoke about "the secret of the poor". How young orphans gave away their last piece of cake or clothing or shoes just so another could taste and see and feel the comforts of life. These kids knew how to gain life, and it was through giving it away. 

Now I think sometimes, we confuse what it means to give ourselves away. Sometimes we start to do so because we are motivated by fear or by being good enough, or because we can't sit still with ourselves. This type of sacrifice is dangerous and prone to burn out. I think there's something to be said about living out of the overflow and not from the drought, about loving others through grace and freedom and because they are who they are, where they are, and not because we feel like we have to. 

I think also that sometimes we forget that the giving is also messy and hard and requires deep sacrifice. We want to believe if we just donate the money or visit the people or serve the poor every once in awhile we are doing enough. Now I'm not big on rules or regulations or telling people that what they are doing is not adequate. I lived in that space for awhile, and I will tell you it's neither healthy nor life giving for anyone.What I am saying is that there is this special, vulnerable, worn out space where God meets our desire to give and our passion to live--where he honors our sacrifice and where we touch the outskirts of heaven.

I have learned that is is very possible to do good things with good intentions and never actually see the beauty that is inherent in them. I have learned that you can do this for a very long time and eventually feel dead inside. But I have also learned that when I stop striving and start being, when I bring balance to my life but also work hard to sacrifice for others, I see miraculous things happen and feel a deep sense of peace. 

All the people I have helped, all the darkness I have seen, all the hope that I have experienced has shown me over and over that to lose your life is to gain it. And while it is great to follow this rule based on knowledge, it is far better to experience it based on love. And if this year has taught me anything it is love. What a difference it makes. 

I work with men who experience homelessness and kids living below the poverty line and as much as I want to believe that I am a good person, what I have come to find out is that I am the luckiest girl on the planet. For the first time maybe in a long time I have discovered what it means to love without ceasing, to show up again and again and again no matter how badly behaved, crazed, or difficult a person may be because I have seen what is on the other side. I have seen people change, I have seen whole lives turned around in a different direction. I have seen healing and wholeness and brokenness and pain and at the end it has all been well with my soul. 

Life does not stop being hard. It is full of sorrow and seemingly hopeless situations. But if we are still and hold on and stop waving our hands frantically in the air we will see the secret of the poor. We will see that is is not our works or our skills or even how many hours we log into our day--it is our love. 

Our consistent, thoughtful, crazy love that changes this world over and over again. I can share story after story of the love that I have experienced, the bravery I have witnessed, and the compassion I have observed that has certainly not come from me. But these stories, these people I have come to admire and respect and care for with every part of who I am have taught me everything I could ever want to know about life.

And that is the secret of the poor. 

To love, even when it doesn't make sense.

Even when you are tired.

Even when it's not gratifying. 

Even when you want to run.

Stay. 

Love.

And experience life to the full.

the light that will not go out.

"It's not about being saints or sinners or good or bad, Fancy. It's about being both. You know? About being complete." Slice of Cherry, Dia Reeves

We were born out of darkness, with a light inside of us just waiting to burst forth into the night. Our eager souls were sure they could escape their fate and run on a cloud of dreams and glory until the very end. And so we avoided our shadows, despite the fact that they crept silently behind us for as long as we could remember.

We divided our world into categories--good and bad, saints and sinners, light and dark. We did this to make sense of things, to help our minds justify what our hearts were screaming to set right. It made us feel better, knowing what we could and could not be in a world so tightly wound in grey. I think our colors faded because of this, the ashen aspects of our days settling lazily on our bones, despite what we did to dust them off. We wanted to appear perfect and bright, almost as much as we wanted everyone else to.

I think somewhere we forgot that even the brightest star cannot exist without the darkness of night.

Our quest for light strained our capacity to make it. All the fragments that frayed my life, all the shattered glass-- it buried me. It buried me because I could not exist in a place that threatened my sense of control, in a place that was not bound up in rules and regulations, stipulations for goodness that I could strive into with all my might.

And so in my reckless fight against the night, I inevitably lost all the light I had ever tried to hold. I watched it spinning out further and further until it was swallowed up by the darkness--not the darkness that was natural to my existence, but the darkness that was wrapped up in avoidance and regret, shame and vulnerability.

I let the darkness define me, instead of finding a way to define the dark--I let my light go out.

This world will never exist without darkness, but we are mistaken if we think that we must exist without it. Even in darkness the light gives ways to all that our souls were created to follow, it allows for illumination and healing and joy, it lets us see all that is beautiful in this world.

We must not avoid the darkness for fear of the night. We must walk boldly forth, calm our nerves, quiet the voice that says, "this must not be" because in truth, it already is.

Often, our best qualities, our brightest lights, are also our darkest companions. The magic within us that allows us to breathe and create and connect can also be our greatest downfall. And yet, we must use all of ourselves in the battle, we must acknowledge the darkness in an effort to grab onto light.

And when you really think about it, we need a bit of the darkness within to face the darkness without. We cannot extinguish what we do not understand, and when we do, we must trust that our light is already there. We must trust because one cannot exist without the other. Where there is dark, there will always be the capacity for light.

In the beginning, God created the light, and saw that it was good. From the very start, he imagined a world where we would never be without light--without hope. And while he has promised to bring us into a land where tears and sorrow are known no more, he stands with us in the dark. He is there, even when we feel we cannot bare to face one more night. Even when we feel our light is fading, when we feel we cannot go on.

We have the capacity for dark and light--but this does not make us saints or sinners. It makes us stars, shining so bright in a universe of darkness that illuminates all the hope there is and ever is to be.

Do not be afraid of the darkness--of your darkness--let it only point you to the light of the heavens that will never, ever go out.