Category: faith

Are you a poet or a philosopher? | Pentecost Message

~ Elizabeth W ~ 1 Comment

Good morning. My name is Elizabeth, and I am happy to bring you the message this morning. When the pastor asked me to speak this morning, I was excited, and maybe a little nervous. As a practicing teacher of English for Speakers of Other Languages and amateur linguist, the story of Pentecost has always been one of my favorites.  

In preparation for this message, I found this quote from Thomas Aquinas: “This is what the philosopher and the poet share in common: both are concerned with the marvelous. Amazement is the beginning of philosophy. Wonder is a kind of desire in knowing. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.” 

From what the youth read this morning, I’d like to analyze the two viewpoints on what began in that upper room on the day of Pentecost.

Some were amazed, marveled, and possessed wonder. Acts says that they were even perplexed. Maybe they were in doubt, but they still questioned what was happening. They were open to an explanation that was possibly amazing and illogical.

Some were cynical or hardened. They tried to find a reason and came to a quick, seemingly logical explanation: they were drunk. The fact that it was only nine in the morning made it seem even more scandalous, perhaps.

When was the last time you tried to explain something seemingly impossible? Which solutions were you drawn to? The human brain is literally wired to find answers to problems. It’s what keeps us alive, discovering and executing solutions. 

But what if we just observed? Without making judgments? We could leave room for amazement. Sometimes things really are as they appear – in this case, what appeared and was evident were tongues of fire and mutual understanding of one another’s languages. I’d like to go back in time and step into the role of an observer here.

I would like to think there was more understanding occurring there than simply language, words received and expressed. There were most likely nonverbal expressions such as gestures. Imagine some universal gestures that everyone there could potentially understand – uncrossed arms, unlocked knees and stance, open hands, wide eyes, a smile that reaches your eyes. In our language in 2021, we might say there was an excited “vibe” that could just be felt. Have you ever heard someone say that there was “just something in the air?” There is no physical explanation for a feeling like that – it just has to be felt. I imagine there were good and excited vibes enabled by this initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

When I was 19, I traveled outside the United States for the first time. I was soon entering my sophomore year of college, a Spanish major with a desire to go out into the world and share my love of language with teenagers as a high school teacher. I would actually say that Spanish was my first love, beginning around five years old with episodes of Sesame Street and bilingual books my mom would let me buy at the book fair. When I was 10, my grandma fulfilled a promise and took me on my first airplane ride to Arizona to visit family. During the trip, we visited the Grand Canyon, and beyond the unreal sights of one of the wonders of the natural word, I remember hearing other languages in real life for the first time. I was entranced and enthralled by different ways of communicating. I went on to start my formal education of Spanish in high school, and as a senior decided to pursue a Bachelor’s in Spanish. I demonstrated knowledge of the grammar such as the structure of verbs and order of adjectives and nouns in sentences. I could use a map to point out the geography of the Spanish-speaking world. But what I was missing was an experience of immersion that would make all my book-learning come to life.

To say that I was excited about my first international trip to South America was an understatement. I went with a group from my church, wide-eyed and with open hands. The first time I entered a worship service completely in Spanish at a mountainside church in Cochabamba, Bolivia, I was amazed and so excited that I felt the same Holy Spirit in that church that I had felt in my English-speaking church back home. I wanted nothing more than to sing songs I didn’t know all the words to, to experience what books hadn’t taught me. While my life, circumstances, color of my skin, and mother tongue were literally a hemisphere away from my new Spanish-speaking friends and siblings in Christ, we were bound by the same Holy Spirit, the same God, who speaks all languages. Who created all languages. We were bound by the same values without having to sit down and have a conversation about it. We knew that smiles and hugs and shaking hands and uncrossed arms were all signs of love and understanding in Jesus. 

What was the cause of my openness to new languages, cultures, and of course, people? I’m not sure. But I know it can be cultivated.

The retelling of Pentecost given to us in Acts is a message of hope. It shows us two distinct perspectives of the same event. In these times where a slight misunderstanding can lead to rifts in families, churches, and communities, it’s even more important for us to be aware of our nonverbal and verbal communication when we encounter experiences or ways of life unfamiliar to us.

I imagine that those who hypothesized that those in the Upper Room were inebriated at nine in the morning had a cynical laugh together, shrugged, and went about their day. Maybe they went to the market, relayed their experience by saying something like, “Did you hear about those crazy people speaking all those languages? What a cacophony!” and went on their way shaking their heads, missing the wonder and amazement of what just happened, what was only the beginning of the Holy Spirit’s work on earth. 

However, those who were “amazed and perplexed” experienced something they would never forget. They would share the details of their experience for years to come, and express how special it was to have the Holy Spirit present and enabling them to mutually understand one another.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be the latter. I’d rather be the poet who observes and takes in rather than the philosopher who analyzes. I never want to lose the amazement and openness to new experiences or even miracles. Our complex and evolved human brains look for logical solutions – and this tendency does bring about many wonderful discoveries in all aspects of our existence. But there are phenomena that are bigger than we are – things we haven’t figured out yet and may never make sense of. And that’s okay.

Acts chapter two goes on to describe Peter’s message to all the people there, citing the prophecies about that day. Some accepted the good news and were baptized, and some did not accept it. Which will we be?

Let’s lead with curiosity. Let’s be willing to be immersed in experiences where we may not always understand. We can trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us through these experiences. Let’s let ourselves be amazed and maybe even perplexed, and we ourselves can become a conduit for bridging cultures and peoples so that we can bring the good news of Jesus to all places, not the least of which, our community right here in Maryland.

I’d like to conclude with a song we sang in that church that has stayed with me since: “Abre mis ojos,” or “Open the Eyes of My Heart.” I invite you to listen and observe – while you may not understand, can you still feel the same excitement and amazement of the same Holy Spirit? If you are perplexed, can you approach the experience with curiosity and wonder?

Thank you, and praise be to God.

Coming back into my body

~ Elizabeth W ~ Leave a comment

Over the past seven years or so, I have been made acutely aware of my body. At first she seemed like a stranger to me, someone you pass in the night but can’t quite see past the darkness and shadows.

It’s quite ironic that I was so separated from my body because I am tall. I take up a lot of space, all 5’10” of me. I have big feet (size 10-10.5), relatively broad shoulders, a large bosom (though pretty proportional to the rest of me), and in general I have always been aware of the space I take up, but not necessarily been in sync and felt unity with my own body.

On being tall & taking up space

In conversations that date back to my years going through puberty, my aunt and I explored some of these feelings I had about my body. I felt I was too tall; she said I was beautiful. I thought my feet were too big; she said that if I didn’t have big enough feet, I would fall flat on my face. I guess this is probably true. But her messages about my body seemed to contradict the jokes I heard from other family members; namely, the ones about my shoes being pontoons and the cups of my bra drying above washer being soup bowls. Those comments were made in jest, for sure, and not meant to harm at all. But seeing as I am the only person in my immediate family who seems to carry the Scandinavian genes more than the others, it really made me super aware of the space I took up. And you can understand why during those years, I began to dissociate my self from my own body.

Recently I attended two consultations with plastic surgeons. I was interested in getting a breast reduction. I spent hours pouring over before and after pictures (I have never seen more boobs in my life….), comparing my breasts to headless women who kind of looked like me. I imagined the types of clothes I’d be able to wear, including cute lacey bras that resembled small ice cream cups rather than soup bowls. I imagined getting the surgery during a long break from work and healing up before a beach vacation, ready to take the ocean with my new & improved perky boobs.

Throughout this process of consultations, I had conversations with my insurance company about the surgery. I got a letter of medical necessity from the chiropractor. Even when the procedure may not have been covered by insurance, the money really wasn’t an issue either way. We could have saved and made it work, if I had really wanted it.

A switch flipped in me about such a radical surgery. On the surface, it seems relatively harmless and it seems people get plastic surgery all the time. However, in the few months I spent obsessed with this idea, I began to get attached to my boobs (emotionally…). I saw them in a different light. I began to mourn their loss and eventually decided against a breast reduction.

On being infertile

Nearly seven years ago now, we began trying to conceive. As we know from other posts on this blog, it didn’t work. And in that process, the dissociation I felt with my body that began in adolescence only grew more pronounced. I began to resent and even despise my body. It’s a very uncomfortable state to be in because you can’t really get away. Thankfully I didn’t choose to engage in self-destructive behaviors, though I can imagine for some people that that would seem like a way out from those feelings.

It took a lot of therapy and research, even surgery (to diagnose and remove endometriosis) to help me heal. It took a rewiring of my brain when my period would start, that instead of absolutely hating my bum uterus* and emotional pain it caused me for so long, month after month, I just accepted that this is my body right now. I’m still in the reproductive, “child-bearing” phase of my life, and it is possible that very soon I will enter what is known as perimenopause. I decided that I can’t just hate on myself for the next 10-15-20 years until my body stops bleeding every month. I have to accept myself, come back into myself, and act like I love myself.

*I was misdiagnosed – I do not have a septate uterus. It turns out that I had benign uterine polyps and stage 2 endometriosis, mostly occurring in the deep cul-de-sac. I had a D&C to remove the polyps and excision for the endo. 2.5 years on, I feel pretty good, though I suspect the polyps might be coming back.

On being a sexual being

They say that women lose some of their inhibition around sex in their 30’s. I’ve not read up on the reasons why, but from personal experience, I could say that the previous two experiences of being tall and being infertile have had something to do with it. Once you peel back the layers of why your body & soul are disconnected, it’s really hard to not keep going, keep discovering, staying curious about yourself.

My journey with my one and only body has also been spiritual, which necessitates an analysis of my previous spiritual experiences and an examination of the things I was taught about my body. If being tall, having big boobs, and being infertile made me feel shame and embarrassment about my body, then learning that my body, literally the existence of it, could be tempting for boys and men or inherently sinful certainly did nothing for my self-esteem.

What has done something, in fact a lot for my self-esteem is engaging in exercise, especially long-distance running and yoga. Concerning running, there’s nothing quite like completing a marathon and realizing that your own body took you that far. It’s impossible to not feel proud of yourself, to shed the self-consciousness about what you might look like running 20 miles on country roads during training.

Yoga has by far been the most transformative experience, and the most daring I must say. In some Christian circles I have been a part of, yoga has been looked down on and considered “giving the devil a foothold.” I will be honest, though: the conservative Christian rhetoric surrounding women’s bodies, pregnancy, and infertility did very little for me as far as healing was concerned. (I have written a lot about that here, here, and here.) So I decided to explore elsewhere.

Forgive my facetiousness, but as it turns out, I have not turned into a witch or a Satan worshipper. I have, however, developed a broader sense of spirituality that I needed at the time which also includes my sexuality.

In Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, Nadia Bolz-Weber talks about the need for a new approach to sexuality as Christians. She makes a clear distinction between purity and holiness (hey-o those are some buzzwords!) that helps validate my journey to uniting my own body and spirit:

Purity most often leads to pride or despair, not to holiness. Because holiness is about union with and purity is about separation from.

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This brings me to the last practice or habit I’ve explored to help me come back into my body: reading. It’s been a way for me to round out my experiences of intense emotions, to inform my journey going forward. I have found that the topics of books I have read that have helped me realize a deeper connection to my own humanity include sex within the Christian world (Shameless: A Sexual Reformation), sexual health (Come as You Are), endometriosis (The Doctor Will See You Now), Jesus as a husband (The Book of Longings, post here), women’s health (In the Flo, Womancode), spiritual memoirs written by women (The Very Worst Missionary, Out of Sorts, Inspired, and Christian mysticism (The Universal Christ). While these topics might only seem marginally connected, the reflect the interconnectedness — union — of who we are as humans – complicated and complex in our sexuality and spirituality, in our body and our soul.

The clouded lens of faith

~ Elizabeth W ~ Leave a comment

Why is it that my heartrate increases and my breathing become jagged when I come across evidence of a previous version of myself — that is, the one that wholeheartedly committed to the Pentecostal evangelical way of doing faith?

I feel so many things when I hear the jargon, see smiling people worshipping together, come across songs I used to feel a lot. It’s almost a feeling of what I called “conviction” – a little emotional ping that told me that I was temporarily out of bounds and needed to repent, find something wrong that I was doing, and get back in line.

I measured my “success” in my relationship with God in early-morning bleary-eyed Bible study, or a worship service where I was moved to tears (read: every single one), or the feeling that I was being prophesized over, and that that prophecy was for me at that moment.

To be clear: I don’t deny many of my experiences. I don’t deny many of the relationships I built with other people during this time. I don’t deny the musical and spiritual growth I made from playing with worship bands for a decade. But now at this point, I feel a certain grief over the “believer” I was. The beliefs I unequivocally adhered to. The people I hurt over disagreements about theology, intentional or unintentional. The people I excluded because I did not agree with their “lifestyle.” The people I thought I had a right to convert to my way of Christianity when I had no business doing so – in their country, no less. I grieve the power I gave over to others in the name of “accountability.”

There is so much now that I don’t know. I have a lot of doubts. I thought I had come up to the top of the hill already, but recently I think I came just to a plateau, and now I have resumed climbing. There is so much to uncover, so many beliefs to examine. The more I continue in this journey, the more I think that this is part of the human condition.

I had a deep insecurity throughout those years spent in conservative Pentecostal evangelical churches. I was young, married, without a lot of money, spending a lot of time away from my new husband, with whom I “sinned” before marriage. The insecurity also came from experiences where extroversion was valued and even seen as godly. I am not an extroverted person.

Sometimes I can tend towards that end of the spectrum, but in general about my faith (and most of my life in general), I am introverted. I like to turn things over in my mind and heart before I express it to others as my truth. Instead, I was encouraged to just take a leap and the Holy Spirit will catch me. I was encouraged to put myself out there, that the person I was would be made better. Which also infers that the person I was wasn’t good enough. Good enough for God? Or good enough for other people?

My heart hurts. I never could have foreseen a grief over a time in my life related to my faith. I really and truly thought I had it all figured out – about sin, about God, about salvation, about heaven, about hell, about Roman’s Road, about mental illness as a Christian.

It all started to unravel when I learned of emotional abuses committed by pastoral staff, and how they were allowed to be perpetuated mostly because no one else really knew. The victims of this abuse had no power to respond. And not just in one church by a couple people, but in completely different areas of the country to many people. The unraveling continued with our unsuccessful journey to having children and the refusal to pursue parenthood. The latter seems to be a covert affront to American Christian culture.

I do have hope, however. I have hope because of many, many people I know from all over the country who claim to follow Jesus and their actions match. I have hope because I have had some wonderful pastors from different backgrounds and of different ethnicities who attest to the one-ness of God. I have hope because I’ve seen many of my predecessors for whom God and faith were real, and they practiced it.

Through living in different parts of the country and encountering all sorts of Christians, I have hope. The faith I practice is not contained in one type of building with one type of music and one type of preaching in one type of vernacular. It extends far beyond where I can see, beyond time and space and language. It’s in nature, in the air, in the clouds and birds and animals, and especially in domesticated ones. I see it in a shared meal with friends and through created traditions. I see it in fresh food pulled from the oven and in books I read by lamplight. I see it in the compassion and humor of my students, still teenagers trying to figure out their place in the United States, and the world at large.

I want to look forward instead of looking behind. There are new spiritual experiences to be had with new contexts and new interpretations of our shared texts. That there is a “successful” way to practice faith is an American fallacy. Adhering to any faith, no matter what it is, is not about reaching the top of the mountain finally. I think it looks like a constant push-and-pull, sometimes a tug-of-war.

…being people of faith isn’t as much about being right as it is about being part of a community in restored and restorative relationship with God.

In “Inspired” by Rachel Held Evans

Religion & faith in context: The Book of Longings

~ Elizabeth W ~ 1 Comment

Let me start by saying, Wow. I was blown away by this book by Sue Monk Kidd, who also wrote the best-selling Secret Life of Bees (which I have not read). The Book of Longings was really a book I have needed in my life for a long time, though it was just released. It was my first finished book of 2021, but one that will be on my mind for a long time.

Here is a link to my review (spoilers).

Beyond the review of the book, I can say that I think I know why my therapist might have recommended this to me. She often recommends literary fiction, some of which I have read to the end, some of which I have DNF’d, and some which I have avoided, like Book of Longings.

I have been on a faith journey my whole life, beginning from the time I was four years old and our neighbor Anna Rushford invited my family to church, the church right across the alley. It happened to be a United Methodist church, and this faith tradition was heavy on both sides of my family. I had even been baptized in a different Methodist church when I was only 2.

Fast forward to now, when I’ve been a Christian for 30 years, having been a member and at times heavily involved with different kinds of churches, all the while with questions in my mind about who God is and what his relationship to me looks like. I also recently have been questioning where Christians get some of the ideas they do about the Bible, and then decide that what they have learned is the only way to interpret it, and THEN use it to degrade, judge, ostracize, and ignore others. That I’m angry about.

Besides the religious aspect of Book of Longings, I thought a lot about the plight of women rich and poor in the first century. Though my life looks quite different than women of that time, I can relate to so much. What I can’t understand because of my own time, place, and privilege, I can imagine. No matter the social station of different phases of life of our main character, Ana, she experiences tragedy and silencing of her voice. She has deep emotions and desires that are often in conflict with each other. Her experience showcases many aspects of the general human experience.

I did cry at a point in this book, and if you’re not familiar with the story of Jesus or if you haven’t read this book, stop reading! I saw Jesus’ betrayal and death through new eyes, but really, eyes that might have been there. I knew there was a group of women including his mother and Mary Magdalene, but never in my life had considered that his wife would be there, nor that she might have just barely made it back after a long absence to see her own husband put to death. For some reason, witnessing that momentous event through new eyes had a profound impact on me.

I know what love is, and I know what it looks like in the context of my faith. I believe that two people can be brought together for not only love, but for companionship and the betterment of the world. And I know what it feels like to be separated from that person for long periods of time. I know what it feels like to just have to get my voice out – that’s why I write. But I write on a screen, not on papyrus.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s all connected. For a long time, I have compartmentalized many things: my relationship with God, my experience as a woman, my sexuality, my wants and desires for life. But it’s really all related and part of my human experience. I think just as the Trinity – Father God, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit – cannot be separated, our body and spirit cannot be separated.

This union of elements for me has been a new experience, and one I’ve desperately needed as I find my way in the world as a woman with a body and a soul and as a woman without children. When I go places, I take both my body and my soul with me, always. When I experience happiness, it flows through my mind and also my body. I first learned about what the world was like through my body (attachment theory). How then can my body be separated from my mind or soul?

Today we still return to our roots in times of crisis; we look to the stories of our origins to make sense of things, to remember who we are.

In Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

Returning to my roots is not an option for me – I must do it. That means returning to the stories that shaped my childhood and my first views of the world – the stories of the Bible. For several years I have been the absolute worst scholar of the Bible, and maybe it’s just as well. The scholar hat really isn’t fitting well, and that’s okay. I just have to come at it from a different angle. I’ll get back there with time and care. It cannot be forced.

In all, The Book of Longings did something for me that I have needed – it has given me a context for understanding Jesus in a way that I can understand and relate to on a visceral level, in a way that can easily bypass my brain and all its questions – through the love of another human.

Recap of “2020 – The Year of Saying No”

~ Elizabeth W ~ Leave a comment

In January, I wrote this post about saying no, my theme for this year. It came off the coattails of the Year of Being Honest. I haven’t picked a personal theme for 2021 yet, but thought I would recap and expound on the list of things I wanted to do for 2020.

  • Reading. Lots and lots of it. Mostly in front of my YouTube fireplace. With a dog. And a blankie. Because 10-year-old Elizabeth is resurfacing. My current goal is to read 40 books this year.

I have read 65 books as of December 25, 2020. Most were fiction, fantasy to be exact. 29 out of the 65 were nonfiction, a bit surprising as I counted them up. I read a couple of series and trilogies that blew me away and kept me coming back for more. Currently, I’m starting a re-read on A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas since 1) my sister gifted me the hardcovers of this series and 2) the new book comes out in February.

  • Spiritual introspection and discipline. Continuing to find new ways of approaching my Christian faith in a way that edifies myself and the Church.

This one I didn’t dive too deep into, honestly. Church has been weird this year with the pandemic, and I found myself more often than not not tuning into the virtual services and instead enjoying my Sunday morning like the rest of the world. Does that sound bad? I don’t know. I do know that I’ve needed a break because I’ve been doing the Sunday-morning-Church-thing for 30 years of my life. As far as exploring my own spirituality and having discipline, I would say regular therapy sessions and the books I read (yes, the fiction too!) have helped me immensely in that area.

I’ve also been focusing this year on uniting my body and my spirit/mind this year. After years of infertility and in general kind of hating my body at different times for different reasons, it was high time to relearn how I can love myself instead of look in the mirror with disdain. Which brings me to…

  • Exercise that isn’t running. Gasp. Hold the damn phone. I know. This year I think might be a running sabbatical.

Most of 2020 was a running sabbatical I had a few races lined up, and completed two. In December I attempted a 5K a day but for about a week and a half I’ve been nursing runner’s knee in my right knee. I hope to get back out there in the beginning of 2021. After a break from regular training, I realize how integral running has been in my life, and how there is a magic that happens. I run, I feel better. It’s amazing.

  • Making good food in my beautiful kitchen.

This was an easy one to hit with the pandemic. I would call my cooking style “Bougie Midwestern comfort food”… all the things I loved growing up like shepherd’s pie, roast, corn chowder, pizza.. but with higher quality ingredients and more that’s homemade. We also began buying veggies from a local CSA and in 2021 we will be subscribers to the CSA on a weekly basis. I think we’ve eaten at a restaurant a handful of times in the past 9 months, and gotten delivery on average once every 10 days or so. I tried my hand at sourdough, which was kind of a failure, but I found a new recipe for a starter so I will try that and see how it goes. I’ve gotten really good at using up leftovers and veggies about to go bad. In this area, 2020 has been a HUGE success.

  • Drinking less caffeine. Also on the list of things that don’t make sense.

Hmm. Well. This did not happen. Ha! However, since the end of May, the number of alcoholic drinks I’ve had I can count on one hand. THAT is a huge feat for me, and I really don’t see alcohol playing a role, if at all, in my 2021 plans. It’s all a part of saying no to the things that don’t serve me anymore.

  • Being honest about who I am and what I want out of life. Approaching my weirdness with a curiosity rather than contempt.

This has not been easy, and I’m still not there yet. With some work changes, I have pinned down some criteria for how I want to continue in my job. Teaching is not easy right now, and with big changes on the horizon with a new Secretary of Ed, budget cuts, and virtual learning, it’s good to have some boundaries and expectations for my own career. I’ve thought a lot about switching careers or finding a new teaching job, but I haven’t made any hard decisions about it. I’m content where I am.

  • Connecting with family and friends.

This has been a constant in my life, mostly because we live far away from all family and most friends. I don’t have Facebook or Instagram anymore, so that can make it difficult though not impossible to keep in touch. The video chatting app Marco Polo has been the real MVP here – especially with keeping in touch through time zones.

  • Reflecting and revising my teaching practice.

This has happened naturally with the changes brought about by the pandemic. I have always been computer and tech savvy, and I brought that into my work more this year. I’ve finally cracked the code (for me) on how to make lesson planning easier to do. I’ve become a Google Slides hero. And overall, I would say with the changes this year (new school, new grade level) things are going well. It feels good to have tenure and several years in K-12 ESOL behind me. That’s definitely a first for me in my career. AND I love being back in high school.

  • Making the bed every day (???)

We do this. We make the bed every work day. And it’s a habit I won’t ever stop because it starts the day off right.

Hymn’s come home

~ Elizabeth W ~ Leave a comment

If I were to choose a playlist of songs to make up the soundtrack to my biography, at the very top of the list tied for first place there would be classic rock and Methodist hymns. The top artists would be Heart and Charles Wesley. The former as a nod to the music I was raised and the latter as a testament to the music that played over and over in my head after church on Sundays. Both formed my spirituality.

I owe so much of my literacy development and my mad sight reading skills to having to read out of a hymnal in church. From the tender age of five I was singing along to hymns in church accompanied usually by the organ. We sat in the third row towards the center, so I generally wasn’t within the proper angle to see the organist plugging away at her work, but I was mesmerized nonetheless. If I remember correctly, I sat between my grandma and my mom. Or sometimes between my grandma and my sisters. If I remember correctly. But for sure I knew that my grandma was on my left, at the ready with Mentos or Winterfresh gum.

We would mark the hymns ahead of time with little ribbons by looking through the bulletin. I remember the anticipation of singing a hymn I loved. I adore hymns for so many reasons, only one of which is how beautifully the chords move through their progressions and carry a swelling and then fading melody. Then of course how many verses rhyme. I especially love the way that it’s easy to harmonize – the only question for me is which note I start on. To find this I hum along while the introduction is played and that usually sets me straight. I love to be a sole chorus of altos in a sea of sopranos and tenors and basses. I love hymns so much that I may have swiped a hymnal from the church I grew up in, and still have it on my shelf to this day. Truthfully, I probably borrowed it to practice songs on the piano and then forgot to give it back.

Hymns were my prayers, and some 30 years after beginning my formal journey in organized religion, I realize that. In the fine print below each hymn, you can see from where and when the words and music originated. My favorites are the ones where the words come from a translation of Latin from the 9th century (like “O Come O Come Emmanuel”) or when a hymn was written during a pivotal moment in history like the Civil War. But it doesn’t have to say “written during the Civil War”; I know that the years of 1861 through 1865 bear significance. It meant a lot to me that I was also singing the same choruses as my spiritual predecessors from ages ago.

I often committed words and music of hymns to memory. This will happen after you sing something so many times. Not only does repetition play a huge part, but so does the context in which you sing the hymn. We know from modern brain science that the body remembers first – whether an event was traumatic or not. It makes pathways from sights and smells, warmth and cold. This is how I made memories with hymns. I know that “For the Beauty of the Earth” is usually sung in the spring, with spring banners and colors adorning the church, trying to decide if I would wear a raincoat to cross the alley to church or just run for it. Memories of Christmas Eve hymns like “Silent Night” are laced with the scent of tiny candles blown out, and during the late service my belly would be full from a dinner with family.

Just like Scripture I’ve memorized (which by the way, isn’t much: I kind of suck at memorizing just words out of context), hymns will come back to the forefront of my mind at different times. During this time of Advent, the song “O Come O Come Emmanuel” plays in my head over and over. I find myself searching for the newest renditions by artists like Piano Guys and Gungor. I listen, and satisfy that craving for a comfort that’s enveloped in a minor key, Thys and Thous, and a predictable rhythm. I also find nuances I’d never noticed before and appreciate the song through fresh ears.

Many years after my first foray into church, I decided to begin attending a new church of a very different denomination than the one I grew up in. This church did not sing many hymns during their worship services, and if they did it was accompanied by drums and lights and not a lot of harmonies. To my knowledge, the only organ was a small one that hid in the corner of the platform, collecting dust.

In that tradition I learned many different types of music and worship that were much more “extroverted,” or so it seemed. Hands raised, voices crying out, sometimes even with non-English and non-other-known-language utterances. Lots of repetition of the same phrase became a very emotional thing, and as a teenager who had always been moved by music (apparently I was rocking to the beat by 8 months old) I took it all in.

However, it was odd to me at first. I never felt so much emotional while singing in church before, not unless it was at a funeral. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t emotional about God, however, or didn’t care as much or wasn’t as “saved” as my new fellow congregants. I know that now.

I slowly picked up on the culture of the new church – one of valuing extroversion, that revered people’s willingness to pray out loud in front of people. We held hands, and I learned to pray out loud very long prayers. With lots of Lords and Gods and Jesuses. I think I prayed like that because to some extent I was being authentic and I wasn’t afraid to do it, especially if I felt comfortable with the group. It was my way of being like the leader I’d been in my Sunday School classes, being the teacher’s pet.

But I also think I prayed like that because it’s what was valued and seen as “real” prayer. For some reason I began to think that all the praying I’d done before wasn’t good enough, or sincere enough. And God surely would answer prayers were I was bold enough to speak out loud to a group. Apparently praying in my head just wasn’t enough anymore, and that was the beginning of my turning away from what I grew up with into a new denomination that would dominate my ways of thinking and being and interacting for about a decade.

What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe?

in Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor

I have since returned to the tradition I grew up in. When we moved cross-country and returned to civilian life, I needed something different. I have a lot, lot more to say about my experiences in right-wing evangelical church. It turns out many people do But in unpacking the hurt and shame and uncertainty and division of my spirit and my body, I have found that the prayer I have felt comfortable doing is the right prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer prayed out loud with my church family is the right prayer. The Apostle’s Creed recited aloud is the right prayer. The brief silent prayer after communion is the right prayer. The “graces” we pray before meals in my house are the right prayers. The prayers I follow along with during a virtual service while also cross-stitching or crocheting are the right prayers.

I have also realized that the hymns I sang and memorized were prayers. I was actually praying so much when I was singing. And if part of meditation is sitting on a line or song or idea for awhile, then I was meditating too.

I’m sad that for many years I taught myself to reject the faith and mode of worship I developed as a child into adolescence, that I inherited from both sides of my family, that I celebrated in basements of country churches. I learned to look down my nose at my supposedly unenlightened friends and family who just didn’t have enough of the Holy Spirit… yet. I told myself I was better than they were because I prayed out loud and sang loud songs with drums and electric guitars and listened to sermons that were 45 minutes, not 15. And I had extreme guilt if I couldn’t “convert” my friends and family, who had a faith and belief of their own, to my new way of thinking. However, as Rachel Held Evans writes in Faith Unraveled, “We are saved by a restored relationship with God, which might look a little different from person to person, culture to culture, time to time.”

I’m also kind of angry at the leaders and people in those churches (yes, I attended more than one) for encouraging the elitism, whether they knew it or not. They preached that their version of Jesus is the only Way, and also that the way we worship Him is the only Way. If you disagree with the sermon or theology presented, or think about Jesus in multiple historical contexts and perspectives, there’s probably something you need to be sorry for during that really emotional song that’s played after communion.

When I rejected my original mode of faith I also had to grieve it in context. I missed old creaky pews and hazy sunlight streaming through stained glass. I missed old hymnals and pipe organs. I definitely missed short sermons and the simplicity of a hymn, which if you study them, you will find that so many are much more theologically sound and linguistically complex than they are given credit for.

What a comfort to know that this loving and merciful God will not be disappointed, that his word falls over the earth like rain, covers it like snow, and nourishes it for an abundant harvest. What a comfort to know that God is a poet.

in Faith Unraveled by Rachel Held Evans

I don’t think everyone gets the chance in their lives to “come home” to the faith they had as a child. I think many people didn’t have a faith home to begin with, which is fine, or their home was unstable and emotionally manipulative or even abusive. But I had a really great home of faith and religion in my formative years. I had many healthy experiences that taught me about the Bible but also about being in community with others. In the process, I gained a large understanding of literacy and musicality. I was taught so much by loving and reliable Sunday School teachers.

Fortunately I was able to come “home,” and it was the right choice for many reasons. I wasn’t sure what I would find among creaky pews and old-church-building smell and the organ and hymns and robes and seasons like Lent and Advent, but I knew it was a good place to start.

November 12, 2019 @ 9:13 pm

~ Elizabeth W ~ Leave a comment

We are at a collective breaking point. There is virtually no one I talk to who isn’t busy or overwhelmed or burnt out. Most people give lip service about committing to anything, except they’ve overcommitted to everything, seemingly. It’s strange.

I think we’re headed towards a precipice. All of society is running and careening out of control at full speed. We all know we shouldn’t be doing it. Yet we are anyway. We think our running is only affecting ourselves, that others should just decide to go the other way. Then they do and we run them over and blame someone else for it.

Our actions are ripples that undulate throughout the cosmos. We are all in this together. Individualism is great until it’s not.

There is a different sort of Great Depression coming – a depression of common decency and interprsonal relationship and mutual affection and caring for one another.

I’m just trying to get ahead of it before the stampede reaches me.

I could feel this coming.

~ Elizabeth W ~ Leave a comment

As far as I know, the world is spinning at the same rate as it was only a week ago. A month ago. A year ago. But now, as of 5:42 AM on March 17, 2020, we’re living in a much different world. And it’s weird to think I could feel it coming.

For several months now there’s been an disquiet in my soul about how fast life is moving. About how much for granted we all take that fact that we’re alive and breathing in this world. It’s bubbled up here and there, encouraged me to write or think or have important conversations with people. It’s sometimes been flashing this word in my mind: Simplify, simplify, simplify.

So that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been decluttering rooms in my house but also my calendar. I’ve been saying no to things. I’ve been triaging my tasks at work to focus on the one most important task – educating and advocating for English learners and their families.

Now, being a teacher whose state of residence has shut down schools for at least two weeks, I have nothing but time to ponder these things. And in such times as these, I think it’s very important to chronicle my thoughts, feelings, and actions. This is not going away.

I will admit, upon hearing schools were closing I was a little excited. Finally, finally, we were all going to get the break we needed. The need was palpable every day at work, no matter the school. Teachers are tired. Students are tired. We’re all a little tired of each other, I think. What tasks could I accomplish during this time at home? Painting, rearranging, rehoming decluttered items, finishing a book series. Feeling a sense of karma coming back to me because after the grief of not having children, I have a quiet house for the foreseeable future.

Overall I’ve had a strange sense of calm. I’ve checked in with or family members have checked in on me as far away as Washington State, the American epicenter of this whole thing, and as close as North Carolina. I’ve been checking in on my students and making sure they know where they can get lunches this week and next. I’ve also been worrying about them – their home lives during this time. The lack of direct instruction, especially for the ones who are still in the beginning stages of learning English. I’m wondering what this will mean when we finally do come back to school, and how this will impact their lives going forward.

But yes, an overall sense of calm and okayness. I’m okay. Aaron’s okay. We’re both on the same side of the planet, in the same zip code, in the same house. We have jobs that will not lay us off. Bills are paid. I know what’s important right now and I can focus on that. I’m grateful for the time to slow down and take stock of life. It’s okay to be okay.

At some point Emily and I will start a podcast (maybe this is a great time for it?) but one of the things we were talking about a few days ago was that we feel so much more in tune with the earth and the divine and the ‘collective consciousness’ (or whatever other name there is for this) than we did years ago. I feel aware of the earth groaning and creaking and sometimes even screaming out. I feel aware and even sensitive to the vibes that people throw off when they’re tired, exhausted, running ragged, just need a break. I feel aware of my own heart expanding to take in not the feelings but the people, and especially children, who need this awareness.

As I lament to my therapist, “Being woke sucks sometimes” because you see how not woke the rest of the world can be. There’s so much more to life but busyness and the illusion of busyness. Of the self-inflicted pat on the back for a job well done. There’s more to life than getting the newest car or cutest shoes or having take-out every day for lunch.

There’s delicious homemade food, made with time that you carved out intentionally from a crazy schedule. There’s special phone conversations with loved ones that you can have because you’re not scheduled with activities from 6AM to 9PM seven days a week. There’s daily walks around the neighborhood, nodding to passersby and chatting with a neighbor. There’s early morning times of devotions or reading a much-loved book because you got a good night of sleep and could wake up early.

At times I feel my journey to a simpler and richer life echoes many people (mostly women) who have now written books about it.. and not just about simplicity in the concrete things, but some about their journey to a faith that makes sense to them. Books like Present Over Perfect, Out of Sorts, Faith Unraveled, Eat Pray Love, Wild, Searching for Sunday, The Year of No Nonsense, The Untethered Soul, The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Seen, Slow Church, Leaving Church, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Some would say these books are a dime a dozen now, but I think it speaks to a societal shift that could be happening… where we again value presence with nature and people and not dependence on things or titles.

Writers and artists have often been the prophetic ones, sometimes the canaries in the coal mine. They have not only admonished us but given us a way out and action steps to take, and this momentous and pivotal time is no exception. I will leave you with this song.

Just Say No, AKA the Year 2020

~ Elizabeth W ~ 1 Comment

How are your New Year’s goals and resolutions going? Did you make any? I haven’t made them since probably around 2013 when I resolved to make the bed every day. I have to say, it’s stuck and I still make the bed five out of seven days.

Instead of resolutions, I try to stick with a theme that’s a bit more overarching and esoteric. 2019 was the year where I declared to myself to Be Honest. And I was. I was honest about everything from what I ate making my body feel like garbage to the nasty habit of rarely cleaning my bathroom to the negative garbage I continue to spew at the girl in the mirror. I was honest about my feelings about my weight, my house, paint colors on my walls, how I really feel about baby showers (heh), and about the things on my calendar that I actually like doing (I’m at about 70% right now).

It was a year of self-discovery, though I am ashamed that it took me 32, wait no, 33 years to discover the person I’m with all day long. But guys, I did it. And did I die? No. I did not.

Twenty-twenty is the year of Just Say No. I have to say that the DARE program with the cute little bear we got to pass around the class (and Mom made me tumble said bear in the dryer for no fewer than 30 minutes) didn’t do much for me in the way of saying no to drugs (probably because I came off as a goody-two-shoes and was never offered them…). But hell, it would have been nice if someone had told me as a young woman, There are going to be lots of people who will pressure you to do all the things. Just say no to 80% of the things, and focus on the other 20%. Nope, none of that.

I’m on to you, all you people who keep asking the same people over and over and over again to do more things. My type of people are responsible, organized, loyal, dependable, and sadly, but not so sadly for you, yes people. And frankly, I’m sick of it.

I know the door swings both ways. I do not absolve myself of responsibility in saying yes to all the things. And I will not deny that there was a time in my life I really needed to say yes to all the things… during college, for example (as in classes and papers and odd side jobs). During student teaching… working my way through new and different jobs the first ten years of my career as we moved around the country.

Goals are weird, amirite? You make a goal and think you want to reach it until you’re almost there, or actually there, and then it’s like, huh. Wow. Okay. That’s it? (This has been my personal experience for the accomplishment of many goals.) I think that actually, one of my goals all along has been to put myself in such a position that I could say no to things and either 1) not give a shit about what people think of that dreaded two-letter word coming out of my mouth and/or 2) financially and professionally afford to say no.

I’m now a recovering yes person on a multi-step program (don’t ask for specifics, maybe that’ll come later) to becoming a no person. So, let’s focus on the positive… what are the things I’m currently working on saying yes to in 2020?

  • Reading. Lots and lots of it. Mostly in front of my YouTube fireplace. With a dog. And a blankie. Because 10-year-old Elizabeth is resurfacing. My current goal is to read 40 books this year.
  • Spiritual introspection and discipline. Continuing to find new ways of approaching my Christian faith in a way that edifies myself and the Church.
  • Exercise that isn’t running. Gasp. Hold the damn phone. I know. This year I think might be a running sabbatical.
  • Making good food in my beautiful kitchen.
  • Drinking less caffeine. Also on the list of things that don’t make sense.
  • Being honest about who I am and what I want out of life. Approaching my weirdness with a curiosity rather than contempt.
  • Connecting with family and friends.
  • Reflecting and revising my teaching practice.
  • Making the bed every day (???)

[Insert conclusion here]. Aren’t conclusions the worst things to write? All said, I’m on this journey to become a more decent human being. To treat myself and other with respect and dignity. To stamp out evil and poverty of the mind. To expose myself to new experiences and live in the moment. Whew. Let’s do it.

Self-actualization

~ Elizabeth W ~ Leave a comment

I’ve learned a hell of a lot about myself in the past few months. Summer was a lovely time of watching sunrises, reading books (check out my Goodreads on the side bar), namely, getting back into fiction and even fantasy. I’ve been really connecting with who I am at my core. And also getting shit done. (That last one is vague but still hopefully conveys a strong message.)

Running has taken a back seat, though my most recent ink pays homage to my hobby-turned-natural-antidepressant. In fact, I’ve been pursuing this hobby, and PRs, for ten years now.

Ten years of running, of training, of actually only a couple of injuries. This past year held some roadblocks, like the month I had to wear a walking boot for plantar fasciitis, or the time I fell on concrete going downhill and gave myself a painful elbow sprain.

After the bout with PF, I achieve a couple PRs this year: the 10K and the half marathon. And I worked my ass off for those PRs.

Throughout this decade, running has been an outlet for all the self-guessing and -doubting from not being able to conceive. It was damn near necessary for my mental health while my husband was across the big blue ocean in the Army. It has helped me process a lot of life’s quandaries.

Now I’m no longer surviving, folks. Life is now not a struggle. That sounds quite melodramatic, right? But when you’re kind of wired to be a person who looks at the glass half empty (and at the same time don’t like what’s already in your glass), this is kind of huge.

Most people just go from day to day protecting themselves and making sure nothing goes too wrong…they see life as a threat. A good day means you made it through without getting hurt.

The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer

That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for a good chunk of my adult life. I moved in and out of this way of thinking, but now I’ve crossed “survive!” off my list.

When you’ve been doing this for so long, it’s hard to know where to go next. So I’ve been letting my heart lead me instead of my brain.

I’m reading, sitting in silence, going for a kayak, doing some yoga, exploring my faith and spirituality in a much deeper way, opening myself up to new relationships and opportunities.

And guess what? I’m thriving, yo.

Anyone who’s studied education or any related field knows about good ole Maslow. I’ve moved past the bottom two rungs and now I’m thriving in relationships. I’m doing a pretty good job in esteem, and mostly concerned about how I esteem myself. And I’ve been doing a lot of work in self-actualization.

I’ve been focusing a lot of energy here, and also in being mindful and aware. I’ve needed to slow down and take everything in. Instead of getting my views from the road, I’ve been getting them from the porch or the water.

And now that I’ve moved up to the upper echelons of this pyramid, my question is, how can I help others do the same? I have some ideas….