When I Look Back

Sometimes I'm in Springfield watching my father's gentle hands gather vegetables from the garden, the breeze on my face from the Lake and the smell of rotting fish a reminder that I am home.

And sometimes I'm at Sawyerwood church singing "God Bless America" on Memorial Day, crock pots and Hallmark cards and protective, secure hugs--Grandma's laughter and the birthday bag and Father Abraham had many sons.
 
And sometimes I'm deep in the cornfields of Bowling Green, the horizon as flat and open as all of the possibilities ahead of me, a questioning and searching and seeking my spiritual truth. 

And sometimes I'm in Philadelphia where my Black church family taught me of justice and freedom and liberation and healing, where radical embrace sunk deep into my bones a healing I didn't know I needed and a healing I could never forget.

And sometimes I'm in Kapolei near the shores where the sun-soaked sand called my spirit to repentance, where the kalo was pounded on the papa ku‘i ‘ai into communion alongside coconut milk and we all partook of the feast as one Church. 

And sometimes I'm in the sun-scorched dirt of LA where shoots of resilient green in the midst of drought remind me that I am resilient green, too.

And sometimes I'm in Summit Lake, where the beggars and broken take communion alongside the rich and humbled and we call one another family.   

And sometimes I'm in the psychiatric hospital, and sometimes I'm the counselor. And sometimes I'm the Good Samaritan, and sometimes I'm begging for help and

Everywhere I go  
My heart keeps expanding and widening and falling deeper in love
Mystery and ocean depths and a never-ending contemplative horizon that leads me to marvel at--
How wide, 
how long, 
how deep, 
how magnificent 
is the love of Christ our Lord.

The Day I Tried to Protest at a Bar

"What are you protesting?" the man asked me while we were both painting the street in my neighborhood. I had just told him I was planning on protesting an event that was happening at a local bar that evening. 

In a flurry of feelings, I didn't answer his question well. To be honest, I hadn't quite figured it out myself. I just knew it was a luau that wasn't a luau and this wasn't okay.

And three hours later as I was in my room trying to sort through what to write on my sign, I still hadn't figured it out. I wanted to write "Native Hawaiian culture is not yours for pleasure and consumption" but I didn't think anyone in Akron, Ohio would understand what that meant. No one really thinks of Hawai'i as a land in Akron, just a paradise vacation destination. 

I was told from a couple of friends heavily involved and a part of the Hawaiian community in Hawai'i that to represent Hawai'i and Native Hawaiian people well I should protest with a spirit of aloha. I didn't quite understand what that meant but I kinda read it as "Amber chillax it's all gonna be cool just speak your heart and speak the truth and don't protest out of a spirit of violence."

I'm sitting, staring at my blank sign, wondering if I should talk about how Hawai'i was illegally overthrown and then eventually annexed by William McKinley who is buried a half hour from Akron, or if I should point out that none of the five luau foods are being served at their event.

Neither one feels like a good route but this is the third "luau" event I've seen at three different bars/pubs in Akron this summer and on top of the varying "Hawaii" floral sprays and "paradise fabric prints" found in any store I just cannot be silent anymore.

And so I think of Jesus, and how he speaks to the people he loves. 

He calls them by name: "Mary" "Jerusalem" "Peter"

And so I start off my sign by calling by name my city that I love--"Akron"

I don't know where to go from here because there is so much I want to say to Akron and beyond. And I begin weeping because I'm thinking of Jesus standing over Jerusalem, his heart breaking for the city and watching it be it's own destruction because it is too blind to see. And I feel connected to Jesus in that moment, somehow, in someway that I can't describe but is real.

And I ask myself, "What is it that gently needs to be said?"

And I paint:

And although the protest/education station didn't work out (due to rain and me recognizing that moving my solo protest to inside wasn't going to be the best idea) it doesn't change the fact that Hawaiians are important, and so are their stories and culture. 

And

And sometimes, love,
You must let a dream die
To compost into the fertile soil
In which another
may 
grow

Monday

We are here
Past the door frame with layers of grimy fingers
Across the sticky floor of the small kitchen 
Amid the shouts and hustle and bustle
And plates thrown about on the rickety table 
The gathering of children like the gathering of chicks
Around and around the plates are filled
And shouts are the laughter of tomorrow
Another day has gone
And we brush the work off our shoulders
With smiles and the passing of plates
And in the midst of chaos
A collective breath signals the day's end with a gentle
Take and eat.

 

 

Part 1

Grief--
You were the first to arrive at the scene
To perform emergency care for my bleeding heart
Wrapping it tightly with gauze to stop the grieving
But the feeling stopped, too.

Numb
So numb
Beneath the restricting gauze--
The survival kit in the midst of loss
My God
I have been half alive for so long I have forgotten what it is 
To feel.

Photo Credit: Sara Fouts

Sometimes I feel like dance is a bit like God

Photo Credit: Sara Fouts

Sometimes I feel like dance
Is a bit like God like
How I continually try to run and run
From that which beckons me to the
Sweetest surrender of expression
And 'Come away with me, Beloved'
To the naked movement of my soul
Flourishing and free and safe as it was meant to be
As it could be
(As it will be
Someday when the world is renewed
And we find ourselves dancing together
Raw and intimate and beautiful
The sweet laughter of communion)
Sometimes I feel like dance
Is a bit like God like
How I continually try to run and run
From S[He] who beckons me to the
Sweetest surrender of expression

Photo Credit: Sara Fouts

The Creative's Submission

I relate to God most as Creator. I don’t know why this is, only that I, too, like to create—to make beauty, meaning, and form from what is around me. I like to synthesize ideas, objects, and words into newness, breathing life into the old in fresh and innovative ways. I see these characteristics in God, a God who creates something out of nothing, the earth, all of creation. I see these characteristics in a God who synthesizes our lives with one another, creating story and form. I see these characteristics in a God who crafts circumstances where Kingdom moments penetrate the dullness of the day to day on earth—where a new order (an order founded on covenantal love) can be seen as the law of the land.

Ever since I began listening to the voice of the Spirit and yoking my dreams in submission to what I sense is the path of obedience, I’ve experienced an intuition of “what is to come.” I can recall concrete times where I experienced a knowing in the unknowing, and defying all logic pursued a path that appeared entirely left field. It is due to this intuitive drive that I’ve arrived where I am at today—working for a non-profit with an alignment towards knowing the Kingdom of God on earth by creating space for unlikely partnerships, living in a community house where we practice covenantal love and the “one anothers,” and offering my skillsets and time towards the advancement of movements of justice and shalom nationwide. I still remember the day where I decided I would finish my degree but no longer pursue Film Production, the letting go of that decaying dream feeling like the ultimate loss of control. But through the process, God has shown me that though I may be led to walk off cliffs (and onto a tight string held across the canyon), I am led just the same. I can trust God’s leadership—the voice of the Spirit—in my life. God has proven Godself to be consistent, and I have appreciated that.

This is why the last year of my life has been incredibly disorienting on my spiritual journey. As I thought of the future, intuition led me to doors and dreams that were bold and beautiful and I was convinced that I was being led to open them. But imagine my confusion when upon approaching these doors, I found them closed with no handle or key. I stayed in a state of denial for months, staring at the closed doors, convinced that something must have been communicated wrong. I was positive that I was Spirit-led here. But when I finally was able to tell myself the truth “That door is actually closed,” I turned to God in anger. I felt that God had betrayed our intimate trust by leading me to a closed door. I felt like I couldn’t turn to God for consistency in leadership. I began to ignore God completely because I felt so hurt.

It is hard to lead a life when you’re in an argument with the one you love, and my spirit has felt so very numb in this last year because of it. If I could not trust God to lead me, the One who is covenantal, ever-faithful, and intimately present, whom could I trust? Humans cannot compare—God is the only one I want. My thirst is deep for that intimate communion. Apart from this communion I am nothing, (and I say this not in a codependent way, although it may sound as such.) My days were spent in a haze, kneading daily bread with my eyes empty and glazed over just trying to make it by. Soon I realized that I needed to take action and work through this and stop being a stubborn ox, or my soul would soon be in decay from bitterness.

And so I went to Hawai’i. Like Jacob, God and I would wrestle this out. I was through with living in the empty haze, and through with the hurt I felt at God. And so in Hawai’i while I was staying at the monastery I opened up all the hurts turned into bitterness that I had been holding onto for a year. And I walked the stations of the cross path at the monastery in the mountains and wept and wailed for hours on end. And I yelled at God and said I was angry and sad, and that God was mean. And I allowed myself to embody the deep hurt that had no resolution but to be let go. And I begged for answers, for direction, for guidance. And when I was finally done crying there was still no resolution, no blessing from God like Jacob received, but just my whimpering spirit that asked God to never lead me to love closed doors again. And that was the end of it. The mountains stood witness to the moment, and I allowed the land around me to speak bittersweet healing into my spirit. 

That night was the lowest of lows, the night where I realized that even as I had let go of the bitterness in order to reconcile with God, that God had given no answers, no direction, and I still felt like I was floundering under lack of confirmation of direction. I was at the end. But it’s funny to me, how the end is sometimes the beginning. This is another mystical paradox that I seem to experience, over and over again. The next day I awoke and randomly attended a Young Adult Catholic Retreat where I received surprising confirmation upon confirmation, and open doors and affirming words. And as the next nine days passed by the confirmations only continued from different communities of people in Hawai’i, all who love Jesus but whom don’t know each other. There were confirmations from strangers at Starbucks, from strangers in restaurants, from the strangest of places and always catching me off guard. Without a doubt I knew that the Spirit was speaking through the Church and I laughed with the bone-deep laughter of Sarah when God told her she would bear a child at her old age. It was a laughter of acceptance, a laughter of peace. A laughter that knew that I was being Spirit-led all along, I was just looking at the wrong door.

I am in my room in Akron, spontaneously re-arranging my furniture to empty floor space so I can make a day-bed. I am in a creative fervor, not entirely conscious in the moment and yet hyper aware of all that is around me. I’m grabbing blankets, pillows, visualizing what has yet to be seen. This is the intuition of creativity, the synthesizing of things coming together. I roll the blanket up, creating a makeshift pillow, and toss my $6 fish throw pillow on top. Looking to my right, I spy my childhood quilt blanket, and sense that it will contrast well with the arrows of the comforter so I toss it on top. I straighten out the edges and know that the project is finished. Taking a step back, I marvel at the creation. The pieces were scattered throughout my room, and on their own make sense but together they make something beautiful. 

It strikes me as funny, really. I’ve been discontent with my room for months, knowing that it needed “something” but not knowing what that “something” was. I thought around it for months, but nothing was rising to the surface. Something I’ve learned is that you can’t force creativity. Whenever things fall into place, things fall into place. I feel myself smiling, looking at the day-bed. No longer is it about the day-bed, but it’s about closed doors and bitterness and impatience and the last year of my spiritual life. You can’t force doors to open. If they will open, they will open.

The script is not mine to write, the canvas not mine to paint, and the dance not mine to choreograph: “Thy will be done.” And as much as I’d stubbornly like to think I know the best story to tell, I am reminded once again that the reality is that God is the Master Storyteller who has been faithful in leading me all along (and doing it WAY longer than I have), synthesizing the different-patterned pieces together as it best makes sense—not as it’s most convenient to my impatient, “now”-oriented spirit.  

I relate to God most as Creator. I don’t know why this is, only that I, too, like to create—to make beauty, meaning, and form from what is around me.

May Your story be told.