Celebrating Home

Home began with Akron. Home was stroganoff and pasties, spaghetti and mac and cheese. Home was lazy Saturdays and church on Sundays. Home was reading the days away and dancing the evenings away. Home was snow and hot chocolate, summers at the lake and Farmer Boy. Home was Springfield Lake and the Derby Downs, Goodyear and Canton Road.

But then I went to college in Bowling Green, and I saw how home could be cornfields and sunsets, small town laughter and Main Street. Home could be Grounds for Thought and Kroger, simplicity and solitude. I learned that home could be hummus and tabouleh, shawarma and dolma. Home could be tea and warm socks, Bananagrams and naps.

And then I moved to Southwest Philadelphia, where I learned that home could be rowhouses and asphalt, porch sitting and boisterous laughter. Home could be close proximity and corner stores, pigeons and hair braiding. Home could be Woodland Avenue and Elmwood, the 36 and the 11. I learned that home could be pasteles and collard greens, taro and arroz con gandules, kimchi and water ice. Home could be  Chinatown and West Philly, Kensington and Center City. 

Back in Akron, I'm learning home in a different way. Home that is Summit Lake and South Akron. Home that is the taqueria and the Asian market, taro milk tea and the barbershop. Home that is recovery and re-entry, refugee and reconciliation. Home that is Hmong and Nepali and Bhutanese and Italian and Laotian and Congolese. Home that is rich in culture and story.

A few weeks ago I was walking through Chinatown in Chicago. It was not even a walk really, it was a stroll. I was drinking taro milk tea from Joy Yee as I went into shop after shop, soaking it all in. Ginseng. Teas. Goods. Dim Sum. Everything you could imagine--it was here. I was an observer in a space that I would not identify with home for myself. Not much was familiar to me.

As I was nearing the end of the line of shops, I walked into a small corner grocery store and was suddenly hit with the strong smell of fish. I looked to my left and saw fish right there on top of ice staring at me, ready to be sold. I had a flashback to when a few Mission Year teammates and I walked into a Liberian grocery store in Southwest Philadelphia and the stench was so unfamiliar and difficult for me that I had to walk out within minutes. 

In this small grocery store in Chinatown for some reason the smell and sight of fish, though still unfamiliar, didn't bother me as it had before. In fact, I found myself tearing up at the smell of fish in this corner grocery store. As I strolled around the store, looking at dried prunes and Pocky sticks, I was able to put words to my wave of emotion. In that moment, I realized that even though it wasn't home to me, to someone, the smell and sight of fish is home. And that realization made all the difference. 

Whether it's stroganoff or kalua pig, collard greens or curry, home is home. Whether it's hip hop or country, reggae or tabla music, home is home. Whether its contra dancing or ballet, line dancing or the hula, home is home. One way of doing home is not better than another way of doing home. Home is home, and home is to be celebrated. 

May we be a people that celebrate each other. 

May we be a people that celebrate each others' manifestations of home.

Alpha and Omega and Emmanuel

You are Alpha and Omega and Emmanuel
The words too sweet for my soul to even grasp
For I have forgotten that you are before and you are after and you are now
And my love I have forgotten
But you are sweet to remind me in an unearned grace.

I was alone in a desert
Or I thought I was alone
I know not if you were there only that I thought that you weren't
And my spirit ached because you are all I ever want
But in wanting of you I searched elsewhere
For the water to satisfy my thirst
And came up with cups full of thistles and dry bones.

And I cried out to you for help
And then decided it was better to journey through the desert on my own
For I was angry at you for leaving me 
In the desert with my enemies
Where they sought me with fervor and strength
And I knew not what to do in the temptations and so
I turned away because it made sense 
To journey through the desert on my own. 

I see now how you called out to me
And whispered "Beloved" in my ear
But I was too deaf to your voice and
I continued stubbornly on and 
You and your Spirit were long-forgotten companions
In a world of pain and sorrow
Because I was convinced that you didn't see the pain and sorrow
And in my despair I didn't cry out like the saints of old
But instead allowed despair to seep into my bones forgetting
That you are Alpha and Omega and Emmanuel. 

Sweet love, you are so kind
For disciplining those you love.

Your words are harsh to me as I recognize how
I have grieved your Spirit and 
Made you out to be a liar and a fool
When it is I who is a liar and a fool
And My God, My God, I sit in the depravity of my soul
And wonder how you make beauty out of ashes
And weep at the wonder of mercy
And in turning I feel like a prodigal daughter
Who recognizes the goodness of what she left behind
Only to see Goodness running towards her
With arms open wide

My love, my love
You are Alpha and Omega and Emmanuel
Before I was and after I am you are
And we embrace and I weep and you frantically kiss my face
And call me "Beloved" 
And we weep and remember the time
You gifted butterflies in winter
And the time I trusted you with everything
And the time you whispered "Go"
And we are crying and smiling and I feel my soul once again being recalibrated to 
Your guiding heartbeat
And I know that grace is the sweetest gift that is. 

My love.

My love.

My love.
 

When Conversing with a Professor

I sat across from a university professor yesterday, watching her try to understand the thing that was my life. 

"So you graduated with a degree in Film Production, but instead you chose to go into ministry and be a missionary," she inquired.

I tilted my head at her, unsure. "I'm not sure what you mean by ministry or missionary but I suppose that's one way of looking at it, though those are not the words I would use to describe what I do or my life."

It was a strange moment in the conversation. I was watching someone from the outside looking into my life and trying to put it into conventional boxes that made sense to her. After a few questions, she told me confidently that I was doing ministry. I think her confidence in labeling my life was more for her than for me. 

She stared at me, inquisitive. "You're an example of living into your passions. I talk with so many students who are majoring in one thing because of the money or because their parents tell them too but you're a living example of what it looks like to live into your passions."

I didn't tell her that I wanted to kill myself 3.5 years ago and that's why I decided to "live into my passions." That probably wouldn't have done well for the conversation.

We ended our conversation with her saying she would love if I came and spoke on a panel to her class of 80+ students. I stated that if it fit into my schedule, I would absolutely be open to doing that. As I walked out of her office, I felt like I was in another dimension.

What just happened? How the hell did I get to a point where I was being asked to speak in front of classes as if I have something to share and give? What is going on?

In many ways I haven't processed my story since Mission Year. The last 3.5 years of my life have been a daily walk of trust that God would lead me without a larger vocational blueprint after I dropped film. Directionless, I prayed daily after my time in the psych ward "Use me," less as a pious desire and more as a logical and cynical statement because I wanted to kill myself and didn't want my life so God (whoever that was) could have it because I was stuck on this earth anyway even though it was hell. (This was the state of my mind.)

It's not that I hated life it's just that I couldn't see how things could get better (socially, interpersonally, everything) and when you don't see how things will get better hopelessness makes sense and numbness is a by-product of a logical thought pattern. And no "Hallmark goody goody" hope phrase can get you out of that space. You're pretty much done for.

My experience with depression has been the pivotal point in my life. It is a journey that in many ways I have had to walk through by myself (though many have walked with me in ways that they were able.) It has been a deeply spiritual journey, one that has formed me in ways I have yet to put into words. In that space I had to muster up the resilience of my soul to seek the joy, beauty, and gratitude when my mind would tell me that these don't exist (and has really good arguments for saying so). It was the point when I had to choose to believe that even though I didn't feel the beauty of the flower that the beauty was still there. My feeling one way or another did not determine the truth that was--the flower was beautiful.

This has been the anchor for my soul prone to deep pain, depression, and anguish. Even if I do not feel the beauty of the flower this does not negate that the beauty isn't there. Truth is apart from my feelings and logic. Yes, life is painful and difficult, full of stress. In fact, I would argue that logically there is no reason to be alive (Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Bible.) The world is one massive shit-hole (pardon my language). The anchor that keeps me grounded is Truth, which means something different for me than it may mean for you.

Grounded in Truth, I see the healing is in the midst of pain, the resurrection in the midst of death, the reconciliation in the midst of separation--the beauty is in the cracks of the pain spaces.

It is in this paradox that I have chosen to live, because I have found it to be home. 

So when you say, professor, that I'm "living into my passions," I'm not quite sure I agree with you. You see, 3.5 years ago in college I decided to live into and lean into the pain--of myself, of my neighbors, of the world, of my Christ.

And that choice has made all the difference.

(I'm not sure that's exactly the message you want your students to hear.)

Ever-present

Remind me that the breath of the tulip reverberates with mine,
That with each day we are both waxing and waning beneath the ever-present moon.
She closes, I open, but we both respond to the heartbeat of the sun.

The sun.
Drench me with rays til I am wet with dew.
Sing your song to me in the morning and I will respond, opening up to your rays.
Glory.
(This is what we do not speak of in the night--how the willow bends in an embrace to weave its hand in mine.)

Remind me that the breath of the tulip reverberates with mine.
Remind me what it is to dance in the land of the living.
Remind me that though I am closed in the cold of the night that the Promised Sun still beats deep within the shell of the earth.
Remind me, Love.
(It is your warmth I seek.) 

On Grieving Community

Tonight wisdom was spoken to me where a woman said that our bodies can travel by plane, but our soul travels by foot. In it she was speaking to the reality that your body can leave a place, but your soul can linger there for much longer.

In many ways my body has been in Akron since leaving Philadelphia, but my soul has been elsewhere. It has been traveling by foot, trying to make sense of an intense year of life and love. What an intense pilgrimage—what an intense journey.

Walking in this has been an incredibly lonely process. Even as people in Akron pursued me in support and I surrounded myself with people I have still felt incredibly alone. In many ways, it came down to the reality that the six people who knew the journey (my journey) best were no longer around me—my teammates.

I was relaying to a dear friend who has journeyed with me awhile about how I’m doing lately and three fourths of the way through something struck me, “I think I’m grieving the loss of my team,” I stated, tears streaming down my face and my voice cracking. “This feels like a break up and I’ve never even had a break up!” I was frustrated and exasperated at the incredible sadness I was experiencing at the loss of my team, even three months after Mission Year's end.

If there is anything I can say for certain about what I’ve processed it’s that living among a group of committed people (community) changed me. There is much I learned about commitment and love this past year that I’ve only ever talked about but have never lived out. The “isms” became real. Like “You choose to be for each other even when you don’t feel like it” and “Stick it out because you’re committed.” I’ve usually heard these phrases used in regards to romantic relationships, yet our team spent a year cultivating non-romantic committed relationships. There were days when I didn’t want to do life with my teammates. There were days where his quirk was too much for me, or her quirk irritated the crap out of me, or weeks where I could no longer meet someone’s brokenness with grace and chose instead judgment.

It was real, raw, earthy life in community—and we were in it together.

In many ways this living experience was redemptive and I haven’t quite been able to put that into words (the Body of Christ does not have to be just a metaphor). But there was something about breakfasts made with love in the mornings and water ice in the evenings. There was something about trying to make sense out of a common experience and spurring one another on in our growth. There was also something about the painful loneliness of feeling misunderstood and wanting so desperately for everyone to get along but reconciliation having its own timetable. (Distance has not negated the reality of what went down last year in community—it was freaking hard and a lot of work.)

But then again, I’ve heard many people say that about relationship in general.

Tonight I was at a Bible study in Akron with eight other incredible women and I was noticing the hardness of my soul. It is a cynicism and bitterness and anger that has increased in recent weeks that I haven’t been able to name. I sat in the corner of the couch, aware that I was shutting everyone out. Here were eight incredible women, a community right in front of me, and I was unable to open up to being loved and loving because the grief from my last community dispersing has been incredibly hard to walk through.

There is a quote I cling to by Anais Nin. I find it applicable in many transitions and seasons of change. She says, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

I stared at the carpet, no one knowing the internal struggle within me. Tears began streaming down my face as I once again found myself in the cyclical grief and deep pain. Within me I heard a whisper “It’s time.” At once I found myself resistant to those words and the tears increased.

The war within was not about the women in front of me, but with my past experience with my last community. The pain of leaving after growing so close. The pain of watching everyone go their separate ways, knowing you will all probably never be together in the same physical space again. The pain of isolation and loneliness after a deep sense of belonging and intimacy and knowing of one another.

The pain is great, but the pain of holding onto the pain is even greater.

“What if I choose to open myself up to love again?” I whispered internally to myself, tears streaming down my cheeks.

My soul, resistant, reminds me of the pain. "I can't." It reminds me that the pain and heartache is hard and not worth love in the first place. Yet there is a knowing in my soul that recognizes that this is not true, and that at the end of the day that I will choose love because it is what I have found to be lasting in a world that is meaningless.

And so I open my teary eyes and look at the women around me, allowing myself for one moment to open myself up to the idea that my community is not scattered across the United States, but that it is right here in front of me, and that I can love here. 

And though I cried because there was still pain, my soul no longer seemed bitter, but at peace.

(Oh grief, though you are painful and full of heartache, you contain a beauty beyond words.) 

 

Moments

Spent the last four days being intentional about noticing moments where my soul was full of joy and contentment. Gratitude is a medicine for a restless spirit.

Some moments:

Holding five patterned scarves in my hands, each a different story and piece of art and feeling like I wanted to consume them because they were so beautiful.

Staring at a birthday plate placed in front of me in celebration.

The moment when the river came into view after a leaf-crunching earthy stroll through the woods.

(Playing the drum on the banks of this same river, recalibrating my soul.)

Driving on the long stretch of highway with the sun setting red, pink, orange and yellow across the Ohio plains.

Watching dancers and chanters tell stories through hula--awestruck.

Art. All the art.

Being in a constant state of communion where poetry is my prayer.

 

 

 

24

I’m drivin’ down the highway at 65mph

And I’m lookin’ out on the plains, the beautiful Ohio plains

With trees standing solitary in the middle of the vastness

And the sky so blue like the most satisfying drink of water

And the tires are pounding the pavement and my hair is out and

All at once I’m laughing, tears flying, exhilarated to be—just be.

Not like the world is any less painful or that things are any less messed up

Or like somehow I’ve convinced myself that these plains are the escape from it all

Because it all is still here (right here) and everything is still hard

But for now Ima sit with the rhythm of the plains and just be.

 

My spirit is drinking up the joy of pounding on a djembe

And singing with a fullness that fills the car

And I wonder if they’ll pull me over for drummin’ while driving

But I just can’t contain myself and there’s no one around anyway

Just me and a djembe and roads and plains as far as the eye can see

And I laugh because this is beauty and I laugh because this is life

Where my spirit remembers that it is made with the fragility of dust

But also knows that it’s made with the resilience of the earth

That has been pounding beats for millennia

And I remember that I will continue on and we will continue on

And our song is not yet done.

 

You know me all too well because you gifted the pulsing warm sun

And the expansive plains and the whisper of a breeze on my face

And the djembe in the car

And the narrow footpath between the trees that led down to the surprise river

Where you whispered the most intimate of belongings to my soul

And at the river’s edge among the rocks I laughed as I cried because you know me

And I laughed as I cried because you haven’t forgotten the song of my soul

And I laughed as I cried because the you are the water that draws me into knowing

That being is the cultivating of resilience

And our song is not yet done.