Status Updates From Field Notes for the Wildern...

May you become friends with your sorrow &longing; honor it with lament that engages God in your suffering. May darkness & the slower path become friends to you. You don’t keep time with anyone else but the Spirit now. Take all the time you need, you’re not late/lagging. Healing doesn’t mean that pain disappears in a puff of smoke. Embrace a plain ordinary healing that prioritizes rest, joy, ritual & compassion.

Sometimes when we don’t know what we think about anything, it’s nice to rest in someone else’s faith for awhile. Open your hands & receive whatever lands. Everywhere we are is already held in the love of God, even in those times when night gathers & you are on your own. I pray for you to be surprised by clear streams in the desert, to remind your soul of all the ways the sacred is still hiding in plain sight.

It takes such holy audacity to choose a new path when the old ways turn into dead ends for you. It takes guts to realize that God is bigger than a church, a tradition, an interpretation. We are learning to receive, not control. We are learning to improvise, to play again, and to reclaim our joy. I’m thinking of you tearing up your scripts, tossing pieces in the fire and whooping under the full moon.

Joy is never intellectually, emotionally or spiritually dishonest. Nor is it doubling down on “we’re fine, everything is fine” when things are clearly not fine. Joy isn’t a good time earned through denial or performative sentimentality. Moments of joy don’t erase reality, they are a part of it. It isn’t only sad and tragic things that are real; redemption is real, renewal is real, joy is still real.

Wow :’)