experiments with death

Did the title get your attention?

I hoped so.

In fact, this is actually a post about hope. 

Because death is the engine of life.

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My dear friend, Rebekah, lives on a farm in North Carolina. We lovingly call her Farmer Jackson, but she admits that the real boots behind the operation is her father. He’s the creative and compassionate man who tills the ground and reaps the harvest. Egg and seed. He knows the mystery of death.

In a recent conversation, Bekah recounted her father’s cold frame, an outdoor building to protect their seedlings from the harsh winter. “Winter’s not over yet.” her father sighed, anticipating the next blow of snow. 

“... but Spring is coming…” Bekah snatched my attention.

Bekah also knows the mystery of death.

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My first year of teaching was overwhelming. I spent most of my time in the classroom or thinking about it. I picked up running to help relieve some stress.

One day, on my long run through a local park, a large willow tree caught my eye. I tried to keep going, but her long, tired, draping arms pulled me in and whispered "me too". So I sat under her nest for hours, suddenly intrigued by arboriculture. The earth buzzed and birds danced and cooed all around.

I returned to her many times that semester. I even gave her a name. The Wonder Tree.

I saw her transform in the fall, and endure the winter as she stripped her leaves and bared her true form.

We were quiet and somber, as winter demands.

Spring would come. Her buds and blooms and birds would return. Her peace and patience, intact. 

Wonder knew the mystery of death.

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I took a yoga restoration class in January. It was a lot of slow flows and deep breathing. The intention was to slow down and connect to the essence of winter, so the instructor led meditations centered around nature. 

There was much talk about lunar cycles and day lengths, but what really stuck were her observations of animals. 

In winter seasons, animals are forced to adapt, migrate, or hibernate.

Humans too.

The proverbial winter.

We grow and change, we leave and search for home, or we shut down, store up, and await a shift.

Our response shapes our reality.

Yogi knew the mystery of death.

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What's hidden in these short anecdotes?

The tension and the mystery: to die is to live. 

Farmer Jackson's three words are saturated with hope: spring is coming. Spring comes. 

Death produces life. 

Yield.

Leaves and flowers burst to life. Birds return to Wonder's branches. They sing a new song.

Yield.
The sun burns longer. The butterflies return home. The bears stretch their sore bodies and forage for earth's treats. 

Yield. 

Easter is all around.

One author puts it this way: "Jesus talks about death and rebirth constantly, his and ours. He calls us to let go, turn away, renounce, confess, repent, and leave behind the old ways. He talks of the life that will come from his own death, and he promises that life will flow to us in thousands of small ways as we die to our egos, our pride, our need to be right, our self sufficiency, our rebellion, and our stubborn insistence that we deserve to get our way. When we cling to our sins and our hostility, we're like a tree that won't let its leaves go. There can't be a spring if we're still stuck in the fall."

"Lose your life and find it, he says. That's how the world works. That's how the soul works. That's how life works when you're dying to live."*

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I believe this, so I am experimenting with death:

Death to the ego, through honest questions and reflections.

Death to the critic, though sharing unfinished thoughts and imperfect creative projects. 

Death to control, through releasing quixotic expectations.

Death to unhealthy relationships, through forgiveness and reconciliation.

Death to body obsession, though harvesting life-giving foods and exercise.

Death to... well... I'm still asking for feedback and trying it on. 

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Wherein our death(s) we find life.

stay open,

stay tender

//

Thank you Bekah for inspiring this one. I love your friendship.

And Clarissa, you inspire me everyday. Thank you for our daily texts and weekly phone calls.  

*quote from Rob Bell's Love Wins (chp 5)

that one time in a coffee shop: one sentence to set us all free

Sometimes my friends say brilliant things and I savor them for moments like this. Sweet and punchy, gold in my pocket. Ready for wings. 

Here it is:

“You don’t have to perform for me.”

But first, some observations.

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The coffee shop.
The hallway.

The lunchroom.
The grocery store.

The bar.

You are bound to exchange a “how are you?”

The smart ones respond with some flavor of “good, thanks” or “good, and you?” and get on with their lives.

But then there’s people like me, the truth tellers. We are the complicated ones. We are bothered by the question because we hate the losing game. Answering with “good” is so vague and deceptive. But answering with the truth is vulnerable and time-consuming… so...

“I’m doing well. Thanks.” 

It’s all metaphors anyway, right?

Who really cares? 

Why are you so angsty and conflicted?

 - because most people are hurting (and/or hurting others) and we need more safe spaces that keep our hearts raw and tender and responsive to the circus around us
- because sometimes we are actually doing well, so we should create more space for celebrations and details, spreading joy and hope to others ("good" is too contained... why are you smiling and breathing today?)

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Everyone is a performer.

This is not necessary malicious or even conscience. Think about getting ready for work or church or any social event. You put on pants. You fiddle with your hair. Brush your teeth. You’ve inherited social cues for participating and interacting with life outside of your home. As you leave your place, you might flash a smile or toss a quick wave to a neighbor or mailman. You exchange how are yous, and if you are a decent human — thank yous and I'm sorrys. None of this makes you a fraud. But you are still a performer in the great dance of life. You’ve learned a role and execute it at some level. 

You skim the surface with chats of weather or sports or the latest tweet. You don’t curse at church or argue with the pastor.  You don’t concern yourself too much with politics or policies, cause that’s just the way things are. You might give constructive feedback, but sandwiched politely between sugary praise and admiration. (Anyone else grimacing at some of these?)

These things are often embedded in our constructs concerning how to belong in the world. Maybe that’s why we are so intrigued when someone disrupts the status quo. We can’t look away. Bieber goes to church. Angelina adopts more children. People make signs and yell at street corners. Women speak up... our ears are perked. 

Jesus flips tables, eats with sinners, blesses prostitutes, calls out the posers...? 

Our way of interacting with the world is no longer working (or has never really worked) and something within us demands expression. We can stuff and suppress and pretend... or we can do something about it. Some expressions are very healthy (seeking counsel, communicating your disruptions and entering into conversations, exposing injustice, experimenting with calling...) and others are more destructive (violence, substance abuse, hiddenness...) You know this. 

But it's never easy or simple. You will share in suffering. 

The most volatile of us all (the ones who will struggle the most with this) might be the super performers... the perfectionists.  

As a recovering perfectionist, I observe that our inclinations toward people-pleasing and task obsession choke out real life and love. Perfectionists create worlds and empires of idealism and judgement in the name of excellence and glory. Their view of life is strangely curved in on itself, with exaggerated importance and pride with one’s personal contributions or detriments to humanity. But nothing or no one is ever good enough, and so there’s always this underbelly of dissatisfaction, striving, and resentment. There is no rest or peace because hope is placed in a fractured system. 

It's messy. Most people will prefer their "I'm good" and endure their private hell and fear of being known. 

Is this as good as it gets?

Humans might have more potential than we imagined. We have great capacity to harm: war, slavery, trafficking, genocide, murder, greed, bad business, exploitation, fossil fuel emissions, deforestation... 

But we also bear the image of God, which follows, an immense potential and capacity to heal. 

And it seems to start with personal, face-to-face interactions.

These interactions may seem small, but imagine the wonderfully powerful subversive nature if we were to change the narrative and each person were to perform "small things" with great love and attention. 

I think of Israelites leaving portions of their fields untouched, so that the orphan, widow, and immigrant can participate in the harvest. I think of hospitality and strangers and big parties. I think of washing dirty feet and wasting expensive perfume. I think of Jesus and the apostles, and even my friends who cast out demons and reset broken bones and restore clouded eyes, often. I think of the people who say they will pray for you, and actually do it, in that moment, and beyond. I think of mothers and fathers who nurture new life and possibility through adoption and orphan care. I think of movers and shakers and marches for freedom, equality, and life. 

I think of that friend in the coffee shop who cut through my “I’m good” with a warm “You don’t have to perform for me.” I think of that moment that unlocked and released something within me. And I think of passing that sentence on to other friends in meeting spaces... and the following communal unraveling, a sigh of relief and deep breath of “finally”  and "now we can move on to the important stuff." 

Try it sometime. 

“You don’t have to perform for me.”

Lean over, look into his or her eyes. A gentle hand on the arm or shoulder:

“You don’t have to perform for me.”

And mean it. (Don't create more problems by giving lip service.)

You probably need to look in the mirror and say it a few times to yourself. And to that light within you that you’ve beaten and flogged and scorned for all these years because you haven’t yet entered the true dance of grace. 

“You don’t have to perform for me.” 

I pray you walk further and deeper into that freedom today. Because once you are free from the charades, the real good stuff begins... 

Go in peace. 

the undoing: there is more (a journey from depression to expression)

A few weeks after the World Race, I spent a few days in Denver with a couple of good friends. I have a vivid memory of sitting at a tall table, drinking a coffee, and gushing in my journal to God, “I didn’t know you could be this good.”

Fast forward two months, I spiraled into an abyss of disillusionment. I realized the limitations and absurdity of my dreams. They were too small. And if I achieved them, what then? Was I chasing my tail? Am I really living out my calling? 

Is there more?

I shook my fists towards the sky and fought the urge to tear that “I didn’t know you could be this good” page out.

I was furious with God. I felt betrayed and confused. He didn’t seem so good to me anymore. It scared me sh**less (for lack of a better term… I know it’s juvenile). 

The last time I felt this depth of anguish was when my brother was killed.

Grief suppressed, 

now unleashed.

The thing about grief… it must be expressed. If you don’t give grief expression, it will wreak havoc in your life and relationships. That is a guarantee. 

In short, my new disappointment unearthed years of pent up, unexpressed grief.

It 

was

ugly!

I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

I started seeing a counselor.

And the healing rushed in…

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This morning, I sat at my mother’s table. Coffee and a book in hand, of course.

And something strange began to happen.

I lifted my gaze and stared out the small kitchen window.

It’s as if for that moment, I could hear the trees growing and the wind singing. 

Holy.

The phrase suddenly appeared, like a flicker of light burning in my mind:

I 

didn’t

know

you 

could

be 

this

good.

Time froze and my mind flipped through the memories of these past 6 months. Quick snapshots of conversations, heartbreaks, podcasts, walks, road trips, fights, meals, journal entries, counseling, prayers, dreams, tears flooded me at once.

Does he really use all things for our good?

A revelation... God has used my suffering as an instrument of his steadfast peace.

I know it sounds crazy.

But really, my pain has connected me to the source of life.

I want to take a moment to draw a circle around this moment and call it holy, or “Kadosh" as Isaiah would call it in chapter 6.  

As I think about this wild journey, I realize my desires have changed. I don’t want the same things anymore. My dreams have unfolded. My mind has expanded. I am becoming. I am new.

God is kind. (Thank you for saving me from what I thought I wanted.)

This new life is strange and awkward, but so fun.

I stood in a long line at a women's restroom the other night (shout out to my ladies, you know what I'm talking about) and I realized I have new eyes. As I looked around at the women surrounding me, I had this profound and heavy sense of holy/kadosh. I revered and awed at the beauty and potential I saw in each person... in the bathroom. What?

Have scales fallen from my eyes?

Nothing is black and white anymore. The world is exploding with color and possibility. I'm ready to risk it for the biscuit (haha).  

When Joshua neared the gates of Jericho, the Commander of the Lord’s Army stopped him. “Are you for us or against us?” braved Joshua (essentially). And he replied, 

neither.

The Commander was not about to give into Joshua’s binary thinking. This is not yes or no, us or them. I won’t give in to your limited perspective.

And by the way, you are on holy ground. Take off your sandals, boy.

(Joshua 5, according to Rob Bell with more sass added by yours truly)

Ok, God. I hear you.

Could it be that the holy is already here… that kadosh is all around us… but we are wrapped up in self-preservation and self-imposed anguish?

Could it be that Christ set us free to… be free?

Could it be that eternal life begins now?

Could it be that the Way of Jesus is the way of learning and growing and becoming, now and forever?

Could this be the collective work we are all called to? 

YES.

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I'm no longer ruled by depression or anxiety. Thank you, God.

I refuse to cling to my idealism (or cynicism) any longer.

For so long, I’ve tried to recreate the church in Acts with grand gestures of radical hospitality, only to miss the point… and new thing God is doing.

I am not Paul or Peter or John.

I am Paige.

I have been chosen and prepared for this great task, this holy invitation to mend and restore and create new things. Shalom today, and shalom forever.

It’s an active role… beating swords into plowshares, healing the nations with leaves (whatever that means, but I think it’s about essential oils… hehe)… life doesn’t happen to you. You happen to life. There’s no quick fix. It’s a process. And it’s good (and messy and painful and weird and comforting and confronting, altogether). 

This is the art of learning (and unlearning) how to be human.

What makes you come alive? The world needs that. There has never been another you, so you owe it to humanity to pour out your beauty and participate in putting this hell hole back together. 

There is more.

There is more.

There is more.

here is your freedom: a desert story

Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

- Hosea 2:14

I have a rebellious nature.

You probably wouldn’t know that right away, because I’ve learned the art of saving face.

But this is accurate. (I'm working on it with my counselor.) 

I’m a fighter.

It’s one of my (many) flaws. I tend to fight for things far past their expiration date. At first glance, fighters can seem virtuous and loyal, but below the surface... stubbornness. Maybe fighter is a euphemism for control freak.

Control freaks don't do well in deserts. 

When God first brought dragged me to the desert, I came with a flurry of anger, disappointment, and passion. My number one aim was to get the h*ll out of this place, and fast. I wrestled and wrestled with God. I despised Him for leading me to this desolate land.

But along the way, He has revealed my freedom.

My fists are no longer clenched shut.

I have joined the desert dance.

Sure, it sounds conjured and poetic. But I can assure you that this is true. God has unfolded before my eyes in this time and space, using the image of a desert. 

When I grew up in the church, the desert was a place of darkness, temptation, discipline, and distress. And yes, it’s all those things. But my current experience starkly contrasts these metaphors I once claimed.

The desert is good.

The desert is a honeymoon.

Yes.

The desert is a ravishing place of intimacy, tenderness, light, depth, and “enough”.

WAIT. 

WHAT?

Didn’t Israel grumble and wander in the desert for 40 years? Wasn’t the aim to get out and dwell in the land flowing with milk and honey?

Yes. But there’s more. (As I am beginning to learn is the case with all of the scriptures I thought I knew well…)

When we focus on the Promise land, we miss the beauty of the desert. There is beauty in this journey of dependence.

What I’ve missed all these years is that the Exodus story reflects a common Jewish wedding ceremony. (This would be obvious to the early Jewish readers.) I’ll give you a simplified overview. *

In this tradition, the bride and groom arrange a marriage. The groom goes away to prepare a room (the chuppah) in his father’s house. Only the father knows when the room is ready. When he says the word, the groom will go to receive his bride. She must be ready to leave her family at any time. 

Then a sacred marriage covenant is established. After the bride and groom consummate the marriage and celebrate with their friends and family, the time of yada begins. Yada is a Hebrew word for intense, intimate knowing. The bride and groom will spend the next year of so, growing in relationship and yada. (Remember this marriage was arranged… the newlyweds need to spend some time finding out how the other likes their coffee in the morning or which color of curry to buy at the market.)

Could this covenant be the narrative of the Exodus? The backdrop of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers?

YES and YES. These stories reveal the heart of God to choose his partner (Exodus), define the partnership (Leviticus), shape the partner (Numbers), and ask his partner to remember (Deuteronomy). *

(If you tend to skip over these books, please talk to me. I know some fascinating resources to motivate your study.)

God rescued His bride from the Empire of Egypt and established a marriage covenant with her at Mount Sinai. 

This is His great invitation of shalom. He beckons the beloved to join Him in putting the world back together. 

The desert was not a waste of time or a punishment. It was a time of yada. A space where Heaven touched the Earth in the form of a mobile tent and campground. (What a lovely image for us outdoor folk?)

God revealed and God set-apart. 

In these sun-scorched lands, God was provider. He was enough. He was on display, drawing His beloved near to His heart.

God’s people were oppressed by Empire and violence. They lived by the sword. It was their narrative. He wanted to show them a new way, the way of Shalom. So He married Israel. He established a covenant and consecrated His people. By their royal priesthood, the world would know the Living God.

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So I find myself no longer resisting this desert chapter of my story.

Instead, I move where He leads. I listen for His voice. I set up my tent here and there. I have just enough for today. He is my daily portion.

I have grown in intimacy and healing in this time of wandering. 

He is cleansing me too from the ways of Empire and the sword.

And as I look around, the desert becomes strangely beautiful.

I behold a peace and rest I have never known.

I think I’ll stay here awhile.

Could it be that I’m learning the secret of the shepherd? 

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

forever.

* Special thanks to BEMA Session 1: Torah for heavily influencing these revelations and this post.