The Unmooring Journal Issue 2.2: Abundance

The Unmooring February 2024 Issue 2.2

Abundance

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Masthead The Unmooring Volume 2, Issue 2 issuu.com/theunmooring www.theunmooring.org

Editors

Cover Art

Bonnie Rubrecht | Kylie Riley

“Garden with Squash”

Art Editor R. Sawan White Social Media Editor Britt Hinrichs

Intern Scarlett Elliott PO Box 2835 Ventura, CA 93001 editors@theunmooring.org

Celia Sage, 20” x 20* Oil on canvas, 2022 Detail excerpts on pages 16 & 54 from “Canopy,” by Suzy Yoon, 24” x 12” x 3” Linen, wool and silk fiber, metal and stone on linen textile, 2019 Additional Credits: photography featured in this issue was sourced from istock and Pexels

Published February 2024 under Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 United States of America

The Unmooring Journal takes First North American Serial Rights in print and digital format as well as non-exclusive rights to utilize work promotionally in perpetuity.

The Unmooring is a 501(c)(3) organization, tax ID# 85-4078021

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editors letter After the last several years of pain, loss and disruption we find ourselves emerging into new rhythms. The disruption of the last several years existed in all facets and structures of our lives such as health and finances and in emotional areas like friendships and families.

Here at The Unmooring, we have also felt unsettled by the disrupted structures in our world—perhaps most painfully in our church experience where we have felt the same loss and pain so many others have experienced.

Like so many others, the sadness of all we have lost has left us wondering how to move from the past into something new. Where can we find the abundant life promised by God in a time where so much feels like downturn or decay, a moment of examining our own failings in our approach to our faith, our environment, our communities, and each other?

This is the question that led us to this issue’s theme. We want to identify and acknowledge where people are finding abundance, whether that’s of grace, of joy, of courage or love.

This issue’s pieces came together from different perspectives than we anticipated, but we present them for consideration with the knowledge that we find abundance and embrace our own conversions to our better and truer selves with God’s grace and mercy, step by step.

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We do not believe that abundance presents itself as wealth, health, or even happiness.

Indeed, upon examining scripture addressing abundance, we observed that numerous verses caution believers about the perils associated with abundance rather than underscoring its presence or promise in their lives. God’s abundance does not always appear in the guise we expect—but if we allow ourselves to look through Christ’s eyes, we find there is no scarcity. If we allow ourselves, we can widen our aperature and let in light in all its many iterations in the innumerable ways God is present in our world.

We hope that this writing and artwork present by the contributors in this issue of The Unmooring will point us all in the direction of faithful abundance and an understanding of what that looks like even in unsettled circumstances and a broken world.

Kylie Riley & Bonnie Rubrecht

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Contributors

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The Sound Mind Caroline Collins

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Not The Chairperson Angela Townsend

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ARTIST Jena Ataras

When God Calls Your Parents D Larissa Peters

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34 ARTIST Suzy Yoon

Contents

36 38 44 46 54 56 62 Creed of the Flesh Carson Cawthon

ARTIST Celia Sage

Logos of the Stouts Laura Reece Hogan

Magnificat Maria Henderson

From the Woman Who Loved Much April Bumgardner

People Like You Angela Townsend

Ebb Tide

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Laura Reece Hogan

Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Butterfly Nebula (University of Nebraska Press, 2023), winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, Litany of Flights (Paraclete), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O GardenDweller (Finishing Line), and the nonfiction book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock).

Jena Ataras Jena Ataras is a Portland-based artist working predominantly with mixed media and digital collage. Her experimentation of form and usage of mixed media allows her to dissolve boundaries to create new perspectives. Ataras’ work is a powerful example of art as an activist, advocating for a world beyond binaries.

Maria Henderson Maria L. Henderson is a writer and spiritual director based in Santa Barbara, California.

She is trained to lead others through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and is currently working on a D.Min. focusing on spiritual formation in service of racial justice.

Carson Cawthon Carson Cawthon is a human first and a writer second. She enjoys exploring the intersection of Christianity and culture, most frequently through poetry. Her work has been published in Calla Press, The Clayjar Review, The Opal Literary Magazine, and The Ivy Leaves Journal.

Contributors Angela Townsend Angela Townsend is Development Director at Tabby’s Place. She has an M.Div. from Princeton Seminary and B.A. from Vassar.

Her work has or will be published in Agape Review, The Amethyst Review, Braided Way, Dappled Things, Feminine Collective, and The Young Ravens Literary Review,

Celia Sage A native of Idaho, Celia studied Fine Arts at Boise State University until 1981 when marriage to her husband Peter brought her to Prince Edward County, ON. Here she exhibits her work, participates in juried and invitational shows regularly, and prepares a solo show annually. Collaborations and commissioned work are also occasional parts of her practice.

among others. Angie loves life dearly.

Suzy Yoon Suzy Yoon lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area. She is an artist and a psychiatrist, specializing in maternal health and well-being. She participated in the Brehm artist residency program (2022) and the Brehm artist panel on Art, Faith and Motherhood (2023). Suzy will serve as a facilitator for the next Brehm artist residency program (2023/24). Her work will be shown in New York spring of 2024.

Caroline Collins Caroline Collins (she/her) is a History of Christianity Ph.D. student at the School of Divinity at The University of Edinburgh.

Collins aims to research the history of demonic hysteria told through literature and visual art; much of Collins’s personal, creative endeavors are housed in the Gothic genre.

April Bumgardner

D Larissa Peters

April Bumgardner is a home educator, author

D Larissa Peters grew up in Indonesia and has

Was One of Us, and editor of an anthology

been somewhat of a nomad. After living in

entitled Emboldened by Christ: Women Writers

Taiwan and Canada, and meandering around

on Discipleship and Spiritual Formation. With a

the East Coast for more than 10 years, she

master’s in Slavic Studies, April loves languages

moved to California—in the middle of a pan-

and the intersection of faith and literature.

of the advent devotional Immanuel: When God

demic. Now, married and expecting a child of her own, she lives close to her family and gets to see them whenever she wants.

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Angela Townsend

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t was for the best that someone stole my chair.

One semester it was there, a suburban beige saucer with a clear assignment. Two months later, its corner was empty. It did not leave a note.

I refused to report the incident. We were allowed to leave our dorm rooms intact over the seminary’s break, so long as we didn’t mind our IKEA chairs entertaining angel heinies.

The seminary threw its doors wide, so anyone might dream beneath our ceilings.

The chair bandit could have been

Not The a visiting physics professor from the nearby university, or one of the ten opera singers performing downtown. It may have been the world’s foremost expert in Ugaritic conjugation. I am certain it was not the cleaning woman who sang to Dios while scrubbing our hall shower.

I did not want any of them to get in trouble. Maybe it was an honest mistake, my nomadic papasan borrowed and forgotten. Maybe I knew the chair had a higher calling on another floor.

It was out of character for me to care so little, being an only child with overdrawn boundaries. I bought friends copies of my favorite books rather than loaning out my own. I kept my stuffed white cat on the top of the closet so no hands would besmirch her. But when it came to the round chair where I prayed every night, I accepted the disappearance. The Lord gave and the Lord took away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

The vanishing chair scrapped my prayer plans. Well trained in “quiet time,” I had appointed the hour and the seat for nightly duty. I curled catlike in the beige cup, willing my wandering thoughts into

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Chairperson words. Eight-thirty by eighty-thirty, great was my faithfulness.

The chair did its best to warm and welcome me, a soothing soup mug of a circle.

My caffeinated mind boiled over no matter what I tried. I muscled through A-C-T-S – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication – only to wipe out on the side of my to-do list. I recruited neon index cards listing the languishing, only to worry that I spent too much time asking and too little thanking.

I gel-penned gratitude journals as though tomorrow’s light depended on it, only to drop my flashlight

in woodsy resentment. I felt strangely guilty about the entire enterprise.

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“The vanishing chair scrapped my prayer plans. Well trained in “quiet time,” I had appointed the hour and the seat for nightly duty. I curled catlike in the beige cup, willing my wandering thoughts into words. Eight-thirty by eighty-thirty, great was my faithfulness.”

When an aunt taught me to knit at Christmas dinner, she had no idea she purled on holy ground. Pathologically incapable of projects involving fingers or feet, I was able to master a single stitch. It was enough to make straight lines: prepare ye the way of the scarves and lap blankets.

Now my busy fingers could pet my dragonfly mind. It was a revelation of focus.

Eight-thirty by eight-thirty, I reported to the chair, discount yarn and titanium duty in hand. I gave thanks. I gave shoutouts to the suffering ones from Princeton to Belarus. I gave myself a round of applause. I gave my family, friends, and professors warm straight lines until they begged me to stop. (It appears there is not a saint alive who wants more than four scarves or three cat blankets.) I gave not a stitch of space between duty and love.

Someone took my chair.

I could have kept my appointment, of course. I’d eight-thirtied without an interruption of service all summer, knit-

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ting and knotting on my mother’s loveseat. But the great August vanishing was a trumpet psalm of permission.

I did not want to eight-thirty anymore.

Shame sang its hymns, raucous and astringent. I was a sooty prodigal, graceless, and ungrateful. My life had been one sweet dream under a cozy comforter,

and I couldn’t even give God the span of a Frasier episode each night? I was training to become a preacher, or a chaplain, or some sort of Jesus hype woman – the details were never clear – and I couldn’t maintain a robust prayer life?

ic protein bar, I heard myself whisper, thank you for feeding me. That was new.

I started to notice a strange appetizer next to my daily bread. Before digging into my cafeteria spinach or organ-

The feral cat of my mind felt different, still exasperating but experimenting with the ecstatic. Waiting for an oil change:

I began hearing unscheduled interruptions over my iPod, my tuneless spirit elbowing Mumford & Sons or Brandi Carlile off the stage. Thank you for strong legs. I love walkShame yowls too loud to listen. Fortunately, ing around Princeton. I love ivy. Look at that the angels hear us, and they deliver. man in the orange hat. Will I ever fall in love?

what a gift to wait, to not have ‘musts’ in every minute. Bleating through a least-favorite praise chorus at church: you love your peculiar people, don’t you? And you make sure there are songs and snacks for all of us. Sitting in a seminar about the hypostatic union: I am incorrigibly in love with ideas! Why is this so exciting? How can I thank you enough for these busy brains, and all the mystery maps you keep unfolding?

Kissing my grandfather on the forehead: thank you, thank you, thank you.

Talking to a cayenne atheist friend: she has the heart of Christ, and you will not let her go. Worrying about my boss’s vertigo: the one you love is sick. You love him more than I do. Please. Please. Please.

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Watching The Tonight Show: holy, holy, holy is the one who leaves us in stitches. Bristling against fear tactics: the palm of your hand is sturdier than we want it to be. You won’t let anyone out of the mercy hot seat, will you?

Cursing the blank screen: I will write if you untie the knots around my neck. Even the young ravens look to you for food, so give me an open-

I lost my seat but entered the circle, where neither beginning nor end are mine to maintain. I became the fundraiser for a cat sanctuary, proof that prayer knows many stitches and God giggles loudly.

ing paragraph. Please? Blessing the sight of my mother’s Subaru: Great is thy faithfulness.

Praying without ceasing, without a kitchen timer, without a plan: it all matters. My word, it all matters.

I am not the writer of this good yarn, nor the central switchboard. I am not on the clock. I am a nomad whose every footstep lands safely. It has all been for the best.

Presence as prayer, marvelous light without words: eight-thirty was too easy.

Praying without a chair: may I live now on tiptoe.

“Praying without ceasing, without a kitchen timer, without a plan: it all matters. My word, it all matters.”

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A Sound Mind Caroline Collins Post-reflection upon the theme of “abundance” led Collins not to marvel in its beauty, but rather, purge the dread and horror of the abundance of violence, via weaponized religion, against marginalized groups in the United States.

One method of this violence is enveloped by “spiritual warfare,” a prismatic concept with many spectra, one being the demonization of people groups as threats to religious institutions and their inhabitants. Operating under the impression that Satan runs amok—enabled by “nonbelievers” as “lost children of God”—spearheading a “spiritual war” becomes a righteous cause, albeit one saturated with romanticized ideas of war and persecution that deem the necessity of evangelism. Pulling from transcripts of twenty-first-century, White Evangelical sermons on spiritual warfare, The Sound Mind, written as a Gothic liturgy, serves as a critique of the concept’s dangerous implications and psychological consequences told from the perspective of a tormented conscience.

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A babel of whispers under the dark curtain of night’s firmament. An empty void, save the tortured soul’s mind embalmed under the pale moon and the hissing bedlam running looser than drunken confessions. The cold reminder from the incandescent spotlight of how far the soul’s fallen from the light of Good Book words made incarnate by God-given binding, the love-bound dagger abandoned on the chest of drawers1. The carpet a sunken pool, a gaping mouth, of the Devil-Lion2 at salivary wit’s end of a forty-day fast. Fingernails piercing the whispers to suffocate and secede, pronging the migraine-ridden temples a crown that bathes the eyesight in a Damascene3 red film.

Perhaps now, my soul can finally rest, the whispers can finally cease, the exodus from the Fear Demon4 can finally commence, for will I ever look more like You, Christ, in meeting my Golgothic5 end, than I do now?

God, will the war end now?

Will the Devil no longer stalk me?

Why has your pulpit gone quiet? Its discipline meant you cared enough to acknowledge me, to wipe away the sweet nothings of my sin off my stained, desperate face.

Where has your blood gone? Why does mine only run?

My thoughts were on Your tether, I was sure of their capture.

Can I ever be redeemed?

Like the accordion, you pulled my eyes to reach a new sound: the bloodshed a caterwaul, the Devil’s stampede a war cry, and Your body a dismemberment.

Did I not fulfill your will?

Have You gone quiet?

Have You stopped watching me?

But the whispers won’t stop.

Why have You gone quiet?

But I bestowed You a many Lost…

Why have You stopped watching me?

Your spoken Word, my own breath…

Am I in Your image now?

Your Words, my only thoughts…

Am I in Your image now?

But how do I know if my thoughts are from You? Who am I hearing instead?

Who are these eyes watching me?

Perhaps they mistake me for You while my blood runs profane.

1 Ephesians 6:17 NRSV.

3 Acts 9:1–19 NRSV.

2 1 Peter 5:8 NRSV.

4 2 Timothy 1:7 NRSV.

5 John 19:17 NRSV.

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“Buckle Up! Buttercup!,” 20” x 28” Mixed Media, 2023 Through my art, I invite viewers to explore the complex emotions that come with the human experience, and to find compassion and empathy for those who are struggling.

What I create and develop is not meant to shock or sensationalize suffering. Rather, it is meant to open up a dialogue about these important issues, and to create a space for healing and connection.

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Jena Ataras

“Watermelon Woman,” 18” x 12” Mixed Media, 2023 19

Larissa Peters My parents felt a calling by God to share their Christian faith. Becoming missionaries from this sense of life-directing purpose— from God no less—meant that my parents were ready and willing to do anything in their power to live out this call. This meant 35 years in Indonesia, living in the jungle, being away from their own parents, not getting to know their nieces and nephews, hearing of news of their families months later, gaining a different kind of family with others in Indonesia, and being away from their own children.

to boarding school for months at a time, at the age of six years—for 12 years.

One Christmas—years later—as my parents were preparing to retire, we all returned to Indonesia for a last visit, now as adults.

On a hot December afternoon, my mom had my dad pull out a large tengallon barrel, the rusty kind sent out on container ships, where a lid’s latch takes two gripping hands to release.

When God Calls Your Parents

My parents’ calling permeated not just their lives but the lives of my three siblings’ and mine.

We grew up in Asia, learned another language while we learned English, took vacations in Bali, did not have a license or bank account until we were in college. We rarely saw our cousins or grandparents, and became independent when we went

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Inside was artwork by my brother and sisters, drawings of horses and houses, penmanship practice, short stories. And hundreds and hundreds of communiques: emails printed out from high school, letters on thin carbon copy paper from elementary, clippings of stories and newsletters. My mom had saved every word we had written every week since the time we were six.

Reading over the letters took me aback.

I remembered my boarding school life as one of adventure, friends, and fun. But the letters told a different story, saying how much I missed my mom and dad, asking every week when they were going to visit me.

I was surprised how much those early years portrayed a girl lonely and missing her parents’ love. I had expressed—in my grade school print and then cursive— feelings I could barely remember beneath the words that did feel familiar: the constant rhythm of “I’m fine.”

When my parents met, my mother was the shy librarian at her seminary in Canada: short in stature with long black hair, when my dad, tall with a built-

in tan, walked into the library. He was the outgoing star athlete; but opposites attract and they married. They began their careers as ministers halfway around the world literally in the middle of a jungle in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, which became the world we knew.

“I had expressed .... feelings I could barely remember beneath the words that did feel familiar: the constant rhythm of ‘I’m fine.’”

My dad was fun and kind, willing to play a game whenever I wanted. He would make chocolate banana milkshakes for us each night, churn ice cream on the weekends, and explore the area with us.

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“It didn’t occur to me that as a child, I played out what I longed for: somebody’s sole love and attention, something I missed, living among so many children and far away from my parents.”

My mom, on the quieter side, was the writer—the one who wrote pages in her letters to us, read us books and gave them to us for Christmas. She kept the traditions, and had the drier sense of humor. She wasn’t someone you would expect to spend 30 years in the jungle, but she made a home in our house on stilts, raised us on Indonesian food and old American favorites. She loved a trip to the waterfall and would sit on a rock, reading her book—her feet cooling in a small pool—while my brother fished for crayfish and my sisters and I slid down the rocks.

Before I started school, I savored the time at home. My older sister and brother had already left for boarding school three years before me, only returning for summer and Christmas vacations. I was neither a “mama’s” nor “daddy’s girl”; I was both. Because my older siblings were gone, I was the center of attention even with a three-year-old younger sister. We didn’t have a television for my parents to distract us with, so dayto-day life was very much in front of us and it was filled with mom and dad.

Those early days consist of memories of my mom and my best friend Darla’s mom homeschooling us in kindergarten, sitting on my dad’s

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lap in the rocking chair, smelling his coffee as he read to me, spending rainy

days in my mom’s bedroom. Living in the middle of the jungle made it feel like it was “just us” in the world.

According to the mythology of my mom, I was the child she most worried about attending boarding school. I had never spent a night away from home. Once I tried a night at Darla’s, but her mom had to walk me—clutching Gladly, my teddy bear—back to our house, through the dark paths.

When it was my turn to leave for school, my parents had some concerns, but we had no choice at the time. The mission organization required parents to send their children to designated schools, no matter how far the distance.

Going to school meant taking that long journey to boarding school, and I didn’t argue. It seemed like a rite of passage, and I was joining my older sister and brother. In good moments, I was excited and eager to see everything I had heard about. In the quieter ones, I felt sad and frightened.

But I could not articulate either

of those feelings and they came out in quarreling with my parents, stomping off in anger after my mom would say, “You’re just sad to leave.” “No, I’m not,” I would shout, “I can’t WAIT to go!”

I can now look back and see that my mom was right. I was “just sad to leave” and didn’t know how to process or articulate the feelings. For many years, this was the only way I knew how to protect myself from the upcoming separation. *

*

*

Because I was the third child to leave, by the time it was my turn, my parents had the process down, a journey I also soon took as second nature through 12th grade.

I can still feel the hot sticky heat on my neck and the prickles from the foxtail sticklers in my socks. I can hear the lilt of the Indonesian language and smell the leather seats of the Cessna 185, call sign “Mike Charlie Alpha.” I can hear my mom breathlessly saying to each of her three children, “Ok, bye bye sweetie!” and the start of the plane’s propeller and the pilot’s radio. I see the small group of Indonesians and my mom and sister waving hard as we rush past them into the air, away and off to school, the muddy river, green hills, and rice paddies receding into a patchwork quilt.

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The little plane took off from the grass airstrip of the village we lived in, which was in the interior of East Kalimantan, taking us on a 30 minute plane ride to a slightly larger town on the coast—back to the modern world of cars, televisions, and telephones—where my father, brother, sister and I caught a second plane to the provincial capital, finally going on to Java with the third and last flight.

With my sister protectively behind me, I followed my brother’s blonde hair and orange back-pack as I stepped out onto the tarmac in Bandung’s small airport.

Here began a familiar life of planes and airports, of leaving and arriving.

Only one parent could take us to school and since my dad had meetings in the capital, it was his turn for this trip to make sure I settled in, as it was my first time away from home. The school consisted of both boarding students and what we called “day students,” those who lived at home in Bandung.

My siblings and I stayed at school for months at a time, going home for a

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couple months during summer and for a month during the Christmas holidays.

When my dad left, I watched him from my second floor window, left to spend my very first night alone without my parents.

A feeling settled on me that became familiar over the next 12 years, though I could not at the time pinpoint, articulate, or even remember. I would learn to press down these emotions. I held what felt like extreme emotions tight to my heart, so that it became only occasional confused tears, knowing I was so lucky to be spending these days with my friends and that my parents were following Jesus.

“I am fine” became my mantra, covering up any stray feelings with a thousand good memories with friends, play, routine, homework, prayers, books, sports, logic, and humor—only occasionally sharing my more troubled thoughts with my older sister.

We soon settled into the routine of the dorm and school. The dorm parents carefully kept to a schedule, created weekends to be as fun as possible, and made sure we accomplished our schoolwork.

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We had room check and chores. We ate our meals in a large dining room where an Indonesian kitchen staff cooked breakfast, lunch, and supper. While I enjoyed a hot meal for lunch, I was always a bit jealous of the “day students” where they could eat lunch on the playground: sand-wiches and juice boxes like a regular kid.

My parents taught at an Indonesian Bible college—assigned by their mission organization—which, being in the middle of the jungle, made travel expensive and time precious. We rarely had a visit during the school year. Unlike the other students, my parents didn’t have a phone. Many of the others’ had families who lived in

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cities, and they would sit at the desk with the rotary phone and just call up their moms and dads when they needed to.

Even though I knew my parents didn’t have a phone and could rarely visit, my heart still stopped each time the phone rang, thinking maybe it’s for me. I would lean over the banister, pressing my knees into the ridges of the vinyl on the stair step watching as my dorm mom went to go retrieve one of my friends to the telephone or to greet their parents at the front door.

The dorm parents required us to write weekly letters every Sunday after lunch.

As a first grader, I was helped by one of

the “big kids” in sixth grade. We each had a small mailbox in the lobby. Three times a day at recess, lunch, and after school, I would check my box for a letter from one of my parents: my dad’s scrawl where I guessed at each word or my mother’s neat cursive, each letter ending with fun phrases like: I love you as much as the river has flooded this year or as much as all the books in the world. *

*

*

During the day, it wasn’t lonely—I had the regiment of school and play. It was at night when that familiar yet unnamable feeling of sadness would come over me. I would cry myself to sleep, with memories of my parents and home, forgetting all about the loneliness with the rising of the sun and the return of a full routine.

or “Hostage.” As the servant or hostage, I strived to become the favorite, soon loved by the master or kidnapper and found satisfaction in pleasing anyone in charge.

It wasn’t until thirty years later, when I was laughingly sharing these games with my husband, that the look he gave me told me that this was an unusual way to play. It didn’t occur to me that as a child, I played out what I longed for: somebody’s sole love and attention, something I missed, living among so many children and far away from my parents.

In time, my older brother, went to high school in Malaysia, followed by my older sister. It was after a few years that my brother became sick—so sick that my mom had to take him back to Canada in the middle of the school year. The rest of us followed at Christmas time, not knowing what was happening.

For the most part, my memories of those In a month, he had passed away from school days cancer Even though I knew my parents didn’t have are filled and a phone and could rarely visit, my heart still with games, within six friends, and months, stopped each time the phone rang, thinking laughter. my ‘maybe it’s for me.’

My favorite parents games to play were around role-playing: were preaching. Within the year, we were “Masters and Servants,” “Kidnappers,” back in Indonesia, back at the boarding

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school, processing this grief in our own ways—and far apart from each other.

I would wake up from nightmares about my brother’s death and my roommate that year was far from the comforting kind.

There was nothing to do but swallow the feelings, careful of the way I shared with my parents so as not to burden them.

exploring the Changi Airport at our layover in Singapore. We were rowdy and excited, independent and seasoned travelers.

The night before we left Jakarta, my sisters and I stayed at a guesthouse, sharing a room. And every time, a feeling of nostalgia and loneliness just overwhelmed me. I would lay in bed, mine shoved up to my sister’s

My mom made an effort to let us know we were loved and remembered. She bought and wrapped special gifts for the dorm mom to give us over the course of the four months at school for times when we were hurt, felt “Strong feelings of sadness, anger, and sad, or just emptiness were pushed down again into to make us feel special. ‘I’m fine.’ How could I tell my parents

about those parts of my life that they could have no control over?”

But as we grew and I moved to the “big school” in Malaysia where my older sister now attended, it was she that I gravitated to when I needed a comforting hug or a piece of advice, to learn how to shave my legs, or for guidance as I entered junior high. *

*

*

It was an even longer journey to our new school in Malaysia, spending the night in Jakarta. We had said good-bye to our parents two days earlier and joined more students from Jakarta to Ma-laysia. We were a group of teenagers on our own,

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in the guest room, and steal my hand across to hers, taking solace in her steady breathing. But once at the school in Malaysia, we lived in different dorms and inevitably in our own lives, where even finding comfort with my sisters was scarce.

This loneliness turned into a settled sadness that persisted through the years. I felt things

deeply, whether it was sobbing in my teacher’s office because my friend had been accused of cheating or feeling heartbroken because I found out my friends were talking behind my back. I had 12 sets of dorm parents, but I rarely connected with them on a parent-child level and didn’t feel comfortable sharing with them.

I wondered, was it the regular trials and emotions passing through adolescence or was it darker than that? Did every teenager feel like this? Was this me or was the devil tempting me to make my parents leave their calling?

Strong feelings of sadness, anger, and emptiness were pushed down again into “I’m fine.” How could I tell my parents about those parts of my life that they could have no control over? How could they even understand being hundreds of miles away?

How could I disrupt their lives and disappoint them? Always hovering was their calling. My sisters and I made sure we followed the rules, so as not to be sent home and cause my parents to leave the mission field, an embarrassing result for them.

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I felt no bitterness for my parents. In fact, I believed that they could do no wrong. And in order to not disrupt, I tried hard to never be a disappointment.

I became a person who was even keel— good even—someone who didn’t make waves or express too strong of an opinion, and who kept peace at all costs.

Overall, I recognized the incredible memories I was making with deep friendships, but this only added to my confusion. How can I have these emotions and thoughts when I was so lucky to be where I was?

My only answer for myself was that I was wrong, misguided and selfish—and pushed them down deeper.

I was always “fine.” I even believed it myself.

Not until my twenties, on that hot Christmas afternoon, did I realize how much I wasn’t “fine.” Reading our old letters loosened up the loneliness— that I had no one; sadness—that I couldn’t find a reason

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for; and guilt—beating myself up because I needed to be good. All these feelings that I had pressed down and learned to ignore began finally to rise to the surface. *

*

*

Years later, my parents were driving me to the Portland airport to catch a flight.

Somehow, the conversation of boarding school came up. With my mom’s head turned slightly to the back where I was sitting, she said, “I’d like to say sorry

for sending you to boarding school. But we had to. That was part of our calling.

If I say sorry, then it’s like I regret it.”

Sitting there in the backseat, I was that little girl again, headed to the airport, with different scenery but the same mixed emotions.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when she said this, but it caught me off guard.

In this innocuous sentence, it felt like she was saying—to my six-year-old

heart—that it was worth it for her.

Later on the airplane, watching the city lights recede away into pinpoints, I thought of what my mom had said. I thought of all those airplane trips over my twelve years of boarding school. I remembered those letters from my sixyear-old self: when are you coming to visit? And those now familiar feelings— confusion, sadness, guilt—rushed in.

I had worked through much of my childhood, but in these words “I can’t apologize”, it felt to me that for my parents, “the call” justified everything they missed: the milestones and the micromoments—and for them, it was worth it.

This young girl that pressed all things down, cried alone when she did cry, made sure to never disappoint, felt guilty when she did, and continued to feel like she belonged to no one—she really did need to hear that word of regret from her mother, or a word of support, a recognition of how strong I needed to be when I shouldn’t have had to be.

Even in that moment, my ears popping from the altitude, the buzz of the plane barely audible, another letter came to mind from that hot Christmas afternoon.

My mom had copied and saved all the letters that she wrote her own sisters.

And one in particular stood out to me, one that made me realize what each of my

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weekly letters meant to her—did to her.

She couldn’t have been much older than I was that day riding in the car to the Portland airport. I remembered her letter telling my aunts how hard it was to watch us leave and the deep pain in her heart at returning to an empty house, where at her age, her children should be running loud through the house, full of laughter.

I can only imagine the intensity of those conflicting feelings in my mother and the strength of that calling to her: one that superseded the rest of life, our lives.

There’s something both heart-breaking and impressive about this passion. Her calling to the mission field was everything, something she saw as greater than herself.

I can see, it really was the only way my parents could have made that sacrifice.

I wondered, was this her way of telling me her inner struggle on the balancing act between God and her children? That in her simple statement to me, she was talking to herself, voicing the words she had to say out loud over and over again throughout the years. The letter to her own sisters was the closest she could come to saying how much pain it cost her.

I recognized that even if she couldn’t give me what I needed all those years—

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or even now—how her mother’s heart died each time she said good-bye and tried with every written word to convey her love to her children I love you more than all the papers I graded… That letter gave me a glimpse of the brokenness she didn’t even know she would face when she first heard the call of God. That realization provided space to give my parents grace, healing a brokenness in me.

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Suzy Yo

Suzy Yoon blends fiber paper, textiles and othe natural elements to exa what is hidden within exploration of the inne thoughts, emotions, m - revealed in fragments over time. In her proces wrapping, embroiderin stitching and collaging abstract compositions, work expresses the tem rhythms of how inner s unfold within our own It is this constant discov through visual languag physical materials that her work.

“Rise,” 61.5” x 37.5” x 6.5” Linen, wool and silk fiber, twine, metal and stone on linen textile, 2017

Yoon

“Blomma—Let the Garden Bloom,” 49.5” x 37.5” x 5.5” Linen, wool and silk fibers on linen textile, 2018

rs, er amine - an er life memories s ss of ng, g with , her mpo and stories minds. very ge and t informs

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Creed of the Flesh Carson Cawthon I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of my body and your body, And in Jesus Christ Who became the flesh to redeem the flesh.

I have been loved into being, Born into bondage, Freed by the Incarnate, Redeemed, Restored, And made whole.

The Divine has made His dwelling with me.

Now, I am learning a new way to be human In my body and in The Body.

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I believe in the innate Eros of human nature, The Logos who writes life, The Cosmos that heals chaos, The community of the Trinity, The commonality of prayer, And the absolute absurdity of unconditional love.

Amen.

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Logos of the Stouts Laura Reece Hogan

A

friend and I were exchanging letters on the topic of the Word of God, the Logos. My friend thought he had typed “Logos of the Stoics,” but the auto-correct changed it to “Logos of the stouts.” In the letter, he first mentions the connection between “wyrd” (Old English for “fate”) and the Word, so when I came to his “Logos of the stouts,”1 I briefly wondered if he was speaking of

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some medieval philosophy—but I also knew it was unreal. The thing is, I immediately knew that I wanted it to be real.

Almost in response to some deeper undertow of mystery I began to intuit what the “Logos of the stouts” might be. In my imagination, the concept of “Logos of the stouts” started conversing with me.

This Logos of the stouts, knotted by name to endurance and physicality, insist-

ed that because we are God’s creatures, we ought to understand that we have built-in receptors to hear the voice of God. How else might we know so intuitively the reverberating notes of justice, mercy, love, and the paths of life and death?

How else could we receive—and at such profound depths—divine love and encouragement, our spiritual water and food?

Yes, we move and breathe and have our being in God, even as we are embodied creatures in the physical world. Perhaps not unlike the xylem and phloem of plants, or the branching blood vessels and nerves of animals, we hold within our frames spiritual conduits which may sense and receive the divine Word.

Karl Rahner called us “hearers of the Word.” In his theology human beings are fundamentally oriented to God and radically open to the self-communication of God: “By its very nature subjectivity is always a transcendence which listens,

which does not control, which is overwhelmed by mystery and opened up by mystery.”2 We go about our lives bloomed wide, organic antennae attuned to the divine. Perhaps the “Logos of the stouts” gives us a way to visualize a locus of reception and response, the transforming nexus of the finite and infinite.

The word “stout” has its roots in Middle English stout (strong, valiant), the Old French estolt (strong), and later estout (brave, fierce, proud). The etymology of “stout” reveals a word referring not only to strength, but also to bravery, and fierce confidence that arises from strength and courage. Taken in this sense, what better word to describe how or what God may infuse in us to guide us forward? I imagine the pathways of the Word as cords of resonance twining within us, transcendent channels running with divine encouragement, wisdom, direction, peace, or love. These are the secret corridors by which the Logos enters and transforms.

When God speaks, we know it in our bones, our hearts, our being. The Hebrew Bible is filled with references to the power of the utterance of God, dabar—nothing can resist it. The speech of God is more than spoken words; it is a powerful creative act: “By the word (dabar) of the Lord, the heavens were

1. The Merriam Webster definition of the adjective “stout” includes such meanings as “strong” of character,” “brave, bold,” “physically strong,” “sturdy,” “enduring,” “bulky in body”, and “forceful.” The primary definition of the noun is “a very dark, full-bodied ale.

2. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Crossroad, 1978) 58.

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made.” (Psalm 33:6, New American Bible) Creation, including humans, are irresistibly compelled by the dabar—fire, rain, snow, and winds execute commands (Ps 148:8; Isa 55:10-11); the prophets cannot rest until they prophesy, because the resisted word becomes like fire in their bones (Jer 20:9).

within us, along pathways to the heart.

Although communications of the Word push at endless possibility, one consistent theme in scripture is God sending the Word to provide saving direction and encouragement. This kind of divine message is often accompanied by a command to not In the New Testament, the Prologue of fear, because God is present. One of my John establishes Jesus Christ as the Logos, favorite passages is Joshua 1:5-9, in which the Word of God made flesh and come into God tells Joshua to be “firm and steadfast” the world. We can see the effectiveness (also translated as “stouthearted and couand power of dabar reverberating through rageous”) not once but three times, and the Johannine the third “I imagine the pathways of the Word as Logos. And, statement cords of resonance twining within us, more simply, is issued transcendent channels running with divine as a comin the person of Jesus. He encouragement, wisdom, direction, peace, mand: “I is the shepcommand or love. “ herd, and you: be “the sheep follow him, because they recfirm and steadfast! Do not fear nor be disognize his voice” (John 10:4): disciples of mayed, for the Lord your God is with you the Word hear and respond to the Word. wherever you go.” Since we know that He is the vine, and “you are the branchthe Word of God is not simply an utteres. Whoever remains in me and I in him ance but also a powerful action, we know will bear much fruit, because without me that this command to Joshua is simultayou can do nothing” (John 15:5): the Word neously a provision of the very strength supplies the nourishment to bear fruit. and courage which God requires of him.

The disciples who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus without recognizing We receive the gift of God’s transformhim said, “were not our hearts burning ing presence very much as finite, embodwithin us?” (Luke 24:32) The Word burns ied creatures. In that sense we can trust

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that we have been divinely engineered, with conduits that can be filled with light, love, and the divine. Deeply plugged into creation, like roots running throughout the forest floor, the Logos of the stouts supports us with wellsprings of direction and equipping in the inner life, no matter what happens in the outer life.

We drink in the rain from these roots, take it up through the pathways of the interior, and yet we alone are responsible for

our response—to trust or not to trust.

Sometimes the message is challenging.

Sometimes the message seems impossible or requires upending our lives. And yet, like the command to Joshua, along with the message which that enters these sensitive conduits of ours comes strength, courage, and the infused presence of God which makes all things possible.

Significantly, we are invited to more than just hearing and responding to the Word.

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“We drink in the rain from these roots, take it up through the pathways of the interior, and yet we alone are responsible for our response—to trust or not to trust.”

As followers of Jesus, the Word of God, we are asked to become logophasic, that is, speech of the Word. The ideal culmination of receiving the Word is creative re-expression of the Word in and through our lives. We can detect this logophasic activity in the lives of holy people and the saints. For example, Mother Teresa heard and responded to the invitation of Jesus to serve the poorest of the poor in Calcutta— and ultimately re-expressed Jesus and the gospel through her life. We see in the lives of holy people not only reception of the Word and response to the Word, but a faithful and creative “speaking” of the Word through their lives and being.

When my friend who wrote the letter about the Logos discovered the auto-correct error, he wrote to explain “there are no stouts except for beer-lovers.” I smiled when I read this because “Logos of the stouts” for me was not error but gift; by then the notion had taken on a life of its

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own in me. “Logos of the stouts” gives me a new way of imagining how I take up the tender empowerment and presence of the Logos. Within the secret of our being lies our ability to be hearers, responders, and creative speakers of the Word, and these channels of receptivity to God run within us, enlarging our hearts (Ps 119:32). I had already taken in the phrase through the stouts, it had already infused its wisdom into me, already revealed its simple, joyful paths of light. The Logos of the stouts had established his shoots and branches. Yes, says the Logos. Now, speak Who you hear.

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Celia Sage I aspire to draw attention to the beauty and mystery of daily life and surroundings. A painterly approach with layered colours and emphasis on composition are my tools for describing the human figure, interior scenes, or the land around me and what grows from it.

“Pomona,” 30” x 30” Oil on canvas, 2016 44

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Magnificat Maria Henderson

W

hen Mary arrived at her cousin’s house, did she knock or did she lean into the cool dim interior and call out? Elizabeth must have taken a minute or two to walk the rolling gait of one not quite used to the growing weight of her pregnancy. She was older, too old to bear a child, and yet here she was—lumbering toward the door, squinting to make out the face of the young woman backlit in the doorway. Something makes her pause, reach a hand down to her belly.

That was no tickling little kick, but an explosive movement from inside her that set something alight in her own heart.

“Mary?” she asks, “Is that you?” She recognizes her distant kin, the girl just barely grown into a woman. Something else passes in their glance—a recognition that they share the same secret, the smile lighting up their faces as she sweeps the girl into her arms. “Oh, you should have felt the baby jump when I

saw it was you! What are you doing here?

Can you believe we’re both here, having babies at this moment? Look at me—I’m old! And you, you’re so young.” Laughter bubbles up between them, delight and wonder at the gift growing inside. *

*

*

The doorbell rings, and I go to open the front door at my parents’ house. Steph and her husband have arrived for Christmas Eve dinner. As she unbuttons her coat, I see the bump. “Oh, look at you!” I exclaim, hugging her. She’s a couple of months ahead of me, a preview of coming attractions.

Later, in the back bedroom, we compare notes. “How are you still wearing jeans?”

I ask. My pants only fit with a rubber band holding them closed. She pulls up her shirt. “Maternity, of course.” I notice her outie belly button, and before we know it, we’re giggling like school girls. Giggling like we never have—given that we’ve lived

“The people who were with him in the temple tell me something strange happened that day. I think he saw an angel...”

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in different parts of the country since we were old enough that the five years between us didn’t matter. But now there’s a new bond, a secret—quickly becoming not so secret—that we share. Our lives are both taking a radical turn into motherhood, and for once, we’re hitting that milestone at practically the same moment. *

*

*

The stories come out over the weeks they spend together, between the chores and meals and pauses for the waves of nausea that stop Mary in her tracks. Mary hefts the water from the well, encourages her cousin to put her feet up, watches her grow, bigger and then bigger yet. Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, moves in and out of their circle,

strangely silent. “The people who were with him in the temple tell me something strange happened that day. I think he saw an angel,” she explains to Mary.

“He hasn’t said a word since, well, justbefore...” She glances down to her belly.

In quiet moments Elizabeth lets herself wonder. There’s something about this silent man, something in his eyes, struggling to escape into words. But more than that, a kindness in his face, something new and hopeful beyond the weariness. She feels it, too. Her shame sloughs off like skin peeling from a sunburn, pushed out of her thoughts by the joy bubbling up every time the baby moves, and the twinges when she moves the wrong way or the sensation of her

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“Such kindness in those words, a warmth I could feel on my skin. I had to look.

What was this all about?” womb warming up for the labor ahead.

She looks at Mary, wondering, did she come here to escape the stares and whispers back in Nazareth? She’s engaged to Joseph, but her position is still precarious. “Sit down, girl,” she invites. “You’ll wear yourself out.

Tell me again about the angel.”

Mary sets down the towel she was wiping dishes with and sits at the rough table.

“I was at home, sweeping, just an ordinary morning, and then suddenly, there is a bright light and someone is in the room with me. I’m startled, scared. Then I hear the words, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ What are you supposed to do when suddenly there’s an angel in your kitchen? Of course I was afraid—afraid to even look at him, but then there was something more...” Mary’s eyes wander off to the corner, the corners of her mouth turn up at the memory. “Such kindness in those words, a warmth I could feel on my skin.

I had to look. What was this all about?”

Elizabeth smiles now, she’s heard the story before, but doesn’t tire of the details. Each telling reminds her of her own unexpected surprise, and the mysterious encounter she has heard whispers of, the day Zechariah was serving in the temple. His angel didn’t seem so kind, but yes, this is a kindness, to give them this baby in their old age.

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Each time she hears her cousin’s story, one of the old wounds heals, one of the many times she looked her husband in the eyes and shook her head, shoulders slumping and the tears gathering at the back of her throat, one of the many questions she endured from neighbors and family members, their knowing smiles and conspiratorial laughter only heightening the hurt. Shame had narrowed her world, until she avoided gatherings in the village, preferring a few trusted friends. But now the neighbors stop in and offer congratulations and blankets for the baby, and as the young girl bustles

The pastor has just started his sermon, warming the crowd up with a story, when I hear it a few rows behind me. The breathy coos of a very young baby starting to cry.

Our pastor hears it, too, looking up to find the source of the sound that most of the congregation must have been aware of by now. “Oh, Frankie’s here!” A wide smile spreads across his face. “Welcome.”

We turned en mass to smile at the young couple and their child. Just as the pastor turns back to the business at hand, from somewhere deep inside the sob rises from somewhere deep inside, raw through my chest, catching me by surprise. I am back in another church, bringing my daughter to worship for the first time.

around her house, she finds an unfamiliar generosity rising up in her. She wants to shelter Mary, let her shame slough off, too. *

*

*

Standing to sing with the congregation, I glance at Sarah beside me in the stroller, awake now, looking around. My eyes close as the familiar song washes over me, until a tap on my shoulder startles me back to the moment. “Would you mind moving to the cry room? Your daughter is distracting the people behind you.”

Confused, I look down again—the baby is smiling, making eye contact with a couple in the row behind me, who are smiling and cooing back at her. Still wondering what could possibly be wrong, I slip out of my seat and steer the stroller toward the glass-walled cry room. Shame drapes over me—yet another failure in the stunned, sleep deprived state of new motherhood.

It was only later—how many days or months I couldn’t say—that anger creeps up: How can a healthy, happy baby possi-

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bly distract someone from worship? How can you meet the smiling eyes of an infant and not know that there is a God of love, eager to bathe you in grace as easily as a baby mirrors your smile? Aren’t those bright eyes an icon, inviting you into a reality beyond natural sight? And what

“The angel, he said the most unbelievable thing—I was going to have a baby! You know I’m not married, and honest to God, I haven’t been with Joseph, even now. How

sanctimonious gate keeper would dare to interrupt that?

That baby, now a teenager, sits beside me as tears come to my eyes. A pain I’d forgotten I was carrying melts away in that moment. One moment of genuine welcome to a little child among us reverses the bitterness of that serious moment of unwelcome.

I feel at home, safe in church in a way I hadn’t known that I needed to feel safe. *

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*

*

was that going to happen?” Mary continues her story. “The angel wasn’t worried about that—the Holy Spirit will do it. He gave me the baby’s name—Jesus—and told me he will save his people. It got stranger and stranger, until he told me one thing that I could hold on to: you, Elizabeth, were pregnant! After waiting so long, there you were, six months along and no mistaking it! I don’t understand a bit of it, but at that point all I could say was yes.”

Elizabeth nods, her eyes focused far away.

“Something is changing, my girl,” “Our people cried out in Egypt, and God Elizabeth says. “I can feel it. It’s not just the fact that we both are carrying babies that we shouldn’t “One moment of genuine welcome to a have. Angels little child among us reverses the bitterness showing up in of that serious moment of unwelcome.” small towns. My husband, who heard their cry and sent Moses to delivalways has something to say, er them. He had an unusual birth story, hasn’t said a word in months too, if I remember right. I have a feelnow. What is happening?”

“I feel it, too,” adds Mary.

“Sometimes it just bubbles up in me. Yesterday, walking to the well, the people looked so sad, everyone’s faces turned down. A bunch of soldiers marched by, and I could see everyone shrink a little, try to get smaller so they wouldn’t be noticed. I wanted to shout in that moment—‘God is good, people! Don’t forget it. God hasn’t forgotten us—look, he’s somehow doing something even through me!’ I keep having dreams where the poor widow down the way is blessed with abundance and those soldiers are run out of town. Could it be? Is this the time we have been waiting for?”

ing our children are special, more than special to us—special to our people.”

“Could that really be true?” the younger woman wonders. “I wonder why the angel picked me, and yet I can feel that sureness inside me. It is true, and strange and mysterious. We’re being swept up into something way bigger than us, don’t you think? I think that’s why I could say yes to all this.” *

*

*

My favorite part of pregnancy was the middle trimester, after the all-day seasick-

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ness and worries about miscarriages had passed, before the bloated beached-whale days when all I could think was, when will this be over? In the middle, there was energy, hormones surging, the excitement of feeling the baby move, and the decisions about what color to paint the nursery. A sense of well-being propelled me through my days and made the odd discomforts feel like minor inconveniences.

I woke up the other day feeling some of that energy, something taking root and growing inside that would soon come to

birth in the world. I’d been wrestling with an idea that seemed like an invitation from God, and all the objections and fears had crowded around. I’d considered them, decided that most of them had no merit, and the others were just going to be the cost of doing business in a world of brokenness. Somewhere in the days just passed, I had said yes. Maybe not out loud, but more and more clearly in my own heart.

And now this feeling of new life wells up in me, a surge of commitment and focus that will bring a dream into reality. There is something solid, undeniable, like when

“There were tears, tears of gratitude for these months together, for the bonds of friendship and sisterhood that had grown.

Sadness for the distance that would make their future meetings scarce events. There was wonder, too.”

you try to suck your stomach in to pass through a tight space and realize there’s something there you can’t compress – someone there. I’m sinking into this joyful feeling, making plans, putting pieces in place, stirring the creativity as frequently as possible. I feel like Elizabeth, finally seeing the longing of her heart unfold. *

*

*

We’re told Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months. That would have gotten her through her queasy early days and brought Elizabeth right up to the time for giving birth. Surely Mary didn’t abandon her cousin just before the most challenging moment of her journey? She isn’t mentioned at the naming a week later – the spotlight goes back to silent Zechariah, now spilling prophesies of his own. Maybe John was a stubborn first child, biding his time days past his due date. But what did Mary have to hurry home to? Witnessing a birth would have been good preparation for her own labor.

I like to think she stayed and made her quiet exit in the days after the birth, with the house full of neighbors and relatives fussing over mother and child.

What was that parting like? Elizabeth reluctant to let this dear companion go, Mary knowing more surely than ever that the next part of her story was to unfold back in Nazareth. She likely didn’t expect that she’d be back in Judea so soon after, scrambling for lodgings and a safe place for her own labor. There were tears, tears

of gratitude for these months together, for the bonds of friendship and sisterhood that had grown. Sadness for the distance that would make their future meetings scarce events. There was wonder, too.

The memory of all those conversations, that sense of a new chapter opening, with God moving among them in new ways.

A chapter that unfolds slowly through years of ordinary days, caring for babies and children, gathering water from the well and preparing meals, the myriad details of a mother’s life. Unspoken between them, perhaps, the sense that those ordinary days would pass with an undergirding of purpose and joy.

The opening pages of Luke’s gospel, where we find the story of Mary and Elizabeth, bristle with the sense of Spirit on the move, about to break into the lives of God’s people in a fresh way.

These two women stand at the brink of a whole new world, with implications they can’t possibly imagine, but with a shared knowing that the new life they are bringing into the world means far more than the gift of a new member of the family.

In some mysterious way I stand with them, invited to bring some new reality into the world that joins the story they found themselves caught up in. Angels may not be showing up in our everyday experiences—or even in the extraordinary ones—but Spirit is still at work, creatively birthing new life and vision, breathing into the tired corners of our lives and putting flesh on dry bones.

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An imaginative and liturgical call and response from Luke 7:36-50 and Psalm 25 (words in bold read by congregation)

April Bumgardner “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven - for she has loved much.”

The alabaster jar was heavy, grounding me in place.

All eyes—cold and harsh—were upon me. They wanted me gone; there was no room in this inn.

But I stood in place, my eyes ever upon the Teacher. Only upon the Teacher.1

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1 Psalm 25:15

From the Woman Who Loved Much They could have thrown me out. I did not belong. They could have made their accusations. I was full of shame and guilt.

Teach us to forgive. Strengthen us to forgive as you forgive.

For your name’s sake, O Lord, forgive all our wrongdoing; it is heavy upon us.2

Turn to me, Jesus, and be gracious. Ease my pain. I am lonely and heart-broken.

I hurried to his side, at his feet I stood, then knelt, breaking the seal of the jar, as I had broken all the covenants so many times before.

Give us grace to look only upon you, Jesus.

Keep our eyes always on you, O Lord.

Redeem us, O God, from all our sickness and trouble.3 The perfume and tears and gratitude all poured out together.

My sobs were uncontrollable; the fragrance filled the room. My hair covered his feet; my hands clung to him. His arms reached out protecting me under his wing4 from the hostile stares.

His hand rested on me as I anointed him. A blessing for a profligate prophet.

I wept for what I had done. I wept for what had been done to me.

His hand rested on my crown, full of love and compassion and mercy.5 My kisses were for his feet; his hand clung to my hair.

Turn to us and be gracious to us, Lord.

Free us from our sins and sorrows.6 You turn to me and free me. Your eyes are ever upon me.

Do not turn away from us.

He looks at me - his eyes are full of love - and says, “Your sins are forgiven.”

He forgives us all our sin.

I am forgiven.

I am forgiven.

2 Psalm 25:11

4 Ruth 3:7-9

3 Psalm 25:22

5 Psalm 103:4

6 Psalm 25:16-17

Angela Townsend

“T

his world needs more people like you.”

It is astonishing how often I write this sentence. I mean it every time.

In my work as development director for a small animal sanctuary, I face unique occupational hazards. Chief among these is extended saturation in sweetness.

In the company of donors, I am soaked in the stuff, waterlogged beyond repair.

They scrawl out “ten and zero/100 dollars” on checks bedecked with Rowlf from The Muppet Show. They invade their IRAs to save splintered cats.

Their eyes well with tears over a single long-tailed hobo made whole.

My galoshes spill stories. My caution has been softened to nougat. I shall never be al dente again.I jest. I have never been al dente an hour of my life.

Afflicted with “all heart, no brains,” I have been cor-

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ralled into the correct career. I am an accidental fundraiser, a writer and bumbly chaplain who was directed to development by forces earthy and arcane.

The canonical version of the story is that I thought this job was a year-long way station between M.Div. and Ph.D., a situation room where I could recalibrate my calling. I had the obscene credential of a MASTER OF DIVINITY, but my laughing Lord had not tapped me to be a pastor.

The God who giggles had loaded a humane trap.

Like the feral cats we capture, I flowed low to the ground until the high tide of my hunger was my undoing. Shocked in the drop-trap, I circled madly until I realized the food would keep coming, that the fingers raking my fur were kind.

I had believed in uncanny kindness

“Afflicted with “all heart, no brains,” I have been corralled into the correct career. I am an accidental fundraiser, a writer and bumbly chaplain who was directed to development by forces earthy and arcane. “

People Like You all my life, but now I puddled in proof every day.

What no one tells you about working in development is that it can wreck your plans and rebirth your innocence. I stayed for the cats, and I stayed for my cranky celestial colleagues, and I stayed for the sense that saints and angels had shoehorned me into this furry slipper.

Blame the parents who made it natural to believe in a loving God. Blame the diabetes that made even tigers muster tenderness throughout my childhood. Blame the bunkers I chose — Vassar, seminary, choirs, country churches — for surrounding me with good. Blame my blinkered heart for believing that everyone was a giver.

tion Brooklyn lent me no vigilance.

I read the Beatitudes and believed everyone was doing their best. I slept under a psalter of stars and woke expecting kindness.

“You can’t trust everyone,” my New York mother sighed. But being second-genera-

But the day did not develop at my direction.

I wailed through a world that was dry and

Mostly I stayed because my world needed people like these.

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dogged. Sin and death and simple suburban selfishness strained at the leash, snarling from alleys I’d thought were innocent.

Greedy mouths barked the world’s orders.

My brief foray into youth ministry champed at my childhood. My innocence was suspect. Meanness infiltrated the sanctuary.

Skeptic saber teeth gnawed my naivete.

Deacons damned the pastor for overemphasizing the love of God. Elders ousted archangels dressed as octogenarians.

Parents proclaimed me radioactive, a crooked-tailed Jesus-freak given to gush.

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I wanted to comfort the very young and the very old who were my only allies. I wanted us to develop into a community of love. I wanted to write us out of the war. I wanted to batter the beasts with their own belovedness. I wanted my twenty-six-year-old tenderness to take everyone by the tail. I wanted allies and angels and assurance.

I glimpsed the spike collar of self-righteousness around my neck. I met the beast in myself, twenty-five and master of nothing but my own consolation.

I ran hungry into the woods, reverting to wild. Feral innocence was no longer an option. Domestication

would mean death and despair.

I smelled something ancient but new.

There were spices I knew, peppery protests against the gloom. But they were richer than before, rheumy with reality. I needed a bite.

I was too starving to see the trap.

When a cat is caught, she has several choices. She may hurl her body against the walls, cursing graffiti with her own blood. She may retreat into resignation, a loaf of loss slumped at the back of the cage. Or she may hold her old and new lives in her claws all at once, the “was” and the “is” developing something newborn. She may “come around,” choosing the smeared good of now over the mythic masterpiece in her mind.

She may be given a new name and a new innocence and a new world.

What no one tells you about a new name is that you don’t recognize it for a time. People may need to call you five, ten times before

you’ll realize the lovely lilt is yours. When you do, you can own every syllable, the soft and the harsh, the angelic and the awful.

What no one tells you about a new innocence is that it’s sweeter and stranger than the first. Now that you are not naked in the forest, you can find fruit. Now that you don’t need to believe people are God, you can receive God in people.

What no one tells you about a new world is that prehistory has invited the future.

Everything you trusted as a child was true, but better. People are clawed and certainly going to hurt you. You are foremost among these people. All of them are exactly as loved and lovable as you’ve always needed them to be.

Grace is the trap that sets you free.

What no one tells you about working in development is that it can heal your hope and make it hardy.

“I wanted my twenty-six-yearold tenderness to take everyone by the tail. I wanted allies and angels and assurance.”

You can’t stay dejected when you’re a people. Had I not feared the dark, I could Development Director, not when ladies have seen light. Had I not needed to feel named Lurlene send five-dollar-bills safe, I could have found sanctuary. from Decatur for “that patchy cat with the diabeetis,” not when proud bald men “This world needs more people like you,” I want their names on the wall “to inspire write, attaching photos of orphan kittens or others,” not when mewling lovers give for all the “Had I not needed to believe in blue-jeaned selfless and selfish reasons angels, I could have loved people. Had I that make up a human.

not feared the dark, I could have seen light.

Had I not needed to feel safe, I could have found sanctuary.”

You can’t be brittle when you’re beset with real beings, donors who demand affirmation and givers who grip your hands like rafts and humans trap- marmalade matrons. “Knowing that there ping hope with their hundred-dollar bills. are hearts like yours gives me peace.”

These gentle people are sweet with the marzipan of creatures, able to hiss and to hallow in the same hour. They astound me with their sacrifices for small creatures. They ground me with their growls, no less good for being guttural.

They are the light of the world.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to my childhood choir or my warring church and apologize in all directions. Had I not needed to believe in blue-jeaned angels, I could have loved

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I mean it every time.

Ebb Tide So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me[a] are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10: 7-10

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If you’re reading magazines and theological commentary, online or in print, or browsing social media, you’ll notice the prolific number of opinions and writing offered by men in the Christian tradition. Whether it stems from complementarian interpretations of scripture or simply the patriarchal legacy of the Christian church, women’s voices on Christian theology and experience are scarce and often overlooked or ignored.

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