Friday was May 24th. It’s a significant day and one that was filled with sadness for me this year. But God gave me hope on Friday, through Granny and the story of the man by the pool of Bethesda.

But God. Those two words mean so much to me in my “not but, I meant and” world. Anyway on Friday, Leah showed up to help us get things from the storage unit to the house. She’s a powerhouse guys. I remember when I was able to move mostly on my own, and thought I was a powerhouse. She’s a powerhouse with a loving heart who is doing the work to get to peace. We’re on that journey together even when we’re not walking side by side.

I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to do on Friday, because on Thursday I was in so much physical pain, and so physically weak because of emotional pain. On Thursday I barely made it in the door to take care of a thing that was quite important.

In fact I shouldn’t have made it in the door, but I always ask, and now I can stand ready to hear and accept no. I asked and waited, and was invited in, and I was grateful.

I did a few things with supernatural strength, and then went home to bed.

On Friday as I was heading back home, God started talking with me about that Bethesda man and God’s love.

Leah showed up, listened to what was important to me, loaded her vehicle, and mine, and then left to drop off the things that she carried, while I more slowly put things back, and felt everything that I was feeling physically and emotionally.

When I got back down with the expectation that I would be helping her to put things in the vehicle, I found it loaded and waiting for me. She’d gone ahead. I felt a bit stressed, as if I had let her down somehow, and I almost let that stressful thought take control. I really needed to urinate, and I was some kilometers along on the highway home before I came back to my senses, and remembered to live as myself, and to communicate towards that end.

Old programming popped in, but my new gentle relationship with God stepped in to remind me that I am not a paralyzed people-pleaser. I am myself, and I needed to live as me.

So I got off the highway, and thankfully I was very close to one of my favourite on the road washrooms. It is always fabulously clean. I sent Leah a message, and carried on.

God had started talking with me about that Bethesda man, and reminded me of Granny’s lifelong legacy of walking as herself. She was a powerhouse too. And so am I. I walk on my knees if I need to. I forgot for a minute.

Jesus went to look for that man because for years he had been trying his best with no healing.

In almost forty years no one had helped him to the water.

Jesus came to tell him to take up his bed and walk. God was and would be with him. He didn’t know, and what we don’t know has a huge impact on our lives.

On Friday, I think God showed me that we assume that this man got up and ran. I heard Granny then asking Daddy; “Len, dem people say that I must walk faster than I can walk?”

I think that maybe he got up and walked as he could with the knowing that God was with him.

It’s so super rare to find someone who can walk with us at our pace, or maybe it’s rare to see that there are people who can walk with us at our pace, because we are so stressed by the idea that we have to walk at a certain pace to match the people who show up. And people are stressed by the idea that we should be able to stay apace with them.

So maybe as he walked the people around him showed up as themselves doing their best to walk with him.

They might have forgotten him because he was out of sight for so many years, or they got so caught up in their own lives, and they assumed that someone else would show up.

So many possible variables of the story showed up for me. In all of them the comfort was that God was there the whole time.

It made me more compassionate towards all of us when we show up, when we don’t show up, and then opened light on all the possible various thoughts and judgments running through our minds that affect our interactions whether we show up or not.

I think God showed me that just like the butterfly which someone thought it was good to help out of its cocoon, God stays with us while we walk at our best here. And when it’s needed and as often as it is needed God will wrinkle time for us, or move us supernaturally or create paths supernaturally. Sometimes people die forgotten and misunderstood. And God was with them.

Remembering the village, and asking God to help me see and appreciate the village that shows up as they can, when they can, while grieving the pain of the unfulfilled dream of conscious unity and compassion in peace has been God’s gift to me.

I really needed that gift.

Today, the process of healing in the room for a new fraternity of roomies who are in retreat at the LifeApp 3Day has been on my heart. My heart is in prayer to our Creator with gratitude for the outcome. Lives being brought to light is a beautiful beautiful thing. I’m inviting us to join in gratitude for the process and the outcome.

Today, I read about 10 year old, Sarah Rector who my heart saw as a vision of hope. She was the child of former slaves who was a part of two Indian tribes through ancestral adoption and enslavement.

In 1913, Sarah was given 160 acres of barren land as a part of a land allocation program. It seems that the idea was to fulfill the obligation to give land to her kind, while minimizing her chance of success, maybe hoping to kill her spirit and maybe even pushing her to work herself to death or to despair as she toiled uselessly on barren land.

I don’t know Sarah’s whole story, and it is said that she struck oil on that land, making her one of America’s first Afrocentric millionaires – from barren land.

The story of colonialism and colonization is the same globally with a few small variances across the world.

If we are willing to consciously face the truth we will heal, grow, and live together.

We have been equally brutalized, and if we begin to work together in recognition of our common pain, we could work toward healing and growth together with power that would unite this land – all the world being the land, because the story is the same with different players all across the world.

In our story on this side of the world, African people were stolen from their homeland, dragged across the ocean, and treated worse than or equal to animals depending on the hand of the massa under whom they fell in this land.

Indigenous people were stolen from their land, brutalized and shoved into corners so that land became suddenly free for development.

Europeans stole land from one territory and stole labour from another.

There is pain unacknowledged and unconscious energy being wasted by all players in the scenario.

Trying to compare pain leaves us expending energy that would be best spent in healing together.

Barren land takes different forms, and until we can look at the truth without shame, until we look at the truth through God’s loving compassionate eyes we will suffer needlessly. We are choosing suffering. We are choosing not to heal because we are trying to force others to heal in order to make our experience better.

Taking space to look at a whole scenario including looking at our own selves is the path to finding oil in barren land. If we stand on the barren land and use space to keep our condemnation and justification stories running through our minds we will keep just barely missing the oil on our land. We’ll keep running away to start all over again.

It’s important to know the difference between stepping away from that battle of condemnation to keep life in play with an open door to unity another day, and stepping away to pulverize an enemy so that we can preserve the rights to our barren land.

It is the difference between being focused and grounded for success in creation with a host of creators, and living in unconscious or conscious fear which steals our ability to enjoy the gift that our Creator intended when They created creators to create in cohesion with fabulous diversity.

And I know this because this is a part of my ongoing healing experience.

I invite us to open ourselves to the light of healing. Here are a few of my favourite resources:

Caste: the origin of our discontents by Isabelle Wilkerson

Homecoming by John Bradshaw

It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolyn

What Happened To You by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey

Parenting from the Inside Out by Dr. Daniel Siegel

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

Psalm 103 New Living Translation of the Bible

And the place where my heart is today:

https://www.lifeapp.ca/3day

I believe that we can experience healing in love now on Earth, as Jesus taught us to experience in the prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer. Your kingdom come on Earth as it is in heaven. I believe.

An open letter of gratitude, hope and love; of joy, and sanctuary; of Saran.

Yesterday evening my sweet child was spiralling in the insanity of hyper-focus and impulsivity that is a part of her neurological and psychological reality. Life affects us in ways that, as Dr. Bruce Perry says, leaves us “speaking love with an accent”. Of his patients, who are a beautiful reflection of us all he says:

Like people who learn a foreign language later in life, Virginia and Laura will never speak the language of love without an accent.”
— Bruce D. Perry

At first, last evening, I was panicked, briefly terrified that we were re-entering the cycle of insanity through which we lived from February 17 to March 7.

She spiraled right back into my arms, sleeping peacefully right now beside me.

My state of panic was significantly shortened this time. That’s because God has taught me how to release her in freedom laced through and through with love. Like the prodigal son, like the lost coin, like the lost sheep, there will eventually be in all a return, and a celebration accompanying that return.

I have already summoned the Spirit of God to transform harm to victory over her. I called two whole teams to unite with me in faith for this. And when my faith sags, I can cry out to My Love, and ask Them to help my unbelief. They get it. They get me.

I have to laugh 😂 at how things go in life. I have been laughing at it all this morning. 😂😂😂 (I’m glad for emojis).

I keep saying that crisis opens doors, and it’s a truth that reminds me to slow down and respond with precision in any given moment.

Then there is God’s interaction with Elijah in 1 Kings 19:13-15, or thereabouts, on anointing Hazael and Elisha, which when interpreted says that as humans ALL of us will make some very big harmful decisions throughout the anointed course of our lives. It’s so so okay to be wrong; it is clearly not THE best, and it is OUR best.

I’ll slow down and I’ll still make BIG WRONG harmful choices. This is what it is to be human. This is where God has opened my heart, softened it, and lined it with the gold of joy and compassion, and sang the name Saran over me. Joy, refuge, sanctuary, human made of dust with whom God is infinitely patient.

And what a gracious God of love is with us, serving us, with the fullness of grace which David experienced and poured out in a beautiful tribute in Psalm 103.

May we accept the idea that this God serves us in love, calms our anxieties, expands our territory of love, and may we invite God to activate wisdom coupled with the gift of divine love and grace which understands mysteries that brings the kingdom of heaven here now on Earth as it is in heaven.

Thank you for being perfectly you. Thank you for holding space for us to be perfectly us, in Jesus name.

With love and solidarity,
Saran Lewis

“Perfection impresses it does not inspire” (Stephanie Morales-Beaulieu, Anything but Ordinary).

PS. Again, I am asking us to reflect on how generously we respond to the dead, and then I call us to assess how we are with the living with whom we have the opportunity to experience a loaves and fishes, walking on water kind of life.

This is on my heart to share with all of us, everywhere.

The message in the story of Elijah’s encounter with God regarding the anointing of Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha has been burning in my heart, for me to share with you.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Kings+19&version=NRSVA
The focus is on verses 11-17.

The spirit in these verses is the same as the spirit with which Jesus met Peter after Jesus’ resurrection. From way back then, and even before that with Adam, Eve, and Cain, God has been telling us that we are humans who deal with tares in our hearts, and so we cause harm sometimes.

What matters most is that we bring any shame associated with our actions to Jesus so that He can remind us that our dusty weakness was covered before the foundations of the world.

David profoundly experienced the grace in that reality, and so he sang of it in Psalm 103.

Jesus has sung that same song of grace over Moses, Elijah, Ezra, Balaam, Judas, Peter, Thomas, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Paul, and on and on, and over us.

Therefore, the gift and blessing to us is that we let NO ONE despise our youth, youth being the impetuousness of adolescence that remains with us through all the stages of our lives.

The best image of the impetuousness and impulsiveness of adolescence is described by Dr. Daniel Seigel in his book, The Brainstorm. Seigel compares it to a young deer’s willingness to see how close it can get to a lion, and continue to live.

Today, I just know that if regret or shame is holding you back, there is an offer open for you to release it, and speak with courage, clarity, and integrity, as God will guide.

I don’t know if this makes any sense to you or if it is even relevant. I am offering it as it is in my heart, and you take it to God for examination in light of your story with God. Please do nothing that does not fit with God’s guidance over your heart and your personal journey.

As my dear heart sister, A, shared with me this morning, remember that God promises, in Psalm 32:8 to instruct us, and teach us in the way that we should go. And God asks us to trust that They will guide us with Their eyesight which is truly divine laser heartsight.

Be well today. It is well.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2019&version=NRSVA

They, (generational change in mother and child) learned to speak love with an accent.

Some years ago, I was reading The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, by Dr. Bruce Perry, and these words filled me with relief and hope: “Like people who learn a foreign language later in life, Virginia and Laura will never speak the language of love without an accent.”

Often I forget this. I’m remembering this morning, with deep gratitude that future generations and the younger ones with whom I currently interact will speak love more fluently.

I’ve been frustrated in some ways, and grieving when I am conscious of it, that I learned to speak love later in life, even though the core capability existed from birth.

Then yesterday I was listening to podcast, I Am America episode 8: Identity and Disability with Conchita Hernández Legorreta, and this morning I feel so much more grateful that I know what my disability is in the world of loving, and so happy that I could gather in spaces with different sets of roomies who celebrate our later learning to speak love, and commit to supporting each other to learn more.

Can you feel my hug of solidarity, gratitude, and encouragement? We’re here to keep learning.

I’m also aware that there are some of us who haven’t learned to speak love yet. That helps me to be a bit more compassionate.

I love you. Keep showing up.

Ten years ago I had a pretty major surgery, and I was super terrified about dying under anesthesia. I went in to do it anyway, because when I decide to do a thing, I do it – right down to making a will. Because if the damn anaesthesiologist killed me, at least I had everything else under control. (I’ve been paying for my funeral for the same reason).

Long story short – I woke up feeling like a rockstar. I had a great sleep (yay anaesthesiologist) and some powerful stuff that numbed all the pain. I was walking all over that ward at Langley Hospital – bouncing off the walls on a super duper rested high – a couple of annoying organs and uninvited squatters lighter.

The nurses and doctor were amazed. I was discharged that same night because I was so happy and full of energy(cue Pharrell).

And then I woke up the next morning…

Fuck! It hurt, and my friend who’d stayed overnight had gone to work. Intestinal bloating, paiiiin. Expelling that gas? PAIIIIIIIN. Tiny incision sites. Pain. Please God. Senokot. Did I say pain?? Kill me now.

Prescription for pain medication filled. Sweet relief. Then I rested and took it as easy as I needed to take it for the next six weeks.

Ten years down the line I have a rare twinge that I think may be related to overdoing it in the first few post-op hours. Otherwise, shedding those problematic bits was the best decision that I’d ever made.

Moral of the story? When we go through any healing processes we will feel pumped full of hope and refreshed by the sweet rest of love. That’s so perfectly wonderful. Enjoy that. And also know that healing takes time. So let’s be joyfully gentle with ourselves.

We may share common healers and healing processes, and please remember that our recovery will be very unique to us, because our internal chemistry and life circumstances are as varied as the number of stars in the sky.

We’re all healing, friends, I have faith in that. I can see the sun rising for each of us in perfect time. It’s all right.

💚🌈🦋🌅

PS: Like two or three days after surgery I went to church on another I’m a happy warrior high. Drove myself there 🤦🏾‍♀️.

I’m a slow and stubborn processor. Slow – beautiful; ideas marinate, release their natural essence and meld, producing amazing flavour. Stubborn – well pain teaches lessons too. Grateful for that and hopeful that I will keep stepping out of the hole of stubbornness. Because the flip side of stubbornness is being resolute, and I am that too.

“We have once again invited a woman of color to the table and asked for her story, promising to be good listeners, but we have failed. We haven’t honored the pain of her telling it. We haven’t sat with what she says. We haven’t defended her when she was attacked. It’s not okay.” Author not cited.

I feel this deeply. I agree with what the author says here. They were writing in response to a scathing review of Mekdes Haddis’ book: A Just Mission.

I was originally sharing this quote, with a link, and then I realized that so often I share these things, and write similar things because I want to shine light on the shame that is crippling us and driving us apart, but then I realized that by doing this I am holding up one individual as a public scapegoat in shameful sacrifice.

That’s not what resilient traumatized Jesus would do, and I want to be more like Him. I share the writer’s pain around the condemnation of Mekdes’ words, but I think that I am realizing that Jesus shared the better ways of love with us in clear, general terms. He flogged corrupt religious systems, but He never flogged an individual as far as I can recall.

Resilient traumatized Jesus who from birth experienced what it meant to be hunted in order to be neutralized as a threat to power, who understood what it meant to be a part of an oppressed group, who understood what it was like to be a refugee, who understood what it was like to be labelled a bastard child, who understood what it meant to live in a ghetto etc etc etc allowed people to speak without condemning them or shaming them publicly or privately.

It seems like over and over, Jesus fraternized with everyone, He ate with everyone, He knelt in the dirt with everyone, and quietly assured individuals that He would never condemn them, while urging them to carry on and do better. And He challenged corrupt, misguided religious systems.

Resilient, traumatized Jesus, I’m failing hard at being more like Him.

I was being quite hard on myself when I clearly saw what I was doing this morning, which immediately prompted me to edit what I had originally posted – which was just the opening quote with a link.

As I’m reflecting I realize that I didn’t feel shame though. So as My Love (God) continued talking with me, in conjunction with something else amazing that my dear friend, Tina, shared with me today – incredible feedback to grow. I just felt reassured.

They were like, “Look closer, Adia.” This is not who you are, this is a growth opportunity. Look at who you are. Where are you headed today? How has your life been reflecting this light that you haven’t been quite unconsciously competent in yet?”

And just now as I was typing this to share it with my dear friend, my eyes were lifted, almost involuntarily, like my whole face gently lifted upwards to a plaque that she gave me which is on my wall of love and strength above my bed… and now I have tears, loved, loving, empowered, recovering hyper-independent tears.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name: you are Mine.” Isaiah 43:1

My Love (God) continuously gives me “feedback to grow” with no hint of shame, only love. I am so grateful.

Discussion with people who want to learn how to feel all emotion well is my favourite part of doing my work. We’re just all regular people who want to do well together. What’s below is some of what I’ve learned through lived experience, vulnerable conversation, therapy, reading, listening to podcasts, and listening to other people’s lived experience.

We often fear communicating our thoughts because we’re worried about whether or not we’ll be able to handle seeing someone else experience a painful emotion, as we are honestly addressing our needs from a place of love and hope for healthy connection. It’s better to communicate, because it hurts more to withhold. It hurts us all more, because the painful energy attached to whatever we’re feeling hangs between us like acid eating away at our connections. Energy is palpable. It’s felt (as it should be) because feeling our energy lets us know that we’re either okay or we need to take action to get to okay.

Connect first. Let them know that you want to maintain connection, and want to work on fixing the things that will create unhealthy connection (AKA separation) if left unchecked.

Share about your hurts as well. Don’t assume that there is no room for your loved ones to hear your hurts because they share about theirs. And if you’re accustomed to holding your hurts close in fear of rejection, tap into the courage of vulnerability. Be brave, and share wisely.

If those whom we love never have the opportunity to help someone carry their hurts then they won’t know how to. Mastering anything takes practice.

Be whom you need for yourself. Be willing to carry your own hurts without another person. David, my teacher/mentor reminds me often that we need to be willing to be the only person to carry our hurts. In fact, I think that our very lives depend on this. And also ask other people if they have the space to be present for you, because we were meant to do life in connection with at least one other, and ideally more than just one.

We are made to be our own best adult support, and we are also made to need each other. Both things.

Love for the process. It’s hard; we got this, AND Dad’s got us.

Happy birthday week 💚🦋🦅🌈.

It has been such a gift of love and connection, and grief; which is perfect for my melancholic soul that appreciates the gift of bittersweetness, because my fam how would we know joy without sorrow, pleasure without pain, hot without cold, well-seasoned without bland, or love without force?

Today is the anniversary of the two most bittersweet days of my life, and I celebrate those days which brought such incomprehensible richness to my life. They brought me the gifts of connection and separation which forever changed my heart, enhanced my life, sharpened my vision, and brought into focus my purpose, my dharma, my destiny, my heart, my raison d’être designed by Me and Dad in conjunction with the universal family, with the family who became my ancestors, my biological connection, and the family of my soul who chose me and whom I chose in some way that I still don’t quite understand, but which I have clearly experienced as I have lived.

And so we celebrate: Dad, I, and all of you with His Spirit of love like a beautiful refreshing wind.

For Dad so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him would not die, but would have [the immediate joy of] everlasting life. For Dad did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved. John 3:16, 17

And so we celebrate. Happy birthday week to me. I am here, and I am here with you.

The prodigal son did not go home because he wanted to make amends to his father. He went home because he needed a place to be cared for, and he knew his father’s caring heart based on his father’s consistent actions.

Me too. Dad has proven His heart for me, and I can consistently lean in to Him.

This is what Jesus wanted us to know. Dad is not and has never been unapproachable as some religious writers would have us think.

He does whatever He needs to do to be with us, and He comes in whatever form He can be closest to us when we allow Him to come close. He does this for ALL people without exception. Immanuel: God with us.

I want my children to always know that they can come home – no matter what, and that is why I do the work needed to stay in healing so that I can be more like Dad. Because the moment that I asked for healing I was healed (even though I did not know it yet). And then Dad taught me what I was healed from, how to stay in healing, and how to claim healing when I am wounded by my hand or someone else’s hand again.

But have you ever wondered why the son went away? I imagine that his brother who stayed at home was just as he had always been. I wonder if that brother’s attitude overshadowed the father’s love and caused the prodigal son to blame the father for his hurt.