I have known that there is a story, but I did not know how to tell it. It’s so big. There’s so much. It’s wonderful and painful.    For many years I’ve struggled with this beautiful burden on my heart. I have lived a life of thunderstorms and rainbows. I have experienced the light and the dark of this world, brilliantly, from the safety of my Heavenly Father’s hands.  And I am certain that my telling will guide someone else to light, because others’ telling has guided me to light. How do I tell it though, while keeping safe myself, as well as these loved ones, whom I cherish?

Why do I even worry about our safety? I worry, because I know that we are all imperfect and delightfully perfect at once. I know that we all desire to be known, to be seen, to be loved. And I know our deepest fear is that someone hearing our truth will grasp us by the most delicate parts of our being, our weaknesses, our secret hopes, our shame, and will unforgivingly dash us to pieces. We worry because that worry is real, and I promise you now, as I promised you before, LOVE WINS. It will all be okay.

“I am always good”. Those seemed to be impossible words. How? Nothing and nobody is always good. And so I did what I do, resolutely assert my truth. If you asked me how I was doing, I would respond with “Mostly good. I’m doing my best.” And as I write this I can see my Father fondly smiling at me with a little grin on His face. He knows that His girl is resolute with a tinge of stubbornness. We’re working it out.

https://youtu.be/Dnl9ZvrM_yQ

Anyway, as often happens when I pick up a writing instrument truth begins to flow. Several years prior as I sat in worship one morning, and read Peter’s thoughts on authority the Spirit of God told me that I needed to apologize to Pastor Dave, not for being “mostly good” but for holding disrespect in my heart. He reminded me that we all have highs and lows, and He further told me that He never allowed me to see anyone to hold it against them, but to know how to pray for them – how to come in agreement with them before the King of Kings for healing and growth. And so I apologized. Alpha Adia needed to do that, so that I could see more clearly and love more dearly.

Mostly good 😅. Dudes I fought with that little sentence for so long, and then on the day that I sat with a card, pen in hand, trying to hear what my heart really wanted to say as he was going into surgery, the truth came to me: we are always good because we were created that way. And when God had completed His work of creating humanity He said it was very good. Not just good, but very good. Always and forever good. And even though life’s troubles and trials might make a mess of our royal robes, our Father runs continuously to cover us with His love because we are still, always and forever very good. I wrote that, and I commended all into the Father’s hands so that many many many more people would come to know that they were also always very good.

Why the struggle though? Because years before I had seen a vision of everything burning to the ground as love grew cold. That hurt my heart in conjunction with the same spirit that lead Noah to curse Canaan. Thoughts spoken were causing harm. Unconsciously perhaps, and in reality all the same.

As I saw I began to listen to God tell me that I did not see to hold in contempt, but always so that I would know how to pray. And as I prayed love began to heal the hurt. As I healed, I would encounter people who were hurting too, and I could hear them and guide them to pray too. No contempt only love.

I believed in the vision. I invested in the vision. The ark was built to hold space for healing and restoration of humanity on Earth as it is in heaven. I believed in the love that designed and called Noah to build the ark, and I believed in that for us too, and so in alignment with God’s heart I brought people to the ark, even as I worried about our safety.

BUT GOD held the ark, and all its occupants in His hands, and He didn’t accidentally select Noah to build it. Just so with us.

As 2020 unfolded I was proud of our Noah for holding the vision of building this ark. CIV was a lifesaving space for many in our community, and still there was the pain. If we wanted to heal it could only happen with truth. And friends as we prayed God did that too. He brought healing through truth telling, even though that did not happen in the traditional church setting.

https://youtu.be/Ci-

And so I did the things that God showed me to do and watched Him literally surround me with His beautiful waters

as I engaged for growth and healing.

https://youtu.be/a0WRd4QTTC0

Friends as we prayed together and read through the Bible in Route 66, I saw how God’s held us all in His hands, how He wants freedom and renewal for us in truth not in tradition. While we were hurting, working, healing and praying, God was opening the doors of the ark so that there could be renewal.

https://youtu.be/8anjc5QCuNk

And here we are in this season of renewal. Just like Noah we have held space for healing, and like Noah we have also sometimes caused harm. Yes, we. Those beams have often blocked our eyes, knocking others out while we squint at our neighbour’s dust. We have sometimes betrayed Jesus and each other. But better days are here if we allow Him to work on upgrading our status to: healed in truth and reconciliation.

https://youtu.be/7HPwgLH9ql0

We worship together, we work together, we build together, we live in renewal together because of whom God is. We look each other in the face so that we can see the image of God reflected in each other and in ourselves, because we are always good, created for love. We examine our hearts with Him and seek healing and renewal of our vision in His hands. We must make a choice. Do we go forward together, we and our houses serving the Lord in love, in alignment with His will, or will we hide from healing in shame? https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+24%3A15&version=NLT

As for me and my house we will serve the Lord, because of Whom He is: Love.

https://youtu.be/MyUMFZb2kfI

May we find our identity in Him.

https://youtu.be/SoeOcyVnNKs

Victory is ours. May we dance in renewal, as we get up off our knees and do the work in Jesus name.

https://youtu.be/EdZWMKxJpDc

Loving sometimes means fighting to stay in love with the kind of agony with which Jesus fought in the garden, where He was in such deep mental and emotional anguish that He sweat drops of blood.

I have fought with that kind of anguish to stay at Church in the Valley from 2009 to now. And every time that I have asked God for permission to leave, He has told me that it is my choice but that it would not be the best choice.

For all of these years, He has helped me to worship, serve, and love where I have been hurt, and He has brought healing and fulfillment to me and to those who were instrumental in that pain. He guided me to my healers, most of whom were not in what we call church. All were a part of the real church, the family of humans with whom we share life in this realm.

He has especially helped me to check the beam in my own eyes that also cause others pain.

He has protected my children by guiding me to different places of safety, where they were surrounded by people who really saw them, while the people in the church did their best. And as I have healed and matured He has shown me how to protect them, and how to honour their freedom as they choose their healing path.

And as I have matured in healing and freedom, He has shown me that I go to church to see the face of God reflected in every human being there, and especially in the faces of those whom I cannot stand, as my big sister Brené says; and God threw in a little extra sauce one morning a few weeks ago when He reminded me that there are also some whom cannot stand me 😂. Come on now – what’s not to love? 🤷🏾‍♀️

Church is a place of complex unity and love that is absolutely perfect and beautifully reflects our Father’s love for ALL of us.

May we live in the renewal of the anguish of love with the certainty that God will send angels to minister to us just as He did for Jesus.

So if you struggle today know that our Father is with you in this very agonizing fight to stay in love. Look at the faces of all and see God reflected in you and also in them.

The vision of God’s glory, and the representation of unity in the Spirit is such a beautiful one. I love reading these passages in Ezekiel and Revelation that describe the depth of complex beauty that is unity in the Spirit. We move as one in the Father’s glory when we live according to His Spirit in us. No confusion, only glorious complex oneness.

He wants us to open to Him, so that His mark of love can be imprinted on our minds. And then we will have unity when we can see that our ways are not God’s ways, and allow Him to set us free and set us in motion in love – joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. When we can see each other through these lenses, and receive everything as a gift that will bear the fruit of love if we allow God to help us see through the outer layers, there will be unity in the Spirit.

Ask God to help us to see the gift of love in everything, and how to get to that gift.

When Jesus went into the temple with a whip, He harmed no one, but He did cause them brief discomfort. The end result was that the temple was cleared, and the space was open to be filled with the excluded who needed space to be included.

May we welcome and recognize these moments of brief discomfort, so that we can allow the Spirit to open up space for inclusion and unity. For all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Father open our hearts for Your message that creates space for unity and inclusion – love.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+1&version=NLT

I have said this before in different ways and I am saying it plainly now:

You do not love people of colour if you will not look at yourself and actively challenge the racism embedded in your psyche by generations of deliberate oppression. You do not truly love your husband, wife, bi-racial child, adopted child, friends, or friendly acquaintances of colour, because you are more willing to continue to cause us harm than you are willing to do the uncomfortable work of self-reflection and change.

You prefer to try to force us to suppress and mask our pain than to do your own work.

That is not love. That is selfish pride.

Meanwhile, people of colour either choose to do our work, to be able to bear the weight of conscious and unconscious racism, or we choose to pretend that conscious and unconscious racism does not exist, and so harm ourselves with unaddressed depression and anxiety that presents in both high and low functioning ways.

No flowery language.

You do not love us, you cannot see us, you do not know us, if you refuse to do the work of actively addressing the conscious and unconscious racism that is embedded in your psyche from generations of deliberately planned systemic oppression.

“What you resist will persist”. You either “name it and tame it”, or allow it to wildly wreak havoc. You choose. I choose. We choose.

And PSA: this applies to all areas of our life and history. We either look it in the face, and handle the truth of it, or we create a legacy of pain that bears fruit in a myriad war-ish ways.

Well, I guess I do need an umbrella. His banner over me is love. Love. Wild, barefoot, and free.

I think that if you have read this far you may feel frustrated, angry, accused, shame… if you do then it means that I, who also feel and have felt frustration, anger, sadness, accused, shame, in this relationship between us fellow human, might have missed the mark in communication. What I am saying, is that love is not seen and known when systemic poison continues to infect our relationships. That poison is killing us. We are losing each other. The only way to purge the system of poison is for each of us to acknowledge the poison and choose to purge it from us, because we are the system – together we are the system, and our life depends on us.

So please, aim that poison at the toilet, flush it, and stop pouring it on my head. In the meantime, I will shield myself as best I can with the umbrella of love, because I want to stay in relationship with you, who at the core are also wild, barefoot, and free. Innocent.

So in my morning Bible reading I read wherever the Spirit guides – one book at a time. Luke was on repeat, because there was a lot that I needed to mine for that is relevant to my journey. We’ve been through a few different books with breaks of varying lengths in between. For the last week or so, we’ve been through the minor prophets in no particular order.

This morning it was clearly Obadiah. I usually share it after I’ve read it, and say something in the caption. Today, I shared it as soon as I heard, along with the song of the morning, and then continued to write the other things that were on my heart.

But there was this pressing call to read Obadiah before I left, not an alarming call, but an anticipatory frequent reminder. I was pushing it for time, and one of my community pick up kiddos requested a shift in the schedule, so that pushed time even more, because everyone needs a win with some understanding, and if we can make it happen why not do it.

Still there was that anticipatory request to just stop and read before I left.

Finally I sat to read – felt a real closeness with my Father and His assurances and reassurances. Had a mini moment of tears.

But guys when I got to the last page of Obadiah, I could totally feel Their joy for me in the room and all around me. There were butterflies on the page! It was so cool. I fully revelled in it. These aren’t small things. They’re the things that let me know how dearly I am known – and loved.

PS. My little buddy made a request, and everyone else in our morning circle pivoted to create the possibility that he needed. If you haven’t met the kids of the “snowflake” generations I invite you to take the time to do so. I was the only one who knew his story, but when the call went out everybody recreated reality and everybody won – easy. Go check out the snowflakes. They are individually unique, perfectly beautiful, and when they get together they give us the opportunity to pause and appreciate the glorious wonder of life – if we want to.

We grow healthy people and healthy communities by breaking the cycle of othering*, and opening ourselves up to the Spirit’s uprooting of toxic near enemies (https://meigsindypress.com/2022/01/31/emotional-near-enemiesf/?fbclid=IwAR0aB8L272XZdxsx2ldVNGi0KOeqzt3RrWmj-C3dw6XLohaHvfxsvfCAqsk) that have been sown as tares in our hearts (Matthew 13:24-30)

Leaders often carry the toxic roots that spawn a culture of spiritual, sexual, physical, mental, emotional, and financial abuse, and the accompanying gaslighting oppression. This is the same poison root that lead to Christ’s planned assassination by crucifixion.

And even in those who see it, experience it, and separate from the environment, its insidious roots may remain and infect spaces intended to foster safety and healing, unless the toxic roots are exposed and cut out.

Only the Spirit of Love can guide this delicate incisive work though. It is way above our pay grade and not a part of our skill set.

So whenever we see this toxicity, be it through firsthand experience or as a bystander, speak up, and let the Spirit of God guide the process of exposure and healing that is absolutely necessary for actual health.

No one marinated in toxicity escapes it unscathed. And while the author of this article equipped themselves to be a guide for healing, I hope that they will begin to break the cycle of creating outsiders that insulates us from truly being a part of healthy community.

*The term Othering describes the reductive action of labelling and defining a person as a subaltern native, as someone who belongs to the socially subordinate category of the Other. The practice of Othering excludes persons who do not fit the norm of the social group, which is a version of the Self;^[7] likewise, in human geography, the practice of othering persons means to exclude and displace them from the social group to the margins of society, where mainstream social norms do not apply to them, for being the Other.^[8] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy)

“Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’ “‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed. “‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked. “‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭13:24-30‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I used to be ambivalent about Black History Month, but the more that I live and experience, the more certain I am that I feel the same distaste towards Black History Month that I feel for Affirmative Action in all its forms. Both things are an oppressive attempt to keep one set of people in their place as an “other” allowed to live adjacent to whiteness.

Just leaving these hopefully incisive thoughts for readers’ personal consideration.

Afrocentric people are here with the same range of emotions, abilities, and experiences as Caucasians. EQUAL not adjacent.

Caucasians, marinated in the idea that they are the superior and dominant people continue to consciously and unconsciously view Afrocentric people through transactional lenses, as people whose being is to be used for Caucasian profit and entertainment.

Those people whom you allow close to you you still see as house slaves, as adjacent to you as you can comfortably allow, be it that they match you in colour, or speak and live to pacify you by soothing your half deadened consciences in denial of the unconscious racism that you have yet to consciously uproot.

Because make no mistake, racism not directly addressed and uprooted is slow and painful poison to you and to the Afrocentric people with whom you interact.

Both the uppity niggers who directly challenge your latent spirit of oppression, and the field slaves who live in the made up lower socio-economic caste continue to live to transgress. We will make every opportunity to live as our true selves, and those whose agency has been so battered that they forget their ability to create opportunity only need one of us to remind them of their inherent right to freedom and equality. And that terrifies you, still unconsciously.

I would suggest that you awake to and face your fears, because “what you resist will persist”.

We resolve to stand face to face with the God in us. We have already overcome and will continue to rise.

Seriously, I am no longer co-signing and giving any energy to any days and months of awareness of oppression. We know what we did. We know that it was wrong. If we haven’t stopped to look at ourselves and change for the better that is a choice.

Every day in my life is human day, and my resolve is to continue to show up as myself every day for humans.

However, I am here for any and all celebrations of living life. Let’s dance.

Barefoot, wild, and free.

Asé

Have you ever looked yourself in the eyes, in the heart with God, and seen elements of Judas looking back? 😂 I’m serious like a heart attack. 😳

If you know me, you know that I’ve had this long running conversation with God about Judas and Jesus: I mean, why? You know it all; why would You keep him by You, in Your close circle, with the twelve whom You’re mentoring for leadership after You’ve left? And you’ve probably heard me say some time ago that in my own life I saw myself as Judas – no one else can betray me as well as I can.

This is the thing that I love about life with God. He’s not afraid to wound me, and I’m learning not to be afraid to let Him. His incisions are always perfectly executed, and His repair is precise and perfectly restorative. Because faithful are the wounds of a friend, or the slap 👋🏾, but an enemy multiplies kisses. Remember this always.

But back to the Judas in me. In fact it is absolutely not the Judas in me. Judas was a human being like any other, just like you and me. It is the me in me. Elements of human nature, elements of knowing evil. The result of environment and experience; nature and nurture. We carry around massive beams that stick out of our eyes, and knock others out while we try to blow dust out of their eyes. Psst. Secret. People feel their dust, and can pretty much handle it on their own. But that beam sis, that beam needs more people.

So God has lined up a whoooole cloud of witnesses to help with my beam work. From Adam to now. The point is that when I see my beams I won’t run out and hang myself thereby becoming maggot food. God hopes that I will feel cut to the heart by His piercing gaze of love – because He’s already told me over and over that the evil one is trying to “sift me like wheat”, and then I’ll come back to talk with Him, to reaffirm our love, mine for Him, and His for me, and then carry on with the business of loving and sharing the hope of living in love with Him. The cloud of witnesses matter, because one common thread runs through our experience: God loves us regardless of what we do, and He has literally given everything to ensure that we can choose to return to His love, or not. He has ensured that despair is never our inheritance. Look in my eyes and hear me say with the cloud of witnesses that you never ever HAVE to be maggot food. You get to choose life AND you are fully loved. God delights to see what you would like to become, and He is here for all of it.

So this morning was the end of this round of God surgery. I almost keeled over with laughter when He said, “ Yeah. They can’t stand you either.” If you know, you know, and if you don’t find it on Feb 20.22, So I Go To Church. On Sunday we had done some Judas work; on Monday we did some more; on Tuesday we took a praise break, and then THIS morning as soon as I awoke He hit me with the punchline: “Yeah. They can’t stand you either.” He’s so funny. I like Him.

Anyway, see you in church some time. But friend, please believe that I very much meant it when I said that I’m not here for a whited sepulchre life, so we better wake the fuck up, and start being us instead of being hollow echo chambers of selfishness. Judas was a disciple just like all the others. He spoke truth and worked in the name of Jesus. His fatal flaw was that he thought to force change HIS way. I don’t plan to make myself maggot food. I definitely plan to keep speaking truth and living in love.

“The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones”. Let’s change that. Celebrate the good, and let evil die.

Coming to you from MY place. I see MY face. Much love.

Hmm… You know, let’s not bury the evil. For it is in knowing the light and the dark that we know the whole of anything, and so how can we truly know each other if we do not allow the light and the dark of us to tell a complete story. So here is what I think. Instead of burying the good, let’s begin to keep the good alive, and see every whole person, for more than just the harm that they have done.

🌺♾💚 I’m just noticing that this photo which means so much to me was taken at 4:44 – a call to unity (Ezekiel 1) – on 2-22. Numbers are fun and meaningful. But that’s not what I came to say.

In this world where we know evil, our brains naturally focus on the negative to promote our survival. That’s a very important tool when one is dependent on oneself for survival.

However, when one can trust God to help us survive we begin to be able to see more than just survival. And even so God is not enough. I know. I heard the gasps all around. But hear me out.

We were made for connection. In a perfect world, Adam keenly felt the absence of another. I believe that God allowed Him to feel that deep need because we were to always remember that to thrive we need each other.

Even the thought of being separate from Eve was so hard for Adam to bear that he chose to eat the fruit with her.

Connection matters. Community matters. Turning away from someone, or allowing them to struggle on their own because we think that they should do better is counter to the growth of love. For while we should feed on appreciation instead of on expectations, it is infinitely difficult to appreciate appreciation alone.

I’m just sitting here and thinking on the wonder of our Heavenly Family’s absolutely deliberately undignified, unfettered expression of love for us.

Jesus was born in a common house with people and animals, purportedly disgracefully conceived out of wedlock (Luke 2:5-7).

As a baby, He fled as a refugee to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15).

He returned to live in Nazareth of ill repute, the idea of which was so ludicrous that Philip scoffed at it when He was invited to meet Jesus (Matthew 2:19-23; John 1:45-46).

By Jesus’ own words, “foxes had holes and birds had nests’” but He was homeless (Luke 9:58).

Jesus publicly prioritized relationship with the misunderstood, the miscreants, the misfits, (Luke 5:27-30) naked adulteress (John 8:3-9), short crooked tax man (Luke 19:1-10), free-loving foreign isolated water-seeking woman (John 5:4-42).

In the stories that demonstrated the recklessness of His Father’s love, Jesus compared Him to:
a woman – on hands and knees looking desperately for her one lost precious coin (Luke 15:8-10).

a shepherd – making His way through thick brush and muddy ditches to find one lost sheep (Luke 15:4-7).

a freedom-loving, choice-giving father who ran with unceremonious joy to meet and embrace his wayward bedraggled son (Luke 15:11-24).

an understanding father seeking out his envious, pouting son (Luke 15:25-32).

Jesus, the Son of God, did not measure His value by the standards of men who hoarded wealth and influence, and who were willing to ignore the bloody, bruised, and broken to protect these moth-riddled, rusty treasures. In fact, He called people to abandon this intentionally blind scarcity mindset to live in the faith-filled certainty of compassionate abundance (Luke 10:30-37).

Jesus knew whom He was, a man of infinite grace and mercy, royalty in rags, who had given away everything that He owned to ensure that the praying pompous poor, and the wise consciously needy both had access to everlasting life (Luke 18:9-14).

Jesus was full gangsta revolutionary loving, and I am here and grateful for it (John 3:16-17).