🍃🍂 Kinship in Mystery: In questions, I find connection.
Songs to cry to, false dichotomies, and prayers for the journey.
Something that delights (and sometimes frustrates) me about art is that it can illicit fields of interpretation.
We live in a bisected culture where we’re told there is one right and one wrong answer to everything (of course, everyone disagrees about how to define right and wrong). There is the beautiful and the terrible, the sacred and the profane, the winners and the losers, the heroes and the villains, the saints and the sinners.
And there’s a comfort to that in some way. We desire to order our lives into tidy categories.
In 2018, I had the opportunity to sit down with Father Gregory Boyle for a podcast interview. As someone who has worked with people who are rehabilitating from life in gangs for more than 30 years, he shared about the false dichotomy of good guys vs. bad guys that we often lean into in our culture.
If you look at gang violence and you think, “Bad people are doing bad things.” That’s an unsophisticated and bad diagnosis. But if you know it’s a story of people who cannot imagine a future for themselves, so they’re stuck in a despair that’s quite dark, or if you know it’s a story about trauma and damage, then you know you have to transform that pain.
We are all heartbreakingly human, in all of our glory and all of our gore.
As we talked, I shared how when I heard my kids leaning into this idea in their imaginative play, I tried to use it as a jumping-off point to discuss how we all make choices, but no one is all good or all bad.
And the kingdom of God is much more expansive than the lines we draw in the sand.
This can be so freeing…and so frustrating in many areas of my life.
Handprints in Concrete
On one hand, the ambiguity of art draws me into mystery. On the other hand, I find myself googling “What is this song about?” more than I care to admit.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been updating the Fall: Every Season Sacred playlist for 2024. (There are now more than 16 hours!)
As music often does, the song “Weird Goodbyes” by The National feat. Bon Iver stopped me in my tracks.
The lyrics felt like a mirror to my journey with parenting—familiar and yet full of questions.
Is the song from the perspective of a parent speaking to a young child? Or a teen going off to college? Or is it a young or grown child’s perspective? Both? Neither?
Memorize the bathwater, memorize the air
There'll come a time I'll wanna know I was here
Names on the doorframes, inches and ages
Handprints in concrete, at the softest stagesI don't know why I don't try harder
I feel like throwing towels into waterGet it down to nothing, everything that matters
Fever flashes, eyelashes and traffic patterns
Humidity, history, chemistry and panic
Swimsuits in windows of electric minivansMove forward now, there's nothing to do
Can't turn around, I can't follow you
Your coat's in my car, I guess you forgot
It's crazy the things we let go ofIt finally hits me, a mile's drive
The sky is leaking, my windshield's crying
I'm feeling sacred, my soul is stripped
Radio's painful, the words are clipped
The grief, it gets me, the weird goodbyes
My car is creepin', I think it's dying
I'm pullin' over until it heals
I'm on a shoulder of lemon fields
For me, it speaks to the drumbeat of time we’re familiar with as parents. My kids are now between the ages of eight and fourteen. I’m watching my oldest and youngest and becoming more achingly aware that time marches on.
Mystery and kinship go hand-in-hand.
Life together is not an either-or but a yes-and.
Prayers for the Journey
It is an honor to collaborate with gifted liturgists who breathe honesty and hope into their prayers.
This week, I’m excited to share prayers from three remarkable voices whose work invites us to connect with God in the ordinary and extraordinary moments, including:
A Prayer for After a Hurricane by
, the author of A Hole in the World and Holy Unhappiness.A Prayer for Baking with Kids by
, the author of the new book Bake & Pray: Liturgies and Recipes for Baking Bread as a Spiritual Practice.
Benediction for Belonging
If you’re following along with the October reading plan, you’ll see that this past week’s reading in Every Season Scacred was the “Belonging” chapter (found on pages 36-39).
I’m honored to share a guest benediction for belonging by Mariko Clark, a Japanese-American storyteller, mother, and author on a mission to help kids embrace diversity and wonder.
May these words remind you of your belovedness and belonging, inviting you to trust in God's expansive, mysterious love that holds us all together in kinship. Even in the ambiguity and the unknown, you are never alone.
by Mariko Clark of
May the God of love meet you
In this very moment.
May your body respond
To its safe and trustworthy Creator
With stillness and welcome.
For you are hemmed in,
Behind and before,
In the center of so much belonging.
Like a grin breaking open with joy,
Like a door creaking to reveal a room full of wonders,
May God’s love and delight pour out onto you,
And may God’s lovingkindness dance
Among your cells and sinews
Here, in this place of cozy connection,
May you release every untrue name for you
And believe the names God calls you
No matter how beautiful they may be.
Yes, you are beloved.
And purposed.
And never, ever alone.
May you release every
Untrue name for God, too.
And may your heart find a home
In the Good Shepherd,
Strong Tower,
Nurturing Mother,
Gentle Dove,
Protective Hen.
May your heart do the important work
Of learning to trust God’s big,
Mysterious fullness.
And from this abundance of belonging,
May you find the ones who need it most
And pull them to the center, like a hug.
Mariko’s incredible new storybook, “The Book of Belonging: Bible Stories for Kind and Contemplative Kids,” was inspired by her daughter’s heartfelt question: “Mom, does God love boys more than girls?” Created for families seeking a Bible storybook that reflects the beautiful diversity of God’s people, this book offers a more expansive and wondrous view of God.
Breath Prayer
Breath prayer is an ancient practice that draws us into God's heart with each inhale and exhale. As you breathe, may you center yourself in the divine mystery and ask the Spirit to help you find your place in the sacredness of the present moment.
In the busyness of family life, it’s easy to fall into patterns of disconnection—not just from your kids but also from yourself. How might breath prayer become a tool for grounding yourself in the sacredness of each moment, even when life feels overwhelming?
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