Half-love

There are seasons where I fade in and out of places where I feel very cold and dissatisfied and alone. I’m in one of those places. I must embrace this season, whether short or long. I must not be oppressed by it. I must welcome it like a heart-broken friend that I grew up with, but now only see from time to time. I must gather it closely in my cooking apron and make some sort of delicious dish out of it. I must observe it without fear or flight so that my sketches resemble it closely. I must talk with it at night and comfort it with honesty. I must taste and welcome the salt and water that oozes out the puss and infection. I must feel this for a while. I must be present with it and hold it like an abandoned child. I must keep it company.

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The locks of hair that aren’t knotted into dreads still curl the way they did when I was a toddler. They are a reminder of the child that is still dreaming inside of me. They are a reminder of the childlike beauty that will free me to love fully, without judgement or fear or bias.
And that is the thing with our "love". It is complicated by judgement and fear and bias. Are we really loving someone when we're just tolerating them? When we're just waiting for the right moment to escape their presence because it's just easier? Are we really loving someone when we look at them right into their eyes and express how much we love them but hate their "sin"?
I want to be freed from a half-love that is selfish. That is manipulative and abusive. That is conditional and only embraces when it feels like it. That is exclusive because what I've been taught in church justifies my exclusiveness. I don't want my love for others to be limited by toleration. I want to love freely, so that when people experience my love, they experience the Divine, they feel a bit freer, not more condemned or more hated or more like a burden or more wrong or more sinful. That is not what love looks like. That is not who Jesus is.

I want to love like a child. I want to experience life the way I did when running fearless barefoot through my yard, chasing our dogs and fully existing in the moment was all I knew. When love and laughter and joy and creativity and dreams were all that I had to give to the world.

Exploration Musings

I am in a season of Exploration. Of creativity, of inspiration, of rejection, pain, laughter, unknowing and dialogue. A place of Exploration because I am exploring who I am, who the Divine is, who other people are, what they’re like.  A place of Creativity because with letting go of your old self, with your old ideas and beliefs, you are given freedom to become who you really are, to come up with the ideas that you actually posses, that are your own and with that comes a sense of ownership given to us by the Divine. An ownership that allows us to say, “This is me, these are my thoughts, these are my hobbies and interests and passions and I was able to be a part of finding and putting this person that I am now together.” A place of inspiration because I’m constantly being inspired by the love and grace that my housemates offer to me, by the beauty of Creation and all the stray dogs that are in it, by the words of the authors that I love to read, by the passion of my friends who fight for the liberation of all people, all Creation. A place of rejection and pain because, I am looking for [people] to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone and the pain that comes from being rejected by someone that you love because your doctrine is not as “correct” as theirs is something that is incredibly disheartening. A place of laughter because laughter has become Holy to me. Laughter with my housemates has become a place of release, of therapy and healing. A place of unknowing because adventures and exploration and creativity are always filled with uncertainty, with risks and fright. Fright that you might be wrong, fright that you might be hated or disowned. A place of unknowing because questions are covered in disbelief and doubt and ignorance and curiosity. A place of dialogue because that’s where I grow most-when I take the time to listen to others in what they have to say, whether I agree with them or not. Because dialogue is where exploration begins. Questioning and doubting and believing all begins with a dialogue, with a question, with a doubt, with an uncertainty.