Category: Poetry
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listen to your rage
Listen to your rage and hear the ache underneath— the excruciating gap between “should be” and “is actually.” Sometimes we call it grief. Feel it in your body— a burning, consuming flood of adrenaline priming you for action because “is actually” is actually unbearable. When your rage collapses, listen for its wisdom. Let it tell…
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this is why it hurts
this is why it hurts Did it hurt, the first time you gave yourself away? Did it sting, when the little pieces splintered into fragments that you wished you could take back, offered up like candy on the altar of broken relationships? Unaware, perhaps, of the crime you were committing, you were focused on perfecting…
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Welcome to the In-Between
Welcome to the In-Between Welcome to the in-between. I’d tell you to pull up a chair, but the furniture here never seems to quite fit. I’d say, “Make yourself comfortable,” but we’d only laugh— as though comfort were not the one most pressing desire at the forefront of your mind. God is here; this I…
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…even then, you were loved.
Even then, you were loved. When you did something great, something terrible, or nothing at all… When you felt the pressure of praise for performance and when you felt completely and utterly unseen… When God’s voice was loud and clear, and when God was eerily silent… When your pain was unbearable, and when your joy…
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transformation
Image text: It can be hard to empathize with someone else’s story when you’re drowning in your own. If you’re in survival mode, don’t let shame be piled on top of it all. Let go of the need to perform and instead, try to allow. The lessons of transformation will present themselves. Sometimes the best…
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Jesus wept. We can, too.
We don’t have to buy into the cultural lie that sadness, anger, and grief are unholy indicators of a lack of faith. In fact, I would argue that a faith that hasn’t wrestled with doubt and grief is in danger of becoming, or has become, atrophied. In scripture, we see a Jesus who wept, got…
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communal grief & communal joy
**Please note: This IS a political post, because politics affect people. This post is for my friends in the margins and the privileged folks who are standing with them. To anyone else, I’m open to civil discussions offline.** When I began listening to people in the margins, one of the most important refrains I heard…
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be gentle with you.
2020 is so tough, but sometimes you can catch glimpses of the sun peeking through. Every which way I turn, I see more suffering… illness, death, racial injustice, devastating loss due to wildfires and natural disasters, poverty, abuse, and regular, everyday losses that seem like luxuries to grieve given everything happening in the world. Years…
Lindsay L. O'Connor 