Posted on by palmtreemomma

Leaving Toxic Places

I find myself feeling a lot of things these days. Sadness. Happiness. Grief. Hope. Anger. Relief. Waking up in a polarized world that keeps getting a little more chaotic every day has given me the gift of clarity. So many places once familiar are now strange to me. Places of belonging that have turned toxic bring me no small amount of sadness. Keeping the raw edge of grief sharp. I look around me at people I once categorized as “my people” and it is as if I am looking at a crowd of strangers.

It’s unsettling. Waking up in a strange place. The grief is nuanced and layered. But at the heart of it, there is a loss of belonging. And when that loss is realized, brought to the surface and given space to metabolize and flow, I realize there is not much point in staying connected to a place or a relationship where I no longer belong. Especially when that place has become toxic.

The word belonging means happiness felt in a secure relationship. It is rooted in the idea of being suitable or fitting to something or someone. Toxic comes from a Greek phrase that literally meant poison used on arrows.

Toxic places

Arrows harm. Poisoned arrows destroy.

It’s more than a little startling to wake up in a place that is toxic. Where there is intent to harm and destroy. What is even more disconcerting is to see people you had imagined were safe and good, dipping their arrows into poison. Metaphorically speaking of course.

Some of us still have a painfully difficult time attempting to leave these places behind. Belonging is so deeply wired into our DNA. We need “place”. Safety. Belonging.

But when a particular place is no longer safe, you no longer belong there. Your relationship is neither happy nor secure. You might as well leave.

leaving

Give yourself time and space to grieve the loss. But whatever you do, don’t remain in that toxic place. If your church, marriage, family, friendships, workplace, social group, whatever, has become a place of poison instead of a place of safety, get out. It’s okay to leave. Okay to risk disappointing others. To make waves. To let down the people who have long ago let you down.

You matter.

Your safety matters.

Happiness and well being. These things matter.

Let your gut be your compass. The beautiful thing is that there is a place you belong to. If you are leaving toxicity behind, you may not yet know that new place. But it is there. And the only way you will find it is by leaving behind all that would poison you.

You may have to create it. Build it. Find your own people and start anew. But you can do this.

some extra help

I recently began EMDR with my therapist. Simply put, EMDR is a psychotherapy that enables one to heal from emotional distress that stems from past experiences. The thing about trauma is that when it is physically over, a part of our brain stays stuck in the event. This causes our bodies to react to current day events as if we were still experiencing that past trauma.

For me, it’s seeing my husband lay back and close his eyes. Particularly in the middle of the day. Or the middle of a conversation. It may be a normal reaction on his part. Of simply being tired. Or having a headache. But my body goes into a flight mode and I have an irresistible urge to leave the room. It takes everything I have to remain physically present.

Such a simple thing but it has a very powerful effect on my body. It subconsciously transports me back into an old trauma, as if that were the event happening today instead of my husband just being tired and needing to withdraw for a minute.

My therapist described EMDR as a way to connect the right side of our brain to the left side. So that the part that thinks it is still in the traumatic event can finally and truly understand that it is over.

my own way out

We began the EMDR process by creating a safe space in my mind that I could go to if it became too much to bear at any point in the therapy. Then, we chose an event from the past, to begin with, using tapping instead of eye movement. Part of the process involves fully entering the memory and all the feelings that go with it. We identified the negative cognition or thoughts that went with the event. For me, it was “I’m not good enough.” But when it came time to replace the negative cognition with a positive one, all the while staying in that past event, I really struggled.

But then I had a light bulb moment. I knew that my positive cognition had to be this – I am my own way out. I knew that what I was feeling was not so much that I wasn’t good enough, but that I was trapped. Using tapping, I was able to re-tell the story of my past. I gave myself a voice and freedom. Became my own way out.

I cannot, simply cannot, in the language of mankind, tell you how powerful this is for me.

changing the past

When my Grandpa passed away, I was processing another memory on my own. That phrase came to me again and I went back into the memory and found the little girl that was so hurt and confused. I talked to her and showed her who she would become. I told her how she was her own way out.

While we cannot change the past, we can change our perspective of it by changing our relationship to it. It is possible to bring an end to past trauma.

To the little girl I meet in my memories and to all of you who find yourself stuck either in toxic places or toxic memories, you are your own way out. You belong, not to those poisonous places, but to a new place that hears you, sees you and values you.

The world is big and wide and beautiful. There is enough. You are enough. If you are not in a place that tells you this every day, then go and find that place.

You are your own way out.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Let Go

New Year’s Eve often finds me perched in my room. Away from the noise and parties. Just me and my thoughts. I sit and ponder the year gone by and listen to hope, as she whispers new lines for the year ahead. Eventually, a word or phrase finds me and I know it is to be my mantra for the coming year.

My word(s) for this year were slower to come, but no less real when they did show up.

Let go.

No way!

You’re kidding, right? I do not like that particular combination of words. Never have. Never will.

They have become synonymous with a certain kind of self-disregard that was subtly held up as God’s ultimate plan and pleasure.

Looking back now it seems clearly twisted. Equating Divine Love with the call to self-sacrifice and personal pain. As if the reason for my existence was to serve others and give up whatever dreams and hopes I may have had for myself.

It has been a long journey to come to a very different realization – that my hopes and dreams and wants are good things. My pleasure mirrors that of the Divine, rather than being in dissonance with it.

And while there is much that could be written about that journey, it would take us off topic. So back to that phrase.

Let Go

Almost as soon as the “what the heck?” thought entered my mind, I was given a picture of what a healthy letting go could look like. Like a stream that branches into two smaller creeks, each being connected to and a vital part of the whole, two things began to separate and lengthen in my mind.

First, honesty. Being honest with myself about what I really want. What I need. Desire. Passion. Longing. It’s a brave and utterly honest look at all I am feeling and needing. Admitting it. Owning it.

Secondly, it’s telling myself that I will be okay, even if I don’t get that thing that I really want and need.

It was a light bulb moment for me. Maybe I was never really able to let go of things in the past because I had not had the courage or permission to wildly feel and be honest about what it is that I wanted. You can’t let go of something you are in denial about. It will own you. Haunt you. Control you.

But raw honesty about all that flows and rumbles through this human body is a beautiful and freeing thing.

Within hours of coming to this realization, I began to have physical symptoms that would later be diagnosed as COVID. As the first aches began to take over my body, I admitted how much I wanted to feel good. How hard I had worked for a very long time to be healthy. To protect my own body and the lives of my friends and neighbors.

Then I told myself that I would be okay even if I did not have those things.

I let go.

And with it I found the courage to look at many more places in my life where fear was holding my fingers tight.

Yes, I want it very much. But yes, I will be okay even if I don’t have it.

2021 is here. and I am practicing letting go.

Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Good Grief

Christmas Day found us snuggled in close. The kids all home. Snow falling and falling and falling. Piles of good food and heaps of presents. Laughter and love slipping from our hearts and filling us back up at the same time.

Heart full, I checked my phone at the end of the day. One message stared back at me from the screen. My Grandpa has passed on.

In the most poetic of ways, the great Poet of my childhood, the one who always made me feel seen, safe, and loved, had passed on. On Christmas. A man of faith who always had one eye on earth and one on eternity. A man who fully lived his life here while longing to go “home”. He was finally home. After 100 years on this earth.

grief is praise

Gone. Leaving a hole that words fail to fill. Grief washes over me like the waves of the ocean, the salt from my tears rolling with the endless expanse. My grief is praise to the greatness of my Grandpa.


“Grief expressed out loud, whether in or out of character, unchoreographed and honest, for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses. ”

~Martin Prechtel in The Smell of Rain on Dust.


Grandpa the preacher

My grandpa was called to be a preacher long before I was born. The son of an Amish farmer and author, my grandpa was ordained by lot as a pastor in the Mennonite church when he was 34 years old.

One of my earliest memories of him is both a confusing and painful one. I remember sitting in the pew one Sunday morning. Swinging my legs in the air because they did not yet reach the floor. I looked down at my new blue dress, lovingly fingering the three Holly Hobby Buttons that were stitched on the front. Admired the soft ruffle that edged the skirt. After what felt like an eternity, Grandpa got up and began his sermon.

While his exact words elude me, the admonishment passed on to me that day was that women should not wear frilly things. I looked from my cute little buttons and my ruffled skirt up to the woman I was sitting with. I can’t remember if it was my mother or one of my aunts. But I know it was a woman because the women still sat on one side of the church and the men on the other. I remember looking up in confusion, wondering what we should do about my new dress. I went from feeling pretty and happy, to confused and dismayed.

In many ways, I have spent many years since then trying to figure out what to do about that dress. The teachings of family and church in my early years left me with an unconscious belief that I, as a woman, should never look beautiful. That little girl in her cute little new dress was shut behind a door inside of me until I finally realized I could not fully live until I gave her a voice and a place.

Grandpa my friend

But here is the exquisite piece – my Grandpa loved me no matter what. He saw me, the shy little girl who grew to love crafting words as much as he did. Who shared his love for cherry delight and brown sugar frosting piled on thick. The country girl who grew to love wandering the hills and praying out loud with only the trees and stones of the brook, the birds, and the squirrels as fellow worshipers.

One of my happiest childhood days was spent at his side. My parents had moved us from Ohio to Arizona. One winter, my Grandparents drove out to stay with my brothers and I while my parents went on a trip. Now grandpa walked every day of his life that he was able. If it was icy out, he would walk loops in the house. Nothing deterred him from moving his feet to the rhythm that thrummed inside his giant heart.

So on one particular day in Phoenix, my grandpa decided to take his walk up a nearby mountain. And he wanted my brother and I to join him. He called the school to get permission and we were allowed to take the entire day off. I loved school but when I put my feet on the mountain path and breathed in the fresh clear air that only exists in places like that, the air of the classroom felt like a stuffy memory. Walking up the mountain with Grandpa woke something up inside of me and I have been in love with walking and with mountains ever since.

grandpa the famous

At church, the next Sunday, the visiting pastor, who was quite famous in our circles, nearly shrieked from the pulpit when he recognized my Grandpa sitting in the pews. I felt so proud to be linked to this famous person that my Grandpa was.

Years later I found myself sitting in another pew. This time behind my parents as they waited for my grandpa and another visiting pastor to come out of the side room with the hymnals that were used for ordination by lot in our denomination. I saw the slip of paper in my dad’s hymnal a fraction of a second before he did and I felt the weight that my grandpa felt at his own ordination. As a woman, I would never have a place of leadership in our Mennonite circle, yet I felt a weight that literally shook my shoulders as if I would be the one to bear this new responsibility.

Always welcoming

Time moved on and so did our family, eventually settling in the Carolinas. We didn’t get to see Grandpas very often. But when we made the trip back to Ohio and would walk through that door, Grandpa would always come to welcome us with arms wide open.

“Ooohhh my! If it isn’t Marita! Mamma, come see who is here!” And he would envelop me in his arms and hold me close to his heart for a minute. Letting me know that no matter where my journey took me, I would still always belong.

Black Sheep

What I wouldn’t give for one more of those hugs. Because of COVID, I didn’t get to say goodbye to him and that brings a sharp edge to my grief.

If I’m being honest though, I suppose I have kept myself away more than necessary over the past few years because I have felt like the black sheep of the family. The same ancient texts and the teachings of loving the Divine with all I’ve got. Loving my neighbor as myself. These same teachings have brought me to a very different practice of faith. It first took my feet across the ocean. Then it brought me home. Now it’s taken my feet to rallies and protests. Opened my mouth to support queer people. Refugees. Immigrants. Black Lives. Lately, it’s caused me to mask up and stay away. It’s opened my eyes to recognize the Divine in the most unexpected places and in people I would have been taught cannot house the Divine. Yet there It is.

I think part of me has kept a distance because I felt like the odd one out. The lone Democrat in a family of Republicans. The one who has left the faith – when in reality, my faith has never felt more real. More true. And my soul more whole. I didn’t want to disappoint. Neither did I like the feeling of being so different. Of perhaps not belonging anymore. In this way, my grief is praise to the tight feeling of belonging I once had.

Grandpa’s girlfriends

Yet Grandpa would always envelop me and welcome me home. No matter what. Even when his eyes could no longer recognize me, his heart did. And he would laugh and be so glad that one of his girlfriends had come to see him.

You see, there were 5 of us granddaughters and 12 grandsons. He took to calling us his 5 girlfriends. He would periodically take us out for breakfast and, after a morning of stories and laughter, he would ask the waitress for the check. Always letting her know that these were his girlfriends.

While Holmes County and the Mennonite world may know him as a preacher, he was so much more than that.

Poet. Hiker. Entrepreneur. Author. Storyteller. Historian. Generous giver. Nurturer. Leader. Teacher. Salesman. Joke-teller. Brother. Father. Lover. Grandpa. Friend.

Grief is praise

Moving across the ocean several times, compressing my belongings to several suitcases, has caused me to loosen my hands and let go of many things. Yet somehow, I kept a letter that Grandpa wrote to me when I lived in Brooklyn. I had traveled to Ohio for the holidays and left my coat at his house when I left. He took it to his store where he sent it UPS. When I pulled it from the box, in my tiny apartment in New York, I found a sweet letter that he had written to me. I pulled out that letter Christmas night and read it once again. I read again how he had given my coat a couple of extra hugs and prayed over it before he sent it. Held the letter to my heart in one hand. Squeezed the Holly Hobby buttons I had saved in the other…and wept.

Tears of grief. Tears of Praise.

I lost a great love. But I had a great love.

Loss is complex. Loss is simple. Grief is praise. And in this way, grief is good.

It leaves a hole because something was there. Something that spent a lifetime of growing and giving and blooming.

I think about all he was. The enormous role he filled for so many. The impact of his life. And I look around. At my father and his siblings. My brothers and my cousins. My children and the other great-grandchildren. The great greats who have come and those who will come. And I see him. There is a bit of him in each of us because, well, I suppose it takes that many of us to hold all the pieces of who he was. And now still is.

He was our legend. And we are always his.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

The Beauty of Brokenness and Cracks

I find myself sitting alone in a quiet house. Chilled November air dances through the wind chimes and the almost-bare tree branches wave a few remaining leaves. I sit. Still. Trying to quiet my racing mind.

There is so much to do. I want to jump and tackle it all. Create hope and bring healing. Work in a frenzy till I can cross it all off my list. And then. Then I can sit.

I’m not so good at sitting and resting. At just being. Especially when there is work to be done.

Create hope and bring healing

I recently had the privilege to sit in a circle of women. It was an unusually warm day for November. A gift of golden warmth. We sat in the park, under an open blue sky and gave presence to the slow but steady descent of the sun as it kissed the earth good night.

My heart was heavy. So weary of the division in our nation. The anger. Fighting. Tearing each other apart. Forgetting how to listen. To really see each other.

“How are we gifted,” I asked, “to be of comfort and an inspiration to others in the coming months?” How do we create hope and bring healing?

Because we are broken. Divided. Jobs, friendships, and even lives are being lost.
I want to fix it. Create hope and bring healing. Another perspective that will help.

golden truth

But then one of my friends stopped me in my tracks. She pushed back at my question with her truth that was gold.

In essence, she said she was done. Over it. No more trying to heal and mend others. All that was left now was to be her most authentic self.

I sat. Sunned. Inspired. Relieved. The truth, when it shows up, is surprisingly easy to recognize.

And this is what I heard and recognized. A truth familiar but forgotten.

It is not my job to bring healing. To mend the tears in the fabric of family, friends, community or nation. That is a load not intended for me to carry.

BUT – what is on me, is me. My very own self. To love and care for. Nurture and grow. To find the truth of my own authentic self and step fully into who I am.

I’m going to be honest. To truly live authentically takes all of the energy I have. It takes more courage than attempting to heal everyone else. It is harder work. More painful. Gosh! Most days I’d rather go help someone else heal their pain than examine my own. Ouch. There’s more there than I imagined.

authenticity

Looking back over my life I see that the moments I tried the most and worked the hardest to bring healing to others, were the most exhausting. Futile. Discouraging. Leading to complete and utter burn out.

Yet the moments when I was just being me. Like really ME. Who I truly am. People would come up to me and tell me things about myself that shocked me. Ways I had impacted them without even trying.

Maybe the world only needs what fits through the cracks of a broken soul on its way to wholeness.

So maybe the golden beauty is that when we stop trying to fix the brokenness around us and work instead on our own broken and beautiful selves, the healing we find somehow seeps out through our cracks and finds its way to where it needs to go.

Maybe the world only needs what fits through the cracks of a broken soul on its way to wholeness.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still as passionate about living in a world where all creatures, human and otherwise, can be whole and healthy. I’ve just realized anew that if that is to happen, it will only happen if I am as whole and real as I can be.

So I will take up my space in the room. I will care more fully and gently for the person whose face stares back at me in the mirror. Embrace her and put her shoes on each day. I will be her. Not who other people think she should be. Not who she thinks other people need her to be.

I will do my best to be who I know she needs me to be. Because she is me.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

From the Basement of My Soul

4 years ago, I woke up to the news that Trump had been elected. And I wept. Not for myself – as a straight, white citizen, I didn’t expect my personal life to be greatly affected. No, I carried a crushing agony inside for those I care deeply about, who I knew were going to be utterly broken during the coming years.

My tears became a lament. I grabbed pen and paper and let these words flow from the brokenness and despair I so keenly felt. They truly came from the basement of my soul.

So here, in the middle of uncertainty and anxiety, I share with you my prayer of lament. Hoping it can jar free that hope that is in you. That no matter what happens, we are the doulas and there is a birth in process.

From the basement of my soul

As darkness rises, gathers tight
Folds in upon itself
Growing thick and spreading far,
Be the light.
The light in my soul for
Only light can chase back the clutches of darkness
that threaten to take over the land I love
The community I once knew.
My neighborhood far and near.

I cannot shake the darkness
Nor did I ask for this.
Did not enslave or trample my way to the top
But yet
I bear the sin of those who did
Who today are rising even stronger.
Because of the color of my skin I also bear this sin.
While they gloat I grieve a grief
That shakes my soul to the core.
And in that shaking I am undone and lie
A tiny crumpled ball
In the basement of my soul.

And there I weep.
For we have sinned.
Have put on a pedestal those who lie and cheat and steal.
Who happily step on the soul of God’s creation and laugh the wound away. We worship those who break the law to rise to the top but
Point our fingers at those who break lesser laws just to survive.
So we send them to prison or return them to hell while
We gorge ourselves with the darkness and think it is the light.

In the basement of my soul, I am spent.
Day after day I confess the sins of those who share my race and my skin
But not my soul.
Forgive, I plead, and let the madness stop.

I open my eyes in the basement of my soul,
While screaming winds rip apart the roof of my nation
And see I am not alone.
The Light has always been with me and
Others who bear that Light are coming closer
Growing stronger and I remember that
Darkness makes the Light grow stronger.
This cursed wretched darkness is giving courage and bravery
To voices who have never felt needed before.
Out of darkness, hope is born.
Justice is birthed anew while we
The doulas believe and nurture,
Swaddle and grow it.

O Light of all light, push back this darkness.
Expose the hate for what it is.
Peel back the layers to show the fear and
Cleanse this land of self preservation.

From the basement of my soul
I dance with joy because now I see
A nation of Doulas that will never be stopped.
Driving taxis, teaching schools, serving meals, pounding nails
Black, White and all the glorious shades between.
Rich, poor, in rallies or on knees,
In courtrooms, buses, hospitals, airports, prisons.
One doula gives courage to another
And then another and another.
It spreads like a wildfire of light.
Yes!
We are the doulas and we stand guard over this birth
As if it were our own while
Light is born anew and
Given wings to deliver
The death sentence to this darkness.



Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Will I Ever Be Enough?

I thought it would get easier. And in many ways it has. But that underlying, nagging feeling that I don’t have what it takes. That I will never be enough. Rejection is surely just around the corner. Those feelings and fears I’ve had from the beginning are still are there.

It wearies me. After so many years. So much internal work. So many therapy sessions. Endless conversations. Countless tissue boxes and tears.

Yes, I see growth. Beauty. A depth that wasn’t there before. Wisdom emerging from the ashes. So much that is good.

But do our oldest and deepest wounds ever go away? Are they the ghosts of past, present, and future? Perhaps not visible, yet hauntingly and deeply felt.

I want to feel as if I’m the love of his life. The missing puzzle piece. But I feel like I’m only half of that missing piece. A love but maybe not the love.

That’s not what I want. Not what I signed up for.

It’s like fate has dealt us the best and worst of hands all in one. To walk away from the pain would also be to walk away from the deepest happiness I’ve ever had. How does one even begin to process that, much less live through it?

To quote Daniel Levy’s character, David Rose, in the show Schitt’s Creek,

“I’ve been burned so many times, I’m basically the human equivalent of the inside of a roasted marshmallow.”

David Rose

Deep inside I carry a weight that, whether I’m consciously aware of it or not, tells me I’m not enough. That I don’t have what it takes. One too many rejections leaves one feeling like the next one is just around the corner.

I mindfully breathe in the golden color of this fall day. The birds singing welcome to sunshine dripping on green and gold leaves. It strikes me that the earth is letting go of one season while fully waking up to a new day. Embracing and releasing at the same time.

I always thought it was either-or. Death or life. Acceptance or rejection. Sorrow or joy. But what if we are able to be enough and not be enough at the same time? What if I’m not his everything but still be the love of his life?

Maybe life is best lived when we figure out how to hold our grief and our happiness in the same hand. Not either-or, but both. Not enough, yet still enough, at the same time.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

What the Church Prepared Me For

Growing up in the church, in the 80s and 90s, there was zero visible representation from the *queer community. At least not in any of the half dozen churches I called home during those years. That, combined with the shudders and grimaces that would accompany any discussion of the gay community, I always assumed they were way out there somewhere. In fact, I subconsciously believed that it was impossible for a queer person to be a Christian.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up to the fact that my husband is bi…and my brother is gay.

*not all members of the LGBTQ community identify as “queer” but I use it here because Austin self identifies as queer. It was originally used as a derogatory epithet, so it’s usage should never be assumed.

an impossible reality

The impossible had just become a very real reality.

And it shook me. To the core. The startling reality I suddenly found myself in caused me to question everything. On the one hand, I was dealing with the very real issues of my self-worth and my personal journey through profound brokenness towards wholeness. On the other, there was a crisis of faith that simmered slowly on the back burner. I had to relegate that one to the back burner because suddenly discovering I wasn’t married to a straight person took a lot of energy to process. Many of my early posts share a glimpse into that portion of the journey.

So on the back burner, this pot simmered and brewed. Like the foam that rises to the top of a pot of lentils, the untruths slowly rose to the top where they could be seen and scooped away. Washed down the drain.

the church didn’t prepare me to love

What I found after years of brewing and scooping, of stirring and waiting, was that the church has done a pretty pitiful job of actually loving others. In fact, I will dare to say that the church is pretty good at creating “others”, fine-tuning the art of other-izing. The church didn’t prepare me to love, it prepared me to judge. Us vs. them. It legalized pride, barriers, and condescension. What breaks my heart the most is that it caused people to hide God-given parts of themselves in shame and try to be someone they are not.

It strikes me as odd that the very institution designed to represent the one who died because he loved those on the margins, is often responsible for creating those margins.

Think about it.

The ones who followed all the religious laws perfectly couldn’t stand the teacher from the backwoods town who constantly broke the religious laws.

This teacher seemed to relish sitting in the margins the religious leaders had created.

He became “other” himself rather than other-ize.

The folks on the margins, the ones who weren’t welcomed into the religious establishment, they felt comfortable hanging out with him. Margins disappeared and everyone shared in the experience of being uniquely human.

Beautiful.

Loved.

Worthy.

Us.

Imagine the hope for the world if we could see all of humanity as us.

Just us.

The church didn’t prepare me to love, but Jesus did. As my previously held beliefs collided with my reality, a new way of seeing things was born. As the world slowly softened around the edges once again, I discovered some beautiful things.

Man-made things like borders and margins, they can go away. They are self-protective mechanisms. Only love is ancient and inclusive.

And yes, there are queer Christians. Many of them. I am incredibly blessed to know a few of them. They have shown me a space that is lovely and inclusive.

And yet I also know there are many more who are still in the closet. Hiding. Dying a bit on the inside. Wishing it would be safe to come out. Longing to live authentically. They are your sons and daughters. Brothers and sisters. Your neighbors. Choir directors. Sunday School Teachers. They are us.

The pandemic has given us the gift of pausing our crazy schedules and the mad rush about life. While we long for life to return to normal, maybe there are some “normals” that should never be returned to. Maybe it’s time to replace the need to be right and “holy” with the more urgent need to love.

Maybe we could be a little more like the One we say we follow. The one who didn’t think twice about breaking ancient religious law but was passionate about welcoming everyone to the table.

Everyone.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Saving Twigs While the Forest Burns

Life is sacred and life is life.

Regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, race, species. Life is life. A woman’s womb weeps tears of blood every month new life is not cradled within. The sight of a wee babe makes our hearts go soft inside. Breathing slows down and anxiety lowers when I step outside and wander the backyard, caressed by the breeze, hands plucking ripe tomatoes, toes kissing blades of green grass. I soak in life and I am reborn.

Life is sacred and life is life. And I am very much for life. I guess, to be politically correct, you could say I am pro-life. But because I am pro-life, I pause at election time and do not vote based on the abortion issue. Being pro-life has widened the scope of my lens instead of narrowing it down to one thing.

Does that shock you? Give you pause and make you want to throw out my words like dirty dishwater? Hear me out first.

The possibility of duality

Being pro-life and pro-choice are not mutually exclusive. The Patriarchy has groomed us to see things in black and white. Right or wrong. Only one way. But femininity has taught me the possibility of duality. It has given me the right to question, to use my own brain and come up with endless possibilities instead of only one way.

I am pro-life. But I do not believe it is right for me to make that choice for another human. That is why I am also pro-choice. It is not my right to make moral decisions for another woman. It’s like expending my efforts to protect the little twigs in the forest from being burned when the entire forest is burning to the ground.

The dominant voices in the American evangelical church have told us that the most important issue to consider when voting is the abortion issue. In reality, this is a guise to distract us from the bigger picture. Are the little twigs necessary in the forest? Do they contain life? Yes and of course! But it does little good to protect them when the entire forest is burning to the ground!

Saving the twigs by saving the forest

It’s time to wake up to reality. We must throw our effort into protecting the whole of the forest. The time is here to come together and look at the bigger picture. Because it will take all of us to save the forest and, in doing so, we can create a place where all the little twigs can thrive.

I am pro-life and that is why I look at the bigger picture of what each candidate and their party stands for. I watch the way they treat the audience during debates. The way they treat minorities. Women. The differently-abled. I look at how the policies they propose will affect children. Single moms. Immigrants. I listen to friends of other races and orientations. When they tell me their lives are in danger because of policies with this administration, I take that seriously. Their lives matter to me. Life is sacred and life is life.

I try to imagine how the policies they make will affect women and children around the globe. I count the cost of future wars and hold the Iraqi and Afghani mothers in my hearts and hold their children with mine – because life is life. My children’s future is not more important than theirs. I think of soldiers blown to bits on foreign soil while their comrades return to us with PTSD, I see them and weep. Their life also has value to me.

Pro-life or pro-comfort?

Pro-life does not build walls and close humans in cages. Look not for the words you want to hear. Rather, look at the life your candidate leads. This is how you determine whether or not they actually stand for life or not. Words on paper, a signature captured to change a law, that is no victory for life. It is only a ploy to get your vote and to enable a life of comfort for a select few.

Look for the walls broken down. The cages open. Wars ended. Peaceful solutions found. Look for compassion, justice, and equality. See if there is regard for the earth itself. Will it be cared for or exploited?

The forest is burning. There are those who are pouring gas on the flames and telling us to only see and save the twigs. But I gather with my bucket of water. Pour out what I have and run for more.

If you burn the forest down, you will have to burn me with it. I stand with life. Black, brown, white. Gay, Straight, Bi, Trans. She, He, They. Immigrant, indigenous, and all who tremble with fear for their lives. They are human first. I see their faces and I stand with them. And we plant our feet on Mother Earth and she shares her water with us and we fill our buckets. There is room for you here too.

Because life is sacred. And life is life.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Forgiveness

Forgiveness.

Not a feeling, right? But a choice.

At least that’s what I was taught. But what if, in making that choice, we suppress the feelings that could lead us to true healing?

Growing up as a Mennonite kid, I was surrounded by stories and wrapped in a history of ancestors who forgave their enemies. Who turned back to rescue their pursuers who had fallen through the ice on the river. Or fed breakfast to the men who had just torn the roof off of their house. Who forgave their killers as they were being tied to the stake for burning.

These stories gave my life texture. Meaning. Noble virtue. And there is something inspiring about a faith strong enough to die for. A faith that can still offer forgiveness in the midst of betrayal and pain.

The stories of my ancestors and others like them during times of persecution are astounding. The Martyr’s Mirror is full of them. Love your enemies, was the message. Forgive and do good to those who treat you badly.

What my little heart picked up, for a combination of reasons, is that I must never get angry and must always be quick to forgive. No matter who was doing it, no matter what they did. But quick forgiveness shut down some things that I needed to feel and give voice to. In fact, it robbed me of my voice.

I look at communities like the one I grew up in and I see I’m not the only one. Story after story after story has been whispered to me. Stories of unspeakable abuse, incest, and torture. Suppressed. Swept under the rug. Victims silenced while perpetrators are given a second chance all in the name of forgiveness.

This is not okay. And this is not forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a journey

What if forgiveness is not simply a choice? What if forgiveness is a journey? A journey that is pointless if we suppress our rage and deny our anger. If we sweep truth under the rug and protect the abusers in the name of honoring our parents, preachers, or teachers, we keep the abuse alive for the next generation. We are also doing great damage to our physical bodies.

In her book, The Body Never Lies, Alice Miller says that

Severe illnesses, early death, and suicide are the logical consequence of subjection to the laws that we call morality, although in fact they suffocate our true lives. This will continue to be the case, all over the world, as long as we show greater reverence to these laws than to life itself. The body rebels against such treatment, but the only language at its command is the language of illness, a language that is rarely understood as long as the denial of true feelings in childhood remains unrecognized.

Alice Miller

The Body Never Lies

Like the title of her book says, the body never lies. Over the past decade, I have been on a journey to listen closely to what my body is telling me. I have been able to link some of my particular physical aches and pains to repressed anger.

I began to notice a pattern a few years back. Every time I was in the presence of a person who had harmed me as a child, by the end of the evening my shoulders would be tight and sore. It felt as if I was carrying a hundred pounds of stone. The pain would keep me from being able to sleep on my side at night, interfering with my sleep. I couldn’t even put my hair in a ponytail or messy bun because it put too much pressure on my aching shoulders. This would often last for an entire month until the pain would eventually subside.

Quick forgiveness shut down some things that I needed to feel and give voice to. In fact, it stole my voice.

It took me a while to catch on to the pattern. Even when I saw it, I found it hard to believe because I had long ago made a decision to forgive this person. So while my brain may have decided to forgive, my body still had not and could not.

The pain and abandonment of our childhood keep our body trapped until we make a choice, not to forgive, but to fully acknowledge all that we endured. We must find safe spaces to speak our stories fully, to rage, to grieve. To feel it all.

a new kind of forgiveness

Perhaps we need a new kind of forgiveness. A re-framing of sorts. Because true forgiveness does not leave one person the victim and the other a bully. It should never allow the perpetrator to keep a shred of power. Nor should it silence the victim. It is movement. Messy and loud. It frees the victim, not the perpetrator.

It is the beating of wings and the flight of the wingless.

The journey of forgiveness may take a lifetime because it is not a destination. Nor is it defined by arrival. It is movement from victim to truth-teller. It is the shout of the voiceless. The shedding of tonnes of stone and a rising up. It is the roar of the soul as it rumbles forth, awakening the fire of justice. It is the opposite of silence and stillness. The wild dance of freedom, the ripping up of a confining costume, the first taste of air outside of the cocoon. It is a beating of wings and the flight of the wingless.

Forgiveness is the journey to freedom. From self-loathing to self-love. At times it is fueled by rage and anger, grief, and sadness. No feeling is banned. Each one is a tool and every tool is needed.

I am on this journey, not to bring relief to the ones who have wronged me. But to bring relief to the little girl inside. To open the doors and let her out. To embrace the entirety of her story. I take her in my arms and we weep together, our tears greasing the wheels, propelling us forward.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.

Posted on by palmtreemomma

Good Little Girls

The good thing about a life turned upside down is the ability to look at yourself from another angle. This pandemic has made it pretty clear who I am and what I need to thrive. While many around me are itching for life to get back to normal, there are aspects of “normal” that I am not yet ready for. Like lots of places to go and big crowds of people.

Call me crazy, but I love being at home. By myself. In the quiet.

My parents say that when I was a baby and we came home from an evening away, they would lay me in my crib and I would look up at the ceiling and kick my legs vigorously, my whole body exuding happiness at being home. Sometimes, when in someone else’s home, I would look up at the ceiling and wail. I knew when I was in my space and when I was in a stranger’s space. When I was home, I knew it in every cell of my body.

I have loved having more time at home, even though I am rarely alone since the rest of the family has been here too. But more home, less away, less people, that is something I need.

an honest confession

The other thing I’m quite okay with is less hugging. I still hug my husband and kids and that’s okay. But I’m just not a huggy person.

Now I’ve probably offended some of my friends because I know a lot of huggy people. Don’t worry, if you are my friend, I will still hug you when I decide I’m done social distancing. It’s just something that rarely comes natural for me. In fact, sometimes it makes me uncomfortable.

I’ve tried to figure out why. Is something wrong with me? Is it my Swiss-German roots showing through after skipping a few generations? Maybe it’s just my personality? Or is it unresolved childhood trauma?

We are fundamentally changed by trauma, not only psychologically, but at the cellular level as well.

Toko-pa Turner

Think about that for a moment. Not only our minds, but the cells of our bodies change as well, when we go through trauma. And while I am not yet able to write about my particular childhood trauma, I know that it has changed me. And I will probably spend the rest of my life working to heal from those wounds.

Good little girls

But here’s the thing that is eating away at me. Little girls (and often boys too) in a strict, faith-based purity culture, are taught to be nice at all costs. They must reciprocate hugs even when they don’t want to. These good little girls must serve and give and then serve some more. Dress a certain way. Walk like this and talk like that. How do they ever learn to have a voice about their own bodies? How do little girls, who are groomed to walk into a room and read it and then make it comfortable for everyone else, how do they ever learn to truly be comfortable in their own skin? Little girls ( and boys) who are taught niceness above authenticity, and are never given the right to say “no” are being set up for trauma and abuse.

I had a wake-up moment one day when I encountered a family who did not make their children gives hugs when it was time to say good-bye. They let the child choose whether or not they wanted to. And when someone was offended, they answered that they wanted their children to grow up knowing they had a voice over their own bodies.

I wonder what the world would look like if little girls (and boys) grew up knowing they had a voice over their own bodies. If they were taught emotional health above being nice. That it’s okay to say no and set boundaries. That being authentic is a good thing.

I think of my own circle of friends. So many beautiful, strong and powerful women – yet each struggles with her own story of trauma and doubts her worth. Many of them, like myself, feel guilty if they say no and struggle to carve out a life that is even a little comfortable for themselves, even though they bend over backwards to make life comfortable for others.

stop being so nice

A while back I wrote about choking on niceness and I want to circle back to that today. Whether you are a parent of small children, or are re-parenting yourself, niceness is not all it’s cracked up to be. Niceness sets you up for trauma. It dulls your senses until you have no idea who you really are anymore.

Niceness is… nice. But easily compromised. Exhausted. Drained dry.

Stop being so nice and try being kind instead. Be kind to yourself, first of all. Because when you are kind to yourself, those traumatized cells just may begin to heal. You won’t find yourself so burned out. Your inner lamp will burn brightly and you will be able to run the marathon. Then you can be who you are meant to be. And teach your little girls and boys to be authentic and kind. We don’t need another generation of nice people.


Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.