“We’ll always leave the light on for you” my dad said to me before I pulled out of the driveway starting my journey back to college. His words stayed with me. These were some of the warmest words he had ever said to me. Like a vote of stabilizing confidence blessing me into the wider world. Like you go out and do your thing out there. I’ll be here, where you can come back and rest and refresh (and he is still there, and I have done that over the years). Something about those words and that image of the warm light of his country home, a glorified cabin in the woods, standing amidst the deep, rural, uninterrupted darkness, stayed with me. It’s not a fully formed thought yet, but something about the idea of the beacon in the night, offering rest, support and also a space for inspiration, being an aspect of the peacemakers in the world, is coming into focus for me.

Some months back, Osheta said on a vlog that she is grateful for the privilege of getting to “awaken imaginations for how people can be peacemakers in their own context”. I take that to mean she enjoys inspiring people to action and contemplation and to all that they are called to in their peacemaking work. One thing that is shifting for me through our time together here is feeling inspired and awakened in my imagination of what creative offerings I can offer up to also inspire people. My imagination is growing and awakening. I am seeing more of the creative and innovative ways that I can be a peacemaker in my own context and with my own gifts. Ways that we can be the supporters leaving the light on for each other. We can be the rest and inspiration for each other in so many helpful ways. We can be the people offering a listening ear, a challenging conversation or companionship on the journey. We can be the creatives whose stories, poems, songs and creations move people, and invite people to see things a new way.

In Osheta’s book she quoted MLK when he said, “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars”. And in highlighting this idea of light in darkness as applied to justice work, Dr. King gives purpose to the stars but also to the darkness. What if our desire for things to be made right is our own first step, our intention to get us to give attention to what is becoming alive within us? And what if all that we really need to make the world as we wish it would be is already alive and at work within us, waiting for us to act on it? What if we are the peacemakers because we have lifted our heads to heed that call? Because we have agreed to be led by the Spirit to wield and hone our tools of empowerment, whatever form those take for us as unique individuals?

There are creative forces at work within me that have always been there. They have been waiting for me to pay more attention to them, to give them purpose and to value them as potential inspiration for others. Peacemaking, justice, bettering the world that we leave to our children is a worthy purpose. I am learning to see how I can participate in peacemaking in some creative ways that I had realized before. It takes aiming my talents toward these goals. And to that end, what if Spirit is waiting for me more than I am waiting for Spirit? It occurs to me that I also experience God as the other Father who always ‘leaves the light on for me’ – and for all of us. Offering rest and inspiration as I seek to share my gifts in the wider world. These ideas are still evolving.

What happens when you lose sight?

It gets dark real quick! 

Yesterday evening I was sitting outside in my backyard. My husband and I were in different places but on a conference call with our business manager. He was delivering bad financial news. My mind started racing. The tug of war began. The war between worry and centeredness, between resting in easeful, trusting belovedness and walking with anxiety over to shame. Shame was calling.

I noticed what was happening in my body. I noticed the stark contrast between feeling safely pampered in Paris just a few days ago on this gift of a trip from my mother. And the financial concerns I returned home to in real life. A primary concern being, how will this affect the kids? Then…

BAM! The sound of the bird’s body came crashing into the window near me like a torpedo. Swooshing down to follow was another bird. This one  just missed  the  window and landed on the first.  The sharp  reverberation snapped me out of my worry spiral.  I was suddenly mesmerized by the  cloud of feathers fluttering around the birds.

Then, stillness.

As my mind took in what had happened I stood up and saw, directly in my line of sight, standing Triumphant on the dove, a hawklike bird of prey. Staring back at me. And just like that, the hawk spread its wings and lifted off with the dove clenched in its talons. 

WOW. Ok what just happened? This is so bizarre and jarring. I left the conference call and walked over to the feathers on the ground and looked around. All was back to normal.

I looked over to the phone and immediately took in the placement of this shocking event. What does this mean? What a shocking display of animal spirit tearing into my experience and interrupting my Darth Vader meeting of darkness that was coming for my soul. Or at least my peace. What synchronicity this was. It felt like a sign. 

So, I looked it up. “What does it mean, spiritually, when you see a hawk take its prey?” Not in my topical  Bible index of course but in the slightly less holy writ of Google. And not to disappoint, one  tradition, with highly ranked first page search engine optimization on Google, believes what I saw,  “… represents abundance, and that you’ll always be able to care for yourself and your family.” 

Okaaaaaaayyyy. Maybe it IS a sign. And  you know what? At this crossroads of cynicism verses belovedness – I’ll take it. Today the Lord speaks in mysterious ways. Today I still have the power to choose Belovedness. Today God reached through the fabric of my normal and used nature to get my attention. “Hey, hey you. I’m still here. You’re still mine. All this is mine. Keep your eyes on me”.

Also, weirder things have happened. So why shouldn’t they happen to me?

But I also know that even without this bird-sign interruption, I would get to remembrance of resting eventually. Yet this sign helped me get there sooner as it felt personal, caring. And maybe there’s a reason for my needing to get there sooner. Maybe my steadiness is needed now. I determine to remember, “I have the power to set the tone. I can show my children we remain Beloved, come what may.”

So many times the pattern in my life has been God sending me signs – reminders of my belovedness. Reminders of whose I am and of what really matters. I choose to take in those synchronicities, signs and wonders. 

I am reminded that, be it little or big problems, short or prolonged, I do not suffer without hope. Hope of the Spirit’s presence with me here and now, within me, even going before me, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts”. What a gift! 

Now most of my life my guidance has been found primarily in Scripture or “special revelation”. But sometimes, general revelation speaks a word of truth. Today I am going to let nature, or “general revelation” speak to me. Reveal to me. Shake me out of my doubts and back into Beloved’s Presence. 

PS – Since our larger conversation is also about race and injustice, I want to include that when I hear white people say, “God always takes care of me” that it has given my body a reaction and I think “That might also be because you have historically had many safety nets available to you that minorities have not. So it’s easy for you to say that you magically always come out on top”. And I am aware of how it may sound naive when white people say “God always takes care of me materially”. So I write about my hope and trust while also acknowledging how white people have designed a whole system of safety nets to keep us materially and financially stable more easily. And that feels unfair and unfair to attribute it only to God. So I want to acknowledge the unfairness and realness. And the discomfort I have writing something that could sound or even BE ignorant and unfair. I’m here to hold this up to the light and explore that discomfort with you. 

I lose that vision when I separate myself from people. Sometimes that looks like doomscrolling or looking for all the details about the most recent incident of injustice in communities that are important to me. Sometimes it looks like spending the time I have in person with people to complain about others or swap stories about the stupid thing someone said or did. I think that by focusing on my anger about a situation or spending time “othering” I feel like I’m doing something, like I’m engaging on the issue. Both of these activities have a way of swallowing time and attention – there is no bottom to the anger or despair I can feel if I keep digging for more information or seek out people just like me to commiserate about all the people who aren’t like “us.” In dehumanizing others I lose my own humanity. 

What does that look like? I flail about trying to recover or regain control. I’ll start a new blog or start commenting on every post I see. I’ll start planning new programs or approaches to take in my sphere of influence. I’ll order 4 new books to read that will help me unlock how to harness the anger or despair into action. I think I’m a little bit like what C.S. Lewis described as people running around with a fire extinguisher in a time of flood. When I’ve lost sight of whose and who I am I feel like I lose access to the power and light that comes with internal peace. I am “acted upon” rather than acting with intention in the way I seek out information or engage in conversation.

I wish I had good guardrails. I guess if I lose that vision when I separate myself from people, then practices that draws me to people helps me keep that vision. As I think about moments or periods in my life when I felt consistently centered, it is when I have been intentional in my contemplative practices, particularly starting the morning by previewing the day’s activities and conversations in prayer and then reviewing them again at night. I feel like this helps me invite God – and the perspective of whose and who I am – into my day. I also feel consistently centered when I am intentional in my interactions, particularly with my family, coworkers, and people I serve with in my church – people that I interact with the most. I am very intentional with people I don’t know; with close relationships I too often put them on autopilot. When I put my phone down, make it a point to listen to my children, spend moments with coworkers, or ask questions of fellow leaders at church, I find that helps me feel centered. I feel God’s presence in me from moment to moment and am more likely to see others that way. And when I see others that way I am able to be more gentle with myself in recognizing whose I am. Rather than running around with a fire extinguisher in time of flood, I feel like I’m in a rowboat, moving carefully, but with intention, to those in need.

On the action-oriented side of the scale, there sits Superhero Hannah. I’m ready to help, ready to fix—ready to do whatever it is that is required of me to love my neighbors and to love God. This has gotten me in trouble in the past, because sometimes I assume that my way is also God’s way, and then I find out later that while I might have had good intentions, my way wasn’t even in the same ballpark as God’s. I just jumped in without listening or discerning. Superhero Hannah can be performative, too—doing because I should or because I can, instead of because I was called to.

Then, over on that other end sits Over-Achiever Hannah. I want to listen. I want to work on the inside, because I know that I can’t make peace on the outside if I’m not at peace within myself. But then, that desire to get it right creeps in. And that’s a killer. It becomes almost paralyzing—like I want to make sure that I’m doing God’s will and that I have the tools to do so, so I just do nothing until I am certain that I have checked off all of boxes. Whereas Superhero Hannah acts without thinking, Over-Achiever Hannah navel gazes without doing.

My hope is that as we continue to focus on transformation during Journey of Hope, that a pathway to balance will become clearer to me. I so, so desire to get to a point in which I am acting out of my being. For now, though, what seems to be helping me is getting centered. When I pay attention to God and pay attention to my proper role—image bearer, not image manager or image creator—that balance seems to come more naturally. It would seem that knowing who God is and knowing who I am is the first step.

This Journey of Hope continues with Module 2, and something is beginning to shift. I am starting to recognize the presence of a weight that I have been carrying, a weight that has become a part of me, a weight that I didn’t even realize was with me, for I have been carrying it for so long. And this weight is slipping. It is still heavy upon me, but it feels different, maybe even a bit lighter. In the same way, this urgency that I have felt to help my church move from the comfort of power and control to the vulnerability of community is also shifting, slipping, changing.

During this Journey of Hope gathering, Canon Sarah Snyder talked about the journey from conflict to reconciliation, and she told of the ways in which conflict can burden faith leaders. She shared from Conflict and Reconciliation in Churches by Sandra Cobbins about a group of clergy who were severely impacted by conflict within their congregations, and that while these clergy thought that they just needed to be more organized, the reality was that “they also needed to be equipped to deal differently with the destructive and unhealthy behaviors in the parish,” for those were the things that were draining them of energy and their personal time. These faith leaders needed to care for themselves and address their own wounds in order to be better equipped to lead their congregations. Canon Sarah Snyder reminded us that “our ability to love others is deeply connected to our ability to love ourselves.” Is this what is happening with me? In my effort to try to help move my own congregation with love, am I neglecting to love myself?

Father Adam Bucko then spoke on the importance of monastic spirituality and contemplation, and that it is through the inner transformation that we will be able to show up as a healing and reconciling presence in our own communities. Again, have I been working so hard on trying to help move and guide my church that I have failed to care for myself? And how can I be a part of the reconciliation in my own church if I am holding on so tightly to something that, ultimately, I even don’t have the ability to control? I love my church. I have been at my church for almost my entire life. But I am holding on so tightly that it hurts. So, I start to loosen my grip, and when I do, I feel that weight shifting. I sense the beginning of a release of control, the beginning of reconciliation. I sense peace.

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