words are my habit.
i’ve often wondered why i don’t feel when things crumble. certain pain just doesn’t hurt me. it has to be close, not close in proximity but close in memory. hotel rwanda hurt b/c it reminded me of liberia. 9/11 didn’t do much. the london bombs didn’t do much.
i wish i could feel pain beyond my memory, but i’m so far removed. so far, i’m not connected. so far, i’m somewhat safely distant enough to not worry. that knowledge confuses me.
The writing gurus say not to write about the pain when it is fresh. By that they do not mean not to write about it at all, but not to share it just yet when your skin is still hot, when your brain is still hot. Don’t share it when you’re still on fire. I’ve […]
Every year our church had at least one evangelistic series, at least that’s what I recall. At least one. If not three. On some scale. And the best thing about them wasn’t that people were giving their lives to Jesus, although of course that’s a wonderful thing, but for me at age 7, the best thing about these evangelist series was the baptism at the end.
And I’m learning that to sit with grief (which is sometimes seemingly out of the reach of hope or any warm sentiments) is to honor our capacity to love. At some point the chest hurt eases but I’m not grabbing for that moment.
