i do, sometimes it feels like all i have. i wrote some poems about the cheetah and leopard being caged, not realizing how much i was writing about myself.
the book i'm reading talks about feral women. feral being something in its natural wild state, then captured, then returing to the wild again--with instincts askew.
in considering the wildness of women and church, or christianity, i am uncertain how those two things go together. where to draw the parameters. but maybe that is the idea, don't draw any. maybe that is what makes women feel so caged, the appropriate and inappropriate lines drawn willy nilly all over the place so we feel like jewel thieves contorting our bodies trying to navigate the intersecting laser lines (like that movie with sean connery and catherine zeta jones. did you see that movie? it didn't put me to sleep, and that is saying something).
men have eldredge saying,
be wild again. run out into the woods and climb a rock.but who do women have saying these things? not that i want to do what men do. but i want to find the true expression of womanhood, especially, wild womanhood.
i think, somehow, it involves the work and dailyness of our familial obligations, but there is more. there is a creativity, even if it comes in the form of structured organization of your home.
i was talking to my sister about not listening to my peers.
they are leading me down a bad road,i said. because i was struggling with dealing with artistic peer groups.
they don't always know what they are talking about. they make me feel like i'm crazy, and i'm not.i said.
my dilemma, is not so much that we don't share a longing to get to the place of artistic greatness, but that the outcomes are so vastly different. it is times like these when i have to revert to instincts, to being led by the Spirit. even if it leads me back into exile.
my sister lamented not having "those" issues. but i said,
sure you do. we all have them. yours just happen to involve homeschoolers and churchfolk. those are your peer groups that you are struggling with.
the thing i've learned is, it's better to be alone with God, than peopled and yoked to confusion. when the group says or does things that cause me to doubt my hearing, i defect. i walk away. i get quiet and listen to what the Lord is telling me to do. they can't hear God for me, as well meaning as they are. i have to be ever mindful of that fact. even when it means, leaving those groups i love and walking back into the wilderness.
but i thought it was time to thrive? i thought isolation and exile were over? so did i. but no amount of thriving is worth doubting your calling to fit into a group.
how this plays out in actuality, i don't know. i know the walking away part, i do that as appropriate. but i hear the Lord telling me,
don't severe the relationships, but stand back. step away. be aware of what is going on.
once, when i was getting canned from a job at a church, the Lord said,
watch this.and i remember watching the whole thing go down and feeling like a fly on the wall. i was of sober mind at that moment. knowing what i heard was not truth (yet knowing, it was not for me to right it. i could not. the thing was bigger than me). it was such a curious time. a time when i was either going to take the bitter pill of their judgment of me, or listen to God.
God redeemded that situation. it was much fabrication. but i never got the public clearing, i just had to know i was all right with God. i had to trust that He had the outcome in hand and though i would never see it, i had to leave it in His ever capable hands, and walk away. blighted in the eyes of men.
when i lose the bond of trust with people, i revert to my instincts. sniffing the air, testing the spirits, listening to God. not sure if that bond will return, but i am excited about the path ahead. i won't turn from it for any reason, even if i have to walk it alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment