the 3rd degree
it is still safe to live here (an Ash Wednesday reflection, ft. an original poem)
Hello gentle-people,
This one is heavy. Even as I am…maybe years away from being able to unpack traumatic events from my life in plain language. But I hope the metaphors I offer here not only serve as touchstones for me to come back to when I find words…I hope they meet you in ways that help you gravitate towards a somatic reflection for unpacking whatever you need to unpack (options for reflection are provided in the “landing tracks” below).
3rd Degree
today I uncovered another mystery
wound from the 3rd degree
and as I wonder why
I question you
I circle the scab
wishing to lift the skin
so the blood could
help me remember
how much it hurt
to reach for you and
recoil in folded confession:
I have not learned my lesson
I lean in closer to curious places
wired into the celebrated crisis at
the heart of belief
today I uncovered another mystery
wound from the 3rd degree
and as I wonder why
I question you
you question me on all the things
I lean on when your warmth is close
but my doubts are closer
and you in your memory
of all the times you have been singed
assess the damage and remind me
it is still safe to live here
joy under pressure
I have been wondering how to talk about calligraphy here. As someone who collects different pens to try out every once in a blue moon. As someone who takes any opportunity to make a sign as an invitation to invite the ornate. Perhaps it began when I was affirmed that I wrote well in cursive.1 Or from the practice of trying to keep my writing neat, when I was disciplined by writing lines. Maybe it formed out of the necessity to age up my writing as a young girl who had to write things for her immigrant parents. Whatever the reason, I assure you, my actual handwriting looks nothing like this script above. Handlettering and calligraphy are more connected to drawing images than casual handwriting. They are a way of dressing up texts to communicate more than what is on the page.
As I have shared, tenderness can be formed from the impact of abuse, terror, loss, and misfortune. I know in me, there is a spirit of carefulness that comes from the fear of what might happen if I let something fall as I was carrying it.2 I cannot take you into this pain, but I know that as I trace letters carefully, I can feel my own hands hurting at times. I can come so close to wanting perfection that I risk injury. In those moments, I must find my way back to the simple recognition that…this is a hobby.
This was something I picked up to do for fun. Briefly monetized for a season, but eventually reclaimed as a hobby because sometimes my hands just need something to do. Something to do so my mind can avoid going somewhere else. I meant to take the pressure off…not find myself under it in the exploration of lines, curves, and meaning.
I am also a guitarist, and I wonder how to bring it here. Not to perform, per se—performance is complicated for me.3 I play my guitar alone in my room by myself most days a week for about an hour or two. I play like my life depends on it. Sometimes, my phone refuses to respond to my callused fingertips. To some extent, pressure makes my music possible. What should I make of this?
today I uncovered another mystery
wound from the 3rd degree
There is perhaps more in this poem than I can unpack in one newsletter. But to begin, I wrote it for a Lenten guide. I was told the theme would be fire. I let the theme sit with me until I could figure out what it was I wanted to say. While celebrating accomplishments, a pain emerged and said “Notice me.”
I circle the scab
wishing the lift the skin
so the blood could
help me remember
I just spent the last two years learning about trauma…then spent this past year living some of my own. Recounting those events with a friend this past week and thinking about where I am now, I realized how much pressure I put myself in to perform normal/healthy for others. I realized how good it was to have people around me who believed me into this iteration of myself. I did not have to expose my wounds or shed fresh blood to be believed.
The bruises were enough. The scabs were enough. The wounds were enough. The memory of the burn was enough.
writing lines
I have not learned my lesson
I think of those times when teachers would have me write the same sentence over and over for a certain amount of pages. I think about how easily words stopped looking like words. I would go back to the original sentence to see if I had missed something only to find out that I simply lost a sense of the words on the page. All that mattered was filling the page. What was I supposed to learn in this practice? Supposedly, it was whatever the sentence was I was supposed to write…over and over and over….
I remember days of memorizing scriptures. Days writing them down on index cards and writing poems to integrate what I learned. Again, a practice tied to both joy and pressure. Another form of writing lines, figuring out where they are, and staying within them.
Some part of me is writing to remember how I got here…from writing lines to reading between them—to ignoring them altogether or allowing them to serve as guides where they feel compatible for making something beautiful. I did not get here without breaking a few rules…and a bit of mourning as I held on to the truth that I would write lines to find my way back to them.
“what must I do to be safe?”
and you in your memory
of all the times you have been singed
assess the damage and remind me
it is still safe to live here
In Yolanda Pierce’s beautiful book, In My Grandmother’s House, she revisited the meaning of the Greek word often translated as “salvation” and found that it could also mean “made whole,” “healed,” or “preserved.”4 From that she asked the question, What must I do to be safe?
As I consider her question, I consider the ways I am finding safety in this season. I consider the many moments—in my journey of faith and my becoming where I was unsure that I would ever be. To receive the affirmation that “it is still safe to live here” represents so much:
I am safe in this body. I am safe in the chosen family I call my church. I am safe in the world of ideas that are both bright and burning….I will not be consumed by them. I am held in the witness of the one with the wounded side and hands. He doesn’t ask for proof(s)5 or force write lines, but instead, joins me where joy and pressure meet. We enjoy the curve of words together and embrace the roundness found in their new forms as they invite new meaning and wonder.
Just as I can carry legacies of joy and pressure in the hobbies I hold dear, I can go forth knowing I am safe to live here—where my faith and doubt meet, neither in need of primacy. Still, I am not done questioning him and trying to figure out what to do with what I have learned. I have not forgotten how far I have felt from safety…my body remembers.
I consider that uncovering mystery wounds can happen when you start to feel safe. When you are no longer on the run, no longer on high alert..when ease starts to settle in. This poem was unearthed in a moment of joy I let sink in. My body remembers and wants me to hold it all, the memories of joyous celebrations and the scars that haunt them.
You cannot say a person is “salvaged,” since they are not property. You can say they were rescued, or found alive through the ash. We for sure can’t say salvaged…we sometimes don’t even say “safe,” since people like me are still working on experiencing safety in a myriad of ways. You call us “survivors.”
I am a survivor. The simplest tasks of daily life are often interrupted by the recognition of mystery wounds. But I do my best to live, reaching for the people, practices, and words that remind me of this affirmation: it is still safe to live here.
landing tracks
🐦⬛ A BENEDICTION:
Today, I offer this poem, meant to hold many journeys for me, as an Ash Wednesday meditation. For those who need a place to linger this Ash Wednesday may these words honor the various experiences around the flames that create the ashes that mark us. Since it is also Valentine’s Day, may this also serve to remind us that love is not abusive. Some of us are surviving with mystery wounds that meet us in the joy of being loved truly, without abuse. May your hearts find comfort today. May your bones settle and may your chest rise and fall with sweet relief.
I am praying for those who have yet to find safety and distance enough to say what is true: that was painful. For those still finding a world of wonders for God, including all the implications for the question “What is keeping me here?”
On this day of hearts, many of which are heavy, I pray yours finds refuge.
🐦⬛ A REFLECTION: it is still safe to live here
As you take this affirmation (with or without ashes), what comes up for you? What is unearthed, under the joy or the grief?
Who is speaking this over you? Who are the people who form the body of those who believe you without you having to show blood to legitimize the wound?
Try breathing in (holding for 3) and out (releasing for 3), while holding yourself in a warm embrace, and for each breath cycle, say “it is still safe to live here.” Take 30 seconds or so to do a body scan, noticing where the words land for you. Repeat three times or until you are satisfied.
🐦⬛ A READ: Read Ruby Oluoch’s piece, “The Last Word,” on Pollen Midwest
What happens when the question of “What do I have to do to be safe?” meets nonprofit (justice-minded) organizations and their need to confront issues of wellness?
I had the privilege of helping edit this piece, or as I like to say, bear witness to its becoming. For those of you who know what it's like to leave an organization for the sake of your health and well-being and not get a chance to share your last words...this one's for you. For those organizations we’ve left, trying to figure out how to change their cultures….may this spark a reckoning.
🐦⬛ A STUDY: Follow Sacred Self-Care by for Lent!
Click here to see the book! Click here to join the group study.
Back in 4th grade when teaching cursive in school was a thing.
I am holding space here for those who, like me, did not have a gentle childhood. Who knows perfectionism as a form of survival…who never want to leave room for mistakes, and punish themselves first to lessen the pain of other punishment. I see you.
I am planning to overcome this, one open mic at a time.
Pierce, Yolanda. In My Grandmother’s House. p.110
proofs. [noun] A theological jargon for an explanation is usually rooted in rationalism. A good example would be Thomas Aquinas’ Five Proofs.