Just go until you feel different. I think I’ve felt a lot of ways recently. I tested positive for covid at the beginning of this week. It’s interesting to me that anxiety and fear get loud when I’m isolated and feeling vulnerable. Like that’s when things have gotten sort of bad, historically. It hasn’t been bad lately. Not like gripping and paralysis (to the point that I can’t flow anymore) or anything as damning as that. That seems to be my super power, (flowing through it). I just smiled while typing that.
Still, I think there’s something in the solitude and stillness and quiet. This voice of fear and anxiety is telling me that what I’m doing is costly. I am living. I am going towards the wild frontier of what could be and is not yet, but what I hope might exist if I put myself into the ring and fight for what who I want to become. That person is more fully joel than any other iteration of myself, because that joel gets to live a life. Gets to fail. Gets to be humbled. Gets to rejoice. Gets to trust in my beautiful hope that whispers resurrection in the failing structures of late capitalism and the objectification of sacred humanity by the corporate entities. I can still burn defiant to the shadow. A small fire, but strong enough to call those in need of warmth to this light and heat. I think the fire is a beautiful metaphor, because the fire is a powerful conversation in itself.
Material to burn and that which burns the material. Fire cannot exist outside this conversation. I think God’s like that. Intimately connected and lovely. Vulnerable and powerful. I think there’s been times when the voices of disaster got so loud inside my head and, simultaneously, my lived experience confirmed that narrative enough, that I accepted paralysis as a way of being. Being empty is it’s own kind of invitation. Being in need is an opportunity to receive care. And even in those bleak moments of experiencing the feeling of failure or loss or the gutting of a dream in the most visceral sense in front of you. “Honey, it’s alright to be alone. It’s alright to be amongst the rubble and stone.”
A few things that feel clearer now than they ever have before include: I am deeply cared for by folks in my life and the more i tend to the home i’m building inside, the more i’m able to deeply care for those around me. It’s okay to remember. It’s okay to forget. It’s good to remember. How do you remember yourself?
I don’t have it all figured out. I’m trying. I want to try. I’d like to be a person of peace. I’d like to cultivate wholeness. I’m yearning for the feeding of those who desire hope and the freeing of those bound by self hatred into the light of self acceptance and true desire. What if that is all there is? What if in the end all that’s left is communion? Broader than I dared to imagine, kinder than I had hoped.
What if what we are going towards is being found in a place where we are safe and alright. Where we are loved and celebrated. Where there is joy beyond what we could hope. Love that conquers all. Wins all. Takes us back to itself in the most generous way. That’d be something I’d write home about. Witnessing that glory. Witnessing that communion. Witnessing that generosity and being impacted by it. I already have through a looking glass, in a vague way.
I think it’s wild to think about what humans have inside them. I think about adversity a lot these days. I know that facing difficult challenges in life is an opportunity for deeper connection to occur. When I am willing to humble myself and hear (no) for an answer and still show up for myself in the face of that possible reality, that’s when the real work starts to happen. I think that’s when the most beautiful moments in life can happen. When i become aware of my need for something.
I think there’s this thing where we really want to show up for each other, but sometimes we don’t know how. Sometimes we are scared that if we do show up people will try to take advantage of us. Or maybe we have shown up in the past and there has been trauma surrounding that way of being. All of that is valid. And still, to myself I say, fear not, dear heart. There’s a place that we are excavating together where we can live in peace and find joy. A place where our touch brings healing and not harm. A place where when we are gone we are missed, but not because of something superficial, but because we have learned to call to the loveliness buried deep inside ourselves and the other and there is something so compelling about this that a deep yearning draws the doors of the heart open in it’s absence.
Be still and quiet. Come in and commune. Home isn’t that far off. Friendship is a beautiful place where I can be held and minded. Where I can be weak sometimes. Where I can struggle and show it. Where I can be strong and celebratory. Where I can give of myself in abundant ways. Where I can find solace from the storms. To be with friends in a true way is one of the greatest gifts we have. To be honest and alive.
structures of home 