They, (generational change in mother and child) learned to speak love with an accent.
Some years ago, I was reading The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, by Dr. Bruce Perry, and these words filled me with relief and hope: “Like people who learn a foreign language later in life, Virginia and Laura will never speak the language of love without an accent.”
Often I forget this. I’m remembering this morning, with deep gratitude that future generations and the younger ones with whom I currently interact will speak love more fluently.
I’ve been frustrated in some ways, and grieving when I am conscious of it, that I learned to speak love later in life, even though the core capability existed from birth.
Then yesterday I was listening to podcast, I Am America episode 8: Identity and Disability with Conchita Hernández Legorreta, and this morning I feel so much more grateful that I know what my disability is in the world of loving, and so happy that I could gather in spaces with different sets of roomies who celebrate our later learning to speak love, and commit to supporting each other to learn more.
Can you feel my hug of solidarity, gratitude, and encouragement? We’re here to keep learning.
I’m also aware that there are some of us who haven’t learned to speak love yet. That helps me to be a bit more compassionate.
Ten years ago I had a pretty major surgery, and I was super terrified about dying under anesthesia. I went in to do it anyway, because when I decide to do a thing, I do it – right down to making a will. Because if the damn anaesthesiologist killed me, at least I had everything else under control. (I’ve been paying for my funeral for the same reason).
Long story short – I woke up feeling like a rockstar. I had a great sleep (yay anaesthesiologist) and some powerful stuff that numbed all the pain. I was walking all over that ward at Langley Hospital – bouncing off the walls on a super duper rested high – a couple of annoying organs and uninvited squatters lighter.
The nurses and doctor were amazed. I was discharged that same night because I was so happy and full of energy(cue Pharrell).
And then I woke up the next morning…
Fuck! It hurt, and my friend who’d stayed overnight had gone to work. Intestinal bloating, paiiiin. Expelling that gas? PAIIIIIIIN. Tiny incision sites. Pain. Please God. Senokot. Did I say pain?? Kill me now.
Prescription for pain medication filled. Sweet relief. Then I rested and took it as easy as I needed to take it for the next six weeks.
Ten years down the line I have a rare twinge that I think may be related to overdoing it in the first few post-op hours. Otherwise, shedding those problematic bits was the best decision that I’d ever made.
Moral of the story? When we go through any healing processes we will feel pumped full of hope and refreshed by the sweet rest of love. That’s so perfectly wonderful. Enjoy that. And also know that healing takes time. So let’s be joyfully gentle with ourselves.
We may share common healers and healing processes, and please remember that our recovery will be very unique to us, because our internal chemistry and life circumstances are as varied as the number of stars in the sky.
We’re all healing, friends, I have faith in that. I can see the sun rising for each of us in perfect time. It’s all right.
💚🌈🦋🌅
PS: Like two or three days after surgery I went to church on another I’m a happy warrior high. Drove myself there 🤦🏾♀️.
I’m a slow and stubborn processor. Slow – beautiful; ideas marinate, release their natural essence and meld, producing amazing flavour. Stubborn – well pain teaches lessons too. Grateful for that and hopeful that I will keep stepping out of the hole of stubbornness. Because the flip side of stubbornness is being resolute, and I am that too.
“We have once again invited a woman of color to the table and asked for her story, promising to be good listeners, but we have failed. We haven’t honored the pain of her telling it. We haven’t sat with what she says. We haven’t defended her when she was attacked. It’s not okay.” Author not cited.
I feel this deeply. I agree with what the author says here. They were writing in response to a scathing review of Mekdes Haddis’ book: A Just Mission.
I was originally sharing this quote, with a link, and then I realized that so often I share these things, and write similar things because I want to shine light on the shame that is crippling us and driving us apart, but then I realized that by doing this I am holding up one individual as a public scapegoat in shameful sacrifice.
That’s not what resilient traumatized Jesus would do, and I want to be more like Him. I share the writer’s pain around the condemnation of Mekdes’ words, but I think that I am realizing that Jesus shared the better ways of love with us in clear, general terms. He flogged corrupt religious systems, but He never flogged an individual as far as I can recall.
Resilient traumatized Jesus who from birth experienced what it meant to be hunted in order to be neutralized as a threat to power, who understood what it meant to be a part of an oppressed group, who understood what it was like to be a refugee, who understood what it was like to be labelled a bastard child, who understood what it meant to live in a ghetto etc etc etc allowed people to speak without condemning them or shaming them publicly or privately.
It seems like over and over, Jesus fraternized with everyone, He ate with everyone, He knelt in the dirt with everyone, and quietly assured individuals that He would never condemn them, while urging them to carry on and do better. And He challenged corrupt, misguided religious systems.
Resilient, traumatized Jesus, I’m failing hard at being more like Him.
I was being quite hard on myself when I clearly saw what I was doing this morning, which immediately prompted me to edit what I had originally posted – which was just the opening quote with a link.
As I’m reflecting I realize that I didn’t feel shame though. So as My Love (God) continued talking with me, in conjunction with something else amazing that my dear friend, Tina, shared with me today – incredible feedback to grow. I just felt reassured.
They were like, “Look closer, Adia.” This is not who you are, this is a growth opportunity. Look at who you are. Where are you headed today? How has your life been reflecting this light that you haven’t been quite unconsciously competent in yet?”
And just now as I was typing this to share it with my dear friend, my eyes were lifted, almost involuntarily, like my whole face gently lifted upwards to a plaque that she gave me which is on my wall of love and strength above my bed… and now I have tears, loved, loving, empowered, recovering hyper-independent tears.
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name: you are Mine.” Isaiah 43:1
My Love (God) continuously gives me “feedback to grow” with no hint of shame, only love. I am so grateful.
Discussion with people who want to learn how to feel all emotion well is my favourite part of doing my work. We’re just all regular people who want to do well together. What’s below is some of what I’ve learned through lived experience, vulnerable conversation, therapy, reading, listening to podcasts, and listening to other people’s lived experience.
We often fear communicating our thoughts because we’re worried about whether or not we’ll be able to handle seeing someone else experience a painful emotion, as we are honestly addressing our needs from a place of love and hope for healthy connection. It’s better to communicate, because it hurts more to withhold. It hurts us all more, because the painful energy attached to whatever we’re feeling hangs between us like acid eating away at our connections. Energy is palpable. It’s felt (as it should be) because feeling our energy lets us know that we’re either okay or we need to take action to get to okay.
Connect first. Let them know that you want to maintain connection, and want to work on fixing the things that will create unhealthy connection (AKA separation) if left unchecked.
Share about your hurts as well. Don’t assume that there is no room for your loved ones to hear your hurts because they share about theirs. And if you’re accustomed to holding your hurts close in fear of rejection, tap into the courage of vulnerability. Be brave, and share wisely.
If those whom we love never have the opportunity to help someone carry their hurts then they won’t know how to. Mastering anything takes practice.
Be whom you need for yourself. Be willing to carry your own hurts without another person. David, my teacher/mentor reminds me often that we need to be willing to be the only person to carry our hurts. In fact, I think that our very lives depend on this. And also ask other people if they have the space to be present for you, because we were meant to do life in connection with at least one other, and ideally more than just one.
We are made to be our own best adult support, and we are also made to need each other. Both things.
Love for the process. It’s hard; we got this, AND Dad’s got us.
It has been such a gift of love and connection, and grief; which is perfect for my melancholic soul that appreciates the gift of bittersweetness, because my fam how would we know joy without sorrow, pleasure without pain, hot without cold, well-seasoned without bland, or love without force?
Today is the anniversary of the two most bittersweet days of my life, and I celebrate those days which brought such incomprehensible richness to my life. They brought me the gifts of connection and separation which forever changed my heart, enhanced my life, sharpened my vision, and brought into focus my purpose, my dharma, my destiny, my heart, my raison d’être designed by Me and Dad in conjunction with the universal family, with the family who became my ancestors, my biological connection, and the family of my soul who chose me and whom I chose in some way that I still don’t quite understand, but which I have clearly experienced as I have lived.
And so we celebrate: Dad, I, and all of you with His Spirit of love like a beautiful refreshing wind.
For Dad so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him would not die, but would have [the immediate joy of] everlasting life. For Dad did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved. John 3:16, 17
And so we celebrate. Happy birthday week to me. I am here, and I am here with you.
The prodigal son did not go home because he wanted to make amends to his father. He went home because he needed a place to be cared for, and he knew his father’s caring heart based on his father’s consistent actions.
Me too. Dad has proven His heart for me, and I can consistently lean in to Him.
This is what Jesus wanted us to know. Dad is not and has never been unapproachable as some religious writers would have us think.
He does whatever He needs to do to be with us, and He comes in whatever form He can be closest to us when we allow Him to come close. He does this for ALL people without exception. Immanuel: God with us.
I want my children to always know that they can come home – no matter what, and that is why I do the work needed to stay in healing so that I can be more like Dad. Because the moment that I asked for healing I was healed (even though I did not know it yet). And then Dad taught me what I was healed from, how to stay in healing, and how to claim healing when I am wounded by my hand or someone else’s hand again.
But have you ever wondered why the son went away? I imagine that his brother who stayed at home was just as he had always been. I wonder if that brother’s attitude overshadowed the father’s love and caused the prodigal son to blame the father for his hurt.
For generations people who are not heterosexual have had to assess risk in coming out of the closet to live authentically in all areas of their lives. Should it matter whom you consensually love in the most intimate way? NO. And it has mattered. Because people have been killed; their lives have been threatened; their livelihood has been at risk; they face loss of significant relationships; they have been refused the opportunity to have a family. They live with the fear of being themselves, because being themselves could cause them harm.
I feel such deep gratitude to people like Ellen Degeneres, who chose to come out knowing that they risked losing everything, even their lives, as so many like Matthew Shepard did.
It is time that we are all able to live out. All people were created with the right to live freely. Individual beliefs lived out in individual lives is our God-given right, and He is quite able to be the individual’s guide. Our restrictive hands of fear are not needed and have no place in other people’s lives.
NB: In the video below, in the example regarding Jesus and divorce, Jesus did not ask us to stay in places and situations that will harm us and/or our kiddos. Jesus otherwise tells us to know how to shake the dust off our feet, and He also tells us to reclaim our blessing when we are treated inhospitably. The point that I was trying to make is that not every cultural law or tradition that we accept is God’s ideal. Much of what we do is because of human selfishness and fear. This is our world’s reality.
Psst: Mama rocking it alone. Today isn’t our day. I know that people tend to tell you happy Father’s Day, but can I tell you why I say no thank you?
We ARE amazing mothers, and we do that on our own with a whole world looking on telling us how we are superhuman for carrying the responsibilities of two people when we’re not. The world elevates us as superheroes because that lie deadens onlookers’ consciences when they don’t step in to serve as a part of our community (it’s called cognitive dissonance).
Mama, if you buy into the lie that you are an amazing father you will rob your children of the best of you, because you will keep trying to do ALL of the things, at the cost of your own health and well-being, and your children, over whom the statisticians declare doom, will suffer too.
So, here’s what I suggest we do:
1. Look what is true in the face
2. Grieve the physical absence of the father
3. Find your healer and begin to heal from the painful loss
4. Make a healing plan for the wounds from the barrage of judgment that will come from bystanders.
5. Plan life with your children as mom alone, and build a village of other moms who understand.
6. Know that God will fill the father gaps that matter most now, and then in eternity all will be well again
7. Expect pain. Know that beauty will come of it in some way.
Your children will have what matters most – a strong, vibrant, innovative you, if you face truth with love.
Happy unFather’s Day single mama. Today is a day for you to love what is.
I choose Love. My Supreme Father is Love. My earthly father chose Love. My earthly mother chose Love. I choose Love. My children choose Love. Every day, I see more of love displacing our family’s pain, because we choose to make it so.
I know exactly who my enemy is, and so while I mourn many ills in life, I ask my Father to help me to remember that my enemy does not have a human face. My enemy, whom I shall not name, is the instigator of evil, the creator of crosses, the designer of destructive distraction, the wanter of worship, devoid of love.
He wishes me to live in fear so that my mind will be too clouded to turn to Love. I refuse. I choose love.
Our collective human pain is bound up in crosses, so many crosses, all meant to divide us. I could write an epistle on our crosses. I could write a list, a list that would never end, of the ills and the isms that separate us from each other, and which make it so much harder to love. But I won’t. Today, I’ll just mention one. Racism. The attached pictures define it. Sterling K. Browne speaks to it: https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=264456458069828&_rdr
This is the legacy of modern human relationships. It is impossible to legislate away the psychological impact of this type of behaviour. Legislation may make racism illegal, but legislation cannot dig deep, unearth the experiences, process them, cognitively integrate them, and choose to change the neurological pathways that pass these conscious and unconscious ways of seeing each other down to our children. We must each personally choose to engage in that process. There is no other way; any other claim to victory is pyrrhic; we stifle others and we do the same to ourselves.
The means of suffocation is not usually as graphic as a knee nonchalantly ground into one’s throat, but every so often these visibly tragic events vividly remind us of how intentionally we have to breathe in order to bear the subconscious evil that haunts us, and which we daily carry as crosses meant to torture instead of seeking to redeem relationships and restore love.
This evil will continue for many more generations if individually and collectively we fail to choose the cultivation of love.
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7,11-13 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Corinthians%2013:1-7,11-13&version=NLT
Photo 1: The lynching of Reuben Stacy “Reuben Stacy, a 37-year-old black man, hangs from a tree on Old Davie Road in Fort Lauderdale, blood trickling down his body and dripping off his toes. Behind him, a white girl, about 7 years old, looks on, a strange smile on her face as she takes in the sight of the “strange fruit” her elders had just created that hot day in July 1935.”
Psst: Mama rocking it alone. Today isn’t our day. I know that people tend to tell you happy Father’s Day, but can I tell you why I say no thank you?
Of Thunderstorms and Rainbows 