Leaving it Behind: A Self Portrait

Lost at Sea, Part III: The Divine Masculine

You prop yourself against the wall of the sea cave
your long legs bent against your chest
your long arms resting on them.

You look at me with angular features
those deep set brown eyes
and a warm smile

I smile back, but,
"I don't want to talk to you."

You give a single nod.
You understand.

We sit apart, together.

We listen to the ocean as it echos around the rock walls.

We see the waves smash against the cliffs and the sand.

We watch the shore receive and lose that kiss again and again.

Longing by the nakedpastor

Do I Believe?

I do

in the way that 

I reach for the string tied to a balloon

before it disappears into the endless blue

and I won't be able to grasp it any more.

And will I be able to clutch it in my tired,

wounded hands

before it flies away forever?

Do I even want to?

That

I don't know. 

Release by the nakedpastor

False god

"God loves you
Well, not you
But the version of you
He has to imagine
is good enough to love."

Oh friend with jaw dropped
at news of my apostasy
the phenomenal thing isn't my disbelief.
It's that you cannot fathom
why I would want nothing to do with
that god.

by the nakedpastor

Lost At Sea, Part II: Flicker

I cannot tell you if it's over.

I can tell you that I am sitting in a cave,
half of it carved from the white marble of the moon
and half of it scooped from the sea.
And as it turns in the inky sky and the waves ebb at my feet,
I curl into a ball under soft, warm blankets of starshine and I lament.

I hurt, I hurt, I hurt
is the litany my soul cannot stop repeating.
I have used all the other words
and now there is nothing left
to speak to the darkness.

And how remarkable
that Her strong, soft voice
doesn't answer back with a cure.
She doesn't tell me I'm too emotional
to understand the patterns of the waves.
She doesn't tell me that if I wasn't hurting I would see the trail
because She knows the only paths worth parting the seas for
are those anyone, even the hurting
especially the hurting
can travel.
She doesn't tell me that I'm too sensitive,
that my trial of being flung into the sea
has nothing to teach me about understanding
when it happens to those around me.
Because She knows the wounded warrior
has eyes the unmarred soldier can never glimpse,
unless they vow to let their swords rust and crumble into the sea.

No. Instead,
She cradles me in the sea-light and whispers back to my soul
I know.

"And I'm learning

So I'm leaving

And even though I'm grieving

I'm trying to find a reason

Let loss reveal it." 

-Florence Welch

Lost At Sea, Part I: Overture

I was on an island shore. There he stood, miles away, on the stormy seas, just outside a ship.

"I refuse to walk out to him," I said to the sky.

"Do it anyway," said a voice.

I walked over the grey waves pummeling rocks and spraying water into my face and I stood a short distance from him. We screamed over the roar of the waves.

"Come over to me!" he said.

"I can't. I won't!" I was scared to be lured into his siren song yet again, only to be irreparably harmed.

"Come over."

I walked over. My last act of obedience. I decided to say my piece. The waves near us grew quiet. I grabbed his hands in mine and looked in his eyes.

"I can't do this anymore." I began to sink beneath the water. "I don't believe in this anymore," and my body submerged under the water as I let go of his hands.

Was I drowning? Swimming? Down in the distance I saw a warm light. Instead of breaking the surface I decided to dive further in to examine it.

There was a woman who made the grey water around her turn blue, who was cloaked in cerulean and verdant greens, who was warmth and light. She had long auburn hair filled with beads and shells, and an open warm face with a welcoming smile.

I went down to her and entered her home, a dry cavern escape from the waters.

"I've lost so much," I said, as I entered the doorway and felt the warmth of candelight envelope me.

mothers
fathers
brothers
friends
churches
schools
health

"I had to keep asking questions. I had to keep digging. I had to listen to my intuitions and my mind and my heart when it warned me there was danger, because years of not listening to myself had led to my worst wounds. I've lost so much."

I spoke and I spoke and I spoke and I don't remember all that I said. And I couldn't tell you all that she said. But it felt like home, and what it feels like to be a beloved daughter.

It felt like being able to call someone mother after years of never being able to do so. (If you have not known this pain, it is difficult to fathom the joy).

"God is Mother," she said, and for the first time in my life I was embraced by my Mother.

She looked deep into my eyes and smiled and I felt her pride in me. Someone proud of me not for having the right answers but for being my curious, deep, questioning self.

"Go," she whispered in my ear. "You're ready."

And I floated to the surface, where there was more of her same warm light, where the storm was over, where I knew I belonged as myself.

Charlatan

Goddess forgive me for

ever following a man who

never could admit he's wrong

tempting his proteges with claims of authority
rearing his children with gilded paternalism

yearning to devour us into himself. 

"Sometimes all that we believe
Turns out to be just a scam.
Just trying to get my world
Get it undamned."
-Over the Rhine