Church of Art: Maybe It's Time

Hello everyone. If you’ll all settle down in your pews, we’ll begin our service. Today’s sermon is brought to you in part by Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan of The Milk Carton Kids.

Church of Art: Maybe Its Time [ 4:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about timing. Specifically about the timing around when to stay or when to go.
When to leave churches…
When to end a romance…
When to move out of the house…
When to step away from a friendship…

The challenging thing about life, is that it’s  a moving target. We are always changing, always growing.

That’s why the yogis tell you balance is not static. That’s why we need flow. That’s why “organic” is a buzz word.

The thing is, when you are growing, there’s a period where it’s helpful to stay put awhile longer. To get a little more shelter from the storm. To rely on some familiar resources.

In the best case scenario, staying put means that iron sharpens iron, and the friction you experience in the old place helps you form your new views.
Remaining in the struggle for awhile can grow your communication skills. Being present to the process can help you refine the language you use to describe your new way of seeing the world. The challenge of a shifting relationship can teach you to listen as well as to speak.

There’s good reason sometimes, to stay.

Then again, it doesn’t always work that way.

Stay too long past the expiration date — with a person, in a place, amongst a tribe–and dysfunction sets it. We can develop a kind of perverse pleasure in staying mad. In staying stuck. In staying put.

You get to feel superior, when you are the one “right” voice in the midst of a community who is stuck in the dark ages.
You don’t have to risk the great unknown.
You can pretend you have a hand to hold although really, you’re just the cheese standing alone.

Eventually though, it’s time.

Time to leave the tribe of your youth.
Time to shape your own path.
Time to be yourself again, all the way out to your edges.

Maybe it’s time? Kenneth and Joey say it so well:

Did someone hurt you many years ago?
Did someone desert you when you needed them the most?
And the pain stayed with you everywhere you’d go,
And it’s been so long now but you just can’t seem to let it go,

Maybe it’s time.
Maybe it’s time.
Maybe it’s time to tell it you don’t need it anymore.  

Did you lose someone that you loved?
Did they move far off or do you picture them above?
There’s an emptiness inside you and it’s worse when you’re alone,
And it feels so heavy now like you’re carrying the weight of a stone,

Maybe it’s time.
Maybe it’s time.
Maybe it’s time to tell it you won’t carry it anymore.

We ain’t got a long time and there’s a lot to do
But first you gotta decide to leave some things behind
Maybe it’s time.
Maybe it’s time.
Maybe it’s time to leave your chains behind.

Are you ready to leave behind the things that do not serve you well?
Can you take the step over the threshold?
Will you reconstruct that which you most value?

I think you are.
I know you can.
I hope you will.

(Amen? Amen.)

Gentlemen, will you play us out…?

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Relig*ish: What to do with the story of the cross?

Hello Magpie,

I got a little teary this week at Relig-ish, when I talked about the personal connection I have to the story of the cross. (Don’t worry, it’s not preachy at all. It’s just me, telling my tale.)

I made this video in response to a viewer-submitted question about how to relate to the story of the cross at Easter, if you are undergoing a spiritual shift. I hope it’s helpful to your growing, expanding sprituality as well.

I would absolutely love to do most of the episodes in response to Y.O.U.!  Do let me know if you have a question about soulcare and the Relig-ish life. You can drop your question in the comments, or email me using the contact button at the top of this page. (I’m happy to help.)

Thanks so much for being here today!

Much Warmth,

Rachelle
*your magpie girl

 

In our private Facebook group, the Flock is helping each other work through their relationship with the Bible at Easter time, while simultaneously celebrating the Vernal Equinox. (It’s that kind of mix-n-match group, my friends.) Would you like to join us? Click here to register, or here for the long version. We’d love to say “welcome home.”

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How to Keep Your Creative Space Clear

 

Hi There, my Magpie! This is just a quick note before the goodies…We have some new spaces open in Flock, our online soulcare community! The way Flock works is you subscribe for $15/month. In return you receive a soulcare lesson from me via video (sometimes two, or this month, three!) Then this really great group of women meets up in our private Facebook group for support and good humor. It’s a lovely little package for less then the cost of a weekly coffee. If you’d like to join us, I’ll send out March’s lesson retroactively, and you’ll be all ripe and ready for April. Just click here. (Welcome home.) Now…on with the show!

How to Keep Your Creative Space Clear

When I was a pastor there was a lot of talk amongst my colleagues about what we should call the space in which we worked.

Was it an “office”–a place to do business, and maybe some counseling?
Was it a “study”–a place to hole-up and block out the world while you studied Greek and wrote your sermons?
Or was it a “studio”–a place where you connected with the creative energy of The Divine, and took on apprentices?

(I bet you can guess which one I preferred!)

Now I take care of creative souls, and my work space is a studio in the small bedroom at the top of the stairs. My friend painted the room a soft yellow with a dark lavender ceiling. My father took off the sliding doors and converted the closet into a niche for mixed media work. The girls painted watercolors for the wall by the window. And I brought the goldfish. (Her name is Virginia. Get it? Because I have a room of my own.)

To me, the studio is holy. A sacred space set-aside to offer soulcare to myself and others — through writing and collage, videos and coaching calls.

When my sacred space gets clogged up, my work doesn’t flow.
When my creative space gets cluttered, my brain gets foggy.
And when I don’t use the studio enough, stagnation sets in and the couch starts looking better and better.

This month in my online soulcare community Flock, we are celebrating Simplicity through the practice of Space Clearing. We’ve been clearing our dinning room tables, de-cluttering the corner we keep meaning to use for meditation, and even shoveling out our overly-busy monkey minds. After receiving the video lesson this month, one of my Flock members reached out in our private Facebook group and asked for some advice on clearing out her creative space. Since that’s a common conundrum amongst creative folks, I thought I’d share our Flock advice with y.o.u.

Here (in a 5 minute video) are 4 reasons your creative space keeps getting cluttered, along with some tips for clearing it out (and keeping it clear.)

May your holy space help you connect with what you hold most dear today.

(Amen? Amen.)

Much Warmth,

Rachelle
*your magpie girl

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Good. Enough.

Good. Enough. [ 4:51 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last week in the car my 14 year old daughter, Eden, turned to me and said:

“Mom, you used to raise money for a food bank. Then you ran a shelter for homeless teens. Then you were a pastor. After that you raised us, and took in the boy down the street when he needed fostering. When G was in the NICU for so long, you took care of his family. And you look out for your people on-line when they are having a hard time. You are always being a caregiver. It’s just not in Africa. So why do you always think you should be doing more?”

Eden is right. I am a compassionate caregiver. Paid and unpaid. Job title or not. My life is compassion. My life is service.

Yet I constantly under value the way I live.

I refer to my work as “my expensive hobby.”
I call my life ”cushy.”
I self-identify as a privileged middle-aged upper-middle-class white lady.
(And I am. But I’m aware of my privilege, and I use it as well as I know how in service to others.)

So why do I so often fall into the trap of thinking it’s not enough?

Because I believe the lie.

The lie that if it’s not intense it doesn’t count.
The lie that a caregiver doesn’t also deserve (and need!) care and comfort herself.
The lie that if I’m not changing the world, I’m not doing anything worthwhile.

I suspect it’s not just me. I suspect that you also get stuck in the same erroneous thought whirlpool. And those lies spin you round and round, moving you from reflection to rumination, sapping your strength, and making you wonder if you are actually making progress swimming up, or if you are slowly sinking down?

You deserve to know the truth. In fact, it’s the only way to really live. So here it goes, my magpie. Here’s the gods’ honest truth…

You are living intentionally.
You are attentive to the world around you.
You are compassionate.

You are not “good enough.” You are good.
(And that is enough.)

Click to spread the good word.

This isn’t going to be true someday.
It’s not waiting for when you are finally done running on the endless self-help hamster wheel.
It’s not a merit badge you will get when you finally feel grown up.

These are truths about your personhood right now.

Does that mean we aren’t ever supposed to change, you and I? Does it mean that we don’t have lessons to learn? Am I implying we never make mistake, snap at our partners, eat too many donuts?

No, not at all.

You are not broken. Niether are you are stagnant. Nor are you done.

You are simply, growing.
Evolving.
Becoming.

Are you enough right now? Can you be enough tomorrow? Will you grow in your enough-ness for as long as you surely shall live?

I think you are.
I know you can.
I hope you will.

(And I’ll be doing it there with you.)

Amen? Amen.

Need a little more soulcare on this topic?
You might also like:

 

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Relig*ish: Old Tapes, New Messages

I have been thinking lately, about this idea so many of us seem to have that we are at our core, damaged.

Many of the people I speak with are struggling, trying to get a grip on the idea that we are, just as humans, enough.

Last week in the podcast, I pointed out a few general places where we might have picked up the message that we are endlessly broken. Today, I’d like to point out a few more — this time focusing on some old tapes you might have picked up from a more narrow religious past, along with some suggestions of new tapes you might start playing in your new, relig-ish future.

What about you, my mapgie? What religous tapes are you carrying around, and what messages do you want to carry into your relig-ish future? Let us know some of the sticking points in your history and share how you’ve grown around them (or ask for help to figure it out!) The comments are open, because it’s like I always say, “There aint’ nowhere to go, but together.”

 

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Stop Trying So Hard

Stop Trying So Hard [ 3:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Listen friends, what I want to tell you is this…

You do not need to self-improve.

You do not need to struggle.

You do not need to radically reshape anything.

I don’t know where we all got this idea that we are endlessly broken.

Perhaps it is from those pinspiration boards, telling you how to exercise that two inch space of sinew and muscle, there under your armpit.

Or maybe it was at school when they started threatening you with your permanent record.

Then again, you could have picked it up at church where they said you were sinful at birth.

But here’s the truth,

You are not inherently flawed.
You are a human in the process of growing.

(Click to tweet the good word.)

We don’t judge a sapling for not being a 100 year old redwood. We don’t begrudge the new-sprung ivy for not yet covering the wall. We don’t critique the crocus for not yet being in bloom.

No. We celebrate growing things – feeding them sunlight and fresh air. Watering them without drowning. Giving them the right kind of fuel.

So today, my magpie, instead of writing a to-do list that is impossible to accomplish
Instead of pledging to never, EVER ever eat _____ again.
Rather than dreaming BIG…

Yes, instead of doing things that hurt and berate you, could you please do this:

Be kind to you baby soul.

(More good news to share around.)

  • Could you please treat your body as you would a child? (Feed it nicely. Give it fresh air. Let it play. Let it rest.)
  •  Could you stop trying to save the world, and just be nice to the cashier instead?
  •  Could you notice how gleeful you are about that daffodil bulb, bursting out of the two-inch strip of grass between the curb and the sidewalk, and look at yourself in the mirror the same way?
    (Because you are just as wonder-full.)

Please, my magpie. Stop beating yourself up for not being “there” yet. (Wherever “There” is.)

Please step off the endless hamster wheel of self-help and self-improvment.

Please stop worrying that you will fall for Complacency. (I just don’t think Complacency is your type.)

You are wise. You are intentional. You are reflective. You are caring.

So stop trying so hard.

Grow easy.

(Amen? Amen.)

***
Want a supportive tribe to help you grow without strain or striving?. You’re invited to join us in Flock, an online soulcare community for intentional, right-fit, soulful living. We’re clearing space in real, do-able ways this March. We’d love to have you with us. Click here to join, or here for all the info. (Welcome Home.)

 

 

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9 Signs You Might Be Relig*ish, What to do about Easter, and more!

Hi Magpies,

It’s been a little quiet around here while I’m off working on some writing projects. But I do have a handful of new episodes from my weekly You Tube show at Sogo Media. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and get your ideas for future episodes. What would you like to hear me present at Relig-ish?

Ep. 15: Nine Signs You Might be Relig-ish

Ep 14: How to Talk about Jesus at Easter in Post-Church Home

Ep 13: Vintage Magpie: The Role of Online Communities

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Single? Partnered? Seperated? (This is for you on Valentine's Day)

Every year I think  I should write new blessings for Valentine’s Day. Then every year I read these, and I think, “Oh, The Muse was good when those came to me.” So, I send them out again into the world, as is.

Kissed with love.
Sealed with affection.

May one of them make your day brighter today.

Love,

*your magpie girl

 

A blessing for all the single people, with Saint Lucy. 

 

A blessing for those who are partnered. (‘Cuz it’s not always easy.)

 

A blessing for the seperated. (I see you. You are loved.)

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Vintage Magpie: Choosing the Beast

Some thoughts on love for Valentine’s week…(originally posted 9/08)

Choosing the Beast

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I sat in silence for the first time in a long time today. No television on as background noise, no music, not even the warm tumble-thump of the dryer. Just the candles and a tub full of warm water, and the sounds of my noisy mind slowly settling into stillness.

There is a way of holding still without becoming stiff that only happens for me in the womb like waters of a bathtub. As I have no bathtub here in my Danish expat home, this watery stillness is a much longed for and uncommon occurrence. Today, in my borrowed claw foot basin something came to my side. A revelation:

The choice to love, to really love, is incredibly, ridiculously brave.

It is not a surrendering of self but rather, a time when you scramble a bit to find your footing, and then you stand in your own power and look the Vast Beast in the eye and say, “I choose this.” I choose this thing that can both protect me and tear me apart; that can and will bring me my most enthralling joys and my most excruciating and unanticipated pain. I choose the risk. I choose the possibility of endings. I chose to be as simpatico as old souls and to be equally, heartrendingly misunderstood. I choose to be at intervals rashly taken advantage of and unexpectedly worshipped. I choose this terror and this beauty. I choose love.

There are many times when we step into this place of love in naiveté—in the blithe flush of new crush and happy mutual adoration, blissfully unaware of the awe-full power we are inviting into our lives. We do this when we marry; when we choose our children; when we accidentally fall in love with a jubilant soul, with the idea of beauty, with wanting to be a writer or a painter or a poet; with a country we did not even know was part of our bones. When this happens, we live in that place for awhile with ease and contentment, unable or unwilling to see the depth of the pact we have made, not acknowledging that some part of our soul was the currency used in the bargain. Sometimes this joyride continues through the long luxurious length of our journey. But more often the fearful awesomeness of what it really takes to sustain the choice to love looms in front of us and we find that we must be very brave. Brave enough to say, “I choose this still.” Brave enough to stay the course, to maintain the bond even when it becomes painful to do so. Brave enough to say I will bear the ache of watching you grow up, of watching you be sick, of watching you grow old. I will bear the confusion over what to do, over how to love you best. I will love you through this whirlwind, through this firestorm. I chose this beast called love.

I am in a place right now where I must very intentionally choose to love: to love people who are far away; to love my challenging tween and teen; and most challengingly to love my own ill and tired self. And I am watching others commit brave acts of love: surrendering to a first love; watching someone die; tending to a baby soul born at midlife; loving someone through the sickness part of “in sickness and in health.” These acts, these making of stands on the high ground of love are so real, so raw, so terrifyingly powerful they make me want to shield my soul from the solar-flare burst of it all.

But I won’t. I don’t. Instead I stand in the choosing. I stand in the heart of the flame and I try to remember, “if you are never afraid you can never be brave.” And then, I chose love.

***

Are you ready to chose love? Come be dangerously compassionate with us!

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28 Days: How to Breathe Through Suffering

Welcome to 28 Days– a soulcare series designed to help us live intentionally in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Tragedy. Please join us as we explore 28 ways to engage in this sobering reality with honesty and hope. For Facebook covers and more information click here. Thank you for being here today. 

Find more inspirational prints from K. Barteski here.

Day 7: Breathe through the Suffering

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When your friends are experiencing the loss of a child…

Breathe in suffering. Breathe out compassion.

When your body feels broken…

Breathe in suffering. Breathe out compassion.

When the news breaks your heart, and you touch the car radio, crying…

Breathe in suffering. Breathe out compassion. 

We can heal ourselves and each other…Breathe In. Breathe Out.

***

Today’s healing act is in honor of Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47. The students at Sandy Hook Elementary loved Principal Hochsprung. ”I never saw her without a smile,” said Aimee Seaver, mother of a first-grader. Hochsprung lived with her husband, two daughters and three stepdaughters. The longtime career educator majored in special education for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the 1990s and had just entered the Ph.D. program at Esteves School. *source info

More from 28 Days:

 Response to Connecticut: A Prayer. A Plea.
An Ongoing Response
Tools for Tragedy
28 Days Main Page (info/graphics)
Day 1: The Healing Power of Whimsy (600 Monsters)
Day 2: Inhale Compassion, Exhale Love
Day 3: The Sandy Hook Promise (video)
Day 4: Say Thanks
Day 5: Know Better (podcast on race and gun violence) 
Day 6: Believe in Your Fellow Humans

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