SheLoves Magazine

How to Run Away. Or: What I Learned from the Wizard of Oz

“It was okay that I desired to run away; I just needed to figure out what exactly I was running away to.”

By Ashley Mandanici | Twitter: @ashleymandanici

Last weekend I ran away. I am not saying that figuratively; I actually ran away. I purchased a plane ticket, packed my cute little purple suitcase and ran as far as my feet could carry me. Apparently, my feet could only carry me as far as Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I’ll be honest; it had been a hard week. No, “hard week” sounds too mild … Last week sucker-punched me in the heart. Yeah, that’s more like it. I was forced to confront some issues at home and at work that I wasn’t really that eager to deal with—and of course, if things are going to happen, they’re all going to happen at the same time.

I felt like a failure. I felt frustrated. And I felt fed up. And when you feel like that many “F” words, you know you need to do something.

I began to identify with Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. I had this insatiable urge to throw all my belongings into a wicker basket, hop onto a bicycle and try and outrun the twister.

However, I couldn’t deny the nagging suspicion that by running away, I was behaving like a complete and utter coward.

“You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage.”- The Wizard of Oz

On the night of my runaway, a rather wise friend called me up for a chat. As we were talking about our week (sucker punches and all) he made an off-the-cuff remark about how I had “run away” from my problems for the weekend, which followed with me confessing that that was exactly my intention.  This took us along a whole rabbit trail (or yellow brick road if you will) of thoughts ranging from Moses running away from Egypt, to Elijah feeling overwhelmed by leadership, to me trying to explain the entire story of the Wizard of Oz in less than a minute.

Meanwhile, my friend summed up our whole discussion with these simple words :

“Ashley, I guess it’s not about what you are running away from, but rather what you are running away to.”

Off to See the Wizard

I couldn’t help but think about Dorothy again and her quest to see the Wizard. I imagined her happily (and somewhat ignorantly) skipping down the yellow brick road towards the Emerald city. I thought about the characters she found along the way and how they all needed something—a brain, a heart, some courage … a home. I thought about how Dorothy’s problems still managed to find her—the only difference was that this time she was heading somewhere.

The more I thought about it, the more the whole “running away” idea began to appeal to me. It was okay that I desired to run away; I just needed to figure out what exactly I was running away to. I needed to figure out who exactly my Wizard was going to be. You know, just like the fictional movie character I had decided to base my life around.

Just click your heals three times …

The ending of the Wizard of Oz always got me a little angry for a couple different reasons. One, because Dorothy went through all that drama to be told that she had the power to get what she wanted the whole time, and because the movie ends as a dream sequence and I hate when movies end in a dream sequence.

I suppose my weekend ended pretty similarly though, well, apart from the dream sequence thing. (That didn’t happen.) However I needed to run away so I could begin to see “home” more clearly. My runaway put the colour back into my world when I was stuck seeing everything in black and white. My runaway gave my brain a much-needed rest, my heart some much-needed healing, and it also helped me grow a little courage. I was reunited with friends, drove around a new city and got lost a bunch of times. And I smiled so much my face started hurting.

I needed to run away to remind myself where I was going. I needed to run away to remind myself that God wasn’t some Wizard I could only find with the help of a magic formula. God had been with me the whole way. No heal clicking necessary.

And just like my friend Dorothy, I needed to run away to realize I already had everything I needed.

_____________________

My dear SheLoves friends:

• If you could run away to anything or anyone right now, what would you run away to?
• What do you need to find?
• Any other comments or thoughts?

About Ashley:

My name is Ashley and I am the Children’s Ministry Coordinator at Relate Church in Surrey, B.C. My mission is to develop the God-given potential in every child who crosses my path *Insert Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” here*. I love all things jazzy, particularly music, and I tend to break into song throughout the day for no apparent reason. I blog here and tweet @AshleyMandanici

Reaching Through the Crowd for Holy: The Power of Tenacity

“Like a stranger in a crowd, she reached through life’s thick noise and laid finger on my skin, asking …”

By Idelette McVicker | Twitter: @idelette

vi. Reach: to move toward something in order to touch or grasp it

Girl gets on a bus and travels three days across the country to reach a place where she’s heard she may find Freedom.

Swiss girl ignores noise and naysayers, pushes through red tape and bureaucratic objections and gets on a plane for the country where she believes she’s meant to live.

Woman thinks doors have closed, but listens to the still, small voice in her heart and tries the one more thing. She pushes in, pushes through and the holy doors finally–finally!–swing open wide and welcome.

It would have been easy not to. Easy to give up. Easy to stop for a latte, instead. Not to push and reach and stretch and lean in to touch the skin of the Holy One.

The crowds were so thick.

It would have been fully understandable not to.

It would have been easy to stay right where she’s at.

But what would she have missed?

______________________________

My phone beeped with a Twitter text. Direct Message (Twitterspeak) on a Saturday night from a girl in another city who is both facebook and Twitter friend—enquiring if perhaps we could Skype sometime? Voice to voice. Heart to heart.

Like a stranger in a crowd, she reached through life’s thick noise and laid finger on my skin, asking for an hour of my attention.

I already had to postphone once, so this–her second ask–compels me to look at my calendar. The seven times 24-hours of the week brimming with the demands and joys of life.

Monday. Booking a birthday party for the seven-year-old. Buying invitation cards. Writing invitations. Driving kidlets to and from school. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Same Monday–pushing through the details of booking a three-city trip to Africa. Arrangements and travel plans and emails and phone calls.

Tuesday. Mom, far away, going in for surgery. Calling South Africa on the other side of our day to be “with,” somehow.

Wednesday. One meeting in the morning. Two meetings out in the evening.

Thursday. Hosting ten bookclub darlings at my home with papaya salsa and shiraz and connecting over written words.

All week: Spiritual mom fighting her own fight, a little closer.

And through this life-that-is-a whole-lotta-life, I also make dinner and school lunches and pour Rice Crispies into three blue porcelain bowls and squeeze in a hug for husband on his way to work.

But she asked. And there was something in the asking, the persisting—the reaching through the crowd—that crystallized into an appointment on my calendar.

Friday. 11am.

Speak to the Bones

When Friday morning came, my four-year-old had a playdate. The house fell quiet and I opened my pink Message–time feeling so much like the most delicious luxury–to a favourite passage in Ezekiel. The 37^th chapter.

“Breath of Life,” the heading. About dry bones: a picture of death, finality, impossibility. A story of God and prophet, standing side by side and the Divine directing the human to speak Life to the already-past-hope emptiness.

And as prophet spoke, the bones started to rattle and stretch and move and come together. Until prophet-man saw that the bones had no breath in them and he’s instructed this time: “Prophesy to the breath.”

I opened my exercise book with the blue cover. Black pen moved to curve out sentences of scripture … a quiet practice to calm the rush within and let Spirit speak. Copying, like ancient scribe. I slow down and watch my pen move, writing these holy words on such ordinary paper.

Then it’s time. We Skype and in I hear about a past threaded with both filling hunger and denying hunger.

Moments of decision I know so very well in my own bones: whether I would choose good for my body because I have a body worthy of good things. Or whether I would give in to the inner battle, that wanting to deny deny deny self.

I have heard those words shouting from within: You are not worthy of a good feeding. You are not worthy of the nutrition and the time and the effort of feeding your body of what is good.

I have fought that voice over many feedings—including hasty Mommy days when I would chop veggies for the kids, but would neglect to set a plate for me. Who has time to sit and eat when you’re serving and feeding hungry mouths?

We talked about Jairus’ daughter and she shared how different it was to sit with this story in a room of women who struggled with denying self of good food. And how Jesus specifically instructed those around the awakened daughter to feed her.

“ … he told them to give her something to eat.” –Mark 5:43

With the words from a holy hungry Friday post one week earlier still echoing powerfully in my spirit, I finally asked: May I pray for you?

Yes, please, she said.

We prayed and invocation streamed from lips and heart.

Speak to the Hunger, I heard.

And I thought about Jairus’ daughter and girls everywhere who need to rise up and eat, eat, eat and so I prayed more, all the while doing my best to listen from Above  …  Praying:

That she would eat from the goodness of God

and the feast of friendship

Eat eat eat

from the gift of community.

Eat from a table of purpose and know what she is to do in this world.

Eat from unconditional Love.

Eat, girl, from Value. Even swallow Worth whole, if you like.

Eat from Heaven and be nourished, satisfied, full …

Amen.

Talitha Koum

I dolloped it out in words as best I could from a heart so hungry for more girls to awaken and rise and eat and get well.

The words flowed strong and when I looked up, she was wiping tears.

What gift, I thought. For me as much as her. What gift that we could meet and she could find nourishment in these prayer words. What gift that I could find such inspiration in her faith–this woman-girl reaching through the crowd, asking for what she needed. 

That holy holy holy moment on a Friday morning reminded me:

- What power in this faith-stretched Asking for what we need.

- What power in sharing stories and bending hearts together before Heaven.

- What power, so readily available when we are willing to sink our teeth into the knowing-that-we-know and push through the crowd to find Holy right there at the end of our reach.

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My dear SheLoves friends:

• I would love to hear a story of when your tenacity led to a Holy touch.
• What do you need or want to push through the crowd for in this season? Today?
• Who or what represents the crowd keeping you from where you want to go?
• O, so many days I need to eat from patience. Some days I need to eat from forgiveness. Today I need to eat from quiet confidence. What do you need to eat from today?
• Any other comments or thoughts?

_________________________________

About Idelette:
I like soggy cereal and I would like to go to every spot on the map of the earth to meet our world’s women.

I dream of a world where no women or girls are for sale. I dream of a world where women and men are partners in doing the work that brings down a new Heaven on earth.

My word for the year is “Roar,” but I have learned it’s not about my voice rising as much as it is about our collective voices rising in unison to bring down walls of injustice.

I have three children and this place–right here, called shelovesmagazine.com–is my fourth baby. I am African, although my skin colour doesn’t tell you that story. I am also a little bit Chinese, because my heart lives there amongst the tall skyscrapers of Taipei and the mountains of Chiufen. Give me sweet chai and I think I’m in heaven. I live in Vancouver, Canada and I pledged my heart to Scott 11 years ago.

I believe in kindness and calling out the song in each other’s hearts. I also believe that Love covers–my gaps, my mistakes and the distances between us. I blog at idelette.com and tweet@idelette.

Between Isaacs and Samuels: The Space Where God Disappoints

“What is the name of the space where God disappoints?”

By Enuma Okoro | Twitter: @TweetEnuma

God keeps tripping over my beggar bowl and spilling its meager contents.

So I am going to stop begging.

My heart is weary from begging.

I know why Sarah did what she did with Hagar and Abraham. I know how Eli found Hannah, drunk with the pain of prayer. Right or wrong, God disappoints. Me. You. All of us at some time.

Yes. God is faithful. I know of Isaac and Samuel. God Laughs. God Hears.

But what of the space between laughter and hearing, between Isaacs and Samuels? What is the name of the space where God disappoints?

That space is the place where many people dwell, where temporary settlements and makeshift camps start to take on the permanency of home. So what is the name of that place? I want to validate the reality of that place with a name. I want us to learn to speak openly about that place and to remember the people who live there.

Where God disappoints.

Where children are not born.

Where men and women walk one-by-one instead of two-by-two.

Where loaves and fishes do not multiply.

Where the poor in spirit or body do not seem blessed.

Where the faithfulness of God seems to be just a rumor.

Who are the priests that dwell with the people between God’s laughter and God’s hearing? What are the sacraments in the nameless place where God disappoints? If nothing else, I want the bread and the wine, the faint reminder that when the body of God was broken and the blood of God was shed, and the Son of God cried out words of forsakenness, that at one time God even disappointed God.

So maybe that is the name of the place–the long sad sing-song name of “Eli Eli lama sabachthani?”

I can live with that naming because it comes from the very mouth of God. Have you heard of that place? Do you know people who live in that place? Can you serve from that place? Can you love from that place? Maybe it is possible to set up camp in that place because I know that God has been there and whatever spaces God has been in, God somehow still remains.

And I know what happens after the Golgatha cry, after Sarah’s scheming and Hannah’s weeping. God moves from disappointing and invites us to new realities, new places where we shuffle our feet reluctantly, tiptoe carefully, uncertain if we can trust the ground, if we can move from pain to healing. Uncertain if we can trust the  God who Rises, who laughs, who listens.

__________________________

My dear SheLoves friends, I’d love to hear:

• Have you ever found yourself in that space where God disappoints?
• How have you met (or are you meeting) God in that place?
• What do you name that place?
• Any other thoughts or comments?

________________________________

About Enuma

Enuma was born in the United States and raised in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and England. She holds a Master of Divinity degree from Duke University Divinity School where she served as Director for the Center for Theological Writing. She is an author, speaker, spiritual director and continues to lead workshops and retreats on varied topics engaging the literary and visual arts, and spiritual disciplines.

Her spiritual memoir, Reluctant Pilgrim: A Moody Somewhat Self-Indulgent Introvert’s Search for Spiritual Community (Fresh Air Books, 2010) was a winning finalist in the 2010 USA Best Books Award and received the 2011 National Indie Excellent Book Awards Winning Finalist in “Spirituality and African-American Non-Fiction.” She is co-author with Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove of Common Prayer: Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

Okoro’s new forthcoming book, “Silence,” will be released in Summer/Fall 2012

She blogs at Reluctant Pilgrim on Patheos about women’s ways of knowing and engaging the holy. You can find her online at www.enumaokoro.com

Image credit: Woman with bowl, by Justin Hubbard

Swimming Lessons with Auntie Ashley. Or: When to Step Out of the Boat

Do I want to spend my life guarding towels or walking on water?

By Ashley Mandanici | Twitter: @ashleymandanici

___________________________

Life Confession: I cannot swim.

Do not get me wrong, I have tried! I have tried, and failed miserably. Seriously! Never have so many swimming teachers at the YMCA been so disappointed with a pupil than they have been with me. “Back when I was a kid” (which is how I’ll start this story when I later explain to my children why we can’t go to the pool), they used to break the swimming class levels into colours, yellow being the first level. I failed yellow three times.

I say all this to say: even though the thought of swimming makes me want to throw up in my mouth, I love being on a boat! Few friends believe this because they know how pathetic I am when faced with even the possibility of having to swim. However, the truth remains: being on a boat is awesome.

I have compiled my own list of reasons why I prefer being on a boat, rather than actually swimming in the water:

-       Sitting on a boat requires no skill level or effort.

-       For me, the likeliness of drowning gets cut at least in half.

-       You can feel like you’re “experiencing” the sea without taking in the reality of it.

-       I have yet to hear about a person getting attacked by a shark while on a boat.

-       I do not have to wear my bathing suit, but am instead encouraged to wear a large vest that makes even the skinniest people look chunky.

These reasonings only work assuming I do not get myself into some sort of “Titanic” situation. In which case, I would succumb to the power of the seas, and wait for Jesus.

I regret to inform you that the number of friends I have who swim, outweighs the number of friends I have with a boat. This often means that as soon as the sun comes out, I resort to sitting on the sidelines during many social events. I have paid many an admission fee to water parks where I spent the day reading and guarding everyone’s towels.

“You were there?”

The other day I was remembering back on one of these adventures with a friend when she responded, “You were there?”

Um, yeah I was, friend. Don’t you remember coming back to your towel and your purse perfectly intact? Yeah, that was all me.

Apparently my involvement in our adventures has not been as memorable as I imagined it to be. This means one of two things: I need to learn how to swim, or I need to start acquiring friends with memberships to yacht clubs.

Shark-free and story-less

Apart from my literal need to “get out of the boat” and learn how to swim, there are many areas in life I need to take the leap off my comfortable, shark-free boat and start flailing around in the uncharted waters of Risk! I do not love the idea. What if I sink to my death? What if I look ridiculous (like a dog with two legs that can only swim in a circle)? What if I look chubby in my water wings?

I started thinking about the story of Peter walking on water with Jesus. You know the one—where Peter walked on the water with Jesus? (I know. I have a gift of making the Bible come alive!) I have read this passage of scripture many times, but this last time I had one looming question at the end of the story—what about the other guys in the boat?

I wonder if they were choked they did not even try to walk on water. I wonder if they knew that at the end of the day their part of the story would be as interesting as me guarding towels at the water park.

Sure Peter could have drowned, or been eaten by a large whale (it has happened) but he got his part in the story—an honorable mention at the very least.

Abandoning Ship

Matthew 14:28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

In a little under four months, I am embarking on a rather exciting/frightening adventure—I am going to Uganda for five months to serve at Watoto Childcare Ministry. I am abandoning all of my ships—the financial security of my job, the safety of my country, the comfort of my familiar friends—and I am jumping into the water. I am kind of over being the girl on the sidelines holding everyone’s towels. I am going to show up … and people are going to remember I was there!

I cannot give you a timeline on the swimming thing yet. Hey Tina Francis, what do you say to taking up water ballet with me? You’ll learn how to dance, I’ll learn how to swim—two birds, one stone.

_________________________

So, my SheLoves friends, I’d love to hear:

• What are some of the ships you need to abandon?
• Are you finding yourself on the sidelines or in the center of the action?
•  What is one skill you don’t have that you wish you did?

About Ashley:

My name is Ashley and I am the Children’s Ministry Coordinator at Relate Church in Surrey, B.C. My mission is to develop the God-given potential in every child who crosses my path *Insert Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” here*. I love all things jazzy, particularly music, and I tend to break into song throughout the day for no apparent reason. I blog here and tweet @AshleyMandanici

Wellness Wednesday: Awakening to Peace During My Season of Insomnia

“It was as if God led me down a long corridor of memories and invited me to talk about them.”

By Tara Rodden Robinson |Twitter: @tararodden 

On the morning of November 6, 2011, I crawled out of bed and while waiting for the coffee to brew, I tuned in to my Twitter stream and saw this:

David Allen is an oft-quoted, super-famous, productivity guru. As a bit of a productivity guru myself, I faithfully use his method, Getting Things Done—GTD for short—day in and day out, year after year.

Being curious and sleepless and (at the time) into the whole “med-drug scene,” I clicked over to the NY Times article: Sleep Medication: Mother’s New Little Helper

A brief summary: Women (particularly moms) suffering from anxiety, depression, and insomnia: pharmaceutical industry delighted to help.

I promptly got spitting mad at David Allen. From my sleep-deprived point of view, he was misguided, insensitive and misinformed. Let me tell you (and Mr. Allen, too), no productivity method in the world can make a dent in a full blown, middle of the night, heebie-jeebie producing anxiety attack.

At the time, I was pulling out every trick in the book and slurping down plenty of Ambien and Celexa to boot. But those weren’t what ultimately brought me some much needed healing.

For that, I needed divine intervention. Literally.

A change in perspective

It was my pastor friend, James, who mentioned that maybe my sleepless nights were actually opportunities in disguise. (I met James, somewhat ironically, because of the Getting-Things-Done-themed podcast I host.)

What if, James asked, these times can be night watches for you? Maybe the Lord is awakening you for some reason. Next time it happens, talk to Him. Listen for what He has to say to you.

I went cold turkey on the Ambien the very next night. At around 3am, I woke up and thought, “Ok, I’m awake. Lord, I’m listening. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Yearning to stay awake

The experience was harrowing. And amazing. It was as if God led me down a long corridor of memories and invited me to talk about them. I went deeper and deeper into my past. I felt more and more loved and comforted. Suddenly, I popped out of the hallway of memory and into my body. I was calm and aware of my breathing and totally at peace. Wow.

As crazy as it sounds, I started looking forward to awakening in the middle of the night. It’s hard to put into words what my late night conversations with God were like. Sometimes I talked. Sometimes I listened. Sometimes, we just sat together quietly in the dark. I found myself feeling slightly disappointed if I slept uninterrupted until morning.

When I’m hurting, it’s so tempting to look outside myself to a method or a tool or a medication to try to “fix” me. But I’ve found that embracing my brokenness, like reveling in the sleepless nights, to be a surer, straighter path to healing.

_______________________

So, dear SheLoves reader, what about you?

• How are you sleeping?
• If you wake up in the middle of the night, what do you tell yourself?

_________________________

About Tara: 

Tara Rodden Robinson is an author, coach, and educator. Known as The Productivity Maven, she blogs at tararobinson and tweets @tararodden. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with her husband and their two dogs. She is working on mastering complex yoga poses and searching for the perfect gluten-free bread recipe. When she’s not writing, coaching, or teaching, she’s out in the wilderness hiking and watching birds.

Compassion: What Cleaning My House Showed Me About Dusting Off My Heart

” … the Son revealed the wrong judgement, dusty assumptions and pretentious smudges that needed my attention.”

By Musu Taylor-Lewis | Twitter: @mercycanada

The sunlight had me scowling as I looked around the house. I couldn’t relax. In room after room, the rays revealed the dust, fingerprints and window smudges that needed attention. It’s Spring Cleaning time and I’m not someone who finds cleaning therapeutic.

To me, housecleaning is a chore. When my house needs a Great Big Clean, I tend to feel overwhelmed and procrastinate until mornings like these when the need to go beyond the routine clean-up just cannot be ignored. So, in the light of the sun I decided to tackle the task at hand once and for all.

One hour later with the help of a trusty Google search and a few phone calls, I had a cleaning service lined up for later in the week. Aaaah … Now I could reasonably justify the long list of things I needed to do instead of grabbing a bucket and mop.

Fast forward to Big Clean Day, The thought of strangers coming through my house meant I spent some time tidying and sorting to make sure the cleaning could be done properly. I was looking forward to having a completely clean house. (I do like clean, just not the cleaning!) Finally, right on time, the doorbell rang.

I opened the door and in front of me stood the cleaning, em … girl?

She was not what I expected! The young woman lugging a vacuum cleaner to my front door had multiple face piercings and a huge black ring inserted into her ear lobe.

“Hi” she said in a very friendly voice. “My name is Sally* and this is Mary*, we’re your cleaning team for today.”

“Umm, hi,” I stumbled, trying not to show my reaction or betray the thoughts whizzing through my head for a split second.

Mary* didn’t look much older than my teenage son. I wasn’t planning on staying home the whole time. Could I trust them in my house alone? Doesn’t the cleaning service know they should be more careful about who they send over?

Just then, the Spirit stopped me in my tracks with the whisper of one name.

You see, the name the Spirit whispered was the name of a recent Mercy Ministries graduate I’m particularly fond of. She had just announced with pride that she was doing some housecleaning to earn a living. Her past life had been very rough–being treated with mistrust could have reinforced the lies she believed about herself, and today, her fragile healing would be at risk if she were to show up for work and be treated with suspicion.

“This could be her,” He reminded me. “How would you want people to react to her?”

In that moment, the Son-light had me scowling as I looked around my heart. I began to relax as the Son revealed the wrong judgement, dusty assumptions and pretentious smudges that needed my attention.

“Come on in,” I said. “Let me show you around and get you started.”

For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. -2 Corinthians 4:6

*names were changed 

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About Musu:

My life is lived out of the calling “to advance Christ-centred work.” I am currently Director of Marketing and Development at Mercy Ministries, working to get the word out about the life-transforming work that takes place here. Prior to my work at Mercy, I directed a Crisis Pregnancy Centre, studied Christianity and Culture at Regent College and co-led women’s programs at my local church. I have four great children and am married to Steven, a gift to me from the Creator.

Wellness Wednesday: From Fear to Release

“I’ve had two opportunities in my life to look death in the eye … but one was governed by fear and the other by joy.”

By Ali Valdez

For a long time in my life, phobias were the fears other people dealt with—traumatic, life-limiting fears that put up invisible walls and stop people in their tracks. I had none to speak of—at least none that you could classify as phobias—until 15 years ago when I met my fear dead-on.

I had begun traveling regularly for work. Soon the trips became long-haul flights. I thought I had it down until a particularly traumatic summer flying out of O’Hare when the plane needed to make an emergency landing. The cockpit was on fire.

In the instant I knew what was happening, the fear of flying and falling overwhelmed my body, my mind, my life.

We had to fly around to drop fuel so we wouldn’t explode upon landing. The energy in the plane grew from panic to sorrow and then heaviness as everyone began to pray. As the voice of the pilot cracked, the flight attendants cried.

There were no rational indicators that this would have a happy ending.

As I bowed my head, emergency-landing style, I fixed my eyes on a bag from the Chicago Shedd Aquarium. Inside, a set of toys I had bought for my little brother Giordano. My greatest sadness in that moment was that I would probably never see him again. I prayed that God would allow me to give Giordano those toys.

When we approached landing, the runway was lined with fire trucks, emergency crews and rows of gray body bags. It was the moment of truth: was I coming home, or going Home?

Miraculously,  the pilot managed to bring us all down safely. I’ve lived to tell my story, but for years I was paralyzed by fear. Flying became very difficult; I imagined myself buckled into a plane seat floating among the clouds without the shell of the plane.

I was no longer able to sit by the window because I believed watching the wings and witnessing their buoyancy was a bad omen. I refused to fly Continental Airlines and I still check the crossing of my legs when there is turbulence in the air (I have this weird idea that if my legs are crossed, God will bring the plane down.)

I would dream I was falling, which according to “experts” on the Web, means anxiety over letting go. It could also be a drop in blood pressure. One site suggests the dream stems from our monkey days when we slept and sometimes fell from trees. For me, I suspect it had to do with that flight from O’Hare.

After this experience every flight I took I believed would be my last. I reached a point where I had to make a choice: continue to spend half my working life feeling afraid, or pass through the door of fear into a place of release. I had to begin to enjoy flying.

My opportunity to face my fear came a few years back when I was invited to go sky-diving in Santa Barbara. I knew plenty of intelligent, capable, sound-minded individuals who did this regularly and I admired them. I also knew that I needed to confront the behavioural patterns that stemmed from my fears.

There are some things people don’t tell you about sky-diving. The airtime itself is nominal—twenty minutes max—but the wait for your turn can be hours. Not that I minded; I wanted the parachute folders and the pilot mechanics to be laser-focused.  But then there’s the reams of waivers you have to sign that use words like injury, death and mortal—it’s enough to make your knuckles white.

Everyone diving that day showed signs of nervousness, but I was so calm, strangers assumed I was a regular. For me it was simple—this was something that needed to be overcome. Nothing, including this long drawn-out waiting period, would stop me.

Flying was part of God’s plan for my life. I knew I could no longer begin every journey in a state of anxiety and panic. I also knew I had to be a role model for my daughter, teach her courage and to not be afraid, to live life fully, with focus and without fear.

The plane itself was enough to motivate even the most acrophobic (those afraid of heights and falling) to want to leap from it. A rickety old thing, plied together in places (I’m not joking) with varying types of duct tapes, it had a little too much breeze and rattle for my liking.

Once airborne and almost ready to dive, I sat right at the opening of the jump door. I noticed the first knocking of my knees when the hatch opened and a cold gust of wind slammed against my face. It was the window seat from hell. As the plane turned sideways to dump the free fallers, there I was, open sky, a droning engine in my ear and down below, planet Earth.

Another untold for the novice skydiver: tandems have to hold on, hurl your body out, bring it back in, then jump—all to gain enough momentum for the dive. That knee-knocking foxhole moment of hurling my body out only to have to come back in was too much—this had to end. I remember shouting an expletive and taking the leap.

The free-fall drop, the moments before the parachute opened, was the ultimate adrenaline rush. Floating on my belly with my limbs lifted, I felt complete liberation. A smiling photographer floated across from me, loving life. Contagiously, there was nothing but joy racing through my limbs.

This was my time with God: viewing the planet through that rounded film of atmosphere—the perfect Santa Barbara coastline, the majestic weather. What a momentary indulgence in His creation. It felt smooth and safe. I was praying, but unlike my Chicago flight, I prayed with praise and joy for this wonderful experience of feeling alive and fearless in the sky. The landing was triumphant, my feet like feathers touching the ground.

The experience taught me that I must face my fears head-on—to go through the door I was too afraid to open. I have had two opportunities in my life to look death in the eye, and through both I was deep in prayer, but one experience was governed by fear and the other by joy.

In passing through my fears, a whole new world awaited me, one of infinite possibility where I now define my life through faith in Him.

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My dear SheLoves friends, I would love to hear:

• Are there any doors that represent fear in your life?

• What would happen if you opened the door?

• What awaits you on the other side of your particular fear?

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About Ali:

My name is Ali Valdez and I live between Seattle and Houston. I am a Christian yoga instructor, academic and writer, and devote most of my time in servitude to my students, who are yoga teachers or studio owners developing yoga communities in their cities and towns. I have also worked and led Kindergarten and small groups at my church. I love religion, philosophy and man’s inquiry on all things of higher order. I have devoted my life to study and am versed in the metaphysical, philosophical and topics of comparative religion. Practically, I love wellness, nutrition, the gross and subtle energy bodies, healing, alternative medicine, fitness, exercise, and healthful levels on many levels. I have done crazy things like marathons, sky-diving and state-of-the-art spa treatments. I look forward to connecting with you all and sharing whatever insights I may have that serve you in your aspirations. For fun, I travel the world, host retreats globally, read and write on my blog, the Gadabout. I also party with my Bun, a little five-year-old named Mathilde. You can learn more about what I do at sattvayogaonline.com

Photo credit: flickr.com 

Raising Dead People: A Tutorial

“But after four days of non-stop prayer and a lot of shofar blowing and prayer walking the morgue seven times, our friend never got up. He was as dead as dead is.”

By Danielle Strickland | Twitter: @djstrickland

I know people who raise dead people. It’s crazy. Or is it?

They regularly see people die and then get prayed for and they rise from the dead. I don’t imagine it should surprise those of us who follow Jesus–actually more to the point, it should be expected.

I’ve tried it. Raising dead people. It’s crazy and hard. I think mostly because in our current North American culture we really don’t ever deal with death. We say goodbye in a hospital bed, a sanitized goodbye with maybe some tears, maybe some suffering. Then the body is wheeled out–people take it away to a sanitized morgue where it awaits again, some more sanitizing. The deadness is drained out and makeup and a nice suit replace the emptiness as the body is prepared for viewing. As though dressing up death makes the whole thing go away. We don’t see the dead again until the viewing (if there is one).

How to Raise the Dead

Anyway, years ago, a bunch of our community started watching these DVDs of a guy who taught people how to raise the dead. It was fascinating. All of us were convinced we didn’t see dead people raised, because we never really had access to dead people, as I explained above. In our community at the time, there was a man who was diagnosed with a terminal illness. We were praying hard for his healing, but he succumbed to his disease. Because he was part of the group of people who had watched these videos and prayed that God would help us to at least try to raise our expectations of what He could do–he decided to make his body available to our community for four days after his death (in his will).

I’m not kidding. This really happened.

So, we all dug deep and held some non-stop vigil prayer, asking God to raise him from the dead as a witness to His power in the community where we worked. As we announced our plans, every crazy intercessor with a shofar came out of the woodwork and we started to worship and to pray–mostly all the scriptures where people were raised from the dead.

Expecting the Miraculous

We tried to raise our game and also leave room for the will of God. A tricky business–expecting the miraculous and leaving room for God. We put his name down to preach at his own “life celebration” we were planning–which would have been the coolest preach ever. But after four days of non-stop prayer and a lot of shofar blowing and prayer walking the morgue seven times, our friend never got up. He was as dead as dead is. Probably more dead. He was definitely NOT mostly dead! He was more dead than I had ever seen anyone before.

The good news is that the guy who teaches the videos said that it wasn’t until he prayed for the seventh dead guy, that it worked. It took perseverance and a whole lot of humility. And I started to resonate with the idea of humility and perseverance that day–in a different way.

See, when you make an announcement like the one we made, it does something. It makes you look like a freak. It makes people uncomfortable. It makes people reject you and make fun of you because, well, you are a bit of freak (if “freak” is defined as “not normal.”)

You are leaving the normal trajectory for some other kind of way to live. And this way to live–with expectations of a dead-raising God to show up in a normal humdrum life is scary and hard, and a bit crazy actually. It was Kierkegaard who suggested that to believe God is basically to lose your mind. He may be on to something.

But, on the other hand–-how much of what God wants to do can be done by people who are willing to risk their reputations and their pride and their egos to believe, and to ask, and to try? If you ever have a chance to read the dead-raising passages in Scripture you can start to get the feeling of how uncomfortable it ALWAYS was. Elijah lay body to body over a DEAD young person three different times … I’m not sure if I have ONE of those prophetic acts in me–but it sure worked and not only changed the life of the person who is no longer dead, but of the community, as well as the atmosphere of the town, village and the nation of Israel.

The other reason we don’t like raising dead people, is the same reason we don’t like healing lepers: We hate death. We are scared of death. And this is the thing I want to get to today because, well, it’s resurrection day as I’m writing this and I’m reminded that we are no longer slaves to death. We live in the light of Jesus’ confrontation with death–and Jesus won. See, Jesus didn’t just come back from the dead (people had already done that!) but Jesus went through death and came out the other side. He conquered death. He didn’t just come back to life–he was RESSURECTED to a forever, eternal life. He was Jesus–but He was different.

Living in the Light of the Resurrection

And what does this mean? It means that we used to be trapped in a death tunnel and there was no way out. It means that death had the final word and hopeless is where we had to live. But NOW, we are no longer captives to a hopeless future–we are always living in the light of the resurrection. Which means that all the ugliness, the deformity, the awkwardness of death is no longer our chief concern. It means that our grief, albeit real, is not absolute. It’s not forever. It means we can believe for God to do things that are abnormal and crazy and, well, we can choose to be eternal freaks and never go for normal again. Everything has changed.

In Narnia, C.S. Lewis suggested that when Aslan broke the curse of death, time itself began to work backwards. The idea he is suggesting is an awesome one: working our way back to the way things were always intended to be. Remember in the garden where death wasn’t present–wasn’t even mentioned? Those are the days we are looking toward now. The resurrection has set our sites at the big hole blown in the tunnel of death and we walk towards the light–towards a better world and a better future.

So, find some dead people. Or some lepers. And instead of joining the death crowd in fear and awkwardness, and well, sanitized living–let’s opt for some faith ventures of epic proportions. Raise some dead people today. What a great way to celebrate the resurrection.

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About Danielle
Danielle serves Jesus as the Corps Officer of Crossroads Community in Edmonton, Canada. Her passion is social justice, including establishing human trafficking response teams in local situations and giving leadership to the global team for the Stop The Traffik campaign. Danielle speaks and teaches around the world and has written several books: Just Imagine: the social justice agenda, Challenging Evil and The Liberating Truth: How Jesus Empowers Women. Danielle is married and has two sons.

Easter Monday: Today We Are the Marys

Today we are the Marys
[From our Archives]

By Stacy Wiebe

Today we are the Marys

We have been in turn
Pilate’s wife dreaming
Peter fumbling
Mother mourning
Judas regretting
Barabbas gloating
Joseph entombing hope.

But today we are the Marys.

Having sat at Your feet
and poured extravagant love
we came this morning
with the duty of spices
our hearts stone heavy
but willing to touch You
one last time.

Our entrée into the dark
was pre-empted though
by heaven’s glitterati
who said You were
death’s no more
and that we should run
tell our brothers.

Our hearts panted
we believed
disbelieved
then suddenly
You appeared.

Turning
remembering
bowing
we embrace
Your cross-worn feet.

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About Stacy:

Stacy Wiebe likes biriyani, books and things that grow. She’s lived in Chennai, India for the past three years, writing and speaking with WOW and other non-profits.

Mary Magdalene: Mother of Easter

“She arrived a simple Jewish woman. She left an empowered messenger endowed with a message for the disciples.”

By Pam Hogeweide | Twitter: @pamhogeweide

I’ve never been to seminary and I have no ministry accolades to showcase. I work in an entry-level job at a hospital and before that I was a professional cleaning woman. I have a family to manage and a household to run. There is no earthly reason why anyone ought to pay attention to anything I have to say.

Sometimes I think someone else should have written the book I just published. It’s an important message about the equality of women in the church, and though I’m proud of the book, I worry that my lack of credentials will stunt the reach I think this vital and timely message needs.

There was a sense of divine mission upon me as I wrestled the words out of my bones. I felt it was an important assignment, and though I struggled with getting the words out–one sentence at a time–the bigger struggle was believing I had something to say that others would take seriously.

This has been the backdrop of my story: low-paying jobs and domestic duties. Discovering my voice and my God-breathed power has been a long process. In the way of the world, a woman like me doesn’t become a published writer. Yet in the kingdom of God, there are endless possibilities that transcend my so-called station in life, for God is no respecter of persons.

This is probably why I love the story of Mary Magdalene so much. She was the first person to see and announce the resurrected Christ. This is especially significant, because she was a mere woman of no high standing. The resurrection of the Son of God is one of the greatest testimonies in history and it was entrusted to a woman. In her own culture, Mary was not permitted to testify in a court of law because of her gender. The temple was not much better in how they treated women. The religious and judicial systems of her culture did not recognize or affirm the worth of a woman.

Mary’s backdrop–the setting of her story–was to be born a female in a culture where Jewish men could be heard praying, “I thank you God for not making me a Gentile, a slave or a woman.” It was in this setting that Jesus came along and disrupted the story of her life. He flipped the script. He did not treat her the way her culture did.

Empowered Messenger

The Gospel accounts portray a Man who was counter-cultural in his relationships with people, especially women. This is so evident in the setting of that first Easter morning when Mary came to the tomb. She arrived a simple Jewish woman. She left an empowered messenger endowed with a message for the disciples. For this reason, the early church fathers dubbed her the “Apostle of apostles.”

Mary’s story resonates with me because it shows how God does not judge my life’s appearance as the world system does. He has no interest in sizing me up according to my earning power or blog ranking. God’s wisdom does not match the world’s wisdom.

Flip the Script

God chose Mary Magdalene to be the first witness of his Son’s resurrection. She became the mother of Easter. By the grace and will of God alone, Mary was cast into a role that flipped the entire script of her life. God did not choose someone of higher status.

I identify with that. I am a working class woman with no education credentials. I have no platform of influence to speak of and my social power is ordinary at best. I am no-one special in the realm of humankind, just another mom trying to balance work and home. And yet—there is the beauty of the “yet”—God does not assess me the way I assess me or culture assesses me. God entrusts me with opportunities to serve him regardless of my station in life, for God sees my full personhood rather than just my gender or intellectual prowess.

Mary did what she had been entrusted with. She announced, “He is risen!” to the disbelieving disciples. She told it true, she told it strong. The empowerment of Jesus surpassed the devaluing of her personhood from the culture and world system she’d been born into.

I am inspired by her life. She became an untamed woman who threw off the story the world system had placed upon her. Mary Magdalene began living out the kingdom of God within the story she found herself in.

She flipped the script. This inspires me to do the same.

I wrote a book. And I’ll write another. Uneducated working mom that I am, I have my own script to flip–for the kingdom of God is within me, too.

God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world; things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. -1 Corinthians 1: 27-28, New Living Translation)

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Happy Easter, my dear SheLoves friends! I’d love to hear:

• What inspires you about the story of Mary Magdalene?
• What is the backdrop of your story that you have flipped or need to flip?
• What keeps you from speaking the message you have been entrusted with?

________________________

About Pam:

Pam Hogeweide is the author of the newly released book, Unladylike: Resisting the Injustice of Inequality in the Church. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two teenage children. You can find Pam on Facebook and on Twitter, as well as through  her website www.pamhogeweide.com.

Image credit: Early morning, by Andreas Øverland