My Sister's Craft

My sister and I approach our craft so differently. I rest where the tide meets the sand and let the waves wash over my feet. The waves are words washing over my mind. I try to remember the poetry they speak when I find the time to write. My younger sister runs along ever new beaches with persistence and curiosity, using her hands to mold the sand into castles, organizing colorful shells, and listening to the hollow space within them that sings of the ocean waves. She makes time to carefully record the songs she hears from the seashells - each a slightly different melody - and leaves behind her a trail of achievements. Warm beach winds dance around us, sisters, blowing long hair wildly around sun-kissed faces.

To Have What is Not

(A dear friend sent me a quote from Toni Morrison, I reply:)

...But the priest desires. The philosopher desires. 

And not to have is the beginning of desire.
To have what is not is its ancient cycle
It is desire at the end of winter, when 

It observes the effortless weather turning blue... 

It knows that what it has is what is not
And throws it away like a thing of another time,
As morning throws off stale moonlight and shabby sleep. 

- Wallace Stevens, “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”

As I read this poem, my mind links differing concepts and ideas into a linguistic wholeness. Desire knows that what desire has is what is not. We throw our hearts desire away as a thing of another time when life brings us the dawn of a new age. Yet, sometimes we desire again and again--for not to have is the beginning of desire and to have what is not is it’s ancient cycle.

What is my remedy? "Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4) We came into this world with nothing and will certainly leave this world with nothing. So, let us be content with food and clothing. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The desire for money is the imposition of not-to-have on others, rooted in the bottomless pit of the fear that what you have is not. Love of money is rooted in the never-ending winter, a fire that will not be quenched, and a sleep that does not wake--for there will always be one more thing. 

And just so that pernicious evil of white folks is the imposition of not-to-have on the many. A taking of even the possession of food and clothes, along with everything else. Not to have is the beginning of desire: the desire to be whole, when you are rendered incomplete. The desire to prove that you have language, when your language is silenced in your mouth. The desire to show that you have art and kingdoms, when art and kingdoms are stolen from you in the process of their creation.

Toni Morrison writes:

The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

In the dawn of the new era, throw this distraction away like a thing of another time. Your reason for being does not need to be explained. Live the age to come in this very moment. You are a priest. And, yes, the priest desires. Not to have is the beginning of desire. To have what is not is its ancient cycle. But, take delight in the Lord (not this harmful world) and the desires of your heart will be like the end of winter as you observe the effortless weather turning blue. In this way, you truly have what has not-yet-come, free from the imposition of One. More. Thing.

For I Am Love-Sick (Song of Songs 2:5)

I open the bathroom cupboard, as I do every night. I twist off the child-safe bottle cap and shake a light blue bill onto my palm. I drink it with a glass of water. After my routine is finished, I walk to the bedroom and pull the warm covers aside and climb in. I take a deep breath in the quiet of the night. Peaceful and steady, I turn my side table lamp on to read and study before I go to sleep.

I’ve heard the rabbi’s say that when we pray, we speak to God, but when we study Torah, God speaks to us. Today, I study words from the Torah and a midrash. Behold, a voice speaks. I sit with these words that I’ve just read. I hear an answer to a troubling question that has plagued me for many years.

Then Matt, who was reading next to me, mumbled something about the impracticality and the “just-for-fun” nature of all my reading, studying and writing.

I told him, “Hey! This book speaks to that! Look here…” and he leaned across the bed as I opened the pages to where I had underlined and starred the different sections. “It says Abraham was called ‘madman.’”

I showed him another section, and said, “Granted in some ways, he lived in the structured, real world--within the paradigm as a wealthy, well-connected elite. But, look! He also lived outside the paradigm. It says here, he lived as “a distraction, irrelevant, and even crazed” (85).

“And here!” I exclaimed pointing to another sentence underlined with dark blue ink. Matt leaned across the bed with his elbow pressing into the mattress. “They would say, ‘Look at that old man traveling about the country like a madman!’ Ultimately, that is the finest compliment that is paid to Abraham’”(88).

He looked at me with his eyebrows raised. I know “distracted,” “irrelevant,” and even “crazed” is how some people view me. Over these years, I have been seen as my book describes: shoteh (fool), for abandoning safe structures and faring on unmapped roads. Perhaps this is my madness. But, I have also, perhaps in a way like wealthy Abraham, been covered by safe structures: as a wife, a mother, a social worker, and a youth pastor. We may frame my journey in respectable ways. But, anyone who knows me intimately knows that I have been in tiltul (exile; lit. “off the point”) wandering through religious community, religious texts and religious wild imaginings as one in the travails of faith--going forth to a land that my God shall show me.

In this book by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, she reflects in chapter 3 "Lekh Lekha: the travails of faith" on Abraham's journey. In Hebrew, Lekh Lekha means “Go Forth.” It is descriptive of Abraham’s journey into the wilderness and into the unknown. I also experienced the imperative to go forth. And I travailed to make sense of it. Today, perhaps, I received part of a long awaited answer, a revelation to my own travails of faith.

I showed Matt the most important part from this chapter, the cream, the meat and potatoes (starred and underlined boldly). Zornberg cites Rambam from the Mishneh Torah.

“Listen to this, honey! It makes so much sense. It’s the answer to my eternal question!”

What is this condition of right love? It is, that one should love God with an excessive, powerful love, till one’s soul is totally involved in love of God, and one is constantly obsessed [shogeh] by it, as though ill with love sickness, when there is no place in one’s mind free of the love of that woman with whom one is obsessed--neither when one sits nor stands, eats nor drinks. More than this, should be the love of God in the heart of those who love Him and are obsessed by Him. This is the meaning of the command, “You shall love your God with all your heart and with all your soul…” And also of King Solomon’s allegory, “for I am love-sick” [Song of Songs 2:5]: indeed, the whole of Song of Songs is an allegory for this. (Mishneh Torah, Hilkot Teshuva 10:3)

And Zornberg’s next words: “To love is total obsession: the [Hebrew] word used is shogeh, which is clearly related to shaga, madness” (88).

We stared at the page together for a moment. I turned to my partner, my love, “Can you see what this is saying? Does it make sense?”

I read this almost pleading, hoping for him to see that my obsession with study and prayer is my love (shogeh) of God. That, yes, I have been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. I accept this and take my meds. But, there is also something in the condition of right love that keeps me sane. There is something in the condition of right love that could prevent me from the rending of my mind. This love weaves back together all the torn parts. Zornberg describes it as teruf ha-da’at (lit. rending of the mind). It’s an insanity in which the center will not hold, a dislocation.

Matt considers me torn, teruf ha-da’at, because of Bipolar Disorder.

Yet, Zornberg writes that this torn-ness is woven into the text about love and reward, implying that we can live it as a life-sustaining gift:

The danger of teruf ha-da’at, literally, the rending of the mind, an experience of sharp dislocation and discontinuity, is thus woven into the text about love and reward...The gift of rending, teruf, of discontinuity, madness, God gives to those who fear Him (Psalm 111:5)...But how live a teruf, a torn-ness, that is a gift and not a destruction? (90-91)

I wonder how can I live this madness, this obsession, this condition of right love as a daily sustenance and not a destruction? I am love-sick and I believe that this could, in fact, sustain me--like the daily bread which is broken. Perhaps right love can sew together my mind that has been torn.

“Look! This is a thing,” I told him. “My experience is connected to a tradition, to a reality, to an explanation about the condition of right love.”

Matt said frankly, “No. It’s Bipolar Disorder.”

Then, he gave me that look of suspicion-concern-fear, the have you been taking your meds? look.

I said, “Honey, this is my ultimate question. I began asking it so many years ago--is there a link in my madness to God who I experienced so palpably?”

I don’t want to be love-sick for any man, but I have known that feeling; I don’t want to be obsessed in madness, but I know that experience. Yet, it is written that, “More than this, should be the love of God in the heart of those who love Him and are obsessed by Him.” I have no other ground to stand on while I am wandering through this wilderness in exile, tiltul, “off the point,” trying to make sense of my madness.  

I feel that this midrash is an answer and I want to share it with Matt. I have recovered my ability to live in the real-world paradigm. Meds help. Therapy helps. Perhaps, my madness has been replaced with a condition of right love. But, after so many years of struggling with this question, I’m relieved to see that even this ancient text proves that there may be a relation. In my great love of God (my shogeh--love related to shaga--madness), I have listened intently. I have sought for God. I have knocked at the door. And afterwards, revelation. She writes,

When one strains for intimations of relationship, one demonstrates hiba...[God] did not reveal to him the land right away, so as to endear it to him, and give him reward for each word spoken. (Gen. 12:2).”...[There is] an intense listening--and ‘afterwards’ akar kakh--revelation. (89-91)

The meaning of my experience has not been revealed all at once, and so I demonstrate hiba. I am endeared and rewarded for each word spoken as I study and read. This is all I want in the world--to love our God and to love my neighbor as myself. I may have had an experience of being mad (shaga), but I also have the experience of love (shogeh). I must be love-sick, I realize.

“Hey” I say smiling at my life-partner, my love, nudging him to loosen up. My outbursts of enthusiasm like this come only every so often, and he's learning to trust that I'm staying well. He gives me a goodnight kiss, and for a moment we look in each others eyes. There is affection, then perhaps a twinkle of humor, then we can't hold each other's gaze any longer. We laugh together. Because we both know I’m taking my meds, and all this enthusiasm about words is just-for-fun.

I in You and You in Me

Some philosophers say our encounter with the world starts with the self, out to an other, and back again to the self. This is inadequate. Like gestation, “I in You and You in me”, our encounter with the world is relational. The encounter of I with you in the present moment is a glimpse of the eternal You found in the face of another person. The You could never be an “It.”*

But when someone you love reduces you, a wholehearted being, a child, to an “It” for their own selfish pleasure or gratification, it messes with your sense of self. Against your will, this “It” moment gestates within you, and it can make you crazy. Even trying to forgive doesn’t take it away. The “It” moment is within you and you can never be the person you were before they acted on you.

Some people replay the moment, doing to others what was done to them - just in new ways. Others struggle with their own power-and-powerless-ness. Mania and suicidal ideation may be symptoms of an inability to make peace with the monstrosity done to you, now within you, now a part of you.

When you encounter a person or a group of people who treat you as an “It,” especially when they are someone who you loved or admired, this can gestate inside you as agony.

But, when you and I encounter one another in the present moment as in relation with the infinite within the finite (ie. in a person’s face), there will be authentic gratification, healing, and of course, love.

* See Martin Buber's I and Thou

Receiving a Cup of Tea

Content Warning (CW): cis woman writing about another person, gender unknown - forgive my presumptions. Violence and harm come from obsessions with gendered physicality. I meant to write a love letter, not pour salt in a wound.


Be still my soul, what captivating eyes! The barista is simply doing their job at the register: taking cash, giving change, handing me tea. But, their eyes smile with a sweet kindness that makes me want to know more. Their hair looks like it's growing longer, pulled back in a ponytail, with remnants of a short boy-cut lingering. They look sensual with the straps of their white and black striped tank top showing from beneath the swoop neck of a tight black T. I don't like that I notice their breasts. They look nice. Am I objectifying? (I, who hate my breasts to be objectified.) A 5 o'clock shadow frames their cheekbones. Am I categorizing? (I, who hate to be categorized!)

They are efficient and friendly. Their eyes, captivating. I want to be friends. But, if we were to become friends, I would need them to forgive me for observing physicality without knowing anything about their person or their story. I want to be safe, and I'm out of my league. My "safeness" is normally assumed by the people I want to be friends with. My cis-ness is, too. I wouldn't blame this bright eyed handsome beauty for being wary. I would want to prove myself as safe, knowing that I'm not as safe as they deserve. I think about all these things when they smile at me again in that friendly and self-assured way that they have about them. My over-analysis and swirling thoughts go silent when I hear their voice.

"I would let the tea steep for a little while before you drink it," they say.

"Thanks," I say, feeling the warmth of the tea already.

And now that I'm writing about this person, I have this urge to let them be for a little while, to watch them become who they are becoming. Then I remember their captivating eyes. I realize they are all and everything they should ever be right now. And I'm drinking them up.


Post-script: A gender fluid friend posted this recently after describing violent aggressions towards their body: "...I totally feel why folks just wanna present binary/stealth (no judgement, for real, I get it). You can pry the fabulous off my cold, dead body, though. I will be silenced/bullied/cowed by nothing less.  Bury me in all my tutus, mom, and don't forget the gender fucked accessories."

The Day After the Birth of My Nephew

I am bound by my love for my children and even love for my husband. He can use that chain of iron, links forged in the fire of duty, love, obligation, expectation and commitment. He can pull that chain when he tells me desperately, “I need…!” and like a dog on a leash, I may resist and pull, but eventually I will give in and go in his direction. I’ve been trained by society since birth. We had a disagreement and, tonight, I feel more like a socially constructed woman than I’ve ever felt. And it is social construction that binds me to his whim. “I submit!” And I don’t know who I am anymore.

Yet, yesterday, I witnessed firsthand the raw, awesome, sublime power of a physically constructed woman. I saw her body transform before my very eyes. I saw her breath and her eyes and her jaw set strong against wave after wave of pure bodily force as she brought a human being into this world. She was the breath of life moving through the dust of the earth. Every breath is what mattered. Every breath took her through each mind-body expanding contraction. Our brains are always surprised at this – at what the dust of the earth can do to our breath in labor. But, by breathing through it, these cells, these organs, and the miraculous human life inside her were all subdued. They submitted to her and worked with her. For all of her – her breath, her mind, her will, her body, and the new life coming forth – all had the same purpose, all were one as the truest physical embodiment of a labor of love.

She stood on the precipice of death and life. She stared at death as she said, “Yes,” when the doctor said they wanted to plunge a knife into her body to extract her child. She stared at death as she pushed out her child and thought that maybe the monitors had something significant to say, that maybe her child was dead. She breathed and became the essence of life as she got on top of each contraction, each mind-altering surge of pain as she said, “I am,” to the forces that would tear her body apart or smother her baby.

The doctor said, “C-section. Stop pushing.” And she felt her body surge in the way it does, telling us the baby also whispers, “I am,” and we agree. She agreed. She pushed with all her might. And with the sudden release of pressure, the emptying out of the head, the shoulders, the body into the world, she had to wonder with this physical relief came dread…for a moment she had a doubt…was all this for naught? And the baby screamed a loud, healthy cry that said to the world, “I AM!” She saw her partner’s face and she knew all was well. The baby was alive. Her body was intact. Her mind and heart were forever changed. But, all was well.

She very well may be a socially constructed woman, like me, in some ways. But, this experience has changed her forever. She will always know somewhere deep down inside who she is and what she is capable of overcoming. She will always know that the “I need’s” of her loved ones are so urgently felt, so desperately begged for, and she will submit. She will say with full agency, “OK, my dear. Yes.” But, she will also know, with a sense of God’s humor and love, that secret truth: that most of the “I need’s” of this world are shallow, but some go deep. Some bring us to the precipice of life and death. Some needs pull out of the depth of our breath, “I am.”

Rich Among the Poor

I told my partner, my lover, my equal, I need you to join me in the revolution. I want to do more. I need a partner, ideas, encouragement. He said, "What are you even doing?" As if I was attacking him with my hypocrisy, as if I was saying that he’s not doing enough, when, in fact, I just want to do more.

I thought of today's symbol of resistance: fists raised in the air. I felt poor and powerless in the face of his accusation. So, I lifted my voice and defensively told him that I participate in Blue Ocean (my LGBTQ inclusive, social justice driven, interdenominational church). I read. I write. I give money. I talk to people. I assert radical insights to people willing to listen. He said something about how I need to write articles, call senators, and join protests. I have called senators and joined protests...I’m working on it. 

I said quietly, “I need you to join with me, so we can encourage each other.” 

He, exhausted from the long hours in his residency program, replied quietly, “I do want to be more politically active.” 

But, when I said "give money" in my list of action steps, I noticed that he cringed. It was the cringe of the Money Clench, of a scarcity mindset. Money is power. I see that we may “join” the revolution only until it hurts. I feel ready to give more. The more I feel the Money Clench, the more I want to give. It’s almost only a rebellion against the Money Clench itself, and less about tithing, generosity or justice. SCREW the Money Clench, that evil feeling that we get when we feel afraid of losing our privilege. Screw that. I’ll give more. I’ll give until I have nothing left. 

Sometimes, I give out of a place of gratitude. I can’t believe we have so much, when for so long (most of my childhood), we struggled to stay financially afloat. I feel joy and freedom when I can buy a bike or a pair of shoes or a flight to San Francisco without suffering for it later. And I see people around me struggling. Acquaintances from my church stare in awe at the freedom of the rich to spend (as I once stared). There is a freedom among the rich to satisfy every whim and need, coupled with a stern and careful frugality when it comes to certain things. Certain things like giving money to the poor. When you are struggling for food, clothes, transportation and healthcare, you gape at the way the rich can so freely spend. You also know that most keep a closed fist when it comes to your needs. 

In these moments, I am at risk of becoming a profligate. A spendthrift. I am at risk of spending my limited prosperity in an extravagant or recklessly wasteful way – on the Ground Cover homeless salesperson, on tips at coffee shops, on GoFundMe sites for strangers’ funerals and healthcare deductibles, on organizations like the ACLU, Muslim Advocates, or Jewish Family Services. I will become money-less (again) trying to slip money to my friends in need.

But, to be honest, I'm not generous, I'm careless. My partner, who works hard and earns most our money, is concerned about my obsession with tithing 10% (which, despite my great sin in boasting of profligate giving, we're not there, not close). He gets a firm and stern look about him. “We are in debt!!!” he proclaims. “Let’s get out of the hole first. Plus, we must save for our kids to go to college!!! And we have a mortgage!” When I hear these words, I become like a large beast shifting my feet, a mammal snorting nervously, hyper-alert to fear. I pull my ears back and growl a warning sound deep in my chest. I say, “Fine!” And I charge ahead. I go and give $50 away, just to spite the Money Clench, the fear of losing our (hard-earned) privilege. 

Scarcity mindset afflicts us – even those of us who have our every need met. There was a joke on a comedy show written by Tina Fey. A rich, arrogant woman talks to a naïve, young woman and says, “God forbid you marry a family medicine doctor!” Matt told me about this joke and I thought it was so funny. It's funny because I thought we were doing well, but rich people think we are mediocre. We have student debts. We have, as my 8-year-old nephew told me, a “small house.” We are poor among the rich. 

This past weekend, our neighbors had a block party. The host? A heavyset man who recently retired from a lawn mowing business. He has the nicest house on our block. Our other neighbors? A young couple, one a research manager in the School of Natural Resources at the University and the other involved in lobbying for juvenile justice legislation. They are vegetarian and vegan respectively. They have a 6-month old daughter. There is also the young man who trims trees for a living. “Yes, tree trimming is a trade,” he told my mother-in-law when she asked. And our beloved witty next door neighbor, who at over 70 years old is working at a bank and volunteers by tutoring with incarcerated juvenile delinquents. She knits us scarves and blankets for birthday gifts. She lives on a strict budget. There is also a young Episcopal Priest in the yellow house near the end. And in the other direction, the mother of the keyboardist for the band, Blues Traveler. I float through this gathering of neighbors. 

“Yes!” I say to our tree-trimming neighbor, “I live in the dark blue house with white trim and a wisteria tree in the front.” 

“Oh, the one with the wooden arbor?”

“Yes,” I smile, delightfully. I feel comfortable, if a little abundant, knowing that I would never marry a tree trimmer or a lawn mowing business owner (even for the nicest house on the block, even when I find out that they have a college degree in computer programming, but that they, like me, wanted to reject the superficial climb.) My husband is a family medicine physician.

My life has brought me to know the wealthy surgeons, lawyers, and business people who belong--who might say to their children, "Heaven forbid you marry a family medicine physician." We belong to country clubs, the anxieties of a shifting stock market, and the dilemma of Dine-in or Carry-out. I wonder if my neighbors attend to the carefully manicured lawns of surgeons, lawyers and successful business people. Many of the (white) people on our middle-class block grew up here, and inherited this property, just as President Trump inherited his wealth and property. I wonder about what I will inherit, and about what I have inherited already. 

There's no time to waste, we must join the revolution. This ladder extends below me from the darkness of the poverty of incarcerated juvenile delinquents all the way up far beyond my view, all the way up to the corrupt Trump high rise towers around the world, and the rolling estates that wealthy people escape to on the weekends. Next to Trump, I see in the White House pictures of his heir, a younger Trump, with her dyed blonde hair, a baby worn in a carrier-wrap, and many published books (ah, yes: Women Who Work).

I can't take it anymore. We must find the revolutionaries. Join the abolition. Give our prosperity to anyone who has been victimized in this corrupt capitalist system, if only to screw the system. Resist. With my body, I say, "No." No, I will not dye my hair blonder or fry it straighter any more. No, I will not starve myself to be beautifully thin. No, I will not follow Ivanka’s lead as a woman who works and hires nannies, housekeepers, tree-trimmers and lawn mowers at cheap wages so that we can earn more, and climb farther up that ladder. Oh, wait, I am already there. Shall I climb? Shall I take my left hand over my right and climb away from my small blue house with the wisteria, away from the men I would never marry, and farther and farther away from the middle-class neighborhood where I was born?

I'm climbing in spite of myself. I'm (somewhat) pretty. I have (dirty) blonde hair, a (fairly) thin body, and I wear my babies in a baby carrier. I'm married to a doctor. I want to publish a book. I'm the sister of a surgeon, a lawyer, an anesthesiologist, step-sister to 3rd generation doctors. Capitalism takes care of children like me, like us. My left hand, raised up as if to say “No!” keeps getting stuffed with money, so much money, I can't make a fist anymore: $50...no $100 dollar bills. So, I take the money out of my left hand and with my right hand I give it away. I give it to anyone who needs money more than me. With my right hand, I throw the meager money I have down the ladder into the dark and shadowy depths of poverty. I can’t see the faces of all the people there and I don’t know what they will do with this money. I only hope my $50 and $100 dollar bills can help. I am rich among the poor.

Yet, I thought money was nothing. Money means nothing. Money has no voice, no power, and no place in the revolution. We each have but one voice to add to the movement and it is happening now, as we speak. There is no hierarchy, no ladder. Here, we can see each other's faces. Here, we can hear each other's voice. We join with the power of people, marching against a corrupt system, with our fists alone raised in the air.     

Jesus and the Disinherited: Overcoming Fear (a sermon at Blue Ocean Faith)

12 Mar 2017—Blue Ocean Faith Ann Arbor Celebration from Blue Ocean Faith Ann Arbor on Vimeo.

Third Way Newsletter posts

I've been posting articles on the Third Way Newsletter by Blue Ocean Faith, Ann Arbor

Mourning the Miscarriages

Two healers (cranial-sacral masseuses) worked on my body - releasing tension, talking me through my grief. They started their work one at my head and one at my feet. Then, Judy stopped at my uterus and rested there as Rachel held my feet. Judy put one hand above my uterus and one below, under my back. She asked me to focus on my uterus.

“What do you feel?”

“Nothing,” I replied.

Emptiness. Nothingness. I felt no cramping, no changes, no fullness. I lost touch with her (my body) somehow. We used to be so connected. She felt like an empty tomb now. Not even the remains were there. No place to visit and mourn my loved ones. There was death in this tomb and now there is nothing.

Emily asked if I’ve ritually grieved this second loss. For the first miscarriage, I lit a candle regularly for many nights. I have not ritually grieved. I have written a paper - is that a ritual? Today, for the first time in a long time, I took 12 minutes to meditate. As I breathed I could feel tension in my body and a tightness in my lungs. I remembered a time when the Spirit felt so alive in me. Now…”Nothing.”

The day the bleeding started, Emily prayed for the Lord to breathe life into my womb. I’m waiting now, as my womb feels death-filled and empty.

I told Ken and Emily that I am fascinated by the ways Jesus took on feminine roles - serving others, washing feet and caring for the children. Ken said the womb is the only tangible place where “I am in you and you are in me.” This echoes the words Jesus spoke, “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). That is fascinating to me, and the three of us women (Cassie, Emily and I) said we needed to think about this some more.

“I live…” he who died said to his disciples.

New life comes out of the womb. Jesus came out of his tomb. This new life, a living Jesus, retained his awareness of “I in you and you in me.”

The problem is that I feel like I am that empty tomb he left behind. But, instead of a risen child of God walking out into a garden, the life growing inside my womb exited as a bloody outpouring falling to the earth - twice.

A thought comforts me: The Ark of the Covenant. The mercy seat. I found the Ark in the story of the tomb. It is written that Mary Magdalene entered into the tomb and saw two angels seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” (John 20:12-13). She replied that they had taken her Lord. Then she saw Jesus, but thought he was the gardener. This imagery of the Ark comes to me - with the two angels seated, one at the head and the other at the foot of where his body had been.

The Ark is described in Exodus:

“And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. Make one cherub on one end and the second on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends. The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. Place the cover on the top of the ark and put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law that I give you.” (Exodus 25:18-21)

Now, I feel my own body participating in this story. Somehow my body holds the potential of being a holy vessel where God’s law may be written in my mind and in my heart with the two angels facing one another looking toward the cover, like the Ark of the Covenant. The words of Jeremiah are with me. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.’” (Jeremiah 31:33).  The two angels, Judy at my head and Rachel at my feet, said to me, “What do you feel?”

Perhaps my womb is not an empty tomb but a mercy seat. Perhaps I will soon see a gardener and come to know that life has conquered over death. Perhaps I will come to realize the meaning of the words, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”