Summer Dump: A List of Learning Moments

PLUS...The Podcast!

I spend all school year searching for bits of time to write, wishing for the summer months when I have huge swaths of the stuff. Yet alas, the more time I have the more things I have to distract me from writing. Ahhhhh! The painful irony. So here is my attempt to write about all some of the things I’ve wanted to write about this summer - in very short bits.

But first - the podcast is here! The first three episodes of (A)Theist are out on all the platforms, and we’ve been getting great feedback. Thank you to those of you who have been listening, have followed the show and shared with friends and even written reviews. We’re so grateful by the reception it’s getting. The podcast format is long form conversation between me and my friend Erin who is an atheist, a millennial and a gay woman. With me as a straight, Gen-X Christian you might have assumptions about how we get along, but we do more laughing and crying together on this podcast (and IRL) than most. Erin is my people and I’m so lucky to have her in my life.

Take a listen to our interview with the wise and vulnerable Dr. Belden Lane, author of A Solace of Fierce Landscapes and Backpacking with the Saints. Our next episode which is our response to the conversation with Belden is coming out on Monday! Hope you follow along and reach out with questions or comments.

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The moments I’ve learned the most from (so far) this summer..

1. The Ted Lasso Finale - My favorite moment in the Lasso finale wasn’t the dance or the tearful goodbye with Rebecca, though those were wonderful. My favorite moment was when Nate finally has the opportunity to apologize to Ted. It is so raw and real and heartfelt. Nick Mohammad fills it with authenticity and deep regret. Anyone who has felt shame and the need for forgiveness understands Nate’s heart here. And while I cried for Nate (and for myself) it was Ted’s reaction that really sent me. This is where we see Ted’s arc. He is finally able to receive someone else’s vulnerability. He’s able to be present for someone else’s sorrow. He hugs Nate and just says, “Aww buddy.” He holds him and lets him cry. He admits his own failings not as a way to bypass Nate’s feelings but as a point of connection.

When you are sitting with people in grief are you wholly able to be there without your own discomfort asking them to feel better? Can you truly stand with people in their sorrow?

2. Kanuga Retreat and Pádraig Ó Tuama - Bill and I went to North Carolina for a week in early June to the Kanuga Episcopal retreat center to spend a few days in community and to listen to the Irish poet and host of Poetry Unbound, Pádraig Ó Tuama, read his poetry. He is a beautiful human. He talked about the burden of belief and how he has relieved himself of it. “Who am I to know God?” asks the man with two degrees in Theology. I recently saw a clip from an interview with him where he’s asked whether or not he believes in God. He responded, “I always answer that question with a story from my day. Today I was sitting in a cafe and life has been difficult lately. I’ve been sick. So I was crying. And a bird flew and sat at my table. It was interested in the crumbs on my plate.”

   With what story from your day would you answer the question “do you believe in God?”

   Here’s one of my favorite of Pádraig‘s poems:

   How To Belong Be Alone

   It all begins with knowing
   nothing lasts forever,
   so you might as well start packing now.
   In the meantime,
   practice being alive.

   There will be a party
   where you’ll feel like
   nobody’s paying you attention.
   And there will be a party
   where attention’s all you’ll get.
   What you need to do
   is to remember
   to talk to yourself
   between these parties.

   And,
   again,
   there will be a day,
   — a decade —
   where you won’t
   fit in with your body
   even though you’re in
   the only body you’re in.

   You need to control
   your habit of forgetting
   to breathe.

   Remember when you were younger
   and you practiced kissing on your arm?
   You were on to something then.
   Sometimes harm knows its own healing
   Comfort knows its own intelligence.
   Kindness too.
   It needs no reason.

   There is a you
   telling you another story of you.
   Listen to her.

   Where do you feel
   anxiety in your body?
   The chest? The fist? The dream before waking?
   The head that feels like it’s at the top of the swing
   or the clutch of gut like falling
   & falling & falling and falling
   It knows something: you’re dying.
   Try to stay alive.

   For now, touch yourself.
   I’m serious.

   Touch your
   self.
   Take your hand
   and place your hand
   some place
   upon your body.
   And listen
   to the community of madness
   that
   you are.
   You are
   such an
   interesting conversation.

   You belong
   here.

   

   3. Topaz Nipples - After the retreat Bill and I spent a few days in Asheville drinking beer, walking through art galleries and visiting the Biltmore. It was our anniversary the day we did the gallery walk and I found a jeweler that I loved. (hmmm…) As I was looking through her pieces, Bill turned to me and said, “What about this one?” He was holding a beautiful necklace of a woman’s torso with topaz nipples. I said, “that’s really spe-” and before I could say “special” I started to tear up. I’ve had a love/hate (mostly hate filled) relationship to my body and not much connection to the divine feminine for most of my life. To let this beautiful necklace rest on my heart and to have my sweet Bill know its importance, was the greatest gift.

   What image might be a healing one to rest on your heart?

   

4. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Parish - The Archdiocese of St.Louis will go from 178 parishes to 134 under the reorganization plan called All Things New. That’s a lot of faith communities that are closing. Many church doors closing on hundreds if not thousands of people’s memories. I led a retreat at the beginning of the summer with congregants from Blessed Teresa in Ferguson. They are one of the parishes fated to close. It was a painful day for people to name their grief, their anger and their fears around the closing and their move to another parish 15 minutes north. I felt so honored to hold space and listen to their stories about their love for their church and their town of Ferguson which they fear will suffer when their parish is no longer serving its community.

   What changes have you either chosen or been forced to make in the past and what can it teach you about approaching change in the future?

   

   

5. Somatic Enneagram - I’ve been working on my certification in the Somatic Enneagram with Marion Gilbert this summer and to that end led a class with about 14 people. I’ve learned so much from the beautiful people who signed on to do this work with me and have a whole new appreciation for the somatic modality that I’ve been studying now for over two years. If you’re interested in learning more I’m going to be teaching a free introductory class on Wisdom Work and the Body at Joy of Yoga this Wednesday. Sign up here! It’s available online as well. Or feel free to email me to set up a time to talk.

   As you sit here right now what is the felt sense of your body?

   

I hope you all are having wonder filled, real and hopeful summers. I may write again before the summer’s out. I may not. Maybe I’m distracted by the open tracts of time, or maybe I’m just living into what Rohr calls deep time. Either way, I’m not mad about it.

Be well friends (and watch Season 2 of the Bear)

Kelley