There were trees uprooted next to the freeway. Mounds of dirt clod clumps clinging to thick roots sticking up, awkward, misplaced.

I wanted to get a better look at them, but I was driving on California Interstate 5 to Los Angeles. Husband and kids and bags and I journeying to friends who said, please come. It was overcast, gray sky low, arms stretching out in embrace.

If I was in the passenger seat, I’d have taken a photo. Or, I would have grabbed words and tried to work out what it was that was making my heart feel so tight in my chest when I looked out. Gnarled empty limbs, cement brown, so undignified, trunks sprawled, broken and exposed, on their sides.

I am familiar with almond trees–as a farmer’s daughter who watched her dad bend low, dirt crusted in lines of tanned skin, watching and listening to the voice of trees. I know the sharp edges of older bark as it breaks off in clumps, and the smooth, knotted roughness of young bark layered on new green. I know the smell of wet earth and the miracle of paper-thin nonpareil shells the dogs crack open and eat from the ground.

These trees were planted once. They were seeds once. They were shoots laid in dirt brown and hard, softened by drinks of water, aerated by steel spikes pulled by tractors, and visited by furry gray-brown squirrels and jackrabbits that scamper and scurry to limb upon limb or underground.

Hands planted each shoot into the ground. And the shoots grew and limbs stretched, quiet and strong, sprouting green leaves and white blossoms, and then nuts with green velvet shells before the hulls hardened and opened wide. Downy against thumb or cheek as you rub them close.

The day the bulldozers ripped roots straight out, one by one, row after row–violent, sure–was not a decision made quickly. It was not a decision that was easy. It was not a decision that was fun.

But it was necessary, whether due to lack of water, or money. Or maybe the orchard changed hands.

I hope new trees are planted soon. I hope these old trees, their roots so wrongly bent in weird angles outside the land where they belong, are replaced with new, young shoots. I pray their lineage continues, the life of the seeds giving birth to trees, with limbs pruned and the trees growing tall, before being pulled out of the ground.

Death didn’t look beautiful from this angle as I sped by, one of thousands of cars on a January Saturday afternoon. It didn’t look poetic or kind. It didn’t look hope-filled or cause for any celebration.

My hands clutched the steering wheel and I memorized the scene, the uprooted orchards, the story of men and of women and of dreams and of life coming so miraculously from hard ground.

I remembered my mom’s words to me on the phone the day before. The almonds will be in bloom soon. Just a few more weeks and the blossoms will be on the branches. The trees my father planted.

And yet I saw only uprooted trees, disaster, disorder, disappointment. And I knew the trees my father planted were scheduled to be pulled up soon, too.

The word for almond in Hebrew, is shakeid, the root of the word meaning to watch or to awake. Jeremiah, when he is asked by God what he sees, looks and says “I see an almond branch.” And I think about Jeremiah looking for what God wanted him to see, and how Jeremiah did see, and how what Jeremiah saw was something of so much beauty.

Father, show us what to watch for. Ask us what we see.

How will we answer? What is before us? What is in front of us? How do we see it? What is God asking us to see?

Jeremiah saw an almond branch, a branch of beauty, a branch also decorating the Lamp stand of the Tabernacle, in Exodus.

It was less than a minute and I had driven past the orchard. I was aware, as I looked, that it was a memory I wanted to keep. I knew that I would want to record it.

Aren’t we stirred, both, by beauty and beauty absent?

And in that moment I felt tears fall; I realized I was struggling to see beauty and hope when before me was disorder and chaos and death.

Let us watch with clear eyes, with open hearts. Let us remember there is always newness, always beauty, with God, even when things feel completely bleak.

And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond branch.” Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it (Jeremiah 1: 11-12).

Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, whatever situation we now face, I pray, sister, we ask for help in being watchful, in being observant, in desiring to see with clear, open eyes, what lies before us, yes–the miracle in the death, the life awaiting awakening, the word of God He is asking us to see, live out, believe.

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For Loop Poetry Project, write a poem on an experience with change. Consider your present circumstances: what is different than what it was before? How can you bring to life your observations of these changes? Will you focus on the facts–the details of change that comes with time? Or will it be more of a rumination of the heart?

Some ideas to consider: how has your body changed, and how do you feel about that? What about your relationships? The environment? Your home? Your attitudes and/or opinions? Your interests and affinities? Your desires and questions about the world?

Share your poem below or on social media using the hashtag #looppoetryproject so we can find you. You can also share your poem in the private Facebook group, Loop Poetry Project, a supportive community of women pursuing heart wholeness through writing poetry. (Pursuing what is true, not perfection.)

love,

jennifer

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To Be Taught

How is it that raindrops on windshields
and empty bleachers signal sadness,
memories of people in their youth
or old age congregating as if they
are known and understood,
inhabiting their moments fully
grounded in their feelings,
experiencing the living of smiling
and talking, crying and dancing,
without circumspection or analysis
or wistfulness or regret.
How can living be so easy
(breathing taken for granted)
an attitude undignified and wildly beautiful
in its freedom to be what it is
and not second-guess its meaning
or one’s role in it, a bold wild dance
of living loved and knowing it
so that each step is perfectly sure
and unparalleled in grace,
the way our eyes meet
and you teach me all these things
without saying a word.

We got tested for the Corona-19 virus on Friday. Three of the five of us–with the other two going in soon. And now we await results.

We were exposed to it by a friend on my birthday, and this Wednesday will be the 14th day of our quarantine. This dear friend, though, a single dad of four children, has been in the hospital for nine days. He is stable now. But we continue to lift up our hands and pray.

Sometimes the most difficult first step in surrendering fear to God is recognizing we are afraid. Satan doesn’t want us to recognize our fear. He doesn’t want us to name what it is that makes us anxious, desperate, stressed. Here is our habit: We let fear dictate our actions, our decisions, our rhythm of life.

What does a life of fear look like? Well, it can look a lot like believing lies:

We can fear we will not be loved unless we perform and earn validation from people outside our family. So we work hard and stay up late and choose opportunities to prove ourselves while neglecting what God puts in front of us to do and ignoring whom God puts in front of us to love.

We can fear we will fail at the task God has given us to do. So we have a history of spending time doing other things–maybe even good things–that are in our comfort zones. Things to make us feel good about ourselves, where we can rely upon our own strengths, have control and predict the outcome.

We can fear vulnerability. So we hide and shade the truth. We fear we will be loved less–or outright rejected–or filled with shame if we reveal the deepest secrets of our hearts.

What are your fears? What does your life look like because of these fears? What are the outcomes?

No matter what we fear, this is what we need to remember:

Jesus already granted us salvation. Jesus already came for us, restored us to Himself, took all sin, all fear, and invited us into His fullness. We are reconciled to Him. All God’s wrath and judgment already came and was laid on Christ.

“For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”

romans 6:10

Jesus’ death only needed to happen once. His sacrifice, once, was enough.

When we fear, when we feel overwhelmed and distressed, let’s remember the coming of our Lord, the sacrifice and rising of Christ. While nothing can separate us from the love of God, fear can get in the way of our living in the fullness of God’s love–the fullness He bought for us with His death, the fullness we are practicing living in, each day.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

John 4:18

As sisters of Christ, daughters of God, we have been given everything we need to live fully. We lack nothing. Nothing.

Our fear reveals how much we are a work in progress. While perfectly designed, we are still being perfected. Our trials, our suffering in this life are opportunities for us to move in the opposite spirit of fear, move in the opposite spirit of anxiety and desperation. We are desperate for Christ, yes–but we are even more desperate to choose Christ.

With each step we take this day, we choose Christ or we choose fear. When we choose Christ, we choose perfect love, which “casts out fear.”

I know what it is like to live from a place of fear. I know what that burden feels like–the heaviness, the walls pressing in. I know what it looks like to work hard to either ignore the fear, or to fix the problem you think is causing it in the first place.

But here is what is causing it. We are filled with fear, no matter the circumstance, because we are not trusting our whole self to God. His perfect love casts out all fear. He is enough. He is big enough. He is good.

Father, you have already come. You have already bestowed to us your fullness, and we ache to receive it. We ache to realize it even more. We want all that You have for us, and we surrender to You our fear, our doubts, our striving. We claim your perfect love. We claim it as enough. Continue to perfect us. Let us see You more clearly. Let us live in the fullness of You, in the fullness of your perfect love. Let us make all choices, this day, from that place, from the heart of knowing who and whose we are.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

For the Loop Poetry Project this week, write a poem about fear. Perhaps you’d want to personify Fear so that it feels like someone with whom you’d have a conversation or see walking down the street of your neighborhood or experience living in your house. How would it walk? What would it say? What room would it inhabit? How would you feel about it being there? Comfortable? Angry? Resigned?

Or maybe write a poem that tells a story about a personal experience with fear–the story of your life or an isolated moment. In this case you might consider using language that brings the fear to life, helping us, as readers, feel it with you, through details of sight, touch, sound, and smell.

Most importantly, listen to your heart. When you consider the concept of fear, what do you most want to say? Then play around with how you will communicate your heart’s message. Give it voice. Don’t hold back. Be the author of the fear, not the other way around.

Then consider sharing your poem here, in the comments, or on social media, using the hashtag #looppoetryproject so we can find you. I would also love to see you over at this community’s private Facebook group. If you haven’t joined yet, you need to know it is a lovely and encouraging place, full of kind and brave women who weekly share their hearts upon the page.

I look forward to hearing from you!

love,

jennifer

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Mania

In dreams I am running and
barely moving,
like there is no pay off in effort
and yet

I only push harder
when it seems I am going
nowhere
rather than—

well, it never occurs to me
to stop.

How can I tell her:
slowing might be okay,
I mean, you are
moving slowly anyway.

She cannot imagine
not choosing suffering
if there is a chance
she might escape

the feeling that
she will fail.

I rose early on my birthday last week, stepping outside into air cool and quiet. All was still. No breeze rustling the bamboo fronds. No birds bouncing from branches. No squirrels catapulting from the highest tree limbs to the wooden fence and back up to the studio roof.

I live my days sensitive to time–perplexed by the way it can stretch out, one long moment after another, and how, also, it can dart and weave and feel like pinpricks of reality, barely realized, scarcely seen, unnoticed before it disappears.

I have lived the habit of missing time.

But not today.

The day of my birthday is usually when I am most sensitive to time–more than in December, that time of reflection and planning for the new year. Or even on my children’s birthdays, although their aging always feels like a mind-bender to me. How did you change from cuddly baby to squirmy toddler to this independent teenager who is about to leave home? Rather than being grateful for the years of living, the miracle of these years, I have often spent my birthday hyper-aware of all the time that has passed, as if it had escaped me somehow and I failed at slowing it and corraling it back.

But on my birthday last week, at the moment I stepped out the door into the crisp morning air, I realized that my perception of time was different. Rather than feeling anxious that another year of my life had passed, I felt waves of gratitude for the miracle of my life at all.

How blessed am I to have lived this long? How blessed am I to live in a world of water and air, flowers and mountains, art and song? How blessed am I to experience adventure and imagination, where anything is possible, where people are wildly complicated and captivatingly imperfect and shine with stunning beauty like the sun?

What a miracle to awake to light each day and the darkness each night. What a miracle to get to think and dream, accept challenges and work problems. What a miracle to get to mess up and try again and forgive and love even when it hurts and feels impossible. What a miracle to experience the aging of a body and a beating of a heart both held in the gaze of God?

I am loved. You are loved. Dearly, dearly loved.

There is nothing to fear this day in the ticking of a clock, the weakening of a body. Wistfulness and regret is not for us. Not this day.

Look up. Look up. Look at how long you have lived! All of life is set before you. Never-ending. Beautiful and full of possibilities. Even in the hardship. Even in the challenge. Even in the unknowing. There is good here. Right now. And more good is yet to come.

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For the Loop Poetry Project this week, write a poem about your relationship with time–what you think about it, how you approach it. Perhaps you would want to consider having a conversation with Time, as if it were a person. Or perhaps you’d like to tell a story about it–or show, through figurative language, how time can be manipulated or how it manipulates you.

How does time motivate you? Or drain you? How does time frustrate you or inspire you? What stories can time tell you? What wisdom has time given you? What trials and struggles? What glories and gifts?

Share your poem here, in the comments below, or on social media, using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. If you haven’t yet joined the Loop Poetry Project private group on Facebook, I encourage you to check it out–a community of kind and encouraging women who believe that writing can be a tool for self-awareness–and poetry is a form of writing that lends itself to an even deeper study and healing of the heart.

with love, from this one true heart,

jennifer

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Time Rising

I am aware it is my birthday
and look for everything
around me to speak,
the stillness of morning
when all is possible,
everything in front of me
never behind
when the sun rises slowly,
offering light kissing branches
and rooftops and bird wings
and the wind holds it breath
so that time is expectant and holy
and I am okay with its shifting—
the way forty-eight years feels
more compact than
one long song stretched
through innumerable choices to
see a moment
for what it is and yet
can never understand:
love standing in one place and
in all places at once
so I am consistently held
and I am not afraid
to be overwhelmed by
all that is possible
and perfect and true.

I read older poems I’ve written and try to find myself in them. They feel vaguely foreign, memories of writing faded and far away. It makes me feel strange to read them, making me wonder about the intersection of heart and mind and truth and imagination when we write.

What motivated those words and ideas? Why communicate them? Why write them down? Did the ideas exist before I wrote them? Or did they come into being only through my writing–meaning they would not have existed if I never wrote them at all?

Is what we create something that remains a part of us? An articulation of the heart and mind upon a page? Or is what we’ve created separate from us, an unowned thing the moment we set down our ideas and move them from brain to heart to public view?

And what does it mean when the words come more easily than others? Are the ones that come fast, with seemingly little effort, more true than the ones born from hard-pressed work, the result of blood, sweat and tears? How do we measure the ache to articulate ourselves even when we worry we have nothing really to say?

Sometimes the words for me come easily. But this usually happens when I am writing regularly, my mind sharpened and ready to articulate ideas. And this past week, I didn’t push myself to write creatively. No journal entries. No poetry. I did write to complete assignments–emails and social media posts. But I didn’t do the deeper work of checking my heart and giving it voice. Did it have something to say and I missed it? Will I forever be missing a part of me because I didn’t honor the ever-present opportunity to dig deeper into who I am and what God has for me? After all, can’t writing that taps into the deepest places in us be a form of prayer?

I think there is value in the struggle of writing, especially when it is hard. Writing that prompts contemplation leads us to a deeper discovery of our selves. How you feel matters. What you think matters. There is so much we miss when we go from one moment to the next, day after day, week after week, without pausing and considering how what we feel and think leads to our actions, things we take for granted unless we live with intention and purpose each day.

It sounds strange, I know, but when I sat down today and opened a notebook I had not written in for a whole week, I felt like I had missed something. For a whole week, I didn’t pause and stop to listen to what my heart had to say. I wonder what it felt? I wonder what I could have learned?

We have much to discover in the search for true words. Let’s keep leaning in, full of wonder and expectation, knowing that what we have to say–even to just ourselves–is worth listening to. Writing is one of the tools of self-awareness, opening us up to deeper healing. It matters.

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For the Loop Poetry Project this week, write a poem that reflects an exploration of your heart–a deeper awareness birthed from the processing of your feelings. What has happened to you this week that has caused you to feel emotion? Return to that moment. Enter into it again and examine it. Go deeper. Pause and feel the emotions that surface. Describe the realization that comes from the examination of how and why you have thought and felt the way you did. And if you can’t figure out why you feel or think the way you do, write about that–the confusion, the lack of clarity, the mystery you long (or don’t long) to uncover.

Share your poem here, in the comments below, or in the private Facebook group, Loop Poetry Project. I can’t wait to learn what you think about this topic and what your experience was like diving in!

*You can read my poem below, as well as the prayer I felt moved to pray in response to it.

love,

jennifer

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The Convincing

There are parts of me I want to keep separate
from every person in the world

—let them remain
untouchable, perhaps,

though not preserved in a false state
with no need to be improved.

It feels less complicated somehow
to let selfishness do its work:

pull the parts away, discourage joining
(where they may enjoy cohabitation)

even if this means convincing
myself over and over that

I don’t need you; being alone
is the first thing I never need to die.

Father, rid me of this attitude of self-preservation. Rid me of this lie that I must self-focus in order to survive. It has been my idol since I was a child. Take it now. You are my protector, not me. You have made me more capable of love–of loving people–than I have let myself realize. I want to enter into the new place of trusting You more than myself. Release me from my self-prison. I step out now, throwing away the key.

I always told you I would catch you. And I catch the whole world. It is trembling now.

I confess, Lord, I fear speaking, writing, like my words aren’t going to help.

That is easy to believe. It is harder to believe your actions can help–and easier to believe that it is better to protect yourself and not try to change.

How do I need to change? How does this world need to change? What is broken, God, from your perspective? For I read the news: I am listening and watching–my feet walking, my voice speaking–in protest with brothers and sisters who call for justice, for change, for a different way of living in the world. I know I have much to understand–that I will not fully understand. But I believe you have given each of us what we need to love one another. You have given each of us the capacity to look at the body of the church and love it for all its members, and not pursue sameness.

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body–whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

The body has hated itself, detested itself, believed parts of its self are worth less. Not all parts have been honored. Not all parts have been loved. Not all parts have been deemed valuable and worthy of equitable treatment. How have I done this, Father? How have I deemed parts of the body less honorable, less good, less important–and hated the very body you’ve given?

You have not seen it. You have largely ignored it. You have been blind and deaf to the cries of parts of the body while you have honored and heard other parts. You hear the rumbling of some body parts but not others. There are parts of the body that are neglected, indispensable to me, the Father of the body, and the body has hated itself but not wanted to admit it. It has turned in on itself while not wanting to see what it was doing, wanting to remain blind, wanting to remain broken, convincing itself that broken is not broken. It is crippled and ailing, reeking of disease and pain, and trying to get used to hobbling, limping, tender with bruises and missing its parts that are not valued or wanted.

I confess, Father, my blindness: I have torn out my eyes. I have torn out my ears. I have torn out my heart. I have said I listen but I have been selective in what I hear. I have seen, but I have been squinting into darkness, not wanting to use your light to help me see clearly.

When one part of the body is hurt and suffering, the entire body is hurt and suffering. And yet I have settled for the body being maimed and broken, like that is just the way the body is. But a broken, crippled, ailing body is not what you dreamed. When you laid down your life, you gave your whole life. A body needs all of itself to be whole, and yet the body detests itself when parts of itself are not honored. It is not whole. It is a body that hatest itself. And that is not the body you gave when you dreamed up the world.

Show me more what you see now. Let me see with you eyes. Let me hear with your ears. In the ways I am blind give me new eyes. In the ways I am deaf unplug my ears. In the ways my heart is hardened, break it open, massage it, soften it and bring it back to life. Heal all parts of the body, Lord. Make this body whole.

Let the parts of the body rise up now, filled with your love and wisdom. Let the body surrender itself completely to you, trusting you to direct where it goes, how it feels, how it loves itself so it can love other parts of the body. May we love the part of the body we each uniquely are, pursuing healing and wholeness, with a willingness to be soft and surrendered, malleable and willing to change.

Let us ask ourselves these questions, Lord…

First questions:

• How am I unwilling to change?
• What part of the body am I–and how do I value and not value it, as a part of the whole?
• How do I detest my own role in the body?
• How do I neglect the pursuit of my own wholeness–and how does this contribute to the body not being restored?

Father, I recognize there are parts of the body that may struggle to be whole. They struggle, more than other parts of the body, to be healthy and strong. But you love each part of the body equally, and you want no part of the body to be hurting.

• What is my role in helping the other parts of the body be healthy, vibrant, robust–filled with light and joy and hope?

You show Me, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, how I am unfit to help make any other part of the body whole without my own part of the body being whole first. A crippled body part will struggle in vain to help another part of the body that is hurting. And yet each part of the body is made to be healthy, a contributing member of the body as a whole.

• So, what step do you want me to take to be healthy and love others in the unique way you’ve called me to love?

Second questions:

• What role does my repentance have in my loving other parts of the body?
• Of what do I need to repent? How do I need to confess?
• What do you see in my heart that I don’t? How am I blind? How am I deaf?
• How am I hurting myself by not pursuing your healing? How am I hurting others?
• How am I indifferent to the hurt around me? How am I aloof? How am I selfish?
• How am I forgetting who you are–how you are love; how you fight for justice; how you invite me to participate with you in loving the body to the full life you have always meant for it to have?

Father, you are good. I can trust you. What else do you have to say? What other questions should I ask? What more do you have?

See me holding the world. See me holding my children. See me in the rocking and the trembling, the pain and the crying out. I am here. I am not leaving. I am justice. I am strength. I am hope. I am what is missing and what is available. I am love. I am love. I am love. This body is beautiful, and it can be repaired. Do your part. Let me show you how to love. Let me show you what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it smells like–how to hold it in your hands. I am mercy. I bring mercy. I bring healing. I will flood the earth with my love. I am flooding it. Do you see it? Will you help me love and love and love?

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For the Loop Poetry Project prompt this week, write a lament, a prayer, a confession, a song, a promise, a dream. Let your heart speak for the body. Trust its words. Find language that is true.

bless you, sisters,

jennifer

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Exit

It is a monster in the dark places
we think we don’t go
but we live there, don’t we

the bones of our flesh
rotting until we turn,
light on our faces,

and leave (our crouched posture
ready to spring and creep
in shadows of decay)

and take one step forward
toward what is strange
and must be good:

a broad open space without
walls and lack and
competition for love.

It was when I confessed what I had done–and what I do–that I began to know Jesus for the first time. Growing up learning about him was one thing. Seeing his face? Hearing his voice? Feeling the Spirit’s heat burning from my insides?

Confessing to Jesus what I was loving more than him–in this case, my pride–led me to experiencing God rather than looking at him from a distance. Confession was letting God create space in my heart so I could experience Jesus living in me.

When we stuff down our sin, refuse to confess our sin to God, we say yes to pride. We say yes to our desire for independence and self-sufficiency. We say yes to everything our culture tells us is perfectly good, an example of strength and success: work hard; keep your head down and try harder when you fail; don’t let on you’re weak and you can’t get the job done on you’re own; don’t let anyone see you when you’re down.

You know who we’re listening to when we ignore God’s voice and respond to all the other voices that boom much louder, don’t you?

Oh, Jesus, I pray now that you silence the voice of the enemy right now. For everyone reading these words right now, silence his voice; make his whispers unable to be heard by our hearts. Let us hear just your voice. Let us recognize you and say yes to you, with wide-open hearts.

We shout to that distant God up there, somewhere in heaven, “I’m good! I’ve got this covered. No room for you!” And we remain feeling alone. And God keeps feeling distant. And we work harder to live our lives well, whatever that really means.

To do this, to say yes to the Holy Spirit filling us, to say yes to Jesus living in us, we must confess all the ways we are trying to live without God, all the things we’ve kept hidden, all the things we’ve tried to fix in ourselves, on our own, all the things of which we are ashamed, all the things we’d much rather forget than ever, ever address.

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help (Hebrews 4:16, MSG).

It was in college when I–a lonely, overwhelmed transfer student in a new, big school–that I first confessed my sins to Jesus. I was tired of keeping secrets, tired of pretending to have it all together; tired of praying to a God that felt so very far away and not at all like a God who was with me, in me, wanting to whisper love to my heart.

For me, there was a particular secret that I was working hard to hide from everyone. And Jesus was asking me to give it up.

And some of you here, reading? I know you have secrets too. You have things to confess, ways that you’ve been trying to fix yourself, things that happened in the past (whether the past could have been years ago or just a few minutes ago) of which you are ashamed.

If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God (1 John 1:9).

Can you give it up now? Whether this is the first time you’ve confessed your heart to God, or if this is your thousandth, can we do this together, kneeling together before our God and asking him to show us what it is that we’ve been keeping from him?

Go to a quiet place and close your eyes. Ask him to search your heart, to put his hand on the one place in your heart right now he would like to claim. What moment still feels heavy? What situation have you been trying to fix? What memory still haunts you? What burden are you carrying, this moment, that brings you to tears? In what area are you trying to be strong, on your own? What relationship is causing you pain?

Now, here’s an extra challenge–and you don’t need to do this at all. But, if you feel your heart beating fast and your chest all hot and you are feeling like you want to step forward even more, trusting Jesus in community around you, would you be bold enough to type up the confession, on the blog’s comments page, right here?

Or, if that feels like just too much–and I love that a lot of you do this–would you feel like typing up the confession and sending it just to me? Because then we can pray for each other and for God’s continued protection of us and our hearts as we confess. It can be a beautiful yet vulnerable place when we confess to our God. We are letting go of the old self and asking him to bring more of his new life in us.

Now, if you do this, there will be opposition. Those other whispers we talked about earlier? Yes, well, Satan is not going to want to have you confess a thing. And if you do, he isn’t going to want you to feel good about it. He is going to want you to feel alone and crummy and afraid and doubtful it was ever a good idea in the first place.

So, together, let’s do the opposite of what we’ve been doing before.

Let’s not hide. Let’s speak aloud our confessions to our God and imagine we are here, in a circle together, doing it together before our God. I know I would be emboldened by your confession. I would be reassured. I would see Jesus in you when you went ahead, saying yes to Him and no to the whispers of the enemy who are telling you to do exactly the opposite.

So, how about it, sister?

Are you with me?

I’ll go first (and here is the confession from that day in college):

Father, I confess I love myself more than I love most anyone else–and not in a good way–not that good kind of love, that true love you speak of when you say we can only love other people as much as we love ourselves. You see, I actually don’t like myself very much most of the time–and in my feelings of ineptitude, I focus a lot on me, on self-preservation, thinking I am the one who has to stand in the gap of what I think I need and what I think I want. For I forget who you are. I forget you are love. I forget you are everything. I forget I am your daughter. I forget I am your heir. I forget you have given me everything. I forget I am with you now, seated with you, made to rule and reign. I forget I need you more than anything else. I forget I have everything I need to live a life of love and truth and hope and joy. Please forgive me. Take this heart of mine–the ways it is hard–and soften it. Bring peace where I am anxious. Bring light to this dark. I love you. I love you. I love you. Because you love me. You love me. You love me. Thank you. I am in your arms now. Help me to stay here–where I belong, where I truly want to be. In your name, Jesus, Amen.

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For the Loop Poetry Project this week, consider relating an incident of confession–and try to focus on something you’ve personally experienced that you haven’t previously put into words. This poem doesn’t have to be in the same vein as a confession of sin, but it can be if you feel like that is where the poem wants to go.

As you write, dig into the experience so that it feels like you are reliving it, even as you search for words. For instance, share a memory, and then explore it on a deeper level so that by the end of the poem you are realizing a truth previously hidden from you. Or, perhaps, write as if you are telling a confession to yourself.

By the end of your writing the poem, you want to be feeling a different emotion or having a different opinion than you did at the beginning of writing it. Take yourself on a journey. Honor the direction the words invite you to take. Notice the twists and turns, the surprises. And then take note of what has happened within you by the time the poem says it is finished…and you have arrived. What has happened–what is happening–within you now?

Consider sharing your poems below and/or on social media using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. Or share your experience writing this week. You can also join in on the fun as part of the private Facebook group. My poem is below.

love,

jennifer

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Everything in the Beginning

We lived in an apartment built for two,
a little box we filled with a wooden chest
my grandparents crafted with their hands,
two blue metal folding chairs, and a
kitchen clock we hung too high on the wall.
We ate boxed pasta with lots of salt—
and in the fall you made apple cider
in our kitchen with a pair of cut up
pantyhose pulled from an egg-shaped
plastic container we bought from the
tiny corner supermarket with sticky jars
and dusty shelves.
Your dad visited us once but no friends
and my parents never came either,
to watch us build a life across the country
and over two thousand miles from home.
We liked believing we could fill up
every space within each other so there
was never lack while there was always
—a wishing for more.

A friend reminds me how gratitude is an act of defiance–wielding a sword against the struggles of this world. She searches for beauty, knowing she will find it if she searches for it with God’s heart, eyes focused on Him.

And then another friend, one who lives across the waters from me, speaks how gratitude is what pulls us out from a posture of survival and to one of joy. It is where we see Jesus’ face.

I need to remember these things.

Yet it is difficult for me to see what He sees–and be grateful for it–when I cling to insecurities and fears. Below are words I wrote a few years ago. They are ones I needed to read again today. I am eager to hear how you are this day, and how He is reaching for you, too.

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How a friend’s simple observation leads to healing and truth

“You have to confess it. You have to say the lie aloud. You have to throw it to the throne of Jesus. You have to reject it even if you still believe the lie.”

My friend looks me straight in the eye, and I hold her gaze for a half-second before staring at my mug, wishing I were small enough to hide under the table. Now what? I think she’s right.

I know I had better not stall.

When you recognize a lie as a lie, even if you can’t imagine no longer believing the lie, throw it up to heaven.

Renounce it. Reject it.

Jesus knows the way out. His desire is to save us from separation from the Father. And God sent Jesus to die and take on every single one of our sins so Jesus could lead the way out of whatever you are facing.

He can reveal to our hearts the lies we believe that separate us from the Father. He can reveal to our hearts the twisted truths we believe about ourselves. And here was mine: I don’t want you to like me for who I am. I want you to like me for what I do. And my fingers pause now, as I write this. For it is hard, isn’t it, to say the lie out loud? It is hard, isn’t it, to be vulnerable? It is hard, isn’t it, not to wonder, what will she think of me, now?

So I cling tight to Him, rereading His love letter to us about truth, the truth of us:

The truth of you cannot be articulated in just words. The truth of you is a name and not a name. The truth of you is more than a description of personality, a page of characteristics, a list of mannerisms and popular expressions.

There’s something you must remember: you must live your truth. You must live, with determination and might, your truth. You must know who you are designed to be . . . if you want freedom, if you want liberation from lies, if you want joy.

So I open my hands and close my eyes and lower my head. Once God presses in, shows us glimpses of our pain, our sorrow, and/or damage we cause when we believe lies about ourselves and about Him, we must run to Him. We must renounce the lie causing the whole darn mess. 

“Jesus, I confess I want to be liked for what I do. I confess I care more about what people think about what I do rather than who You think I am. I want You, Father, to love me for what I do! I confess I don’t want you to love me for who I am! I repent, and I reject this lie. I reject the lie that my value comes from doing rather than being. I reject the lie and I break the agreement I’ve made with the enemy that my value does not come from being a daughter of God. I give this lie to you, and cast it on the throne of Jesus.”

How observation + imagination can lead to action

And I stayed there. It was too good to not stay, this daughter He made, at Jesus’ feet. And Jesus offered me his hand, and He took me where He always takes me, in the garden, by the river, through the path where the green grass tickles my legs and flowers perfume the air. I can feel the perfume now on my skin.

We walk up, up the hill, the grass blades leaning over the path so I can’t see the ground, can’t see where my bare feet fall. I see Jesus ahead of me, His looking back at me, smiling. He knows I love this, this walking through beauty, with water rushing fast, to my left, and sunlight shining bright through arches of trees. He knows I will love where we are going.

He leads me to the top of the hill where the waterfall is thundering, and He knows I want to jump. I want to jump right in. The water isn’t cold and the sun is warm on my cheek. And I turn my face up, and I am in God’s house and I am with my King and I am safe and I doing what I am made to do and where I am made to be.

And then I am alone. I am in a meadow, my back pressed into the soft earth. I lay in the flowers, eyes closed, the sun a blanket on my skin. Then the earth trembles beneath me. The soft ground shakes. I must rise. In front of me runs a giant white steed. It is huge and powerful and beautiful. Its eyes flash, and it whinnies as it stops right before me, its hooves stomping into soft earth. I want to ride it. I want to jump on and go, even though I’ve only galloped on a horse once, in my whole life.

But I can’t.

Suddenly I am not in the meadow but in a dark, shadowy place where there are walls and I am standing, cold, alone. My hair is tangled and my clothes are dirty and tattered. Shredded pieces of linen, a grungy robe, filthy and brown, hangs from my shoulders. I lower my head, hands open at my sides.

Then, there are hands lifting each piece of clothing off of me. They were so heavy. I had no idea how heavy each piece was, as it hung on my tired frame. I then feel hands around my ankles, and strong fingers unfastening shackles around my bare feet, shackles I had never seen, attached to chains I never knew I wore.

And I am in the meadow once more. I am wearing a long gown and my hair is loose and clean, the sun shining bright and the air perfumed with light as it falls like love upon blooming flowers. I am on the steed. And I am wearing armor now, and I have a sword in my hand. This. This is the daughter He sees. This is the daughter I am. This is the daughter He calls me to be, the one who is free because she is willing to fight. The one who is dirty and broken and vulnerable and alone when she strives to be what she wants to create herself to be. The one who is actually beautiful and true when she lets herself know freedom, when she lives out the truth of the identity her Father sees.

It’s time to ride, wind in our hair

You, my daughter, are made to be strong, with Me. You, my daughter, are made to do things I’ve prepared, just for you. You, my daughter, are made to go forward, not back. And to go forward, you must fight and break the agreements you’ve made with the enemy. You must know I have come to claim you, the daughter I made. You must know your life has been paid for. You must know you are free. 

And sometimes, with my truth in your heart, you must reject lies about who I am. You must do this. Don’t wait. Do it right now. This it what it means to fight—for freedom from lies. It is rejecting lies and surrendering to Me. It is fighting for your identity, the one the prince of this world wants to take from you.

So, when you are weary, when the world presses in, remember I am here with you. Know I am the warrior who never sleeps. Know I rescue and ask you to trust Me more than anything else. That is how you fight. That is how you know who you are. That is how you are set free.

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Write it now

For the Loop Poetry Project this week, you are invited to take a simple reality–a Zoom call with a friend, a cup of hot coffee, a child’s cry, a pile of books on the table, a bag of groceries, a walk through your neighborhood, a rustle of tree branches in wind, anything you see or hear or remember or feel–and let it become a trigger, a launching place, a beginning of something more. For instance, the experience with God in prayer that I just shared came about because of repentance, which was prompted by a conversation with two friends. And the poem below called “Lullaby” I wrote this week in anticipation of a morning run. The recognition, or honoring, of one observation, leads to another.

So, what do you think? Will you trust your mind, your heart, your imagination to lead you to a new place? Will you try to put to words how one observation or thought you have can build until it becomes something else?

Don’t worry about perfection or getting it “right.” Write what is true. Write what your mind sees. Write what your heart is speaking. Always. See what happens after that.

And, of course, consider sharing your poem here, in the comments below–and/or with the lovely community of kind and brave poets in the Loop Poetry Project on Facebook. Join here.

With much love and excitement for what comes next,

jennifer

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Lullaby

I will hear you in crackled pebbles
underfoot as I run
on empty streets and watch
the sky turn
cotton candy pink and tangerine

or in memory: of photos I didn’t take
on my child’s first day of school
and you exhale whispers,
it is okay,

or in music: of this fan now whirling
in a garage filled with books
of stories I want to read

and then your humming
the tune you sang when I
was born and you
say, this one is your song.

There are days when words are hard to find. We search for them in books, where they huddle together, mute and coy, asking us what we want of them this day. When we struggle to gather them up, recalcitrant circus performers unwilling to perform tricks, put on a show, we take a peek around the less obvious places, the tender places that still hurt from rough exchanges with people, or ourselves. What is it we are feeling, thinking now, we wonder? And how do we articulate it? And why do we want to?

There is so much effort, isn’t there, in saying this is what I think, this is what I feel. We wonder if the words we pull from those deep places within us are true, if they can be trusted. Is what I am saying accurate? What story am I telling? What is the line between fiction and nonfiction? True and make-believe?

The process of writing what we see, what we know, what we feel, what we believe, develops creativity. We do our best–sometimes using fiction–to tell a story our heart has always known as true. And this process develops self-awareness. Sometimes we have no idea what it is we want to say–or we are convinced there is truly nothing we want to say. Yet the process of using language to create–give voice to an emotion, give sound and sight to an observation–activates our mind and heart. It wakes us from our slumber, our passivity. It helps us notice subtle beauty as well as concealed terrors–all the things that make up our lives.

Don’t we want to live fully awake–have muscles developed that give claim to what is happening around us, to us, within us? Putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, lifts us from apathy into action, submission to assertiveness. Friend, it is time to wake up.

If you have never written as a way to process your feelings, or better understand your actions, today is the day to start. Living more attentive to your feelings helps you access your heart, which is the beginning of healing, the invitation for God to come on in.

So for the prompt today for Loop Poetry Project, begin with where you are or where you’re not, with what you know or what you don’t know. Write about what is making you think, what is making you wonder, what is making you worry, what is making you dream.

There is no wrong or right, no letter grade or gold star. Only possibility. Only adventure. Only trial and error. Only hope and good things ahead.

Tell me your experience with writing. Do you write regularly? Is it something you enjoy? Is this experiment something new that you are willing to try?

If you decide to dive in (yay!), consider sharing your writing with the Loop Poetry Project community. You can do this here, in a comment below, or in the project’s Facebook group. (Click here to join.) If you share your writing on social media, make sure to use #looppoetryproject as your hashtag so we can find you!

Happy writing and seeing what unfolds!

love,

jennifer

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At the Party

Unmoved
I stand on the periphery
of feeling
I am somebody
who knows the rules
of small talk
to feel connection (to connect)
and move with
the current of people
mingling
enduring judgment:
Am I beautiful?
Interesting?
Will I make you laugh?

In my dreams
my worst nightmare
is being frozen
in one spot
my mind hating
my body’s refusal
to flow confidently,
mold itself into the
the shape of the room
cause a riot,
laugh so loud people
will turn and stare
—in a good way

and I can watch
myself swimming
in circles,
the water heavy
against my legs,
my arms,
every limb
(I am in both places now)
watching, wishing,
imagining, belonging
and hating myself
as I care.

Even before the pandemic kept us sheltering in place, I could forget that any regular, normal day, was not so ordinary. All night I rested, slept long and hard and awoke. To this day. To this moment.

A miracle.

I awake too many days taking for granted the moment of right now. We have so many descriptions of time. We talk about how it marches or it flies. We describe how it drags or runs away.

We want to seize time. We want to rustle it; be the boss of it. We watch it. We regret it. We chase it. We rebel against it.

I want to mark time as holy, as sacred. I want to worry less about what I do with my time and enjoy more the moments, one by one, I get to live with God.

Holy Spirit, come. Show me how you are in this moment. Right now. With me.

It can take stopping, pausing, recognizing our breathing, even–in, out–to see a hint of the miracle.

It can take looking–determined faith that if we search hard enough for God we will see Him; we will hear Him; we will know more of what it means to have Him.

For if we want Him; we have Him.

And in this moment, as I type these words. My eyes are not on the keyboard, but looking out, past plates of glass to see tiny sparkles flit about near the stone bench in our yard, little bugs dancing above water droplets on green grass.

And I see, but I stop looking out, and I look in, my heart hungry to be filled.

Pull me in, Father. Pull us in, deeper still.

Will you join me in writing about the miracle of this day–or the mess of this day (both?)–this moment you are in right now? It doesn’t have to be pretty–and your mood doesn’t need to be upbeat. (See my poem, which describes my bad mood, below.)

Avoid saccharine. Rather, speak to the place where you are. The good and the hard. The frustrating and the wonderful. If the moment feels like a mess, show that. If the moment is stunning in its beauty and hope, relate that too.

Share your poem with us here, in the private Loop Poetry Project group, or in the comment section below. I can’t wait to read your mess and miracles, friends.

love,

jennifer

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while I shelter in place

they are banging next door
with drills and hammers,
taking apart the house
a few feet from my own.
The noise unnerves me,
making me anxious,
mean.

I want to run away from everyone
as if I could
as if I could flee not just the cacophony next door
but all noise, your voice too.

I search for silence in the deep place
that usually settles me,
draws me toward calm in storm and
I can’t find it,
the drilling reverberating through me
and I fear all sound is too loud:
music and laughter,
outside concerts and children bouncing
basketballs and playing in the street.

I fear I’ve changed—your absence
filling me these two months and
I am less tolerant, less patient:

your face mask covering your
nose and mouth so only your eyes show.

Where is humanity in the absence of your smile?
Distressed heart—why is all noise a threat?
Has the sickness spread not wider but
deeper now, into the quiet place
that taught me you were my friend?

I walk empty streets a few blocks from my home to sit on a funny wooden bench tilted back and shaped like a barrel at my daughter’s school. The seat is angled so my feet dangle off the ground. It makes me feel small, younger than I feel most days. The bench is in a garden recently weeded of tall bushes of lavender and mint that were growing out of control. It is calm here. Quiet. I swing my feet.

The sun is warm on my skin, the air a blanket of fragrance the breeze breathes this way and that. I let it cover me, drape over my shoulders and face and neck. I imagine the scents of heaven–of flowers and water and earth and rock. A biting sweetness. A fragrance of a million colors, a million voices composing one song.

My heart knows this song. And in this extravagance of beauty–of light and color and spring–I feel my heart pose a question: What if, right now, I lack nothing and live as if I believe it?

What if we lived believing we have everything we need? Even in our pain. Even in our discomfort. What if our view of our present circumstances, no matter what those circumstances are, has the power to propel us toward hope rather than despair?

The mindset of lack is dangerous. It produces fear, and it keeps the focus on ourselves rather than on what is true.

What is it we believe we lack? Personality? Beauty? Peace? Money? Good health? Fresh air? Love? Friendship? Joy?

When I remember that Jesus never felt fear–His trust and hope were completely in His Father–I remember He also never felt lack. God held nothing from Him. All His love. All His power. All His hope. All His joy. And Jesus knew it.

What I forget, by my attitude of wanting to trust in my own strength rather than in God, is that through the gift of Holy Spirit, God gives us these things too. In Him, we lack nothing.

Jesus prays, in the presence of the disciples:

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 

John 17:20-22

Living with an attitude of lack produces fear. Living with an attitude of love produces fruit we are desperate for: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Here are questions I want to ask myself: Is my mindset one of lack or of plenty? Do I believe I have everything I need, despite my circumstances? Even if there are things that bring me sorrow? Even if there are things I wish were different? What do I believe I lack when things feel like they are not going my way? Do I believe God is holding out on me? Do I believe He isn’t enough?

Share a few words, in the comments below, describing your thoughts about the mindsets of lack or of love. And consider joining the kind poets of the Loop Poetry Project community this week and write a poem on one of these mindsets.

Share a story, flesh out a conviction. Use images to describe your mindset of lack versus a mindset of abundance. Talk about fear, worry, anxiety. Have a conversation with your heart and share it here. Listen close–praying for deeper awareness of your convictions as you write.

And then share your poem here, below, or in the Loop Poetry Project private Facebook group, or on social media, using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. I can’t wait to read what you write!

joining with you in hope,

jennifer

*Here is a great resource you might want to check out: an on-line class I am taking with friends, taught by Jan Johnson, on ‘Living Without Lack.” A lot of my thoughts here were inspired by Johnson’s teaching–combined with the conversations about lack and fear that I’ve been having on Zoom, with dear friends!

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The window is open, and cool air blows through the room. The street is silent except for birds chirping. I will miss this the most, maybe, when quarantine ends. The stillness outside, even when the inside of my home thunders many moments: heavy feet of teenagers as they work through their day.

Days fold in, one after another. A stack of moments in this small home. I remember they are sacred. Few things of importance get cataloged on a calendar anymore

So much happens within walls. Life outside walls–but inside walls too. The push and pull of loving people. The trusting that good is here, in the uncertainty, in the mess, in the hard.

And with that trust comes love, which is seldom easy. And always a choice. What choice am I making this day? And the next?

I like to think about what will mark these strange days in quarantine. A year from now, or maybe a few months, will I look back on this time and be happy for my resilience? Will I be able to recognize this gift of trying to create space for my heart?

It is often said, when writers are talking about writing, that writing “saved” them. “Journaling saved me,” is a popular phrase. Getting down our thoughts into words on a page helps us take a look at our feelings. We can look at these feelings (and the circumstances that caused them in the first place) with a little more detachment and objectivity. This, in turn, can help us to engage our hearts, our emotions, our opinions–a step that, if we take it again and again, can help us attend to any wounds that we need to heal.

For me, writing poetry has been a special kind of writing that has encouraged introspection, self-awareness, and whole-hearted living. Through writing poetry I imagine possibilities beyond my circumstances. I do this just as I am especially cognizant of the circumstances I am experiencing right now.

Writing poetry grounds me in the present and opens me up to things that might be. Sometimes I write about things I can see with my eyes–the furling of an oak leaf, the sound of my daughter singing in her room–but I also write about things I can see only with my mind. Words become tools to describe images I see in my imagination. Poetry, in essence, is allowing my heart to dream.

I write poetry and my mind leaps into scenes far wilder and unmuted than my present reality. And it makes my senses more attuned to my days, especially these days–these days when I am aware of potential walls (physical and emotional) of confinement. I write poetry to help me refuse to let walls confine me, heeding my heart’s desire to leap and run and live in a reality that feels just as true as the one I can now touch and hear and see.

Through writing poetry during this quarantine, I am learning to celebrate how beautifully small I am. It is delicious perfection to be held in God’s hand and live in heightened awareness of all that I can’t (but used to wish I could) control.

I write these words in my journal:

What a delight it is to be small / and yet capable of all things beautiful and good./ This is strength, this is freedom, this is joy.

For the Loop Poetry Project this week, you are invited to write about your strength and/or your smallness, your lack of control and/or your freedom, your resiliency and/or your weakness. Let the poem go in any direction it wants to go. Maybe begin with a question that the rest of the poem seeks to answer. Maybe begin with an observation of external circumstances–specific details of a setting (an empty street, coffee brewing on the kitchen counter, a pile of shoes by the door)–and document a story as it unfolds. Maybe close your eyes and let your imagination direct you: find words to describe the visuals your imagination shows.

There is treasure in this process. Enjoy it. Be curious. Expect wonder. Brace for surprise.

As always, please share! What a delight it is to read your beautiful poems. Remember that what we do here is encourage one another in the writing process, not the writing product. While we seek to write what is true–what our hearts are most trying to say to us–we must not be discouraged by our expectation of the finished poem. There is discovery here for you. Dig deep. Trust that the right words do come. Linger over sound. Consider meaning of each word. Enjoy the magic of not knowing what to say–and seeing what happens when you write down words anyway.

That is the good stuff. There is always beauty that follows.

You can share your poems below, as a comment on this post or in the Loop Poetry Project Facebook group. I am so excited to connect with you through your writing!

from this one true heart,

jennifer

How do you write new words, find new meaning, when the landscape becomes familiar? How do you find freshness? How does your heart remain awake?

What happens when what was once strange is no longer strange? What do we do when strange becomes a new normal? Does strange lose its meaning? Does meaning become strange?

What grounded us before? What grounds us now?

The answers to these questions become clear just when we feel the old patterns, once so familiar, slip away. By choice or not, the old patterns are removed and we develop new rhythms. What we once knew slipping into memory. How much can memory hold?

The days feel stretched out, unhurried. Yet I am distracted. Busy and not busy. My heart is often open–but also, sometimes, numb.

But the days fly by. How do the days fly by?

I keep events on the calendar, wanting to remember what was lost, how life has shifted. I want to not forget what life used to hold. Gatherings and journeys. Celebrations and obligations. I feel defiant, my heart both raw and strong at once, realizing that I have adopted a posture of surrender while suppressing anger against an enemy invisible and calculating and cold.

If this is war, what does it mean to push back, stand up, and fight? It might begin with gratitude. Worship. Adoration. Surrender. Praise.

Surrender, dear one. All emotions. Give them to Me. All to Me.

I give God thanks for holding Justin’s and my hands through the fire of last year–the year of our individual rounds of psychotherapy and our shared marital struggling. Last year we fought for words–and deeper understanding of our own hearts. Sanctification is not easy. Or pain-free. Our choosing to surrender and die, again and again, to our old selves, helps us now. In our marriage, in our work, in this shelter-in-place situation, we are better equipped to go forward together, knowing our Father has never dropped His gaze, never dropped His hold of our hands.

The struggle was worth it. The work of therapy was worth it. Choosing to seek new eyes to see, really see, an old way of living is always worth it. And the peace in this home, as our God led us through that fire, is a gift of that work. Thank You, Thank You. It is a gift we have to choose to pick up and work on each day, again and again and again.

What can you say about the impact of this Covid-19 pandemic on your relationships? How has it affected the atmosphere of your home? What is it like for you now, after a month of being forced to a new way of living, working, relating, with the people in your life? Can you put words, maybe in the form of a poem, to that new atmosphere now?

Write your poem in the comments below, and/or share it with the lovely community of poets in the private Loop Poetry Project Facebook group. (Click here to join.) Or share it on social media using the hashtag #loopoetryproject. I can’t wait to hear how you are doing.

Bless you, His dear ones.

with much love,

jennifer

On this day, Good Friday, I have few words, and I almost wondered if I would have anything to share with you here. In the space of waiting for the good I know is coming (and the good already here), I am grateful for His peace that settles upon me and in me. My heart is quieted. I am not in a state of disturbance or irritation. I am not fearful or worried. My heart aches for the world–and I pray, asking how He wants me to respond.

This dialogue with God unfolds throughout these days, and I know immediately whether or not I am keeping my eyes focused on God. Writing what I think and feel is heightening my awareness of my heart. I process, in paragraphs and poems, the loss and gain of this strange time, due to COVID-19: social distancing from people we love; feeling financial strain; choosing to surrender, over and over, what we cannot control.

Will you consider with me this week what you feel you have lost (emotionally, relationally, financially, physically) and/or what you feel you have gained? What has been hard? What are you learning? What is surprising for you? What is disappointing or difficult to bear? What are you surrendering? What are you picking up?

As you write, don’t worry about having answers to your questions. Write the questions. Write the observations. Write the moments that have stretched you. Write the emotions that describe the status of your heart.

Below is one of the poems I wrote this week that has helped me surrender the weight of what I have been feeling.

Please join in (in the comments below) and share your experience of writing recently–whether your writing has been in the form of a poem or in a paragraph(s) of thoughts. We would love to learn from you and connect with you here. Another place to connect is in the private Facebook page for Loop Poetry Project. Click right here to join the sweet community there.

bless you, this Good Friday, dear friends,

jennifer

The world is shaking. And we feel it. New patterns of living and moving, thinking and speaking. As the COVID-19 global pandemic shuts businesses and schools, recreation areas and churches, we are left with the question: to what will we turn for community, for comfort, for truth? In what new ways will we spend our time? How will we confront our idols? How will we cope?

While much of us shelter in place, not all of us are able to stay home. Physicians and teachers, delivery drivers and food service workers and so many more people are not staying home. Working or not, in your home or someplace else, each of is feeling vulnerable. A bit out of sorts. Discombobulated. Not quite the way they did before.

The world has always been dangerous. Never safe. Never peace-filled. But this reality, for the world as a whole, feels impossible to ignore now.

So, in this new landscape, we have a question to answer. And that answer is unique to each of us: What now, is your truth? To what and to whom do you turn? What do you call home?

While many of us are having to stay, physically, at home, and then some of us cannot, how is your heart? How is your mind? To what is your mind turning? To whom does your heart run?

Will you spend a few moments today–this week–considering where you are looking to find hope, meaning, comfort, strength? And as you look for these things, what does that look like? In the morning, in the evening, in the moments of being in this space, alone or with other people you live? How are you carrying on? Who are you, at home?

For the Loop Poetry Project this week, consider the word “home.” What does it mean for you? Yes, it is a physical space, and helpful to ponder as you write–describing the physical space where you are, with details of sense (what you see, smell, touch, hear, taste) around you. But you might want to consider other elements of home–what home means to your heart–what your heart is crying out for now, and the ideas or memories that fill your mind when you think of home. Let your imagination run.

Home can be more than what exists within walls. How would your heart describe “home”, versus your mind versus your imagination?

I can’t wait to read what you share. Your ideas–your words–offer us another way to think and feel and see. And we are hungry for that now. But don’t worry about that, at first. Most importantly, and always as a beginning, write what is true to you. So, write about “home.”

And if you feel like sharing your ideas, your notes, or even your poem, please do here, or on social media, using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. And, as always, consider joining the wonderful women over at the private Facebook group. We would love to join with you, encouraging you as you trust your heart.

bless you, dear ones,

jennifer

Week two of shelter in place. A strange existence. All five of us in this bungalow every day except for walks with the dog. Things are both simpler and more complicated. A focusing inward while also looking outward. How are we doing? How are our hearts? How is the world hurting and how do we respond? What do we do? How do we pray?

Hearts might crack open more easily here, in this space. Relationships that need tending to are more difficult to ignore. And this cracking open is good, I think. As the saying goes, “You have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.” But with all this opportunity to slow down–have a different pace, from our being forced to stay home–the being home day after day brings with it different challenges. Don’t you agree? And hiding is still possible, isn’t it? Hiding from the people in our house (emotionally, if not physically). Hiding, even, from our own hearts.

Some of us might not be trying to hide, but we’re lonely–the weight of isolation a burden heavy and difficult to bear. Or some of us might be overwhelmed by noise and activity–all the new kinds of work brought about by being home with people who need our attention and care.

Yes, it’s a lot. A lot of change. A lot of newness. A lot of pressure. Maybe.

There is so much we don’t understand–about this virus, about how to respond, about what God is doing (I think He is always doing something good). But while all this is happening, there is one thing we must not ignore and fail to attend to: the story, in this moment, of our hearts.

Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:23

As water reflects the face,
so one’s life reflects the heart.

Proverbs 27:19

I think it is important now for each of us to write the stories of these strange times, these stories we are personally experiencing and feeling. I think it is important, no matter our situation, to do whatever it takes to carve out some time to process what is going on inside us.

Yes, we reel from these unfamiliar circumstances. And, yes, God is still in charge. And yes, the earth still spins.

What is the story of this day you’re living, this moment now? What if processing it–one small choice, and then another–could be one of the most important things you do?

I encourage you, as a place to start, to write about today. Just today. A segment of time that is more than time. A catalog of moments. A myriad of emotions. A holy space. A sacred kiss. A touch of palms.

Here are some places to start:

If today were a person, and it walked into the room where you are right now, what would it say? How would it sound? Would it yell? Would it cry? Would it sing?

If you had to wear today like a piece of clothing, how would it feel draped over your shoulders, or perched on your head, or tucked around your waist? Is it beautiful–something you’d like to wear, with confidence and excitement? Or is it something you don’t appreciate and would love to dump into a bag and give to Goodwill?

If today were a holiday on your calendar, what would it be called? Would it make you happy? Would it make you sad? Would you enjoy celebrating it? How does this holiday make you feel?

If today were a song, what would its melody be? What instruments would you hear? What genre of music would it describe? Are the lyrics ones you like? Who is singing it? Who is participating in its creation?

Keep going.

Do this next.

Let’s use writing as a tool to process what we think and feel about today. To begin, focus on a single moment of this day and enter into it, through observation. List details of the moment: what you see (objects, people, the room, the outdoors), what you smell, what you hear, what physical sensations you feel. Get very specific. Let the description of a few sensations represent your thoughts/feelings/emotions about this day. Use imagery to help bring the reader into the moment with you. Help us feel it, see it, experience it.

Think of your writing as a snapshot that is opening you up to a larger world–a specific moment in a day that means more than you realized it did before you started writing. Maybe, just maybe, the process of describing this moment will awake you, in a fresh way, to your heart.

After you have spent some time writing down these details and description, consider crafting the description into a poem–using the form of each line (consider where you break each line as well as the rhythm of the words you choose) to say what you are intending to say. What feeling are you trying to give the reader? How did you feel–as a participant or an observer–of the moment you are describing? How do you hope to convey that feeling through the descriptions and details you are including?

I look forward to learning about the moment you think you want to describe. Would you like to share a line or two about it in the comments below? And, as you work on crafting these ideas into a poem, please consider sharing it here below–or on social media using #looppoetryproject as the hashtag. Or, if you’d like to join this private group on Facebook where we share, in safety and love, our poems with one another, that would be so wonderful too. Click here.

Bless you as you write the moment, unique to you, in the way no one else can,

jennifer

*Below is my poem on the prompt “today”:

Light is shining. I can see it. Covering my skin, entering my heart. I breathe deep. Let air move these lungs. Day five of shelter in place and every one of these days I leave my house and walk. The dog needing to get out is my excuse–but really, I need the walk too. My heart needs solace. And I find it in the strolls around the neighborhood, meeting, at a distance, at least a dozen people each time–always on other sides of the street–out walking too. We smile. Say hello. And there is a knowing, a comfort, somehow, in the shared experience. The world, as a whole, feels closer, smaller now. And not because we literally can’t go far from our homes–but because our attention has turned.

God, You are good. You are doing something good. Even though it is difficult, now, to understand.

I am hungry for the stories being written now–the stories of people searching for God–this virus disrupting the life we once knew. Our ways of relating. Our pace. Our values. Our ways of seeing the world. A myriad of opinions and challenges. Suffering and smiles. Pain and hope.

A few days ago, on a video on Instagram, I shared a conversation I had with God. It was before the shelter in place was in effect, and yet I woke up feeling uncertain, uncomfortable, pushing back fear. I wrote in my journal:

Father, it feels dystopian—this world right now. There is so much fear. I am fearing, I realize, that the world my kids grow up in–maybe raise their kids in—will be vastly different and unfamiliar than mine. I feel like something is being taken away—innocence, naiveté? I feel a hardness wanting to develop in me—and that is unfamiliar too. It is an unwelcome feeling. I don’t like it; it doesn’t feel right.

 It was good to be around friends yesterday, but there is so much pain and suffering now. Please heal this world. It feels like an old world is dying—and I am confused about how to feel about it. I feel myself tumbling a bit into complacency and negativity—like, what’s the point of hope if everything is going to get worse before You come back to rescue and redeem and restore this world? I am scared. What is wrong? What is broken? Will You fix things—mend things that are broken before You ultimately come? Or will You let things fall apart—until all is destroyed and then You come, ultimately, to fix it?

If everything is just going to get awful, will You please come now before it gets any worse?

Father, what do You want me to do? What do You want me to think? What do I pray for? Whom do I pray for? What is Your plan? What are You doing? How do I wait on You in this turbulent and unsettled place?

And this is what He said to me:

I want you to hope. I want you to fight alongside Me. I want you to keep your gaze on Me. Do not break gaze. Do not silence your ears. All is not breaking. In the morning the sun is rising. The lies are destructive—telling you fear is more important than hope. You know how to encourage. You know how to look to Me. Do that now. Stand fast, daughter. I’ve got you. I’ve got your family. There is more beauty coming. All will be restored. Walk with Me to bring hearts to see it. Speak hope. Speak joy. Speak connection and love. Love. Love. Love. Shine with my strength in you. The lie is that all things are falling apart—but I am making all things new!

And I remember His words to me on January 1st, when He shared with me the word He invites me to cling to this year: still. When He told me the word, and I asked with what it meant, He gave me words to explain what this looks like for me, in my life, to live this way. and what His role will be as I trust in Him.

and still I will stand
and still I will wait
and still I will trust
and still I will believe
and still I will move
and still I will grow
and still I will be
for still you are with me
for still you wait
for still you love me
for still you adore
for still you sing over me
for still you believe
for still you stand with me
for still you do not leave

I heard Him say stillness is “deep knowing, peace within you, even in moving. This staying steadfast even in storm requires grace–and acceptance of strength within you. This year will require resilience and malleability, and then steadfastness and strength. So bend and move and be still within, and this is how you will experience peace–and Me.”

For this week’s Loop Poetry Project prompt, let’s give room for our hearts to share how they are feeling in the midst of this unusual time. Let your heart tell a story. Let it speak to you as a person right in front of you, explaining to you, through imagery, description and concrete detail, how it is doing. If you’d like to focus on a word, I encourage you to write on this topic: hope.

As you consider writing your poem, please leave a comment here to let me know how you are doing. And/or, let your poem do the explaining for you–and share your poem below. That would be wonderful! If you’d like to share your poem on social media, please use the hashtag #looppoetryproject. And click here if you would like to join the Loop Poetry Project private Facebook group. Your heart has a story to tell. I can’t wait to hear it. Please leave a comment! (My poem is below.)

with much love and hope,

jennifer

It is a hard time. Fear sweeping hold of hearts. Disease and disaster. Pain and loss. We suffer and we worry. We stumble and lift up our heads, our hands–our hearts weary and hungry for change.

But I don’t need to tell you what you already know. You feel it. Deep within you. And I am not going to manipulate you here with putting words to describe the deep concern you surrender to God again and again.

So many things.

And He is good. He is good. In the midst of so much hurt. God does not change. God is love–His love more powerful than anything we can imagine. Nothing can stand against it. Not disease. Not exhaustion. Not overwhelm. Not stress. Not loss of hope. He is bigger than any of that. Anything this world can throw at us. Nothing is too big. Too scary. Too out of control.

He is in control.

A song Justin and I have on repeat this last month is “Nothing Is Too Hard,” by a friend of ours from Kentucky, Stephen McWhirter. His lyrics and voice sing over us when we need it most, helping us to turn our gaze to Jesus in the midst of this life’s storms:

You erase the word “impossible”
You are the God of miracles
Nothing is too hard for You
Not by my strength or by my will
But for You the waves they stand still
Nothing is too hard for You

Nothing is too hard for You, not for You
Mountains move and the dead still rise
Nothing is too hard for You, not for You
You part the sea and heal the blind

In the desert when all hope seems dry
You send the rain, You flood the sky
Nothing is too hard for You
The road ahead is too much for me
But for You, God, it is easy
Nothing is too hard for You

Nothing is too hard for You, not for You, no
Mountains move and the dead still rise
For You Lord, nothing is too hard for You, not for You
You part the sea and heal the blind

For you Lord all things are possible
Every wall must fall in Your name
And for You Lord all things are possible
Every wall must fall in Your name
For You Lord all things are possible
Every wall must fall in Your name

You erase the word “impossible”
You are the God of miracles
Nothing is too hard for You
Nothing is too hard for You, not for You, no
Mountains move and the dead still rise
Nothing is too hard for You, not for You, no
You part the sea and heal the blind
Mountains move and the dead still rise
For You Lord
Mountains move and the dead still rise

“Nothing Is too Hard,” Stephen McWhirter

For the Loop Poetry Project prompt this week, let’s turn our attention to things that are good–in the midst of pain and fear and worry. Specifically, I invite you to turn to memories that make your heart sigh with joy or hope or peace; or experiences you’ve had that have brought joy and contentment and laughter; or dreams you dream that, while they have yet to materialize, are not impossible for God. If your heart is feeling a bit heavy, and it is a struggle to find words to describe things that are good, let God lead you toward Himself. Let Him show you His goodness. Let Him give you words.

For me, this week, many things have threatened to weigh me down, pull me toward the earth. I am tempted toward complacency as a means to protect my heart. It takes courage, I am realizing, to feel things and not get overwhelmed by them. For in our feeling emotions–emotions that are not easy to bear–we can struggle under the burden of them. Or we can turn to the goodness of our God. In prayer this week, when I was sharing with the Father my fears and concerns, I hear Him tell me, “I am with you, to the end of the age.” And I wanted to engage with Him further: letting Him speak to me through poetry felt like the good thing for my heart to do.

And then in prayer this morning, as I was sharing with Him my fears, He responds with His good perspective:

I want you to hope. I want you to fight alongside Me. I want you to keep your gaze on Me. Do not break gaze. Do not silence your ears. All is not breaking. In the morning the sun is rising. The lies are destructive—telling you fear is more important than hope. You know how to encourage. You know how to look to Me. Do that now. Stand fast, daughter. I’ve got you…There is more beauty coming. All will be restored…Speak hope. Speak joy. Speak connection and love. Love. Love. Love. Shine with my strength in you. The lie is that all things are falling apart—but I am making all things new!

what I heard God say to me in prayer

Amen!

With this hope in mind, what is the good thing for your heart to do? What poem is in you–words for memories or experiences or stories or dreams–that would be so good, so good for your heart if it were told?

When you write your poem, please consider sharing it here, in the comments below–or on social media, using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. You can also share it with the lovely Loop Poetry Project community, in this private Facebook group.

Blessings upon you as you trust in His goodness now.

from this one true heart,

jennifer

It bubbles up within me, and I recognize the lie–the lie that there is lack everywhere, that there is not enough love all around. It takes a simple look to creation to set me straight: the miracle of huge buzzing bees, the zooming of hummingbirds kissing the plants in the pots just outside the window. Or the sway of boughs in the breeze, the flitting of birds from one lush branch to another. Life is bursting forth. Alive and radiant. Exploding with energy and hope.

God is everywhere. Abundant and lavish. Exorbitant and decadent in beauty. Light and color. Movement and song.

I am half inside, half outside the house as I write these words. I sit on the floor with the door open, my feet bare. I take in big breaths of air. Letting my lungs expand fully–holding in the air for a moment before letting it out. My arms are cold, but I can’t go inside–the birds are holding a concert, after all. Singing with gusto from the tops of the trees. I can barely see them, hidden as they are among branches of deep sparkly green. There is a spaciousness here, even in my small backyard. Rose bushes are sprouting deep red-purple leaves again. Flowers bend their petals toward the sun.

I want to raise my face to the sun too, inhale and exhale. Consider what it is my heart needs. Let my heart soak up the presence of God in me, outside me, all around. The neighbor’s tree on the other side of the fence is bursting with blooms, delicate pink and white blossoms, dozens and dozens on each branch. Wow, the voices of those birds. I don’t know how they could sing any louder.

In the midst of our hurting world, full of disease and want, hunger and destruction, abuse and isolation, injustice and war, our hearts are made to turn to beauty–be restored by it, be reminded, at our core, of what is true.

This is an act of kindness to our hearts. Turning our eyes, our ears, our senses, our minds, to an encounter with beauty helps us to be restored.

Another act of kindness is having conversations with God after we write. These conversations can settle our hearts and allow us to process what it is that prompted the poem’s inspiration in the first place. Here, I enjoyed creating a poem–and then using the words of the poem as a prompt of sorts for engaging my heart with God.

After I wrote the poem, a conversation with God followed:

“You take me on journeys with You, and I want to say yes to each step of it.”

I like the crunch of gravel under your feet.

“You do not tire holding my hand when we walk, even when it is up hill.”

You do not weight as much as you think–your burdens are not heavy now–not one of your burdens was ever too heavy for me.

“Where will we go now?”

I am teaching you to open your mind and heart in new ways.

“I want You to teach me, yet I recognize, so often, I am ignoring You.”

You ignore Me when the focus is on you–when you believe you are small. You are small enough to weigh nothing as we walk, and heavy and strong and full of my glory when your eyes are on Me. Keep your eyes on Me.

As we write and we listen and we talk to God this week, let’s keep our eyes on Him. On His truth. On His beauty. On His goodness. On His promises. It will be so worth it.

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

Romans 5:2-5 The Message (MSG)

For our Loop Poetry Project prompt this week, write a poem focusing on beauty or sweetness or what outside influence brings interior restoration of your heart. And I encourage you, after you’ve written your poem, to use it as a prompt to talk to God. He cares deeply about what you think and feel. He has much to tell you, promising to bring hope to you–and growth.

I’d love to hear from you! Tell me about your experience writing–or your thoughts about creation, or beauty, or conversations with God. I have much to learn from you! I’d love to know what you think!

love,

jennifer

P.S. If you post on social media, make sure to use the hashtag #looppoetryproject so I can find you! And here you can join the Loop Poetry Project private Facebook group!

On a Thursday morning, a few hours before friends come to our home to stay overnight with us for a few days, I asked my girlfriends to pray. The whole week I had been anticipating feeling depleted by the time it was Sunday and our guests had to go home. I had spent days thinking about what they might need, how I could create a cozy place for them in our studio (aka converted garage/office ). I put up drapes, spread the beds with cotton and flannel duvets and red wool knit blankets, threw sheepskin rugs over the concrete floor, tucked extra toiletries in the medicine cabinet, stocked the metal trays on the desks with nuts and chocolate and organic apples. Inside our house, I organized what I thought Justin would need to cook dinner for all of us that first night and filled the refrigerator with eggs and avocado and fruit for breakfasts as well as sandwich fixings for lunches.

What was curious was that the morning after our friends came I had the most unusual thought. I stood at the kitchen counter making lunches, my usual activity every 7:30 am, while Jackson, our oldest, thumped through, looking for his shoe hidden somewhere by Fulton, our dog; Abby, our daughter, repeatedly bumped up against me with her elbow while brushing her teeth at the kitchen sink; and Oliver, the middle teenager, bustled in and out of the hall bathroom attending to his outfit and hair. While assembling turkey and pickles on baguettes–and normal morning life surged around me–I felt within me a strange and beautiful calm.

Gold light shone through the kitchen window shutters to my hands and face, and a thought popped into my mind, unannounced and surprising: I like myself, who I am, right now. Despite my anticipated concern with feeling depleted by all the upcoming activity during our guests’ stay, I don’t wish I were someone else–someone who doesn’t fuss about the little things or care about details or likes to plan or is extroverted and energized by chaos. I know I am loved, right now, and made just like this, for a life like this.

It was pretty great.

This was love–not self-condemnation–which used to be my standard thought pattern when I anticipated social situations. Experiencing this feeling of self-acceptance was one of the most astounding and encouraging moments I’ve ever felt–standing in the kitchen, in my pajamas, making sandwiches for three teenagers. I was not performing, not striving, not trying to do anything amazing or life-changing. And I was loved. Right then. With all my flaws and personality quirks that I’ve, for decades, struggled to love and accept. I was liked just as I was. Just as I am. Just as I will be. God came right up behind me, wrapped His protective arms around me, and held me close. I couldn’t help but believe what He was saying was true.

To put the moment in the kitchen into context–if you have been following along with my writings on this blog and my old one over the years, you are probably well aware–this was a big deal to me. I am only just learning how to relax into God’s grace. Walk gently. Settle deep into truth. Accept that no matter what I did or what I do, I am loved. As I learn to be honest with myself, I realize I still battle the Father a lot: wanting, in my pride, to earn salvation, wanting to seek glory for myself rather than for God.

“Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as his beloved sons and daughters. And continue to walk surrendered to the extravagant love of Christ, for he surrendered his life as a sacrifice for us. His great love for us was pleasing to God, like an aroma of adoration—a sweet healing fragrance” (Ephesians 5: 1-2, TPT).

What about you? What does your battle to walk gently look like? Do you enter this posture easily? Or is there some struggle you face to do it?

For the Loop Poetry Project prompt this week, I invite you to write a poem about an inner struggle you are facing or have faced, with God. You can write it as a conversation with Him. Or write it in the third person. Here are some things to think about as you ponder this idea: What does it mean for you to walk gently? Or what is a story of you not walking gently? What about the word gentleness? What meaning does it have for you? What does it make you think of? What images do you associate with walking gently? How does the idea of walking gently make you feel? Or when have you observed someone else walking gently–and what effect does this observation have on you, as the observer? Does it make you want to walk gently, too? Or are you cautious, reserved, unsure about doing it yourself?

I am only learning how to walk gently. And, ironically, there is some truth, as well, in the fact that my learning how to walk gently with God has been hard-fought. Years of surrendering to Him and years of trying to do things on my own. Years of confessing my hardened heart and years of trying to hide my sin (from myself and from others). Years of falling more deeply in love with God and years of running away from Him. It is a battle. The words “walk gently” are so beautiful, aren’t they? And I believe He gives us everything we need to do this. But these lives of ours don’t feel so gentle, sometimes–which is why this “walk gently” with our God can feel complicated.

How about we take this complicated stuff to Him? How about we ask God about this whole “walk gently” idea…and then write a poem about that? I can’t wait to read yours.

Feel free to share your poem in the comments on this blog post! Or, even better, share it on social media using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. If you’d like to join a kind and supportive and encouraging group of brave women who are pursuing wholeness for their hearts using poetry as a tool, come on over and join the private Loop Poetry Project group on Facebook. I’d love to see you over there.

love,

jennifer

It’s an uncomfortable feeling–the second-guessing. The feeling heightened in the morning, right after I wake. I try to be aware of it, giving myself space to process the emotions rather than let them boss me around. I want to attend to the emotions, not ignore them. But I want to take a deeper look at the why and how of them–not giving them complete control.

Writing helps me process them. And writing poetry right after I wake can be an effective tool for this processing to happen. In this case, I am intentionally letting the emotions have free rein–asking them to guide me. Writing the poem helps me to feel them. But, still, they must not just sit there. I must attend to them– take the poem to God and ask Him about it: seek His wisdom about what is happening in me, beneath the surface.

But sometimes, and I have been doing this the last few weeks, I write poems by flipping the order: before writing a poem, I first have a conversation with God, often in my journal, and then I let God’s response to me in the conversation initiate the poem.

Want to know what this looks like? Well, I am going to be super transparent with you. Below is an example of what this journaling and then poetry writing, for me, can look like. First, I share my heart with God, engaging with Him, in my heart, as I write. And then I write a poem inspired by His response back to me. This is from my journal on Wednesday, the day after Justin and I got home from a few days away while our three kids were on a mission trip in Mexico.

I should be happy here, Father. Logically, I realize I have no reason to not be, which is why my wistfulness confuses and frustrates me. The time in Santa Cruz with Justin was full of adventure and challenge, rest and beauty. Getting up early, in the cold, to go biking in the hills–or on trails in forest near river and ocean–filled my heart. It was an escape of some sorts, I guess–and if we lived and and worked in Santa Cruz, with having to take care of a home and go to work there, I might not find that place so magical, so restorative. But I think I am wondering how I can choose a life that gives me restoration and beauty while I am home. One of the things I enjoyed about our trip away was the rhythms of our days–outdoor exercise followed by work, and then rest and celebration in the late afternoon and evening.

I consider this now, pausing as I write, and I feel a pressure settle upon me–an immediate discontent with having to…what? I need a new mindset, for I want to live a life of gratitude, a life with You and not alone. I think that is part of it–I feel alone a lot of the time at home. It settles on me like a fog, numbing my senses and distorting what is real. I will be quiet now, asking you to lift the fog–helping me to see it and understand how it warps my vision. Show me what is true, what is real, how You are here, how I am with You, how I am never alone.

(*I close my eyes, and I am quiet–not writing–for ten minutes. And then I write down what I saw.)

I see a man walking on the cliffs near the ocean, enveloped by mist and gray fog. He wears a hat, like the ones in the movies or that business people used to wear. I only see his back, and he walks away from me. I see only his silhoette. And I hear You, Father, telling me how I live believing there is lack–scarcity–everywhere, and that I am missing something and that is not true. The world, my life in You, bursts with goodness and beauty, adventure and rest. I am not missing out on it. But I must choose to see it in order to experience it. Otherwise, yes, I will lack, for I will be missing being with You.

from my journal, February 19, 2020

And then I want to go deeper into this revelation–engage with God further–and on the next page in my journal, inspired by this encounter with God, I write this poem:

He used to speak to me
in ways predictable and sure. 
I would listen, 
pen in my hand,
and the words I wrote
were not my own—

making the division
between us something
I could see and feel, 
though not with
my physical senses,
and I liked it, 

how his separateness
from me made me
feel safe, a hiding place, 
a rock on which
I could stand.

And now the landscape
is deep and wide and I
see no place of hiding but
a vastness: freedom of
all possibility unfolding and

the choice before me,
always in me, to believe I
am alone here, or
the words, my friends,
the map to finding
the way to where,

with him, I always am.

-jennifer j. camp

For the Loop Poetry Project prompt this week, spend a few minutes journaling, engaging with God, on something that makes you second-guess or insecure or uncomfortable. What is something that worries you or bothers you? What is something that is weighing you down right now? What is something about which you have questions? How do you feel insecure? In what area of your life do you lack confidence? How is it making you feel?

After you have done some processing of these feelings through journaling–writing them down with transparency–and engaging with God as you do so–write a poem inspired by your experience. What did you learn? What new truth has been revealed? How does your heart feel? (Are you feeling unsettled or grounded, energized or frustrated?)

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this process of journaling first, and then writing a poem. And if you would like to share your poem–which would be so wonderful–please do so in the comments below, or in the beautiful community at Loop Poetry Project and/or on social media, using the hashtag #looppoetryproject, so we can find you!

with much love, from this one true heart,

jennifer

I don’t see him much. Hear his laugh. Feel the impact of his presence as he bounds into the room. The brother who lives far away and whose heart I understand and miss but don’t reach out to except on holidays. Except for this year, surprising myself when I didn’t call him on his birthday.

The years stretch long between visits. I miss him. Pushing down the guilt I feel from not connecting. I anticipate the day I see him face to face, having a few hours to ask each other how we are, how we are doing, and try not to be fake about it with a simple “I am good, fine.” Would we tell each other any hard truths? “I am hurting. I miss you. These are the real reasons I have been staying away.”

And more years go by.

For the Loop Poetry Project this week, write a poem to–or about–a person whom you love or have deep feelings for, using the poem to speak the words you wouldn’t otherwise know how to say.

Here are some questions to consider as you write: How do you say what you mean in this poem–with truth and clarity, without resentment, without being passive-aggressive? How do you articulate your true feelings–your thoughts about the relationship–when words are difficult to find? Are there objects, or a setting, or a story you would want to fold into–or be the foundation for–the poem? Description of scents? Sounds?

Rhetorical devices you can consider using are metaphor (comparing something to something else), simile (comparison of two dissimilar objects justing “like” or “as”), onomatopoeia (using words that have a sound association with them when the word is formed: sizzle, pop, clash, crack, cuckoo), alliteration (the repetition of a word’s beginning letter or rhyme sound) and rhythm (the beat and pace of the poem due to the words’ stressed and unstressed syllables in each line–do you want the poem to be read fast or slow, and with gentleness or with force?) How do you want the poem to be felt by the reader when it is read?

Most importantly, let your poem speak what is true. Let your heart lead you. What is it it wants to say?

When you have written your poem, I hope you will consider sharing it with the Loop Poetry Project community. What a gift your words are! Share your poem in the comments here–or share on social media using the hashtag #looppoetryproject.

With much love,

jennifer

It is my favorite topic of conversation–the intersections of creativity and vulnerability and God’s healing. My friend tells me she paints as often as she can. Brushes and paint and canvas–instruments for expressing her heart. Everything is an inspiration for her art. Everything an opportunity to create a representation of what she thinks and feels and sees. A conversation with her mom. A night out with a friend who sees the world a lot like she does. A wall layered with stucco at her work. A brush of her arm against her teenage daughter’s curls. A stack of unwashed dishes in the sink. A hand on her soft stomach as it rises and falls.

Writing poetry is like this too. A simple observation of a piece of notebook paper drifting down the sidewalk can trigger a memory, or an appreciation of the wind, or the contemplation of human nature or relationships or science. Poems can be the processing of an interaction we have with our environment, or a person we adore or a person who has hurt us.

But when it comes to creating art, expressing our heart in a creative, tangible way, there is more to think about too.

While planting flowers in our front yard last night, just as night was falling, I listen to an audiobook about holding our thoughts captive and entrusting them to God. I am engrossed in the message, considering how, according to the author, Jennie Allen, each lie we believe can be categorized as one of the following three: I’m helpless; I’m worthless; I’m unlovable. And one of the best practical ways to go to battle against these lies is something with which I deeply believe: spend time in solitude with God. Engaging with Him, sitting with Him, turning my full attention to Him, recalibrates everything in me that is off-center from what is good.

When I consider my writing–and I’ve been writing, in different capacities for most of my life–one thing is clear: there is writing that is true, energized by solitude with God, and there is writing that is produced by a mind not freed from lies. I can see this clearly now. But in different stages of my life, when I was blind to the lies I was believing, I wrote from a place of hurt and pain and I stayed stuck there. While writing–and perhaps, especially, poetry–can be helpful in processing our thinking (true thinking or false thinking), nothing changes about what we believe, and we will remain stuck–if we either (1) do not write while engaging with God or (2) do not take what we have written to Him.

Writing, in and of itself, or creating any kind of art, for that matter, is not what does the work of healing. God is Healer. Jesus is Savior. Creating art is a tool of opening–allowing our hearts and our minds to be awake. It takes bravery to express ourselves through creating. For in creating–painting, writing, sculpting, music, etc.–we are opening our hearts to pursuing truth. And when we do this, we are opening up places in us that house those lies we believe: these lies that are too emotionally heavy for us to carry on our own.

So what do we do? It is tempting to numb–check out emotionally. But don’t do that. For then the lies we believe–I’m helpless, I’m worthless, I’m unlovable–become even more deeply rooted. After we’ve created, we must, for deep healing to occur, take what we’ve created to God.

So for this week’s Loop Poetry Prompt, consider writing a poem after you have engaged in solitude with God. I encourage you to not listen to music. Get yourself in a place where you can be comfortable. Maybe close your eyes. One friend of mine suggests setting a timer for fifteen minutes, sit with your hands in your lap with your palms facing down, and releasing all of your worries, one by one, to God. Then, turn your palms face up in your lap, and, while breathing deeply and slowly, expectantly listen, with your heart, for what it is God would like you to receive.

After you have written a draft of the poem, read it carefully, with God. What, in these words, does He hear? What, in these images, does He see? Are there any lies you are believing? Do you believe you are helpless? Do you believe you are worthless? Do you believe you are unlovable? Ask Him to come for your heart now–protect you as you bravely give these lies you have been believing to Him. He wants to reveal the lies we are believing because they are keeping us from experiencing deeper relationship with Him. And He has so much love to give us. All of Him. All of Him.

If you’d like to share your poem–or your experience engaging in this exercise with God–that would be so wonderful! But, of course, you don’t have to. No pressure! But let me tell you this: you are not alone here. And together, in community, we can help encourage one another to be brave, continue writing, and taking these beautiful hearts of ours to our loving God.

If you do share, please do so on social media using #looppoetryproject as the hashtag. Or engage with the Loop Poetry Project on Facebook. Join here.

from this one true heart,

jennifer

5:30 am. I didn’t make it out to the studio behind our house but sat on the couch by the back door. When the sun rose, I could look out the windows and watch morning quilt together shades of light.

That was the plan.

But darkness stretches long in January. No light outside for a good hour. My reflection in the window’s glass all that I could see.

It was fine.

I had awakened from a dream, its details as easy to corral as squirrels cannonballing into burrows playing hide and seek. While I couldn’t remember the dream, a felt a tumble of emotions–angst and sadness spiced with apprehension and regret. My subconscious was troubling me, but I couldn’t figure out why.

Why was I feeling so heavy, so anxious? It was not comfortable. A feeling of topsy-turvy when I prefer straight lines. Even black and white stick figure drawings would be fine. Something I could see and understand.

So, what could I do? How could I attend to emotions I couldn’t even understand?

I did what any writer does.

I wrote.

When I started, I really didn’t know what I was writing about–except my confusion. I let my emotions lead, guiding me which way to turn. They gave me images to describe, color and texture to what was still fuzzy. It felt empowering somehow. Words used as shields, or maybe weapons against confusion and mess.

There is power in naming what it is that is bothering us, even if we are unclear why we are feeling the way we do. Diane Seuss begins a poem with the line, “Let’s meet somewhere outside time and space,” and I take it as an invitation to use our mind’s observations as a tool to help us see–pursuing perception of deeper meaning within the images, and beyond them too.

“Let’s meet somewhere outside time and space

between the Song of Solomon and Isaiah where someone
pressed a trillium,
in the ice cream freezer at the State Line Dairy where the
black cherry was and is no
more, in the coffee can full of blue marbles, under the
jewelry box ballerina’s skirts…”

Diane Suess

Using images of detail and color and imagination, Suess lists real world images both within and outside readily conceived boundaries of time and space. The end result is a compilation of images–both concrete and ephemeral–that invites the heart to breathe.

What would it be like if we used real world images around us to help us ponder, and further understand, ideas and memories we find perplexing, irritating, confusing, disappointing, magical, beautiful, transcendental, surreal?

I think there might be value in giving this a try.

So for this week’s Loop Poetry Project prompt, you are invited to write a poem–perhaps using concrete imagery (vivid sensory description)–to try to make sense of something your mind struggles to readily understand. For instance, perhaps you want to revisit a memory of something you experienced as a child that you found overwhelming, stressful, or confusing. Or, maybe you’d like to write a poem about something that is too horrible or too beautiful or too strange or too unexpected to easily comprehend. What astonishes you? What bothers you? What do you find maddening? Amazing? Too wonderful to say?

Try to write a poem where your heart and mind can meet “outside time and space.” There is much to be discovered and uncovered here. And, if you’d like–if it helps–feel free to model your poem after Suess’s, even using the first line, which is also the title: “Let’s meet somewhere outside time and space….” to get you started. I can’t wait to hear what you think about this. Remember, the purpose of writing poems here together is to pursue truth, the truth of our hearts, to uncover our heart’s deepest opinions and feelings and secrets. Poetry is our tool to listen to the heart’s most amazing things we would otherwise never hear it say.

When you have written your poem, consider sharing it on social media using #looppoetryproject as the hashtag so we can find you. And/or share your poetry in the private Loop Poetry Project group on Facebook. You can join here.

With you, writing for whole hearts,

jennifer

Self-expression is no easy thing. Nor is trying something new, taking a risk. Finding words to express our observations, our opinions, our deepest feelings, requires self-awareness, introspection, and the patience to truly listen.

In the musical Dear Evan Hansen, Evan, a senior in high school, struggles to apologize to a family whom he has hurt. In frustration, he tells them, “Words fail, words fail/ There’s nothing I can say.” Sometimes words can’t do the job we want them to do–fix people, fix ourselves–yet they are, still, powerful tools in helping us understand the deeper places in our hearts.

And journal writing, it turns out, can be a powerful step toward understanding what it is we really feel about things that have happened to us, or things we have done ourselves. In the book, Finding What You Didn’t Lose, John Fox shares how personal journal writing can be entry points to uncover one’s emotions. Using journal writing to inspire a poem is an effective tool for gaining perspective: the writer wrestles with the content in a fresh way, having to consider how to translate, through words, images and form what she wants to say.

Because of poetry’s condensed language (poets argue that words in a poem have more weight to them than they would in a work of prose) as well as its particular form (the form causes the reader to confront the white space at the end of every line and choose to stay “in” the body of the poem by continuing to read), poems heighten the intimacy of one’s journal entries. Prose, with its lack of boundaries, a line stretching the length of a page, is, as Billy Collins describes, “a continuation of noise.” But a poem, with its intentional white space, is, he continues, “a displacement of silence” as well as “a diary without the lock–a diary that you want people to read.” Even if your poem, inspired by your journal writing, is not shared and read by a single person, your act of choosing language and form to convey the heart of what you are trying to say might effectively communicate more than any journal entry, written in prose, ever could.

So, let’s try this. For this week’s Loop Poetry Project prompt, take a journal entry, or a series of entries, you have written recently and let that inspire the focus of your poem. Or, if you haven’t written in a journal recently, free-write for ten minutes; don’t lift up your pen from the paper. When you’re done, read it over and underline key words, phrases, and images. Let these spark the focus of your poem. Build around them. See where the poem goes. Unlock the diary of your heart.

When you are done creating your poem, consider sharing it–on social media, using #looppoetryproject as the hashtag and in the Loop Poetry Project private Facebook group. I have been loving the poems you have been sharing! What a gift it is to read them.

May this week be one of risk-taking, deep listening, and exploring the hidden places of your heart.

xo,

jennifer

I am often surprised by words. The weight they carry, their dexterity–our emotions slung over their backs or painted on fingernails or tattooed on their skin. I appreciate their courage to show up. Their willingness to step forward–helping us decipher what it is we really feel.

How do I feel? I have no idea. But if I pause here, pen held in hand, a notebook spread open to blank page, I will do my best to write what is true.

And there’s that word: true. What does it mean to write what is true? I have found, in my writing of poetry, that it sometimes takes a few visits to the same poem I’ve written to explore my feelings, any singular truth. To discover what it is that is true, I must make an attempt to sort it out. And the way I do that is through using poetry to write the feelings down.

On the wall near my desk hangs a framed print of the following words: Hear. Write. Speak. Justin made it for me a few years ago, just when I started to write again. I struggled to trust myself, my words. I felt there was something wanting in me by my need to process what it is I wanted to say before being able to speak anything of any meaning.

Let me explain what the three words mean to me. (1) Hear: Listen to my heart. (What is it feeling, thinking? What is God saying to me right now?)

(2) Write: Write the story my heart is telling. What am I hearing? Can I explain it? Can I bring the story to life? Can I allow it, through what I hear, to make sense to me on the page?

(3) Speak: Speak the story out. This is when things get interesting–because “speaking” doesn’t mean I have to read aloud the poem (although that is super helpful and is an excellent step in the editing process.) It also doesn’t mean I have to share it with anyone (although that can be a wonderful gift–the experience of sharing my heart–for me and for anyone else with whom the poem resonates).

My first poems, written when I was a teenager (my mom collected them all–saved in their original colored-in school folder and now housed on a shelf near my shoes in my bedroom closet after she mailed them to me a few months ago), were messes of both beauty and drama. Now, were they true? Were they true representations of what I was really feeling at the time? Yes, absolutely–even if they were, as well, often expressions of angst and confusion. It was actually one of the main ways I communicated my deeper feelings to my parents. Even as I read them now, from the perspective of someone who is older and (hopefully) a bit wiser, those poems were true. They were the best way I knew to speak what I wanted to say.

What speaking a poem does mean for us, as poets, is that we get to figure out the truth of the words now. We get to uncover their meanings. Speaking the story out–speaking the poem–is bringing it out of the shadows and shining a flashlight on its inner workings. As the poet, what am I saying? What am I feeling? What story is being told? Is it accurate? Is it an exaggeration? Or, even if the poem’s overall message is an exaggeration or an oversimplification or an overdramatization of what is true, consider this: isn’t the poem always true if we find, upon speaking it, that it is exactly what we have found we wanted to say? Can this emotion, this feeling, in the poem, be what we can begin with, as true? That is when the definition of true becomes something truly personal. You, as the poet, the creator of this art, decide the truth you want your poem to speak.

So, listen carefully to hear the story your heart is telling. Write what is on your heart. And then speak your poem back to your heart. Notice the truth that is being spoken. And if it is not true? Well, keep working. Keep listening. Keep writing. Edit. Know that the poem is not done until it is true. And, ultimately, you are the one with the authority to decide that.

For this week’s Loop Poetry Project prompt, write a poem from your unique vantage point; tell a story no one else can tell. Communicate a moment no one else has seen. But–here’s the catch–try to do it from the third-person point of view. Tell a story, going deep into a specific moment you’ve experienced, by sharing it as if it were about a different person other than yourself. This is a theory–but I am curious about whether writing in the third person rather than in the first person will give you a sense of freedom–that it will make you feel less inhibited to identify your truth. I wonder if writing from the vantage point of observing your deepest thoughts and feelings about a moment from the stance of a person outside yourself will help you to write what is true without censoring your (her) true feelings.

For example, one morning this week I found insecurity welling up within me, and I wanted to take a good look at it, understand it a little more. But I felt frustrated about my feeling this way (yes, I was insecure about my feelings of insecurity! Oh, the irony!). Even with the deep healing that I have let God do in me over the last ten years, feeling of self-condemnation can still surface time and again. My heart was hurting, and I wanted to not ignore it. I wanted to honor it by doing my best to write what it was I was feeling, listening to my heart’s pain. But the only way I found I could do this was by taking the perspective of the third person–writing about this feeling I was experiencing as if I wasn’t myself at all. That was the only way I knew, in that moment, how to express what my heart knew was true.

So, I want to invite you to do this too: consider what it is you believe is true, right here, right now. Share an experience. How are you feeling? What do you know? Do your best to communicate this truth in a poem–and tell it in the third person–so you can get perspective on this truth. The purpose of this exercise (writing your poem in the third person) is that when you are done writing your poem’s draft, and it is time to speak the poem to yourself, you might be better able to hear what is true, and what is not. When you write, don’t hold back–you are simply the recorder, the observer, the innocent, unbiased bystander (okay, not so much, but we are going to try) who is relating a story your heart has been waiting for you to say.

When you are finished writing your poem, consider sharing it on social media using #looppoetryproject as the hashtag, so we can find you. You can also share your poem in the warm, welcoming community of Loop Poetry Project on Facebook, a private community of hundreds of Loop sister poets.

Don’t you just love the crazy adventure we are on together? I can’t wait to hear from you! (And click the two images below to download and print “Hear. Write. Speak.” to hang up in your home!)

xo,

jennifer

When Justin invites me to listen, to pray, asking God for a new word for this year, my head nods. I hear my voice say yes. And then I ask for my heart to catch up.

A new year’s promise of new beginnings can feel heavy if we let it. Funny, isn’t it, that a promise for newness. for starting over, can feel like another thing to do, to get right.

The word “beginning” suggests newness, freshness. It is the start of something, perhaps even the origination of something that has not existed before. And don’t we all want that? A beginning is a positive word–usually suggesting something good: the end of a bad habit, the end of a tough situation, the end of a way of thinking that wasn’t healthy and only led to a dead end.

Beginnings are the opposite of dead ends. They are the yellow brick road of possibility. What is around the corner? What new surprise, new adventure, new way of looking at and being in the world will this new beginning hold? What one word, whispered into our hearts by God, represents the new beginning God has in mind for us?

Be careful here.

To say yes to a new beginning, we first need to check in with our hearts. New beginnings are always a step toward God, not a running away from pain, not an ignoring or wishing away of a situation we wish never was.

I know this because the invitation to a new beginning used to be a way for me to try to escape a situation, ignore some deeper hurts within my heart that God wanted to heal. We must consider this: our idea of a new beginning and God’s idea for a new beginning might be very different. And that’s worth figuring out. Trust me. Beginnings are a charade for growth if we struggle to love ourselves, as we are, right now.

For the Loop Poetry Project prompt this week, you are invited to write a poem processing your heart’s reaction to the word “beginning.” When you hear this word, what is your initial reaction? Start your writing here. What images does the word “beginning” call up within you? What memories? What do you want to compare it to? What emotions are you feeling? If you are excited about a new beginning–hope-filled, enthusiastic–let your heart tell you why. And then write down, through description and images, what these emotions look like, feel like, sound like. And if you are nervous, cautious, a bit wary of this invitation to “begin” again, have your poem express that.

Another approach might be to have a conversation with Beginning, as if it were a person. Talk to this Begining as if it were in the room. Don’t think too much. Don’t second-guess. Let your heart speak for you. What is your heart’s reaction to the word? Is it skeptical, wary? Is it optimistic, full of ideas and hopes for what this beginning will mean for you?

As you listen to your heart–and you hear the poem speaking to you–let it go where it wants to go. If your heart, your poem, wants to tell you a story about beginnings that feels kind of irrelevant to your focus–kind of side-ways and peculiar, definitely write that. Don’t exclude it. Listen. Watch. See what it is, where it goes. Chase the rabbit around the room and through the hole. Let it scamper around through this hallway and then the next. Let the mystery unfold. Who said beginnings have to be clear? Who said we have to know where the ending to any beginning really is?

After you have finished writing your poem, read it aloud to yourself. Listen to it. What is your heart saying? Is it true? Then take your poem to God, this poem that you have written with Him, and ask Him what else there is to discover in it, what else He wants to show you, what else He is saying. And then….then… if you feel like this is the next good thing to do…ask Him what word He has for you this year. What adventure of a new beginning is He wanting to write on your heart?

As always, if you feel like you would like to share your writing in community, please do so here, in the comments–or, even better yet, on social media, like Instagram (using the hashtag #looppoetryproject so we can find you), or on Facebook, in the Loop Poetry Project private group. (You can join here.)

Much love to you, beautiful poets,

jennifer

The rain pelts my hands grasping bike handles, soaks my feet inside my leather tennis shoes, freezes my shoulders bent over the handlebars. (I soon learn my raincoat is water-resistant and not waterproof. Oh, an important difference.) And my legs? Yeah, they’re drenched. But my helmet visor is blocking the raindrops from my eyes–so I can see.

Helpful.

A thirty-minute bike ride door to door and the urban outdoors is wild in its beauty. I kind of love it.

I tell Justin during one of our Fridays after work that this fall (almost winter now) in the California Bay Area, where we live, is alive with texture and color. More beautiful than I have appreciated before. When we lived on the East Coast for four years, Philadelphia and then New York City, the transformation of trees’ leaves turning from green to red and orange and gold was a brilliance spectacular and staggering.

I remember substituting for a school in the suburbs of Philadelphia and standing near the seventh grade English classroom’s floor-to-ceiling wall of windows, amazed by golden yellow leaves raining, raining, raining down. But the trees of California, I was convinced, could never compare to the beauty of those gold leaves swirling to the ground. But this year, I think biking has helped me notice what I couldn’t notice before. Color. Texture. Air. My breath. My body pushing up a hill. Sound.

The combination of writing poetry and being outside is helping me practice noticing what before I took for granted and couldn’t see. And in that seeing, I am moving–not necessarily physically moving (although that is usually the case), but participating in life that feels big, potent, exciting, staggering in its beauty.

This life is all here, before us. Within us. Around us. Life singing and moving and dancing and struggling and leaping and crawling. I want to practice new ways of taking it in. I want to notice and breathe in what before I could simply observe. But it starts there, doesn’t it? Living fully alive starts with noticing what we can see with our senses, experience with our minds and soul.

For the Loop Poetry Writing Prompt this week, I invite you, in this season of Advent–with its invitation to experience the waiting of our Savior–to write a poem that speaks to being alive, awake to wonder, awake to beauty, awake to pain. Write about something that amazes you or astounds you, puzzles you or bothers you. The poem can be prompted by memory, something that you have seen and experienced, or prompted by your current experience, something you are noticing and processing this week. It can be about a person too.

Share your poem here, in the comments, and/or on social media using #looppoetryproject to tag it. Bless you, this Christmas! And remember, considering joining the Loop Poetry Project private Facebook group!

I can’t wait to read your poems! Merry Christmas!

xo,

jennifer

We cut down our Christmas tree in the pouring rain a week ago, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the bookend adventure of a multi-day trip with extended family. Drove it home on top of our car without incident and abandoned it in the front yard for a few hours while we scrambled inside to help our son, a senior in high school, submit one more college application that was due in…oh, two hours.

There was deep breathing.

An hour later, application submitted before the deadline, we finished unpacking the car, threw together some pasta and sauteed vegetables for dinner, and managed to get the tree inside the house, positioned in its stand of water in the front window of our living room, before we collapsed on the couch to watch the first half of Love Actually, not even considering having the conversation about decorating the tree.

That was not going to happen.

The tree was cute. We held no ill will against it. A sturdy Douglas fir with lots of space between the branches for ornaments. But there was not one ornament hanging from a single branch–or lights, for that matter–through Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. Until finally, on Thursday night, we put up the lights. And then on Friday, we made a fire and opened the container of ornaments slung down from the attic and hung them in the tree.

And it was beautiful.

There are two times of day I find the tree, hailing bright and twinkly and sweet in our front room, irresistible to me: (1) the early mornings when all, except the tree’s lights, is still and dark and quiet, and (2) the evenings after dinner when the rush of the day calms and we move toward rest. In the evenings, I sit on the couch near the Christmas tree. And in the mornings I lie down in front of the fireplace, the tree bright and silent against the darkness that is soon upended by dawn’s light.

And I sit near it now, near the end of day. The tree’s lights defy the pending dark.

For this week’s Loop Poetry Project prompt, you are invited to observe an object–small or large, in your home or somewhere else–and let the object lead you down a path of story, or memory, or imagination. Let it take you on a journey from observation of the ordinary to discovery of the extraordinary.

Believe me, it is going to be a wild and beautiful ride to a place you never expected to go. Let me tell you more about what I mean.

For me, for instance, the object I observed was my Christmas tree. I was drawn to it one morning when I woke up and found the lights on the tree had been on all night. The lights illuminated the room I had expected to be dark. So, I let myself take in the tree–my senses absorbing it, recording it. But then I let my heart, my imagination, give me words to tell me something else about it. I let the tree, in a way, speak to me. Both my physical senses’s (sight, hearing, feeling, smelling) and my heart’s (my imagination, my memory) engagement with the tree changed the experience from mere observation to a deeper experience of discovery. I let the poem write itself–letting the tree create a poem inside my heart. My heart knew what the poem was about, and I was discovering this as I wrote.

What I am finding is that sometimes writing poetry is a journey down a rabbit hole, a phrase coined by Lewis Carroll in his iconic book, Alice and Wonderland. Just like Alice, when she followed the white rabbit through his little door, tumbling down through many zany places and meeting many unusual creatures and people, not knowing what new experience was coming next or what unpredicted outcome was around the bend, when we write a poem we can simply begin, going through one door, recording one observation, and letting ourselves tumble around a bit, letting our hearts be open to exploring what happens when we let ourselves fall, exploring one idea and then the next.

You see, we don’t have to know what the poem is going to be about–or be— before we start writing it.

When we begin a poem, we probably don’t know where it is going to go. How we begin, from observation and setting a scene, is not where we are going to end up by the time the poem’s last lines are written and we are at the end.

I find this to be true in almost all my poem writing. And I love the sense of magic it evokes, the feeling of freedom it gives me. I can let my heart lead me; it has an entirely new and different way of interpreting the world than my mind. And when I draft a poem I want to listen to my heart. I want to learn to heed it, trust what it wants to say. My mind can edit the draft of the poem later–making edits, changing words, adjusting line breaks, listening with its very different way of hearing to make sure that the heart original plan for the poem is understandable. First, we let the heart speak to us as we draft a poem, and then we let the mind edit, making sure the poem is communicating what the heart always wanted to say.

So, this week, let an object speak to you. Let your heart lead you down the rabbit hole of magic and memory, disaster and dream. Have fun noticing that where you end up is not where you began. There is much to learn here. Listen. Listen to what your heart wants to show you and teach you how to say.

When you have written your poem, consider sharing it with the hashtag #looppoetryproject so we can find you and enjoy what you have written! If you’d like to join the hundreds of women writing poetry together, seeking encouragement and discovery of poetry together, you are welcome to join the Loop Poetry Project private Facebook group. It is a wonderful, kind and safe place to share your poetry and connect with other women poets. And please connect with me on Instagram, where I share, in my highlights, poems women in the community have written!

Finally, I would love to hear from you here, in the comments below!

From this one true heart,

jennifer

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I was surprised when it didn’t resonate–the line, a single sentence that woke me in the morning: “The world is heavy, and I am heavy with disappointment.” I felt like I needed to write about it, dig in a little deeper, do some investigating.

Because the sentence didn’t ring true.

Yes, the world is heavy. Heavy with need. And with expectation. Heavy with pain. And with hope. There is much I could ruminate on, explore, process. And I was curious about whether or not this was the path down which I would go.

For when I wake up with a heaviness upon me, most often from a dream that needs sorting out, but sometimes from something else I can’t quite name, I want to plunge in to see what is underneath that heaviness. What is triggering it, if I can. Or, at least, what I think and feel about it. I have found that the alternative–leaving it there, pushing it down, without investigating what it is that I am feeling–is a wasted opportunity for deeper awareness and personal growth. For there is one thing I have learned for certain over these last ten years of running hard after God’s heart for me: He uses everything to speak to us. And just because it is unpleasant or uncomfortable or confusing doesn’t mean I shouldn’t put in some effort, with His guidance, to try to figure out what is going on.

Afraid I was going to forget the sentence before I pulled back the bedcovers and my feet hit the floor, I began repeating it over and over in my mind. “The world is heavy, and I am heavy with disappointment…The world is heavy, and I am heavy with disappointment.” Wow, this just didn’t sound right. It didn’t feel true.

I wasn’t planning on writing this morning. It was going to be a busy day, with an appointment that was going to take a little more effort to bike to after the kids got off at school, and I needed to jump in the shower and be dressed and ready to go for the day earlier than usual. But I was too darn curious about that perplexing sentence to not sit down for a few minutes with my notebook and try to figure it out.

So I did. And drafted a poem.

And what I learned–through using poetry to process that single sentence–spoke deeply to my heart. In a single sentence, I found the lie I’ve believed for most of my life. A lie I had lived out as true.

But not today. Not today. Not today.

What is fascinating to me is that I can’t name for you the moment when I started disbelieving that lie. But I think chunks of its credibility were wearing off this past year. It has taken a lot of time. And persistence. And fortitude. And help from people, wise counselors. There have been many battles. Much heartache. Much pain. All things able to be used by God.

After the richness of my experience processing through that single sentence–a sentence I didn’t know the meaning of until after I stumbled around with it a bit with God–I now invite you, this week, to use the tool of poetry to process through a lie you are either (1) now believing or (2) have believed in the past.

Use the poem to look at the lie, examine it, dissect it, understand it, deflate it. Consider how it makes (or has made) you feel–maybe even using metaphor to compare it to something different than it really is–something it reminds you of–to help you understand the deeper role it has been playing in your life. Or have a conversation with is. Or tell a story about it. You could even use the poem to represent the lie’s legacy–the damage it has done–or to speak to the new life that will be (or has been) born in you after the lie has been named for what it truly is.

Another idea is to do what I did and name the lie right in the beginning of the poem–start the poem with it–and then let your feelings (God will lead you) uncover the relationship you’ve had with it, how you feel about it, what more there is for you now that the lie is thrust into the light.When you’ve written your poem, consider sharing it with us on social media using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. Click here to see past poetry prompts and here for poems written by the Loop Poetry Project community that I’ve posted on my Instagram Story Highlights.

This is going to be an exercise filled with richness and life. I believe it.

love to you,

jennifer

It doesn’t feel welcoming. Not at first. An empty room in your heart and mind. A place you don’t visit often. It’s openness. Space unfamiliar.

So much fills our moments that when this much is emptied out, cleared away for a bit, we realize we are unused to the freedom that comes from letting our minds and hearts stretch out, breathe in, relax, inhabit a place without limits. What will happen when we give ourselves time and opportunity to regularly be free?

The reason I often write in the morning, usually in the dark, with only a dim light to see, is that I intentionally try to create space for my mind and heart to speak. I seek solitude, without the distraction of the outside world. This helps me listen–heed what it is my heart is feeling. Through this practice of listening to my heart, in a quiet space, I am better able to connect with my deeper emotions.

In these quiet spaces, poetry can come. Words and images will rise that express our heart. In silence, we can better engage with our heart’s attempt at communication, better able to listen and articulate its deepest whispers.

This week’s invitation is simple. Write from the place of mental and emotional wide-open space that comes with the practice of silence and solitude. Write only after first allowing your mind to clear, to relax. Get yourself in a physical area of quiet–or create one for yourself. Stay here and allow your mind and heart to rest.

Be attentive to what springs up after you have been in this space of silence for five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes (how long can you go?) Try not to be physically active. Relax. Breathe deeply. Get comfortable. Slow. Let your mind quiet. And then see what lines form in your mind, your heart. Inner silence is going to speak in ways that surprise you. See what poem rises from this.

And, if you’d like, please share your poem with the Loop Poetry Project community–either by including it in the comments to this post–or by sharing it on social media, using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. (And here you can find us on Facebook.) I can’t wait to read what springs up!

From this one true heart,

jennifer