This week I finally got my Oklahoma license. I’m a legal Oklahoman again. Never knew how good that would feel. I do love where I’ve been, though. Our time was up. We overstayed our welcome. Home has welcomed us back with open arms.

I documented my journey on Facebook of my time at the DPS (Department of Public Safety). It began with a protest, but ended in a Hallelujah. I want to share these posts on my blog too.

November 14, 2022

One thing I love about resting is observing how our systems are working. And that includes my own body’s system too.

I will start with me. Even with this down time, I still struggle with the details of daily living. I now understand this is a trauma response. I work really hard watching systems and how they are affecting our lives because toxic and unsafe systems have literally sent us running for our lives. You do not just recover from that, and it is frustrating living in a world that does not listen to what this has done to our spirit. I mean really listen. I know now that preaching is not going to convert anyone. Often times we cannot see until something disrupts our own lives so we can see.

This is why it is time for us all to collectively rest.

So, I went to the Norman DPS today. So frustrating how hard it is to make an appointment. They are 8 weeks out and we still need our drivers license changed. We have been bombarded with a lot of paperwork and chaos since getting to Oklahoma. Jake’s mom died too, and that seems to have gotten lost in all the mass trauma that just violently came at us all at once. We need space and time to grieve that and it happened when we were trying to survive. It is so hard, and I want you to hear that.

I got to the the DPS at 6:30 AM today and sat in the cold. It is really cold today. It does not open until 8, and they kindly opened the doors at 7:30 to let us in from the cold. By 8:30 AM, I found out the systems are down with no guarantee they will come back up any time soon. The man said it could be ten minutes to two months.

Say what?

Listen, I understand technology issues happen, but we cannot have a system where we can say this may not be back up for two months without some kind of backup plan. Bring back the paperwork, I guess. You do not leave people with that kind of ambiguity when we need official documents. And this system failure is apparently statewide, not just Norman.

There is no coffee or anything hospitable for people while we have to sit and wait either. Nothing hospitable at all.

These are things I notice. Why are we not setting up our systems more humanly? This excessive waiting is also really hard on poor people who get paid by the hour and have to make special time for this.

Are we thinking about these things?

Scoff that we do not have our drivers licenses worked out yet, but what about this?

Are we putting too much pressure on individuals and not enough on systems that could make it a lot easier?

I do not know solutions, but I am happy to work with people on brainstorming ideas and dreaming a more hopeful and restful future.

November 15, 2022

Post #1

Day 2 trying to get my drivers license changed. 6:30 am, again. More people out today than yesterday. It’s freezing. Already spilled some of my coffee, and you know they aren’t providing any here. Crap!

We can do hard things. This shouldn’t have to be hard.

Here’s hoping against hope today works.

Post #2

I’m in. My feet are frozen. There was no letting us in early today. Had to wait until 8.

I made friends in line today. My favorite thing to do. This kind man behind me told me I needed to print my bills for verification or they’ll send me away. He let me go home and held my spot in line! How nice is that?!

Then we got to talking and he’s a raging conservative. Lol! But we still got along. He agreed with me that Christianity and it’s original formation was more of a collectivist society and wouldn’t understand this.

Y’all, I’m going to find these conversations anywhere I go. If nothing else works today, that happened.

Post #3

I’m still waiting it’s been over 40 min with the last number being served A109. I’m A110.

Come on.

But let me tell you what has happened in that is not annoying. Sometimes we have to participate in bad systems, but that doesn’t have to stop the party 🎉

A woman I met this morning did not pass her driving test yesterday. She’s back trying again today. I’m so proud of her. I stood up and cheered for her as she left to take her test. She lit up with appreciation for the support.

She just returned and I found out she passed! I cheered and we gave each other a high five. She was smiling so big and told me thank you.

We are at the party. Life is a party we do not have to throw—a child at VBS told me that in one of our lessons one summer, and I’ll never be the same by her reflection. We just need someone to illuminate there is a party happening.

imherefortheparty #evenatnormandps

Post #4

I want to say more about the man I was talking to this morning. He had no idea who I was when he kindly volunteered to hold my spot so I could print off the documentation I needed. He just cared and knew how hard it is to have the documentation ready as the system needs to see it, and you often find this out after waiting hours to see them. He had gotten turned away the week before, so he freshly knew how hard this is. Experience can create empathy, if we let it.

I had no idea how conservative he was until I got back. When I found out, there were moments I was finding myself infuriated because he began talking over me and making assumptions about things I was not saying at all. Or, if I said one word that can, without generosity of spirit, be taken as an absolute, he would tell me I lost him immediately. I want to stop right there and highlight that…

I only dropped one professor in my seminary career, and that is one reason why. Words are important—I am a word person myself—but I also know there is a spirit to them; meaning, what people say is deeper than face value. It is why I can discover God even in the horrendous parts of scripture where there seems to be absolutely no hope in the story and God is written like some kind of monster. Some people’s lives are really like that (at no fault of their own) and I am glad scripture gives word to that. We can be the hope if we will see them.

An example of looking at something without spirit is illuminated through people who are doing a flat-reading scripture and/or the Constitution. Both become a source of violence instead of living hope when we do that.

We are spiritual beings. There is always more to us than what we can ever say, do, or produce. There is this, as Pappy (Father Joe Ted Miller) would say, something more about us. About God. About all creation that will never be covered by our words. Words only point to the groaning of the Spirit.

But y’all, we hung int here and the fact that he finally heard me on Christianity being collective—not Marxist—was huge.

This is why I believe in dialogue. This man was looking for connection, not agreement. His eyes are sad because he believes the worst in people. Y’all, I just can’t. You know why? Even though people have put us through literal hell—I have been loved well. And I know the sad eyes I am seeing believing no one can be trusted, or everyone wanting handouts, etc are people who have not experienced this same kind of love. The kind that can heal and see beyond the surface.

This is why in Patch Adams I love the patient who is frustrated with people who keep telling him they see four when he is literally holding up four fingers. He seems out of his mind, but he is frustrated people are not thinking more critically. He gets Patch to see beyond the problem. Patch came up with eight when he sat with the man a moment with his own curiosity. When Patch said eight, the patient said: That is “A” good answer—NOT that is “THE” answer.

I do not have an absolute answers about this world in need of healing. I just know we need to do better, and I know we will do better when we see each other and look beyond the problem.

Just like this man at the Norman DPS did when he realized I needed some grace for the inadequate documentation I had because he experienced none the week before.

Hope lives, y’all.

Jake and I have been through a storm to get here. I got me a poster to describe how I am feeling these days. Jake has always been my partner. We have worked hard and poured ourselves out for so long. It is great to start receiving so we can rebuild, and this time build from experience.

Because it is almost official voting day, and this is an extremely significant midterm, I am going to write something to this moment in time.

I grew up in a time where the identification with the Democratic Party was becoming unwelcome, to say it lightly. I ignored it mostly and did not let people know my family is mostly Democrat—and it is because of public education. I did not internalize any of the horrible rhetoric I was hearing from people I know very well and love very much because Democrat is not and was not my identity. I just realized this morning that is why I never took personal offense, and that is important to the theme of my writing about Naming.

Let me also say this, if I knew then what I know now, I would have spoken up and said something. I knew my friends were wrong in how they were portraying Democrats, and I should not have had to hide the fact I was a Democrat. While I was not absorbing their message personally, I was shedding a part of me and what I believed at the door to not rock the boat. Belonging was/is important to our thriving.

Any time we get to the point we believe we are the good people and these are the bad people, we are in a bad place. I will admit I am struggling with the Republican Party right now in this respect. Here is where I can tap into the empath in me—I understand how hard it is when life seemed to be a certain way for you and all the sudden the rug is pulled out beneath you. Learning a lot of what you have been taught is wrong and has caused harm, it is disorienting and scary. I feel that so much with you. But let me give an example of how we might reconsider some of the things we have been taught and allow ourselves to be uncomfortable without having to create an enemy.

In 2016 I realized all the things I was ignoring—hyper-Republicanism, anti-vaxx, complementarianism, etc were far more harmful than I could have understood in the moment. But I also understand the anxiety that led to these movements because I was in it. I do not see my friends as evil. Republican became an identity, not an identification with a group, and that will change how one behaves. Jonathan Martin mentioned in his last sermon at the Table that we are living in a moment where all of our head knowledge is getting into our bones. The theoretical is becoming a lived reality. This is what is happening with the Republican Party.

This is where Christians, because these are Christians, need to remember our baptism. That is our identity. Jesus is a way of life. Jesus is not a mascot. Jesus had no desire to be famous. He was often telling people to not tell anyone about what he had done. Jesus was not a winner either. Jesus took the path of humiliation before he would give up his sacred identity as a human being. When we remember where our identity lies—in love—we can more easily see when a group we are a part of is losing its way.

I am no hero or shero. All that happened to me was my heart broke, and it made me curious to understand what happened. That is all.

I am going to give only one example, because there are many, where I can show you that no one was paying attention to how toxic we have been to women in our society. 2016 was the revelation of this to me.

First, I will start with me. In the beginning I was angry with the Democrats for making Hillary Clinton the candidate in 2016. I knew she was controversial and hated by many. I was also sort of indoctrinated with the rhetoric about her that no one has actually proven, but we act like it is true. Now I know how important it is to look at the facts and determine what is true. It is life or death. With hindsight, I am glad she was the candidate.

I am probably most proud of the vote I cast for Hillary Clinton than any other candidate. I was too young to vote for Carter. What Hillary made me see is how awful women are treated in public life by EVERYBODY! Women are some of the worst too. Never underestimate the toxicity of being taught self-hate. Internal misogyny is real and it is deadly.

What I began to see early on was how she was talked over in the debates with no recourse. Not just talked over, but abusive yelling and name-calling. No one said a damn thing—Not the moderator, the audience, friends watching from home, the school teachers still assigning the debates to their students to talk about at school, etc. I was stunned. Had the world gone mad? There are no rules for the debates and Trump exposed that.

Trump also stalked her while she was talking about her platform to the audience. No one did anything about it. We all just sat and watched it like she was not a person at all. She stayed poised though, and I almost resented her for it. I wanted her so badly to turn around and tell Trump to ”Fuck off!” That was the first time the F word started coming out of my mouth and it felt holy. Still does in the right moment.

I learned later, and it was not until Biden was running against Trump, that Hillary worked with a professional on how to debate a narcissist. She knew what strings to pull to get under his skin, like calling him Donald, and stay poised. She had to. She did not have the luxury Biden had to say: Would you shut up, man?! Or to call him a clown. She would have been crucified even more. We saw how her use of deplorable made the Trump crowd act like that cancelled all the millions of atrocious things he said. I am not endorsing her use of deplorable, but, friends, people break. Even our leaders—even Hillary Clinton—are/is a human being. When treated deplorably, it might just get named as such.

What I am encouraging is to take some time for self -reflection. I did, and still do all the time. When I make a statement, I really try to make sure I have interrogated myself fully. When I don’t, I will come in with my messy and unrefined self, and that hurts people. I do not like it when I do that, nor would my truest self ever want to hurt anyone. I believe this is true for everybody.

It is so easy to blame others when it seems like the obvious sins lie there. But y’all, it made it me look at me. It was not just to discover all the ways I had participated in wrong-doing either; although, yes. I found in me a strength and resilience that I never knew I had. I found my voice and it led me on a journey—still is. Oh, it is messy and I make mistakes all the time, but I allow them. They teach me now, not destroy me.

Sometimes the people we think of as our enemy are the same people inviting us into the human story.

I will end with this.

Cruelty has no place in religion or politics. It is never okay for any reason. Stop labeling people as evil and start discovering who you are so you can properly name the people you think are being destructive. You can only know that if you know who you are.

I posted a series of Facebook posts the other day about what it is like being a 4 on the Enneagram. It was kind of enlightening to me too. Sometimes I do not realize what I am trying to say until I write. This really did take me on a journey, so I decided I would post them to my blog too. Maybe someone else in the universe can either relate or add to what it is like to be a person who is always in the deep.

Post #1

I woke up early this morning with a message that feels important to share. I will break it up into parts to make it easier to read, hopefully.

I am a person who experiences the world through my body as opposed to my head. (I realize the head is a part of our body, and I will get to that later). I do have access to my head, though. I am an enneagram 4 with a wing 5. The 4 is heart-centered and the 5 is head-centered. Between those two numbers on the enneagram lies the largest gap of all the rest of the numbers (the head and heart crossover). This is why people like me can easily go into the abyss. It is the 5 wing that sends me into a tailspin. That part of me loves to gather and process knowledge, and the 4 part of me feels all of what I am processing so intensely it becomes overwhelming. Since I have grown in wisdom and knowledge about this gap, I manage it much better now.

I know now that I am a highly sensitive person too.

A few years ago I had no idea the way I experienced the world was drastically different than most people. I felt like something was wrong with me because I was having these big feelings about everything and few others were feeling it quite so intensely. Self-awareness has done wonders for me to better understand this difference.

Here is a simple example:

Jake Bruehl had me listen to a new song he downloaded and loves. The words were haunting to me, and I was worried Jake might actually feel that way.

Jake: Lindsay, I just like the sound of this song, and I was sharing it with you. This is not a message.

I cannot remember who said this: If you think a 4 is exhausting to be around, try being a 4. We exhaust ourselves.

I feel so much better listening to Glennon–also a 4–talk with Abby and her sister Amanda on their podcast “We Can Do Hard Things.” Glennon and I are so similar it is kind of frightening. We can do hard things, but we really struggle with easy things. We also are worried all the time about how other people are feeling. We do not think people are checking in with how they feel enough. We are learning that processing emotions all the damn time is not as life-giving to others as it is to us. LOL!

What is also important to note about this is our processing emotions (all the time) can make it look like we are not doing anything at all–but we are actually doing a lot. We are discovering what it means to be human. What Glennon and I do is work that cannot be measured, and because of that, what we do is not valued as highly. We live in a world that likes to measure the results or know what is entailed in the job description.

4s do not just feel unseen; we really are largely unseen. It is not all in our heads (see what I did there).

This background is important to understand for the more serious part of the message laid upon my heart and woke me up in the early hours of the morning. I will post after I drop the kids off at school.

Post #2 4s can be a lot.

I believe that 4s can be a lot. And I also believe this: so are people who are not 4s. It is okay to take up space and be a lot, but I know there must be boundaries. Boundaries–not a wall.

When everything fell apart for me, and I started feeling all the feelings that come with feeling betrayed by my faith and society, I went straight to building a wall. This now unrecognizable society to me was talking about building a literal wall, so I started building a spiritual one. If I was triggered, the wall went up. The wall probably was good for a while so I could process my rage safely (our rage has to go somewhere) and come back to society later with boundaries, not a wall. Boundaries are to make sure we are staying connected to ourselves; they are not about controlling the other person.

Here is a good example of what it is like being a 4 when something feels really important to you and it seems like no one is taking it seriously enough. And the eventual realization that comes when you notice people just want you to shut up–enough already.

Glennon is a 4, as I stated earlier. She also has a daughter that is a 4. This daughter got fixated on the plight of Polar Bears a few years ago, and it consumed her. So much so that Glennon and Abby were overwhelmed by her hyperfocus. She wanted to write letters to the government and her teachers–it was a lot. It was a daily conversation and her daughter was stressed out by it all the time. Glennon got frustrated and annoyed at one point and pretended to do one of the things her daughter wanted. But the thing about being a 4 is we see right through that. This is the work we do and why we can see through BS pretty quickly. Just be honest. Please do not pretend to do something to get us to go away. Glennon finally realized that her daughter just needed someone to hear her. Her daughter understood that our survival depends on the polar bears’ survival. She needed to know someone would take this seriously enough to do something about it. It is like the person on the Titanic yelling there is an iceberg and everyone wants to keep dancing.

4s are trying to be heard in a society that does not want to hear. this can send us into a tailspin. It can feel like we are talking into a void because few are receiving it–whether by choice or cannot understand.

I understand boundaries. Glennon needed her daughter to calm down; they alone were not saving the world alone. That is healthy. But when does it become we are ignoring the person yelling there is an iceberg and we could have done something?

Post #3: 4s are emotionally intelligent

Listen, I see many posts talking about grammar and bad habits people have when writing, and I respect that and get it. But do you happen to know what else I do? I listen and try to apply what people are teaching me about it.

When I started seminary, I was a messy writer. I had not been trained to write, and it had been years since I was last in school. So I wasn’t just learning theology and how to think; I was also learning how to write. I did a lot of work to learn how to excel academically and express my own interpretation of scripture. They wanted my voice, not just a summary of what I was reading? That took me a while to understand, especially since the summary I wrote was new information to me. I also did a lot of emotional work because I had a lot of unknown trauma triggered by the theology I had to study. I want to speak about that.

A lot has been asked of me to be a better writer, thinker, colleague, and theologian. I respect all of it. Even though I was kicking and screaming about it sometimes, I am grateful for the struggle now. I want to ask people to do the same with emotions. Becoming emotionally intelligent is just as important. Things we do and say can and do trigger people–and some theology that we study does it too, and it is time we take that more seriously. We are not taking what is unseen seriously enough, even though we study an unseen God and ask people to trust what they cannot see.

Why are we not doing that for people when they say something hurts and we cannot see it?

I have a story to illustrate this next.

Post #4: Storytime, and then I take a break

Recently, Jake and I had something so stupid happen to us, and it is all because we are operating in dehumanizing systems. This is a real-life example of the danger of living in an emotionally deprived society.

Jake and I went to someone with the power to help us because that is how unsafe we felt by this incident, and we received none. What we got was mansplaining, and it was infuriating. I already knew the situation and the really unjust rules, but no one seems to care about it right now. I will have to go all 4 on people about this until I am heard. And I can do that.

So I want to start right there. The problem with feeling like the one with the information, you will insult the people’s intelligence who have come to you for help–not for a lesson they may or may not already know. They need to be heard. That did not happen, and because of that, our safety was not and will not be prioritized. Sometimes we hide behind information to not deal with emotions. If there is such thing as emotional baggage, there is such thing as intellectual baggage too.

This person immediately shut me down when I started talking about the pain this situation was causing my family. That did not matter because the wounds could not be seen. We had evidence to show how we were harmed, but the situation requires nuance. Our systems do not want to handle nuance. That means we will have to think harder and probably make changes. We will have to make room for people to be human and allow for mistakes. Give people a chance to learn. Systems also need to learn when people have figured out the system and know when they have the ultimate power. All of this will require communal responsibility–everyone is responsible. Individual people are bearing the weight of failed systems. That needs to stop.

The wounds we cannot see are real. I know from experience.

The gift of a 4 is we learn about the world through experience. We go inside our bodies a lot to process and discover. I like how Glennon puts it: I can take you scuba diving without any water.

My experience is what made me seek further knowledge for clarity and grounding. Academic knowledge helped me ground in a way I needed when I realized I could participate in life too. I needed the training to go along with my experience.

Coffee ☕️ ✅ Fire 🔥 ✅ Book 📕 ✅

Best way to start the day. Big work day.

Here’s the morning reflection from my reading in Madeleine L’Engle’s book “A Wind in the Door.” This is the second book in the “Wrinkle in Time” series.

There’s something cosmic happening in this story, and that’s why I love Madeleine’s books. Scripture does this too, but our familiarity, or lack thereof, prevents us from seeing it without outside help all too often. We keep telling the same story again and again in the way we can understand in our day to remember who We are and who God is.

What stuck out to me this morning, bc I talked about this in a real example last week, is there’s this force on earth called Echthroi. War and hate are their business, and their chief business is un-Naming people to make it happen. It is important to make people not know who they are to justify war and hate. If someone knows who they are, deep down in their core, then they will have no reason to hate. And that’s why we still need Namers. When everyone is really and truly Named, then the Echthroi will be defeated.

Meg Murray has been identified as a Namer. She’s struggling with her own hate of someone. If she cannot find it in herself to love him so she can Name him rightly, then she will in fact be un-Naming him just like the Echthroi. (Love your enemies comes to mind here).

This quote from the cherubim Proginoskes to Meg: love. That’s what makes persons know who they are. You’re full of love Meg, but you don’t know how to stay within it when it’s not easy.

(Oh, I felt that quote).

I think about the post I made last week about Our political leaders putting out ads and naming people rapists, thieves,violent criminals, etc., as if that is their Name. They are un-Naming people. Interesting they don’t see it in themselves, but that is because they have been un-Named too. They have a need for hate in order to win, so they do not know who they are either.

I said my job as a faith leader is to help people understand their Name is Beloved. No matter what you’ve done, your identity is meant to be Love. We will work to find that core self. The self that has no need for war or hate because you know who you are.

I am listening to the We Can Do Hard Things podcast titled “How to Remember Yourself” with Sara Bareilles. Oh my, with Glennon and Sara both being 4s, they are saying some things that really resonate with me. Like, how do we learn to cope when we know the world is chaos? And that is not going to change. So much of what we have to trudge through is fake and it is hard to ground knowing that. Sara is beginning to lean and relax into the fact there really is no ground beneath our feet. Art is her grounding.

But she has had to learn how to get the help she needed to be released from what taking on so much pain can do to your mental health.

Abby Wambach asked a great question, and that question is why I writing this post. She asked Sara if she would ever choose to leave the cocoon on her own and become a butterfly. Abby is a 7 on the enneagram, so her way of being in the world is way different than Glennon’s (and mine). She will notice Glennon having a moment that she needs, but she also wants Glennon to fly. Life has to go on too. She said the world is in need of you to become a butterfly now so it can experience what she has learned all this time in the cocoon. I felt that. That felt like a direct message to me.

I am afraid of communities. I have not always been this way. I used to go all in so easily when I believed in what we were doing. But now my family has been burned more than once by communities, in completely different ways, so anxiety freezes me up afraid to try again. Seminary highlighted the trauma I was carrying in my body from the first betrayal—along with childhood wounds I need to heal from as well. Thank God I did so much healing work there before the next blast came—which was NOT due to seminary or church. It was a place I least expected it. None of us even suspected that one coming. And we could have been warned. That is the sat reality of the type of systems we have set up. It is time for change.

So now I am back in my cocoon again wanting to never come out—except I really do not want to stay in the cocoon either. I still have this fire that wants to participate, and I know it has to be done communally. I am slowly coming out, but not so unguarded this time. I am going to need to find new coping mechanisms to trust again and not take things out on people because I am carrying too much pain—and pain that does not belong to me too. It is hard to see suffering all the time and feel powerless to it.

When I was in Texas, I had these beautiful butterfly and dragonfly earrings. I lost them in this move to Oklahoma.

I tried to replace these earrings, but they are not available. I found bees and elephants designed similarly instead. But the more I reflect on the earrings I found, they are the illustration I need for this season. I am working on not stinging like a bee but instead being a pollinator to help people’s allergies from the experience of bad theology for way too long that is in their bodies. I am also an elephant creating a fierce circle around my family until we are done healing, but I also want to make a pathway in the dense forest to create a path for others who have been denied. Both species, bees and elephants, are endangered. So are people like me—people not afraid to be human. People not afraid to live this brutifal life, as Glennon calls it, and live it fully.

I need an Abby to push me and tell me it is time to become a butterfly. The world needs to experience what you have learned in your cocoon.

We had a rabbi teach today at NorthHaven. She explained why rabbis teach rather than preach and it was fascinating. I am grateful for the interfaith work NorthHaven is doing. Interfaith work is essential to our healing, but it is also lifegiving and wonderful. The rabbi thanked NorthHaven for making her life safer and the life of her children safer by doing the work we are doing incorporating non-Christian teaching to our education.

Antisemitism is on the rise and is extremely blatant in our public discourse/theology. It is important that we start recognizing it and doing the work to see how we are contributing to the harm. Listen to the ones who are being harmed to learn and make changes. That is the work of repentance and justice.

What is weird is this morning I woke up and checked Twitter and saw something that made me want to engage a little. It has been a while since I have engaged a theology debate, but something was written that rubbed me the wrong way, and it felt like a time to say something.

It was about Penal Substitutionary Atonement. If you do not know what that is, it is a theology that teaches Jesus’ death as fulfilling a covenant with God to satisfy God’s wrath for fallen humanity. Jesus’ death satisfied the demands of justice by Jesus taking on the sins of humanity.

I just do not believe that anymore. The cross was something I struggled with as a kid, and I struggled with it even more when I had my own kids. Through reflection work with a friend, I realized that was what I needed to write my essay on to enter seminary. As a seven-year-old kid, it did not sit right with me thanking Jesus for dying for me.

A theologian wrote about this theology this morning and got some pushback for how he presented it. Other theologians were saying they were the experts with a different perspective and the OG tweeter was misrepresenting how other minority voices believe it. The thing is, even when they presented an alternative way to view it, it still leaves humanity as something depraved and God needed someone to die to make things right. I know people who have lost all faith in Christianity because we have such a low view of humanity. I was almost one of them until I studied what scripture actually says.

God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Hosea and Matthew both say that.

I also believe this is why Rome and the United States of America call the death penalty good news when they believe they are righting a wrong. Death is not the good news, the resurrection is.

Back to the rabbi this morning at NorthHaven. She talked about the Day of Atonement this morning. The Jews have recently celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and the holiest day of the Jewish new year follows this day called Yom Kippur—the day of atonement. It was wild hearing her address this right after having this twitter engagement before her sermon. She talked about repentance and how differently Jews and Christians view it. She was not elevating one over the other, just revealing a difference. This is important work because difference sharpens us—not destroys us. I think Christians have had such a weak view of repentance because of penal substitutionary atonement and that is why Trump got away with saying he has never asked for forgiveness. This rabbi presented a view of repentance from the Jewish perspective that was so powerful and she highlighted how that work led to David realizing how he had caused harm to Uriah (David’s best friend), Bathsheba (a woman with less power and a woman is never safe—but she was also Uriah’s wife), his country, and to God. God cannot forgive you if you have not done the work to show you have done the work to be forgiven and trusted again. David actually did. Trump did not. There is more to say about David, but this is really important to notice when Trump gets compared to David.

I think about how much the rabbi was talking about the Jewish tradition as a returning. Returning to order and to God’s desire for the world. The work of justice is working on ourselves to see the harm we have done to others and working to make it right. This spoke to me deeply as I feel I am on a journey of returning. Returning to me.

In seminary, I discovered I had a lot of unhealed trauma and did a lot of work to heal it. It was so exhausting and I was trying to do so much work—and be a part of my family (who really got the short end of the stick) all at the same time. It was both beautiful and tragic at the same time. Two things can be true at once. I learned how to face old wounds and comfort the child within me who had been so hurt by them. That part is beautiful.

While I healed in so many ways, I never really grounded in what I want to do now that I am learning to just be me. I have not had time to rest and figure that out. I cannot return to how things were. Plus, I am seeing my family now a lot, and it is the best thing I have done in a long while. We are even back in Norman and seeing family beyond my immediate family. We as a family unit were taking on so much we lost ourselves. And when you lose yourself, a storm is ready for you. And boy did that storm come.

As I am a few months past the worst of the storm, I can say that storm has helped me realize how tired we were. How unsupported we were and in need of help. Help is here now.

I am also learning to break old patterns so I stop living my life in repeat. The cycle has to break. Now my journey back through my past is not revisiting the pain. I am revisiting the joy I have lived. I hear God saying that I am not in timeout because I am in trouble, but because God has heard my cry. I wanted to know if I am loved. God is showing me that I am. Very much so.

That is how we break old habits. We fill up on our belovedness (who we are) and it has to come from the source. For me, that is God.

Look who came to Norman just to see me! Okay, maybe in town for other reasons but he called to see me and take me to breakfast. This is my dearest friend Richard Luttrell. We went to church at Wilshire Baptist Church together. He is also friends with many of my friends from my first church in Texas, Richardson East C of C, through his work in Avid. He knows my mom too through It.

Richard has always had my back as a friend. He is learning to accept I am an OSU fan bc of our friendship. Ha!. He’s a diehard Sooner fan. So one Sunday during my internship at Wilshire Baptist Church, I taught in the class Epiphany—his class. I came decked out in OSU attire just for him. Lol. It would have been so funny had he been there that day!!! 😂. Something about being a deacon or something kept him away. thank goodness I could still tease him via social media.

So today I tried again, but differently. I came in Orange and black again—but it’s for Norman High. He went to Norman High. Also, this is a band shirt – Go Band! Richard was in the band at NHS too. Now orange and black unites us. Finding where we have common ground. 😍❄️

It was a delightful morning. I love this friend so much. When the waitress took our pic, Richard said I’m going to tell everyone I’m starting a senior ministry. 🤣.

He left me with this. I was worried about you, but now I’m not. I love to see you happy.

😊😭❄️❤️‍🩹

When you’ve been through a lot, you start to wonder what is real. Who actually does love you? What is real starts showing up and revealing itself. George Mason checked on me yesterday too and sent me a beautiful Poem.

Love doesn’t leave. It stays close beside us wherever we go.

Praise be to God.

Okay, now I am going to share a story that is far out. Now I understand why people want to ban the books. Ban the books! 😉

After breakfast with Richard, I went to a local bookstore that I keep seeing and wanting to visit when I drop the kids off at school. It was technically closed at that time, but the door was open when I went in. The person at the counter said it was fine for me to be there, they were not doing anything dangerous to prevent me from being there.

I thought that was a funny thing to say and she explained that they are about to tear down a wall and expand this store. Yay!

Me: Oh! I thought you were going to say you were not adding any more books at this time and that is why it is safe. Based on how people are acting, that is the most dangerous thing you can be doing.
Her: I know, right! Ha!

She explained to me how they arranged their books in the store, and I loved how she gave me stories about people as to why. One story was either her dad or grandfather did not want science books and books about magic in the same section. She told me there is a fine line between those two.

Me: I am a theology major and I feel the same way. There is a thin line between theology and magic. Madeleine L‘Engle inspires me in this way. I was able to study her a little bit in seminary and she blew me away.

Her: Where did you go to school?

I told her about my school—Perkins school of Theology in Dallas.

Her: What is your denomination?

Me: Umm. I am going to tell you, but it is not what it sounds like. I am Baptist.

Her: Oh, my. That is my background too. I left when I learned women cannot do anything, but this is interesting hearing from you your experience with it now. I have some friends who are Christian in a way that you can connect with who you might be interested in meeting. I can give you my number and connect you with them.

(Background: She no longer identifies as Christian. She goes to a Unitarian church now).

We start talking about White Christian Nationalism and trauma. I also learn she is Chickasaw. She said in her circle they talk about generational trauma. There is trauma memory in our genetic code, and it occurred to her as she was considering White Christian Nationalists that trauma is in their genetic code too. Talking about generational trauma has been healing in her community, and she wonders if we should change our public dialogue to we are all healing from generational trauma. We are all traumatized by our history of colonization, enslavement, and women having no rights. This history is in all of us and we all need healing. It might be more effective than framing it as perpetrator/victim. A lot of what we are hearing is in their genetic memory and it is unhealed.

I told her a bit about my story in seminary and studying indigenous spirituality that has brought healing to my own faith. It has only enhanced it, not destroyed it. I also told her about Jake’s grandmother and what I learned this past year about her history in a boarding school. This history is still fresh in our bones. I also told her how Jesus’ life reads differently to me now that I see him as fully human. He remained by faithful by remaining human. He grew in wisdom. (I said a lot more)

Her: The way you described the life of Jesus, I have never heard it described like that before. That is really interesting.

The convo went on. We also talked about quantum physics. It was wild what happened in those 20 min we were talking. Turns out it was dangerous for me to be there. LOL!

Here is the real quicker, tough. She gave me her card with her number and I saw her name. It was so familiar to me. We discovered we were both raised in Norman and she asked how old I was. We are the same age!

I assumed she would know Jake Bruehl, because most people do—but also because she went to Central at the same time as Jake. She did know him. But then I told her my name was Lindsay Blake growing up.

Her: What middle school did you go to? I know your name.
Me: Longfellow.
Her: I did too!

Then we discussed our friends and I started to remember her clearly.

Her: Well, I guess instead of saying nice to meet you, it is nice seeing you again, Lindsay.

There is a lot to this story that is too hard to describe in words how holy this encounter felt, but to realize people remember me in Norman too meant a lot. Sometimes I do not see myself in the story of Norman. To hear from someone I did not even hang out with tell me they remember me—that caused a shift in me.

This is a Facebook post I wrote on October 13, 2022. Forgive grammar and edits that might be needed. I’m navigating life as o see it now. I’m seeing that wisdom I was gaining earlier is coming back to vindicate me. I can trust myself. I can also take a nap. Here’s the post: 

I just listened to the best podcast this morning. What I am going through right now is deeply holy work.

The podcast I listened to is “We Can Do Hard Things” and their guest Tricia Hersey who is the Nap Ministry Bishop. 🙂 She seriously started Nap Ministry and I have shared several of her tweets on FaceBook in the past. I have been in love with this social-political movement ever since I heard about it. Now I know a lot more about it and am proud to say I am participating in this movement, even though it is wild how I got here.

My book club bought me a Nap Queen shirt last year on my birthday. It is one of my most prized possessions. Some of you may remember I was advocating for more rest last semester by showing me napping at various times during my internship. It was fun, funny, and resistance. Rest is resistance. I have always believed that and I wrote a section of my credo with the title “Sabbath as resistance.” Now I know what I was doing was far more important than I knew at the time, and I am proud of myself for the work I have done to get here. I believe the journey led me here because I was calling out to God for this.

Liberation begins in our bodies as Tricia says in the podcast. Her theology, and she is a theologian, is rooted in Womanist and Black Liberation theology. Capitalism started on the plantations. I would also add capitalism allowed for Manifest Destiny to be accepted. This idea that certain bodies are machines and not divine beings is where the sin occurred. White supremacy is literally killing all of us, including the earth, and capitalism is making it so that none of us have any time to stop and contemplate that—or learn the actual history of capitalism. Rest is where clarity, imagination, and resistance is born.

Tricia says she is no longer willing to donate her body to evil systems that seek to destroy her body. We are not here for that. It is time to rethink productivity. Everything we have been taught is a lie and it is time to relearn our history. We are losing our workforce because people are waking up to this fact and are no longer willing to work for unlivable wages. We are dangerously and very close to losing all our public school employees. I can bear witness they are extremely underpaid and the whole system is understaffed by design. We have people in power who do not see the divine image in public school employees and it is killing all of us.

White supremacy is hurting white people too. The inability to see the divine image in another is a spiritual deficiency and is killing people who participate in this system from the inside out. White feminism is one of the worst movements. We would have been better off with no movement because it encouraged white women to play by these same rules and to do it all perfectly—even when hated. Every day politicians and the media are outright saying we hate you and white women are saying: How can we serve you better?

It is time for change. And the change comes through liberating our bodies. To see ourselves as divine beings worthy of being treated as fully human. It is completely counter-cultural to demand humanity out of our systems. The liberation is not coming from a system—it is coming from within ourselves.

As a Christian leader, I help people see that Jesus’ death was not an obedience to God to fulfill God’s wrath for fallen humanity. That is abusive theology. I show how Jesus’ death was complete obedience to remaining human—he did not have to, but he did—and the system killed him for it.

Oklahoma has a sizable death penalty fund that could be shifted to public education. Let those who call themselves a Christian in public office right now take time to rest and reconsider who it is they say they follow. Especially right here in Oklahoma that is going on an ungodly death penalty killing spree. The man they say they follow was killed by the death penalty!

Let the rest begin.

Praise be to God. It is good to be human.

Post #2 A continuation of what I wrote last night.

I was going to try and write again last night, but I was so tired. I also need to make you aware I wrote the OK tornado happened in 1995, but it was 1999. I was not in college in 1999. I was actually finishing college when that storm came. Why is there always a storm when I am ending my college careers?!

I am writing about two more beautiful things that have happened in the last two days that I wanted a separate post for, and I did not get pictures of either of these moments either. I was just completely lost and absorbed in these holy moments.

My friend, Sharilyn Born Jeffreys, came by to see me the other day and I had no idea she was coming by. It was the best surprise; one I wish my family was still in town for—they left an hour before she came. We talked, hugged, and remembered all the amazing times we have had together. Life has hit us both pretty hard and we still believe love and life are the only way to live.

Sharilyn is one of my friends who went with me to the Moxie Matters Tour at SMU in 2017. It was for my 40th birthday and two of my faves came with me—this was a gift from my mother. This is where I discovered Wilshire Baptist Church. SMU is also where Perkins is located. Jen Hatmaker, one of the leaders of the Tour, is the one who led me to search for a church that believed in justice on this earth—not just in some faraway place no one actually knows anything about. I went to her church twice but decided 4-5 hours EACH WAY is too long of a drive to attend church. Dallas can do better than what is currently available. Thank God Wilshire showed up and was only 30 minutes away. That was the best birthday gift of all. All of these pieces coming together is so wild and why I know there is something bigger than what we can see happening. Seek and ye shall find. Matt 7:7

I love my friend Sharilyn. This gift of her friendship has never been lost on me, but it is even more beautiful now. Going through fire reveals what will shine and not be consumed. Our friendship is one of those.

The other is my friend Danielle Otenti. I went to dinner with her early on when the storm was not even close to being over. We had an incredible conversation and it just made me realize that the relationships I have built all along are solid and real. Showing up when things feel so dicey (Jesus knows this feeling too) is what real love feels like. Love is here for all of it. Danielle is one of those friends who shows up. I am grateful. I love you, Danielle.

Yesterday she took me to lunch at my favorite spot that I used to eat at quite often after my former church let out. It was a joy to eat my favorite dish again and talk to one of my dearest friends on this planet. She knows a thing or two about pain—not just how to survive but also how to thrive. Love is all around us if we pay attention.

Since I did not take a recent pic with my two dearests, I will post the most recent pics I have with them. Thank you, friends. I will call you every time I come back in town. You have made a difference in our lives and we are so much better for knowing and being loved by you.

I included my favorite pics of Kimbo and Emily, Sharilyn’s daughter. These two lost their soccer team together but found their way—and even better—with Jake Bruehl playing on his 03 team. These are pics of both of them celebrating each other’s goals when they finally started finding their way on this older team. This team truly was the dream team. There will never be another like them. Grateful we got to experience that team. It is everything soccer can be.