six months intentionally whole

At the beginning of the year, I picked my phrase of 2015, as has become a custom of my mom and I; rather than New Year’s resolutions, we pick words we will live by, through, within, from in the year ahead. This year, my words are ‘intentionally whole’.

And these have been intentional, and whole, six months. And they have been challenging. They have been tiring. They have been joyful. They have been hopeful. They have been sobering. They have been good. They have been wondering. They have been full.

In these months, I have held such conversation – the three-hour, disagreeing, soul-to-soul, kind-eyed, laughing, heart on the table kinds of conversations. In these months, I have yelled in anger and in protest and in belief and in commitment – for rights, for witness, for community, for human-ness. In these months, I have travelled – to canyon lands, to hospitals, to home places, to trees, to silence. In these months, I have questioned, I have loved, I have thought, I have cared, I have spoken, I have giggled, I have been disappointed, I have danced, I have picked myself up, I have moved too much and too quickly, I have been forced to sit still, I have stayed, I have been made to rethink, I have grown, I have walked alongside, I have let go, I have been present, I have accomplished, I have been courageous, I have said thank you.

I have been, intentionally whole.

But what I have found in these months is that to be ‘whole’ does not mean to be polished, written in correct sentences with verbs in alignment. It does not mean a clear-cut beginning and end, an arc with a clear thesis. And I have also found, through writing and sharing poetry, that to be intentionally whole would not be to wait until the verbs agree, but to let them all grace the page now, just as they fully exist.

Thus, a compilation of thoughts scribbled on pages in the morning light from January to June 2015, intentionally whole:

–

Be still. Let your hand open and close. Let yourself find a joyful face when it appears unexpected.

Be intentionally whole and live a permeable life.

This is it. Live it. Be significant.

–

It is within you. Believe in it and allow it. Welcome it to be there.

Be not harsh to it, don’t let its presence render you cold or silent. Be soft to it, let yourself be tender and warm.

These walls do no one good. There is light within you. Let it forth.

Just follow kindness.

–

Don’t close yourself away from fear of what will happen in the vulnerability. Be an example of a human who is tender and open and spills it onto the page. Be fully you, and then don’t allow those who are unkind or judging to hurt you. Do not give them the authority to diminish you. And above all, give unending thanks to those who are kind, who embrace and value the vulnerable, by showing their own, those who simply, and so un-simply, sit and wonder with you.

Be intentionally whole.

What other moment exists than the one right before us?

–

Good can come from anywhere. There is possibility in anything. So take in the adventure and smile. The other choice is misery and worry. So why not choose joy?

–

Walk with it like a friend and be open to the light that comes in through the cracks. Be kind and let it spread over the world. Welcome and be company to pain. Listen and be grateful, steadily content.

–

Be intentionally

whole,

embrace the sun

both as it sets

and rises

and see

how both

are filled with light.

–

Go, throughout your life, to see the oldest trees. Be full of hope always. Do what you love and brings joy – bake pies and dance and draw and write. Give love. Get back to Kenya. Embody family.

There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

–

Boldly hope and boldly plan and don’t get attached to the outcome.

Keep your ambitious to-do lists but remain open and tender to the possibility for there to be no final check box.

This I know how to do.

This I learned how to do.

This I can do.

Intentionally whole and boldly hoping.

–

Why not be joyful? Why be unhappy when there are other, more life-giving choices?

Why not soak in the sun for a little while?

Since when does a little smiling kindness do anything but pour good into the world?

–

My work is loving the world. If my purpose in life is to pour out love wherever I go, then this open abyss of future suddenly becomes overwhelming in its possibility, for everywhere there is opportunity to give and live love in so many ways.

How can I be full of love today?

–

Yes, there are large, systemic issues that must be changed. But right now there is a child crying out in pain, right now there’s the girl who has just been assaulted or violated or harassed, right now there is the scared and starving boy…what will you do? For the systemic issue and the child in front of you are the same, so surely they both require acts of love.

How can we love this world – the grand, overarching, and the small right in front of you?

–

Intentionally whole. A permeable life. Showing up with all of myself. Nothing but a clear being inside.

And still boldly hoping.

What might a meandering path look like for me? How can I embrace every opportunity to pour out love?

I am still that person I am sure of: capable and good at staying and showing up and pouring out love to others.

Intentionally whole.

–

There is a path, and sometimes it is on the meandering that we learn the most.
So remain clear and still. Allow the path to present itself with each step.

Clear and still; intentionally whole, steady.

–

When your eyes

have laid rest

on the frozen body

of a toddler

wheeled on a gurney,

laid rest

on babies with feet

burned off,

laid rest

on children

curled into sleep

in the dirt,

happiness

no longer seems

like enough.

It is whole,

courageous

joy

I seek.

–

How the world changes when love flows within you, and then outward.

–

How do we acknowledge the pain and fear and disappointment and hurt while also holding on to the beauty of this moment and the hope that exists?

How can we hold determined, rather than fearful, compassion?

What can I learn from their continuing critical love?

How am I, and how can I continue to be, Moses’s mama in every space that exists right now?

–

The world is so large and we are only temporary.

Why choose anything other than love?

Show up, intentionally whole and courageously joyful.

–

The earth has so much to teach us, so many ways to humble us, such a force to encourage our wholeness, our showing up.

Where

are you healthy?

Where

are you whole?

Where

are you loved?

And loving?

And how?

–

Hold on to the edge of the canyon. Do not lose sight of the mountains and trees. They are in you now, the air in your lungs, the dirt on your feet, the sun on your skin. Do not lose what they have taught you of living, of loving, of gently and openly walking this earth, eyes wide in amazement.

Your goodness can shine from any sunrise, can dazzle with all sunsets.
Breathe. Take the forests with you and be, intentionally whole and courageously joyful.

–

We carry

so much – so many –

with us.

We are the sum of our years –

an ever-growing

culmination

of wisdoms.

We are not alone.

We are ever-walking

vessels, full by

all our hoping,

all our struggling,

all our loving this world –

what courage.

–

Do not weep for the cloud that hides the sun. It, too, will nourish us in its time.

–

We’re all just a bunch of humans, rotating around one another for a while.

It is harder, and vastly more fierce, to love what is grey.

–

Be present to the whole of yourself, of others, and of this place. This the moment that exists; joyfully, and with wholeness, embrace it and say thank you.

–

Let this be a time to become full grown, complex, and whole.

Why not come into the light?