an archive of writings regarding thoughts on things
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Signs of Life
© Elizabeth Henry (February 2025)
Even though my cleaning schedule is far from impressive, I do like to keep a tidy home and sometimes when energy runs low and life gets more complicated I’m tempted to approach homemaking in a very sterile way, reducing as much as I can and avoiding anything that would fill more space or make a mess. And while minimizing can be freeing in its own way, and sometimes it’s just not the time for big projects or messy experiments, I’ve found that relying too much on a reductionist mindset in the care of our home can cause me to feel like I avoid all signs of life and invitations to inspiration and I actually fixate more on the messes despite the goal being to be more free from them weighing on my mind and to-do list.
I’d like to continue to be mindful of what we bring into the home and how we invest our time, but I think it’s also time to remember to appreciate, even romanticize at times so I can appreciate them even more, the signs of life that spread across our home throughout the day and, even while we practice habits of care and responsibility with our things, also invest in the beauty that they can bring into our lives and explore the opportunities I have as the caretaker of the home to enhance that beauty as a gift to me and my family.
Growing Older
© Elizabeth Henry (January 2025)
Today I scrolled back on one of the very first instagram accounts I ever followed, a woman whose blog I read years before I ever even got a smartphone. 5 years, 6 years, 7 years, 8 years ago, before instagram became better for business than memories and before ads and promoted posts being present on your main feed became normal. It made me feel more nostalgic than I expected it to and realize again what a difference even 10 years can make when it comes to technology.
I turned 32 this past week and I’m starting to feel the gap between how I do things, or remember and think about things, and how things are being done now starting to widen more, even with something as simple and inconsequential as instagram. I don’t mind the slowly growing divide, it’s how all generations move through the world, but it’s interesting to think about how that feeling will only grow as time passes.
It’s a privilege to grow older and get to watch and be a part of things changing, but it’s also considerable thinking about how there is always a certain time we all belong to most and it seems important to build a better understanding and lasting contentment as to why that is for each of us.
Telling Stories
© Elizabeth Henry (February 2024)
Nearly all stories that have been worth telling were not told quickly and took a long time to become a story at all.
The best form of things is rarely known from the start and it often takes time to ponder and experience, and perhaps feel a lot of feelings, long before it is time to tell the tale.
Beauty and Labor
© Elizabeth Henry (July 2023)
Grateful that it is a task of mine to bring order and beauty and faith and creativity to our home.
It was within the last couple years that I began to take the responsibility more seriously and consider the ways in which I could learn more. The results have been a more beautifully ordered home and a greater opportunity to grow in skills and virtue.
Capabilities and traditions don’t just happen and it takes attentiveness and humility to build them in the midst of everyday life.
My resources now both inspire and encourage me, as well as support me physiologically, so I am not undone or confused by the reality of my efforts.
I pray for years of time to continue on this path and for the graces to abide in God’s love so I have something everlasting to bring before my family as I dedicate my time on earth to the goodness of labor and beauty that is meant for the present.
Understanding a bit of Earth
© Elizabeth Henry (April 2023)
There’s a book I used to read as a child called ‘The Little House’ which is about a small cottage on a hill surrounded by apple trees where she watches the world around her with wonder as the seasons come and go.
After a while she begins to grow curious about the city that she sees far off in the distance. Soon though the city begins to creep closer as the land is developed and she is eventually fully surrounded by skyscrapers and busy city streets full of lights, sadly wishing she could see the stars in the night sky as she once had.
The book concludes with her finally being taken back out into the country, far from the city which she no longer wonders about, and she sits atop a green hill again, satisfied to quietly reside in the natural rhythm of the seasons once more knowing it’s exactly where she belongs.
I feel as though I relate to the little house more as each year passes,
especially since living by the lake.
This is our third spring here. It has been the backdrop of some of the most significant changes in our life. I’ve learned many lessons from watching the seasons change in our ‘backyard’ and so many of the bigger ideas that we are taking to heart are echoed in smaller ways in the nature we’re surrounded by.
There’s also just something about beginning to understand a certain bit of earth.
I know when the hummingbirds come back in the Spring and the acorns drop in the Autumn. I know what flowers bloom at what time of year and look forward to the couple weeks of Autumn when the colors are most vibrant on the drive out to the main road. I’m always surprised at how much more of the water can see through the trees when they are bare in the Autumn and Winter and it always delights me when the canopy of leaves grows back so richly for Spring and Summer, especially when the sun shines through them in the morning or the wind and rain rush across them during storms.
I feel an ache to capture some of the rhythms of its beauty to have as a special memory and reminder of how rich this season was in so many ways.
The Mundane
© Elizabeth Henry (November 2022)
Fill the days with the utmost of mundane activities. Bless the things that have been given without concern for the things that have not.
Change the diaper, do the dishes, bake the bread, fold the laundry, save the money, read the book, clean the room, mend the cloth, pray the prayer, lift the weights, make the bed.
Return, body and mind, to the delight of things not curated and publicized, but nourishing and sustainable.
Attentiveness to the ordinary is the ideal space to contemplate purposes that surpass this moment.
Prioritizing the Home
© Elizabeth Henry (November 2022)
I have always felt it necessary to keep my home a priority. The place I educate, nourish, soothe and mend. Where I am reminded of eternal things. It has taken different sacrifices in different seasons, but it has never been without the clear intention to maintain its importance, not just in theory, but in practice.
It is my particular potential to nurture and steward that can create change and stability, binding together so much of life for those within my care. I explore within these walls and find the opportunities endless.
To this task I bring the feminine of God. The very nature of woman a specific reflection of the Creator and calling to the divine.
I am unconvinced of the many invitations to be shortsighted in both my spirit and my efforts and I am reminded to discover the delight in the ontological truths that were before me and will continue beyond me.
I hold these great gifts with tears often in my eyes and a heart that knows they are not mine to keep forever. In the end, it is only a short season I am able to preoccupy myself with all of these beautiful tasks. I pray that, in the midst of all the humanity and imperfections, my husband and my children may rise up and be able to call me blessed and, after everything, that they would know I did not underestimate my influence and my responsibility.
Learning to Pray
© Elizabeth Henry (September 2022)
I used to have a lot of internal conflict around praying my own prayers. Performance based habits that made it really difficult to feel steady and connected when praying. Self conscious to not sound spiritual or mature enough in a group, I remember rehearsing prayers in my head over and over again before finally building up the courage to speak anything aloud even still sharing far more for those around me than to God. I felt those old feelings return when prayer also returned to my life.
Then a few months ago Justin told me something he had recently heard from Anglican tradition on prayer and how when you practice and learn about prayer you first pray the Lord’s Prayer, then the Psalms, then the prayer book and then proceed into personal prayer if desired.
It filled me with a lot of peace to think that it wasn’t just about jumping past those old feelings around prayer and that resting in the prayer that Jesus taught us, those in the Bible and the prayers of church tradition wasn’t just me not trying or not caring enough rather they were a gift given to be prayed again and again across the centuries, because, in prayer, sometimes there is no need to say more than what has already been said.
Forms of Faith
© Elizabeth Henry (September 2022)
“A healthy soul, therefore, must do two things for us. First, it must put some fire in our veins, keep us energized, vibrant, living with zest, and full of hope as we sense that life is, ultimately, beautiful and worth living. Whenever this breaks down in us, something is wrong with our souls. When cynicism, despair, bitterness, or depression paralyze our energy, part of our soul is hurting.
Second, a healthy soul has to keep us fixed together. It has to continually give us a sense of who we are, where we came from, where we are going, and what sense there is in all of this. When we stand looking at ourselves, confusedly, in the mirror and ask ourselves what sense, if any, there is to our lives, it is this other part of the soul, our principle of integration, that is limping.”
(Rolheiser – The Holy Longing)
•
In simplistic terms I would say that the faith I understood growing up was one of cohesion. All questions were already answered and expected to be understood. Asking ‘why’ showed that you had to work more to establish your faith, doubt was unnecessary and inconvenient. Often community focused on cohesion to the point it overstepped boundaries and instituted fear as it’s core teaching tool. Don’t start talking about energy and fire, just stay within the rules and you’ll be fine.
On the other hand, throughout deconstruction everything and everyone was offering me energy. Everywhere I turned there was zest and vibrancy I could adopt, I remember feeling a sense of freedom to enjoy without needing to know why. I didn’t need you or me to understand as long as we ran after the energy we felt inclined towards. And yet, I could not understand why, with all that energy readily available to me, I felt like I was falling apart inside.
It has been a sacred practice to understand and hold true forms of energy and integration together since coming back to Jesus.
Pilgrim of Praise
© Elizabeth Henry (August 2022)
‘The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.’ JOHN 4:23
I will not deny my souls’ longing to worship the maker of it. That beatific purpose to which we find ourselves instinctively suited and in search of the holy. While minds and bodies arrange life for themselves apart from the divine our souls carry at least the echo of truth and the ache to be a pilgrim of praise and to hold our spirits in silence when we stand in the presence of God.
‘The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.’ HABAKKUK 2:20
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” (BCP)
The Greatest Mysteries
© Elizabeth Henry (August 2022)
Those things that are so simple and yet somehow complex are the greatest mysteries to uncover in life. Not easily explained, even less easily lived out. A long romance, a humble commitment, riches accrued by faithfulness. Gentle assurance in that which all won’t choose. Worth not all will understand. Our souls, fit for the ages, granted those great gifts from Whom all blessings flow.
Gathering
© Elizabeth Henry (August 2022)
We’re always gathering something.
Fabric, stories, traditions, habits, dreams.
Placing them neatly side by side, pinning them down day by day.
The finished product should be something of worth, so the gathering ought be done with the end in mind.
I recently heard the quote, “The devils’ greatest trick is to make us think we always have tomorrow.” I think that intention is best applied in faithful, not fearful, gathering of all things precious to our souls.
“Keep your Church, O Lord, by your perpetual mercy; and because without you the frailty of our nature causes us to fall, keep us from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable for our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
primed to internalize the idea that my feelings dictated reality
© Elizabeth Henry (June 2022)
“The story of granting authority to inner feelings or psychological states is a long and complex one.
Of course, human beings have always been aware that they have an inner realm of reflection. The Psalms are full of introspection and emotion. The great tragedies of ancient Greece offer fascinating glimpses into human feelings such as love, anger, hatred, and revenge. Paul’s New Testament letters offer glimpses into the inner conflict of the human heart. And Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ present the great bishop’s autobiography as a prayer informed by extended reflection on his inner life. Yet simply acknowledging this inner dimension of human selfhood is not the same as authorizing it to have a decisive role in identity.
The Psalms and Paul look inward but then understand that inward life in terms of the prior authority of the external world as ordered by God. The Greek tragedies are tragic in large part because of the moral dilemmas and challenges of the external moral order in which the protagonists are caught up. Augustine moves inward so that he can move outward to God and to the reality that is prior to and greater than his own feelings and in light of which those feelings are to be understood.”
– Carl Trueman (Strange New World)
•
As someone who by personality alone, exacerbated by the invalidation of emotion I often encountered in the evangelical church and the glorifying of emotions I learned from secular society, was primed to internalize the idea that my feelings dictated reality and were where I would find my truest self, it has been surprisingly freeing to understand that my emotional state, while valid and important, isn’t where reality, identity or my purpose begins and ends.
to neglect, to steward
© Elizabeth Henry (June 2022)
If I only ever create something new and never learn to steward what already is, I will have failed the gifts I have been given in this life.
A new adventure is not always the solution and a willingness to settle in is not always tragic. There is no way to experience everything in one life, but there is a way to neglect what we are able to experience. We can’t be anything we want and we can’t do everything we want, but we can take up everything we have and make it something worthwhile.
That Which Drains a Soul
© Elizabeth Henry (April 2022)
“It doth not hurt”, whispered a faint voice, “She will take your life and all you are and all you care’st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She’ll take your joy. And one day you’ll wake and your heart and soul will have gone. A husk you’ll be, a wisp you’ll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.” “Hollow,” whispered the third voice. “Hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow.”
(Coraline – Neil Gaiman)
•
Those lines felt particularly haunting.
Left me wondering what things in life don’t feel like hurt, but slowly drain our souls away. What takes our soul in contrast to what tends it.
We talk a lot about trauma and hurt these days, which I think can be important and it would be wrong to not consider them, but what about things that don’t seem like hurts, but still somehow leave us hollow.
It seems to me the world is full of those too.
Old Thoughts on Deconstruction, New Thoughts on Deconstruction
© Elizabeth Henry (March 2022)
On December 31st 2017, only about a year into a 5 year process of deconstruction, I posted the blogpost below.
Reading it again I still understand it so well. Confused and angry as my childhood illusions around God and the church began to unravel. I had not been prepared for disillusionment, or knew a God beyond it, but the God of all my illusions was just not strong enough or big enough for the life and world I was living in.
I talk a lot about how I wanted to find freedom for myself and offer the same to my children. I knew, and still know, that I wanted different teaching and community for me and my children, but truthfully in that season I was just swapping illusion for illusion and fear of the world for fear of the church.
Disillusionment is an essential part of seeing the world, humanity, the church and God in a way that aligns with reality. It is important to be disillusioned because there is little self awareness and no truth to be found in illusion.
Learning how to process my broken illusions took me away from God and away from the church in search of something different, but eventually the disillusionment of what the world was teaching me occurred as well. Faced with the facts that I was not going to make it far in life working off of illusions in any way I craved the discovery of reality.
That desire for reality brought me back to God. And in the care of grounded teaching and accurate theology I have discovered a God who is absolutely big enough to handle reality and it has finally given me ground to stand on in all of its disillusioned goodness
December 31st, 2017
“I find myself in a place of faith right now that I have never been in before.
Standing on the outside of Christianity, looking in, yet Jesus at my side, still the keeper of my soul.
It is strange to me now to sit in a church, to hear songs and sermons endlessly affirming over and over again the beliefs that Christianity today is sustained on, both the good and bad.
I was younger once, in a place where I better understood the church, it’s language, it’s pacing. I knew the system and I knew how to manipulate the system while still maintaining a certain level of ‘christian’ performance to appease and reassure those around me. From, as a kid, ‘memorizing’ verses, I was to be quizzed on at church, in the car on the way there, to finding and indulging in secret places to kiss my boyfriend on a college campus that clearly communicated to me it had no capacity to understand, let alone endorse, public displays of affection in relationships. I found the balance of public and private when it came to being a ‘good Christian’ in each community I found myself in.
I don’t imagine I was always so sly about it all, I’m sure some saw through my efforts, but I damn well thrived in the system nonetheless.
I grew up, married, settled nicely into a church, and had a baby in the midst of it all and then moved to NC, where it all slowly began to break down.
We searched for a church. We had to find a church. To stay on track with it all. 12 churches visited, some of them twice, small groups visited, once even created, by our attendance and yet it continued to break down, and as I grew more and more frustrated and guilt ridden from it all I slowly began to see it. Really see it. Particularly with the backdrop of raising a child of my own I saw it best and I remembered it.
The indoctrination, the habits, the guilt, the expectations, the duties, the clear abuse of power from those in leadership. The game. And it dawned on me more how easily the game is played. How easily the words are said, the activities are attended. How reliance on the affirmation of fellow ‘christians’ becomes normal, how shame and guilt become your guide and you play the game with pride and ease, often even accolade, while inside feeling the turmoil from the necessary loss of power, of thought, of motivation, of expression, that must be given up to ‘keep the faith’ in the community of believers.
At that time I saw it in my present, my shame filled churchless present, and I saw it clearer in my past.
Institutions and ministries that were deeply reliant on indoctrinating, stepping over boundaries, taking it upon themselves to infiltrate and manipulate relationships in the name of community or worse yet, Jesus.
I saw humans who used certain words, had certain habits or ways of life ignored, condemned, even persecuted by ones who claimed the love and concern of Jesus as their driving force.
The deep and precious love and presence of Jesus to a life, a heart, a soul, is most often, it seems, damaged by those claiming His name as their motivation, when it’s really their pride, their insecurity, their coping mechanisms, etc that push them to attempt to convert, to preach, to sing, to lead.
It all seemed so clear now. How had I missed it all those years? How had it all felt so normal.
The words. The actions. The expected questions and answers. The manipulation. The game.
Even normal, when I was younger, to be anxious ridden when around ‘non-Christians’ because you either endured the never ending pressure to evangelize or, at worst, felt that they posed a threat, were dangerous, because of their non belief.
Sometimes you used that though, that angst, to position yourself in a place of power, at least in your own head, because it was your job now to save the damned, you said it over over again how it was Gods, but you knew from your education that you must speak, must point the lost to Christ and feel that you would have let God down if in that moment you missed it, if you somehow passed on your chance or fumbled the exchange.
Honestly, the immediate position of superiority that many Christians assume when interacting with non-Christians is just disgusting.
Even the told and retold stories of someone’s converts pridefully pushed across a pulpit or table and eaten up by a Christian crowd ready to digest the win for their kind and offer up the ‘ohhh’ and ‘ahhs’ over the strength and ingenuity of the evangelizer to win one of the lost. The whole exchange seeming much less like a celebration of a life now more closely intertwined with God’s and more like an opportunity for the heavy petting of an ego.
Example after example of the exclusive nature of Christian behavior, practices, and abuse among them, rolled through my mind, and continue to do so, as I navigate back through my life to the basics of my beliefs to try to find legitimate footing, not even as a Christian, but simply a person, a person who wants to know God.
Currently, I’m pretty distrustful of blatant faith. Of classic Christian assessments and claims regarding life overall. At best, they often seem hollow to me, at worst, ridiculous.
I am irritated by the indoctrination of lies I now have to navigate through to find the place where truth actually exists, free from the dumbed down or frightfully over controlled Christian influence, not because I expect humans to live perfectly and am offended by their mistakes, but because I am appalled at how many actions and methods of teaching and interaction have been deemed appropriate and thus run rampant among the Christian faith despite their judgmental and destructive results.
I find I am resistant to being part of it all right now. For myself, but especially for my children.
I do not find myself equipped to see God for who I know He is. I feel let down by the system that was meant to teach me. I did it all the way they said I should. I memorized the verses, sang the songs, studied the books, wrote the papers. And yet here I am, just wanting to know God the way He told me I can, free from the constraints and expectations that fellow Christians asked of me from the moment I was able to retain an understanding of spirituality.
I understand that this assessment of Christians and the church is deeply personal for me, stemming from a particular set of life experiences and my particular personality. But while my assessment is personal, I believe what I am assessing is factual and real. Real issues, real problems that have serious consequences even apart from my experience, ones that have obviously influenced so many aspects of what it means to ‘live as a Christian’ today.
I am not anxious about being in this place with my faith. I need not be ‘brought back to Jesus’ as I sense many Christians could be anxious to do when I engage and explain more my current position. It is strange indeed to feel like an outsider many times amongst those who believe the same as me or in the church where the faith is meant to be celebrated and I’m truly not sure how the journey back to feeling like the community is worth being a part of again, or is worth being publicly associated with again, will look.
I think it might be slow, but honest and real this time, free from the expectations that were such a foundational part of my younger faith, and I feel convicted to try to give my children the same chance. Can you imagine the space and freedom of experience a relationship with Jesus could have apart from so much human indoctrination? What starting your knowledge of faith, Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit could be like without the barrage of Christian charts, memorization, guidelines and performance convoluting the process? I wonder if it would feel so much more natural, less rehearsed and over processed, deeper and more realistic right from the start.
Its a journey, as the Christians say, and I suppose this is a ‘respect the process’ kind of time for me as I question and rethink so much that I just took for granted as correct as I grew up. Stepping away from the system has given me the chance to better understand so many things and, I believe, continues to give me the resources to step back into the structure of Christianity with much more endurance and authenticity, when the time comes.”
First Steps back to Faith
© Elizabeth Henry (March 2022)
A year ago I wrote the caption below. Deeply self conscious to believe in anything again I wouldn’t even go back into a church for another three months. It feels like much longer than just twelve months ago. What a lot of undiscovered beauty and healing God had waiting for me.
March 2021: “It was the other day, a couple weeks ago now, when I considered the story of Mary, Martha and Jesus for the first time again in a very long time, maybe even the first time since becoming an adult, and realized, without a doubt, that I would have been Martha in the story. This realization caused me a lot of grief.
Above all else I hope to be someone who is a student of the greater purposes of our bodies and souls, not mindlessly caught up in rhythms and routines facilitated by the social, marketing and mass influence of my surroundings. Realizing I was doing very little, if anything, to make me that way though was a very sad reality check.
It’s all felt a bit haphazard as I’ve begun to try and adjust my focus, a lot of times when I think I’m making progress I’m actually just reinstating old patterns so it seems more comfortable again and I think perhaps I’ve finally grown…but then they pretty quickly bring about the same unfortunate results. Kind of feels like I’m literally building my body, mind and soul from the ground up again…turns out I don’t personally have a lot of habits or resources to fall back on and it’s really been a task of wisely seeking out external teaching now.
Pausing, resting, going to others for help and admitting I’m not actually self sufficient are not my greatest strengths, but even at just 28 years old I truly feel like I was/am on the precipice of either digging my heels in on the side of my pride and fear of vulnerability and stubbornly creating a very frustrated and exhausted life from that space or softening and allowing myself to be resilient, restful, steady and present by stepping forward into things I’ve mostly ignored or vilified to maintain my pride and shaky self esteem.
From here this task feels monumental but I’m taking a breath and believing that the steps I’m taking are finally leading me in a worthy direction.”
The Parable of the Sower & Consent
© Elizabeth Henry (March 2022)
The other day I read the parable of the sower, ‘Then he (Jesus) told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.’ Matthew 13:3-9
As a child I misunderstood the story, I remember thinking I was so glad I was the good soil. I didn’t think of it as a choice, but more of an inevitability.
I was in church, surrounded by Christians, I myself had ‘asked Jesus into my heart’ so how could I be anything other than the good soil?
Reading it as an adult I see that it has everything to do with choice,
not location or status or those in the vicinity.
We don’t just end up as one soil or the other.
We get to decide for ourselves.
It’s a choice.
Our choice.
God gives us the choice.
We get to give our consent to hear him or not.
I listened to a sermon a bit ago that, in an aside, asked the question. ‘Why does Jesus ask so many people in the Bible if they want to be healed before he heals them?”
Because part of this experience of free will that God has given us is the choice of consent.
He doesn’t force us to hear, or be healed.
He asks us.
We get to choose.
Choose a relationship with him.
A consensual relationship.
God acts when we ask.
He will act if we choose him.
Not choose a pastor or singer or church or group of people,
if we choose Jesus, again and again.
We always have the choice to be whatever soil we’d like to be.
Maybe we want to be the rocks or the thorns.
To make the choice not to listen.
If we felt like it didn’t matter,
if we decide we don’t care.
Maybe we want to be the rich soil that could produce, 30, 60, maybe 100 times what was sown.
To make the choice to listen.
If we trusted it mattered,
if we made the choice to care.
Whatever we decide.
We get to make our choice.
Something happens whatever choice we make.
We are always becoming something, creating something,
and finding ourselves somewhere because of our choices.
Our choices affect so much of who we are in this life and, if we are bold enough to believe it, eternal life.
And it is a great kindness of God that he gives us the ability to make our choice.
“The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become. That’s what you will take into eternity.” – Dallas Willard”
Foolishness of Faith
© Elizabeth Henry (March 2022)
Do I keep sharing truth when it is foolishness to so many?
After all,
I used to be on the side of critiquing faith in God.
Critique that came from old memories and bad theology, but was most important because it was my personal experience.
My awakening. My truth.
Then truth wasn’t something you told me,
or something someone told me in the past,
it was something I told you,
it came from me, for me,
you barely factored into the equation.
Go find your own truth,
you can’t have mine or speak on mine.
I know what I feel.
I have my truth.
I am free.
It told me this is where I can be free.
Free from old stories.
Old lies.
Old authority.
Free from everything in the past that didn’t turn out like I thought it would.
But then…it didn’t feel as free.
It often felt like a constant reinvention of a variety of pieces that seemed to be right, but tomorrow could be wrong.
Was I not doing it right?
This finding my truth.
Don’t I decide what spirituality is?
My personal experience of spirituality?
But then again,
do I actually want my personal experience to mean that much,
to be the only truth?
If it means that much, but only for me…does it mean much after all?
And if my experience doesn’t matter
and if truth doesn’t matter.
What does…
But Jesus,
Jesus says I matter and my experience matters and my suffering and my confusion and my anger and my passion and my joy and my love…
Not because they create truth, but because they are part of how He made me. The universal truth of who He is.
The story of His truth that is written into all of these pieces I had decided didn’t matter.
But who am I to say I’ve found the truth.
The one truth.
An absolute truth.
That doesn’t depend on me or my, or you and your, experience to be the truth.
Who am I to say you are meddling with your present and your eternity as you disdain what Jesus calls truth.
Who am I to say ‘your truth’ isn’t where it starts and stops.
But then again,
it’s not about me anymore.
It’s about Jesus,
and I am free now.
It is not foolishness to believe in God.
That truth is certain.
Autumn & Spring
© Elizabeth Henry (February 2022)
I read a caption last Autumn in which someone was talking about how the specific season always made them feel like they were coming back home to themselves.
It struck me because I used to think that Fall was my favorite season but as l’ve grown older, and especially in the moment of reading that caption, I realized that Spring is actually the season that makes me feel like I’m returning to myself.
I love the cycle of seasons overall, the ebb and flow of them, always the same and yet always new, but Spring holds a little extra special place in my heart and as the days warm and the flowers begin to bloom in a premature prelude to the oncoming season I feel a sense of excitement growing in myself for no other reason than the change in the weather and the significance of nature about to do one of my favorite things, begin again.
On the Vastness of God
© Elizabeth Henry (January 2022)
I am learning about the vastness of God’s care recently,
the limitless provision of His nature.
I think I’ve often subconsciously thought about going to God as something you gradually grow out of in a way, something I eventually prove my maturity in.
I think I’ve thought, well I’ve gone to God for this and that, but won’t He be proud of me if I handle this next thing on my own and prove myself or not bother Him with something I should be able to solve on my own now.
I think I have equated God with the limits of humanity so often and misunderstood His desire to be a constant source for everything.
Fully seeking God and half-heartedly seeking God will produce different results.
But to fully seek God you do have to first trust in His goodness and His true nature, because it is a vulnerable thing to repeatedly rely on Him without assuming eventually He would rather be free from the requests or just might not be/offer enough for certain things.
God does not grow tired of our humanity, but is ready to embrace and care for it in ways we can choose to experience or choose to pass by if our understanding of who God is becomes too influenced by our own humanity or the humanity of those around us.
“The secret to a life without lack is rooted in our knowledge of God. When that knowledge is absent from our minds, everything goes to pieces.” (Dallas Willard)
This ‘life without lack’ is not another form of a prosperity gospel, but a reminder that we must have an accurate understanding of God’s nature, one tied to reality, to fully experience His promises.
“He will supply all your needs. All of them. No need left unmet…God is not worried that He is going to run out of something…He is overflowing with everything that is good and everything we need…it is so very important to remember this when we are fretting over a perceived need. In such a time we may be tempted to think that maybe, just maybe, God is as stingy and small as we are. He is not. God loves to give. God loves to forgive…Nothing so delights Him as giving to anyone and everyone who will receive. “For God so loved the world that He gave…” (John 3:16).” -Dallas Willard in Life Without Lack”
The Most Average Work of Practice
© Elizabeth Henry (January 2022)
Sorting through the very important and unavoidable experience of disillusionment has lead me to the most average work of practice.
It is in the basic and realistic space of practice that I feel myself being asked to trust in the goodness of God and break chains of emotional instability and, by practicing the way of Jesus, continue to discover that which lies beyond the dissolved illusions of my coping mechanisms and insecurities.
Practice is for the student and my pride and idleness has kept me from learning for too long. I am no longer hoping or waiting for intention to feel right, but putting my will to the task of practice independent of my emotional state.
Fable of the Two Tailors
© Elizabeth Henry (November 2021)
Growing up I remember reading a fable about two tailors who were called upon to each make a new suit for the Emperor.
They were given bright golden thread with which to sew and could have their choice of any fabric.
The first tailor chose as many brightly colored and expensive looking fabrics as he could find, the other chose just a single fabric, but he could see it was high in quality.
They were both placed in a room to complete the task.
The tailor who chose many fabrics boasted about his skill as he pulled off long pieces of thread with which to sew to avoid having to re-thread the needle often, but as he worked the thread tangled and knotted because of its length.
Amidst fits of frustration over the complications he began to hastily fix any errors so he could move on to the next step.
The other tailor began by threading his needle with a very short piece of the golden fiber.
He slowly sewed it into his garment, but very soon had to pause to re-thread the needle.
He removed another short piece of golden thread and continued to quietly work in this way, slowly sewing and pausing to re-thread the needle often.
The day arrived for the new suits to be presented to the Emperor.
The first tailor brought in his creation, the striking garment appeared impressive in the dressing room, but as the Emperor walked out into the daylight to show the awaiting crowds the sun shone on the golden thread revealing all the knots and pulls, hasty errors and cheap fixes and it was clear that the garment was poorly made and lost its initial brilliance leaving the tailor humiliated by the reality of his work.
The second tailor presented his suit and at first its plainness seemed to upset the Emperor, but as he tried it on and walked out to show the crowd the sun shone brightly on the neat rows of golden stitches and the quality of the fabric became even more clear alongside the skillful stitches.
The tailor was acknowledged for his wisdom and patience in completing the task and the excellence of his final product.
In My Own Mind
© Elizabeth Henry (November 2021)
Sometimes it’s still hard to remember that the best memories, and the most accurate documentation, will always be recorded in my own mind. Always feel like I can never capture the beauty or the magic well enough with a photograph or written word, but I suppose that’s the whole point.
Memories stored in the heart, personal and one of a kind, to be pondered in time to come always capture the essence of experiences in the truest way.
sow in peace 