It’s been a hot minute, (a six-month-long, somewhat grueling hot minute) since I really engaged online.

And so, I’d like to start by just saying: I love you.

I love you and I’ve missed engaging, and I’m sorry that I’m not always authentically capable of sharing my heart here, in this way.

When I’m juggling a challenging load, my energy becomes increasingly introverted, discerning, and conservative.

And when I’m feeling especially vulnerable, baring my heart can feel excessively exposing.

I’ll be honest with you, friends, I’ve been on my knees for months now.

I know I’m not the only one.

 What times these are, that bring even the most resourced lightworkers to our knees.

Some days the weight of personal and collective grief is so immense, I can feel it everywhere I look. Then other days the mirror is one of empathy, bright-eyed wonder, astounding resiliency.

It’s amazing to consider how much we can show up for while on our knees?

How astonishing that I still rise into my day, make a fresh prayer, solo-parent my teenagers with as much rapidly evolving skill as I can muster, and show up as a clear mirror of truth and love for the people who come to me for healing and counsel.

All while on my knees.

 On my knees, while I dream restlessly at night, tending to threads of relational complexity, mending the torn and shredded parts, diving deep into pools of multi-generational wounding, fervently working to retrieve what’s been dropped, or lost, or stolen.

On my knees, excruciatingly tender, while carefully making my son his tea each morning; while hugging my wild, barn-smelling daughter close, in one of her fleeting swoops through the house.

On my knees, while walking the dogs around our neighborhood, at times with the gentle reminder under my breath: “I love myself, I love myself…”

On my knees, while meeting my relations, my closest friends and kin: listening, opening, revealing, reflecting, receiving.

Always making potent medicine of what’s working us, what’s breaking us, what’s honing us deeper home.

On my knees in overwhelmed tears, and the seductive habit of worry. And on my knees in the simplest, quietest prayer of emptying out and offering up.

In some moments we stand in the radiant certainty of how hardship strengthens us, how burning purifies us, how many breathtaking gifts come only as we are humbled by life.

In other moments we can’t help but feel defended against life, and the tumult life continuously presents.

In these moments, it’s hard to remember faith. All our unattended trauma,
disappointment, and grief come barreling back, and our perception becomes skewed by pain.

And yet if we stay with it, loving ourselves even here, in our darkest, most faithless hour, an opening occurs.

We slowly open to make a more gracious home for our pain, to receive the sword of hurt cleanly, to let our grief have its rightful place at our table.

Our faith widens to include what’s here, to allow the sacred pivot this moment of loss is inviting.

And as we learn the intricacies of intimacy with our own pain, we expand in our capacity to be with the pain of others.

On our knees is not the worst place to be, it turns out.

Close to the ground, close to the heart of the Mother.

Close to prayer, and an open willingness for mercy.

I meet you here, close to the ground, close to the prayer.

I meet you in the refuge of silence, as we give thanks for our lives, for the restoration of beauty and balance that is forthcoming, and for the chance to live as beacons of honesty and love through this dark season…

With all my love,

Jesua