The Slow Way Newsletter: "I Am" is coming close
a weekly newsletter for all the frantic strivers, serial doers & weary achievers
unhurried thoughts
God is coming close
This Advent during bedtime, Brooksie and I have been listening to We Wonder, a contemplative Bible storytelling podcast for children. We Wonder has been one of my favorites for a couple years now, and while his older brother is no longer thrilled about prayer podcasts or being tucked in at night, Brooks is still at that age, and personality, where he craves the comfort of bedtime: He catches me up on all the stories of the day at school, tries to make me laugh (easily done), and is open to thinking deeply about meaning, about who God might be and why. I’m trying to hold tight to these nights with him in the dim light of his room. I know I won’t be invited there forever.
On Thursday night, Brooks and I snuggled with Richmond the dog on the bed between us and listened to Sarah, We Wonder’s host, ask “I wonder if there is anything I want to ask God to see? Is there anyone I know who is hurting and needs God to come close? Are there any parts of me that I want God to see and come close to?”
Are there any parts of me that I want God to see and come close to?
Friends, this week has been lead-heavy, and sometimes dear, only in the way that suffering is tinged with light. I am leaving tomorrow to be with my father, whose journey with brain cancer has asked everything of him. I know that in the next few weeks I will walk with him as faithfully as I can and the hurt of that may be unbearable. There is so much to hold. It’s been hard to share here about the past year of my father’s illness. I want to write authentically, but there’s a space between healthy authenticity and raw pain. I’m still in the latter. So, let me say this: There are parts of me that I want God to see and come close to. And some of them are not even available to me yet. They have not yet been unveiled.
What about you? What do you want God to see in you? What in you needs God to come close?
This week I started reading Stephanie Speller’s book The Church Cracked Open, and found myself taken in by her words: “What if we are indeed at that point where the most faithful act is to accept the cracked reality of the things we loved most? Maybe you are called to be the one to break open. Perhaps you . . . are the thing being broken, and your life, identity, and understanding of reality are being poured out all so that God’s love might become the true center of your life.”
Are you the thing being broken, friend? Me too. So as we lean into the pain and beauty of this season, I want to remind you that if your “life, identity, and understanding of reality are being poured out,” it might just allow “God’s love [to] become the true center of your life.”
That’s my prayer for us.
a slow practice
In that particular episode of We Wonder, Sarah told the story of Moses and the burning bush. Moses was literally invited to come close to the divine, and it was dangerous and life-altering. Yet Moses engaged. He stepped close and let his calling and his future story pour forth from that moment.
At the same time, the divine came close to Moses, not only in presence but in language. God spoke God's own name to Moses: “Tell them I Am has sent you.”
Maybe you need I Am to call your name, to show up in an unexpected way and invite you into a story you’re terrified of. When I turned forty I had a line from Ranier Maria Rilke, an early 20th century Austrian poet, tattooed on my arm. (Dramatic, I know.) It says, “I am, you anxious one.”
The Spirit of God speaking their own name straight to me, one the most anxious of the anxious ones.
"I am, you anxious one.
Don't you sense me, ready to break
into being at your touch? . . .
Can't you see me standing before you
cloaked in stillness? . . .
I am the dream you are dreaming.
When you want to awaken, I am that wanting”
Here’s your practice: First, light a candle. Tis the season for lighting candles, of course, so maybe there’s one nearby. But I want you to light this one deliberately. I want you to think of “I Am” breaking into being in front of Moses. Remind yourself that I Am is here calling you as well.
You can keep your eyes open. Consider the flame on your candle. Watch it flicker and wave, contained and beautiful, yet still capable of destruction and danger. Whisper these words and consider them God’s voice speaking to you: Can’t you see me standing before you cloaked in stillness?
As you continue to watch the flame, pray this with me:
I Am, you are present, standing before me, cloaked in stillness.
Come close to me.
I Am, you asked everything of Moses, and you are asking something of me.
Come close to me.
I Am, I am afraid of all that exists in the future, but you are both here and there.
Come close to me.