When I left my born-and-raised religious community, I found comfort in poetry. Words that rose and fell to the rhythms of all that life is. Words that softened places of shame and obligation, allowing hope to enter. Mary Oliver and Rumi still speak to my heart in ways for which I am forever grateful.
Now, though, I realize maybe it is the space between the letters and punctuation that hold more of the power. Space in which questions, despair, hope, and laughter are invited to come, rest, and be.
It is in this act of hospitality that both I and the paradoxes of life can fully show up without anyone needing to be lesser than the true beauty and mystery we’ve been created to live with. No need to hide.
To think that all of a person, an experience, or a god can be captured in mere words is foolishness. But maybe wisdom is the combined understanding of words, mystery, and ambiguity all in the same place.
When I search through my whole lexicon and find that truly no words can be put together to form the fullness of any one experience, I know I am fully human. And when I put the pen to the paper anyway, I know I’m living fully. Living into the transformative power of the paradoxes that are packaged into this life of both mourning and laughter.
These days, I’m leaving more off-white (coffee-stained) space in my poetry and in my life. Hospitality beyond just the margins. Places where there’s room for the all of life, the all of you, and the all of me.
