Taking A Walk #30

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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It’s the part where surrender is the only path to triumph. — Brené Brown

Brené Brown, once again, knocked me on my tail. She published an essay, “Hard Season and Wild Hearts”.

I wade through the weight of possibility and fear, I consider Brown’s words. They introduce me to the idea that I live in Act II — “the long, messy part of all stories where we watch the protagonist try to solve problems without being vulnerable and asking for help. It’s the part where surrender is the only path to triumph.” I am deep in Act II and not sure when it started and when it will end. Vulnerability feels like pouring peroxide on a wound. Surrender was my Word of the Year a few years ago. I still feel queasy thinking about it. I have too much ego not to see it as giving in or giving up. I am in the part where I have to remember to breathe and show up. At church, we started practicing embodied prayer — repeated deep cleansing breaths focused on releasing what separates us from feeling absolutely loved. It is important to feel absolutely loved. Perhaps surrender means believing deep in our bones that we are absolutely loved. As Act II continues, I will keep being present and breathing and reminding myself that I am absolutely loved.

Thinking Out Loud

Taking weekly stock of how I am doing is my practice of thinking out loud. As an exercise in examination, reflection, and (hopefully) growth, writing is my attempt to join with others and model curiosity, generosity, and love through thought, writing, and action. Thinking is not a destination. Planning does not accomplish much. Action can feel like running in place. Growth — the fruit of the thinking, planning, and action tree — is the sweetness of it all. Again, I pay attention to my journey. I hold it all. Not burning it all down and not giving up. Not forgetting to celebrate inches and small bites and every damn time I show up. That is growth. The thinking out loud part is sharing it with others.

Giving Over Not Giving Up

This thought jumped out at me from Brown’s words. (She references Sarah Lewis in sharing this thought.) As I have written about tinkering toward urgency — and feeling like my lack of urgency around urgent things means I am dangerously close to giving up and someone who gives up is not who I am — the idea that surrender might mean giving over rather than giving up is like a cool glass of water. If surrender is the path to triumph — and surrender is about giving over — I am all in. Let me explain. Giving over might look like trusting that love wins if I show up for myself and others. Love wins. Giving over might look like believing in perfect time — like tides, seasons, blossoming flowers, and ripening fruit. Giving over might look like saying yes or no, radical joy or failure, burning or planting. Giving over takes practice — like unclenching fists, learning new things, and remembering to breathe.