Does God will?

I am not really sure what to think about the concept of God’s will. There have been many decision points in my life where I found myself paralyzed. I would pray into the night, ask for signs, and overanalyze every encounter and experience, wondering if this was pointing me towards a certain path. I find myself haunted by this fear that one day I will look back on my life and feel as if I hadn’t lived into what my potential was- or what I should have done with my life- what God secretly wanted me to do with my life and was trying to tell me but I put my head in the sand and kept pursuing comfort, success, etc.

In this muck and mire of indecision it often becomes impossible to discern what I even want.  My own desires are trampled deep into a space inaccessible to my conscious mind. And when I am able to be in touch with my desires I’m still never quite sure if I can trust them- who’s to say my desires are at all aligned with the will of God? Or is this just what I desire now but I will kick myself later for not having better vision? More foresight into what is truly important?

The first time I found myself in this space was when I was deciding whether or not I was ready to get married. I felt disconnected from myself and from God and was desperate for answers. This was the first time in my life I experienced true anxiety. Anxiety that would wake me in the night, steal my appetite, and apprehend my nervous system. I knew that I loved my boyfriend of 5 years, TJ, and that he loved me in a way that was humbling. I knew that I respected his judgement and he made me laugh. I felt sure that we could weather hard times together and emerge better and closer for it. We were each other’s favorite person to spend time with and I trusted him fully. I wanted to get married eventually and believed in the beauty of commitment. I also knew that he was my only serious relationship I had ever had. We were also young, only 22, and I kept thinking how life was long and there were so many men I had never met. I also knew that I am fiercely independent and hate feeling tethered or tied down. I feared I wasn’t ready for this kind of commitment and needed more time to figure out what was important to me. To feel only accountable to myself. What was I to do with all of this equally true and conflicting information? I somehow had to learn what it meant to sit in discomfort. To not have resolution right away. And to take steps forward nonetheless.

In 2018, TJ and I got married. I love the life we are building together. Honestly, looking back, there wasn’t one moment where the decision came to me with clarity. I just eventually decided that life without TJ was scarier than life with him. At times, I still wonder where I would be if I had decided to split ways with TJ. I shiver at the thought but, also, feel this assurance that all would have been well. There would have been heartbreak, but I would of grown resilient. Perhaps my path would of led me back to TJ or to another man, who knows, but there would have been grace.

Looking back, this perspective makes me feel like perhaps the will of God has little to do with the literal circumstances of our life and more about the internal transformation that is born from seasons of discernment. If our life could take infinite paths and God will be there for all of them, is there a path that is better? Or that God prefers?

This year, I found myself back in this space of uncertainty. I walked an interview process that was leading me towards a career shift and relocation to TN. I ended up getting the job offer but turning it down. It was an agonizing decision filled with fitful nights and frantic journal entries. It took me a few weeks to come down from the stress and it left me wondering if I had made a huge mistake. A few months later, I ended up transitioning into a new, different role and, a few months after that, my husband and I decided to relocate to CO so I could work on my PhD.

This season of multiple large decisions again brought me to the end of what I thought I knew about the will of God. In my moments of quiet contemplation, I kept feeling the Lord’s gentle presence but no direction. All I knew is that I felt free. Free to choose. And this terrified me.

Over this period of confusion, I decided to ask people that I love and respect how they interact with the concept of “discerning God’s will for your life”. In these conversations, I found the answers were vastly different and peppered with personal experience.  

My sister, who is in an acutely overwhelming and demanding season of young motherhood, offered that discerning the will of God is a one decision at a time affair. Just make one decision and then move onto the next one. And try to have a value system to align your choices with. In our conversation, we arrived at the idea that maybe the pressure of making a “right choice” is false and even damaging. Akin to dating with the expectations of finding your soul mate. Cute but completely impractical.   

Many of my close friends said they listen for the will of God by listening to their own desires. They believe that God is the source of such desire, so these desires are trustworthy! The things that excite them and drive them are all wrapped up in the fabric of who God made them to be. So being true to who you are is, inherently, following the will of God.

For my mom, God meets her in a very practical way. Throughout her life, she has example after example of opportunities being so clearly presented to her. Even when she tries to resist, it quickly becomes completely obvious what she ought to do! For her, discerning the will of God is to walk through open doors and respect closed doors.

For my more charismatic spiritual community, the will of God is far more mystical. God has come to them in prayer, in worship, and through other people. God has given them words and phrases in dreams and through strangers. They have taken risks and made decisions based on a mystical experience alone. For these, the will of God is about listening and expectation. Discerning the will of God is an invitation to liminal space. 

I observed that often times people in their second half of life have accepted their own lack of control. They have some sense that, although they may have regrets, what worked out is what was meant to be. For others, their agency is essential and they are constantly seeking to steer the ship and manifest what they understand the kingdom of God to be. Heaven on earth. Others, like me, are just kind of confused.  

Despite my utter lack of understanding, I couldn’t help walking away from these conversations with a sense that God meets people where they are and helps them how they need to be helped. For me, when I ask for answers outside myself, so often God turns me around and sends me back into myself. In this way, discernment is an invitation to descent. In this descent, I am finding that everything I need in life I already have! The presence of God is readily available to me. My life is not a future to decode but a reality I am living. For me, the will of God feels like coming back to the now. To letting God meet me here. To be transformed.

I am in the middle of this story so, as is life, I don’t have a takeaway that is clean or can fit on a quote board. One thing that has been born from this season is a feeling of presence and gratitude. I feel this permission from my depths to choose. To pursue. To try. To fail. To change my mind. This presence and gratitude is an internal affair so, perhaps, the external circumstances of my life don’t matter as much as I fear they do.

I can’t help but wonder if the will of God is somehow fluid. What we want and what we choose is somehow wrapped up in what God is doing in us and through us and around us. As we bend and step to nudges and limits and passions, so is God bending and stepping to support and transform us as we are willing. Maybe discerning the will of God is less like a scavenger hunt and more like a dance. A partnership.

The story God is writing is a story of incarnation. Perhaps to believe in God is to believe that the undercurrent of reality is heading somewhere good. Is heading towards healing. If this is true, then goodness and healing is inescapable. It is all part of this unshakeable will of God that we are swept into. 

So much agency, so little control

In the spring of 2024, my love and I went on a trip to Spain to hike El Camino. We did the Primitivo route which starts in Oviedo and makes its way across the mountainous region of Asturias all the way to Santiago. This trip was 10 days of walking alongside bubbling creeks with only the sound of birds, footsteps, and cows. The trail meanders between small Pueblos and back to farmland and then wilderness again. The trip came when I was at an inflection point in my career. I had been working at the intersection between finance, environmental economics, and climate change policy work. I was in the middle of an interview process for a role in the community development sphere where I would of been working in a more social policy capacity. The new role would provide the opportunity to move to a smaller, more mountainous town closer to family and with a lower cost of living (we were living in DC at the time).

If you know anything about El camino, you know that it is inherently religious in nature. The entire route is peppered with chapels and ends at a cathedral. I spent much of the walk contemplating my life and praying for some clarity or answers or signs from above.

By the end of the trip, I had a sense that I was ready for a change and was going to take the community development job. I felt like God had given me this clarity and would therefore make it happen. I would surely receive the perfect job offer because it was God’s will for me and therefore God would provide! Of course! I returned to DC with clarity and great excitement. A week later, I got the call with the job offer. The offer was not at all what I had expected. The role implied a huge pay cut and a brutal travel schedule. Negotiations proved unfruitful and I was only given one day to make my decision. After furious journal entries, 100s of troubled walks around the neighborhood, and frustrated tears, I felt I had to turn down the job. It was my decision to make. And to live with.

This experience was acutely stressful and, once done, I slipped into a sadness that was deep into my gut. The sadness sat at the base of my belly and it scared me. I would lie awake at night and then go through the motions of my daily tasks. I felt hopeless and overwhelmed. It took time for me to discern why the grief was so palpable- what exactly was I mourning? Was my current job and life really so bad?

Like all things, the answer to this question is multifaceted; however, part of where my sadness stemmed from was mourning the loss of what I wanted God to be. And, therefore, what I wanted a life with God to be.

In the past, I have found that whenever I am at a decision point in my life, I am deeply uncomfortable with the reality of my own agency. I want so badly for decisions to be made for me. For doors to “close or open” in some way where I can make the best of my current circumstances but never own them as something I have chosen. Manifested. Because what if my current circumstances are not what I hope? How do I live with the reality that I will never know what could have been had I made different decisions?

I’ve always wanted a God that had a literal plan for my life. A will. A way. And who held my hand and showed me what to do. I’m beginning to wonder if this a profoundly narrow way to understand the divine. If God made us to be visionaries and dreamers- if God gave us drive and ambition- Wouldn’t she also want us to have the agency within us to build a life from this creative flow? Wouldn’t the divine be present and working no matter what series of decisions we end up making?

The truth is I am terrified of my own agency. But really what’s so scary is the paradox of how my agency coexists with so little control. I can choose to say no to the job but I cannot control if the alternative is better. Or if another job will come along. If I will stay healthy. If I can have a child. If our country will go to war or if the housing market will crash or really anything at all. My agency and dependance on fate are both overwhelmingly real. And I have no idea how to hold both in tension. Luckily, I had constructed a God in my mind that meant I didn’t have to. And now that God has died to me. And I have to mourn the loss- and figure out how to navigate living without him.

The thing about letting our constructs of God die is that what is left feels empty for a while. In my disillusion I no longer know how to pray. Do I pray for answers? Or just for presence? For the serenity to accept everything I cannot control? Or, even harder, to accept what I can control and may have royally screwed up? Do I just need courage to forgive myself? Or to even be kind to myself?

Perhaps the empty space that is left if something we need to get comfortable with. It’s tempting to try and cram it full with a new intellectual construct that I can wrap my arms around. Perhaps, if we can sit in the emptiness and let the fear and grief stay, we can start to develop tools of true resiliency. We can grow comfortable with a non dual mind. With mystery as the end instead of the middle. Maybe this is growing up.

Am I boring or a mystic

With each passing year, I find my desires grow simpler. Just this week, my husband and I were offered free tickets to go to an event at the French embassy. Excited by the prospect of a cultural exchange to spice up our weekend, I decided that we should go! It was a Friday, following a long work week and hosting family. I was in the office for a day long meeting and as I hunched over my laptop in a windowless conference room, my exhaustion became palpable. I developed a nagging headache that started at the base of my skull and worked its way up to my temples. On my train ride home, truly all I wanted was to put on my fluffiest robe, eat eggs and toast, sit on the couch with my husband, talk about our days, and go to bed at 9pm.

This feeling keeps creeping up in me again and again. At the opportunity to see a show or take a trip, my anxiety and ambition say yes and the depths of me say no. I’ve become more comfortable admitting that my favorite things in life are so accessible, mundane even. A night at home with a good book and some herbal tea, a potluck, the farmer’s market on a Saturday morning, coffee with a friend, a long walk. These things keep my soul tethered to itself. They keep my mind steady, my desires aligned with my capacity.

This is infinitely true when it comes to my experience with the divine. The presence of God finds me in the quiet of my morning coffee, the robins in the park behind my house, the smell of soil after rain, the sound of my mom’s laugh, my husband’s hugs. It is the simple sensory experiences of being alive that are pathways to encounter. It’s both the living and the participation in the flow of love. In the buying a coffee for my un-housed neighbors, in calling a friend, painting, or cooking tortilla soup for new parents. This is what I’ve come to understand as everyday mysticism.

Theologian Howard Thurman (1899–1981) demystified mystics as people who have a personal religious experience or an encounter with God. This is radically unembellished and implies anyone can be a mystic if they are open to the experience. Mystics know how to quiet the surface noise enough to hear divine presence coursing below daily life. In this way, simplicity as a practice requires the cultivation of an inner stillness. To quiet the chatter. Then the sameness and plainness of life suddenly becomes profound. The bush will burn as you learn to walk in the mysticism of everyday.

This body

Oh, this body. This body my companion. I confess I’ve become quite adept at ignoring you. Back, when you ache, I take a Tylenol. Oh eyes, when you burn, I drink a coffee. Heart, when you race, I rush to cross things off my to-do list- a temporary balm to sooth the restlessness.

Almost everything that I experience and fail to put language to will shows up in my body. Tension goes to my shoulders and neck. The muscles winding up so tightly and a headache that starts at the base of my skull and creeps around towards my temples. If I eat poorly, too much sugar and not enough water, it manifests in my skin- my pores clogging up and flaking. My sinuses will rebel for not enough sleep, my nose running like a faucet. Demanding I stay in this weekend. This winter, a sharp pain while pulling on socks awoke me to the reality that my heels are cracking open. Bleeding. I had neglected to give my feet they extra care winter demanded- exfoliants, thick moisturizers, and long baths.

In 2022, I accepted a job that required my family to relocate to Washington D.C. The opportunity of a policy job in the city where policies are made compelled me, and the part of me that’s named ambition won the argument against hesitation, loneliness, and fatigue. With restlessness guiding me, we made the change. There were a hundred small things that, when added together, exceeded my capacity to cope in this transition. Family death, scary diagnoses of loved ones, and a relentless travel schedule provided the backdrop within which my baby roots were ripped- and the onslaught of decisions began. Should we sell our house? Buy a House? Or Rent? What Neighborhood? My new job began chaotically. I dove headfirst into a dysfunctional team and a role that required me to think about the horror of climate change all day. Through it all, I allowed myself no margin- I carried on head down and filled my schedule to the brim- I excelled at work, upped my physical fitness, plugged into community organizations, planned a trip to Japan… eventually, my body said no. It began with heartburn. Then stomach pain. Then crippling stomach pain. Bloating. Constipation. Fatigue. Hair loss. My gut would churn after every meal, cultivating an aversion to food that led to undernourishment. I was underfed, over exercised, over extended, and deeply lonely. In spite of my ailments, we opened our home to host friends and family weekend after weekend. We traveled abroad. Made new friends.  We explored museums, restaurants, and local state parks. My memories are a haze of discomfort. I was going through the motions. Screaming into my pillow and crying in the shower before catching the train downtown to show my mom the Washington monument. I was unwilling to admit that I really didn’t feel up for any of it. I was craving an empty schedule and bone broth.  

In an effort to find relief, I spent the year of 2023 going to doctors. My PCP, a naturopath, a gastroenterologist, and a chiropractor. All the tests in the world revealed that my body was definitely not functioning correctly, but a root cause evaded us. In the end, my GI doctor concluded it is neurological- essentially the nerves in my stomach are in a wad- no longer properly communicating to my muscles to, you know, digest. To make a bowel movement. To do the things we take for granted.

As I write this, I am three months into a nerve medication that has been helping some of my symptoms, but I am in the middle of this story- the path before me feels long. There is no redeeming arc that I have lived and can now share. All I know is that I am tired. And I am going to nap once I finish this.

Through it all, I’ve started to wonder what it means to honor my body. I’ve let my mind and my heart (figuratively speaking) drive the ship of my life. If I want (in my mind) to travel to every continent before I’m 30, then let’s save and book flights! If I want to work an impressive, demanding job, then watch out! If I want to experience living all over the country, then pack your bags! If I want (in my heart) to be a person of faith, generosity, and community, then we will be involved in faith organizations, give to charity, and volunteer. I will recycle, compost, eat vegan, learn Spanish, and call my friends and mom regularly.  

My mind and my heart lead me to believe that I am both bigger and smaller than what’s true.  I begin to believe that I have to be more than anyone could ever be. Yet I am also unworthy of simplicity. Of limiting my reach to what I can hold. Of putting things down.

Perhaps we live in bodies because our bodies force balance. Our bodies bring us back to the soil and ground us in the truth of what we could realistically expect. Our bodies cry out no while our mind and heart say yes.

I am in the habit of only listening to my body when it screams. When I have a raging fever or cannot get out of bed. What if I listened to my body when it talked? Or, better yet, when it whispered? What if I took my body’s cues as information to be revered? To be heard? Perhaps even treasured? Would the landscape of my pursuits look different?

I am coming to the conclusion that this has to be how we live. To live in reconciliation with our bodies we have to honor them. We have to listen. 

Shifting

Recently, my spirituality has felt a shift. The shift, like all change, has left me feeling disoriented and fatigue, but I also can’t shake the feeling that where I’ve landed is infinitely more expansive- and healthy.

I no longer find myself praying to an abstract external presence. I don’t perceive God as a guiding light completely detached from my own intuition, incumbent upon me to find. And obey. Or else the presence will become further. Hazier.

I’ve begun to understand that Christ is in me. My gut. And in everything- always. The divine in me- and you- Christ- is the fabric of the cosmic collective. God is intimate.

What if Christ is not only Jesus in history, and God in heaven, but also grace experienced now? What if Christ is radical compassion? Mysterious peace? a love that mends?

This shift demands self-respect- and comes with an invitation for descent- past the constructs of personality- to the core of essence & being. To find that it is holy there. That Christ is revealed in the spaciousness of the deep- and we are free from the expectations of others and the constructs of success that have informed our marks of worthiness. All of living suddenly feels like an inside job- where gratitude grows.

This shift demands a change from individualism to collectivism. From seeing things as separate parts to components of a whole- from hierarchy to community. This shift demands reverence for all whom we encounter. Awe and respect for the holy of holies that can be found there. Changing mundane interaction to mystical encounter. Insecurity to appreciation. This shift brings about radical inclusion- and mobilizes social justice- always.

This shift demands profound honor for earth- for Christ in mountain. Christ in tree. Christ in wind. Christ in water. Christ in bug. Christ in soil. The first incarnation of God. We must love and weep for and protect the earth that holds us. The earth that nourishes us, despite enduring, careless exploitation. This shift challenges anthropogenic orientation. This shift broadens our understanding of “the least of these” to include the trees, rivers, rocks, and animals that have no voice for self-advocacy. This shift demands mourning. This shift demands simplicity. And action.

Living in this oneness- with oneness being Christ- ourselves not excluded- that is the shift that is healing and guiding me.

Repotting

I repot my plants when they seem ready- their roots crammed against the walls- health declining- or stagnating-

The replanting must be done gingerly, delicately- and then, to grow again into their new space, the plants must be tended to-- with water and sun, of course, but mostly they just needs some time to settle. Too many consecutive replants will weaken her, decay her- stillness is required to grow into her new space.

In the “growth only happens when put outside your comfort zone” narrative of sport and work, we forget that the true growing occurs once you feel comfortable in this new space. Its after the shock and disorientation of the fresh wears off that your roots can dig down into the soil- it is only when you feel safe that you stretch out- releasing your defensive clam-y posture. And this safety precedes grounding, which precedes self-compassion, which precedes genuine transformation. 

Courage is necessary for growth – I will not argue otherwise. But it takes courage to dig into your current circumstances. To name what is hard and accept it. To honestly cope. And in this type of courage, growth is natural, not a ripping at the seams.

In choosing to stay, we are choosing a presence that grows from within- a presence that does not require perfection. Digging in means saying no to chasing satisfaction in circumstance—in new places, jobs, relationships, or travel plans. We are forced to find stability within ourselves. And it’s from stability that we can care carefully. We can know ourselves and work with tools that we understand. We can build something to last.  

Hardly deciduous

I don’t think I’ve really rested in over a decade- like a deep, restorative, takes time to get the nutrient and flavor sort of rest- like water, spice, and bone sitting on the stove for 12 hours- nearly bone broth- diffusing what I imagine hardiness smells like.

I’ll confuse rest and fun quite often- their similarities lying only in an absence of work, but nowhere else in their essence. With fun bubbling and rest steeping- rarely yielding something similar.

On a recent, rainy, Sunday in late fall, I found myself on the couch, restless about my to-do list, yet unable to dredge up the energy to mobilize. I started reading about perennial plants and their dormancy. For these plants, dormancy declares when to prepare their soft tissues for freezing temperatures, dry weather, or water and nutrient shortage. Instead of attempting to grow in hostile conditions, plants hunker down, storing up energy for when the growing conditions are better. This period of arrested growth allows roots to continue developing and thriving. In dormancy, these plants are thriving underground- despite their outward declaration of scarcity. These months of steely survival produce everything needed for another spring.

If plants were insistent on production, it would not only be inefficient, but also harmful. If plants were to remain actively growing in the winter, the water stored in their stems, leaves, and trunks would freeze, damaging the bark and tissue.

This is why, when a freeze occurs in late spring or early fall, panic ensues in the gardening community. The guest room bed sheets are brought out of linen closets, carefully draped over tender plant flesh.

Yet, do we consider this same harm to the tender parts of our soul? In the dark, cold lonely seasons of our life, must we insist on growing? Productivity at all times, of course. I will get a new certificate at work! run a faster mile! and learn some basic Japanese! Oh, and have fun! Adventure! buckets lists! new hobbies! new friends! What if, instead, we practice dormancy. We take intentional, self- indulgent care of oneself. And simply wait until the season turns a corner. 

Of course, not all plants are deciduous. Even more, evidently some plants can manage when planted in different climates. Tomato vines, for example, live several years in their natural tropical/subtropical habitat but are grown as annuals in temperate regions. In my feverish addition to ambition, my instincts have dulled to winter’s call. I’ve somehow transplanted my soul to Miami - with ever-present warmth and light disrupting my natural rhythms. I’ve been obedient to alarm clocks and florescent lighting for far too long. In the constant pursuit of summer, the resilience of my roots has been compromised, and I’m susceptible to pests.

Ironically, all projections say Miami will be underwater in 50 years, yet new beachfront condos are being built every year. In the pursuit of entertainment and pleasure, we miss the signals. We miss the invitation to a contemplation that is born in the dark.

Of course, radical rest requires breaking down where my identity is mixed up with my output- and, from this space of detachment, I can finally surrender to the call of retreat and then flow out again into the energy of warm evenings.

This breaking down has been the greatest work of my life. Genuine surrender takes time, or movement, or breaking.

For me it’s always been the breaking.

In the breaking i’m not as sturdy as I used to be, but far more honest. I feel authentic, but also lopsided - and leaky- nodding in respect to my own beautiful limits. And then. in the still, dark, cold- there is mending.