Last year I deleted at least two blog posts after publishing them because I was afraid someone would be offended. Afraid someone wouldn't like what I said about the church (something about how it sucks being in a minster's family sometimes - I don't even remember what it was specifically). Afraid someone wouldn't like a particular political stance (illegal immigrants and the people who support them are not horrible anti-American people - it was kind of a rant). Afraid someone somewhere might not like what I say and cause conflict because of it.
I hate conflict.
I want a nice, smooth, drama-free life. I don't want to have to defend myself. I'm not good at debating. I don't mind when people disagree with me; I just want to be allowed to disagree in peace, and I will go to ridiculous lengths to protect that peace. Ridiculous lengths like refusing to post an interesting article.
I've always been the quiet, wallflower type. Even in a room full of my best friends, I'll be the one who hardly says a word. I'm good with 3 or 4, but more than that and I clam up. Not intentionally. I just lose my voice. I think about my words too much, and then the moment passes.
A couple months ago, my pastor asked me to preach in February (he'll be gone for a few weeks and is inviting some women to preach). I told him I would think about it, but inside my gut was screaming, "What will I say?!?" And then the fall semester got crazy in its mad dash to the end, and I thought, "I won't have time to figure out what to say!" So I told my husband I didn't think I would do it. No time. Too much stress. But really I was thinking, "I don't know what to say!"
So a month or so goes by. I read Sue Monk Kidd. I have a break from school. I suddenly feel words bursting in my head. I worry about the message my daughter is getting about being a girl. And I think, "Maybe I'll do it after all - I want my daughter to hear I have a voice." But my husband has already told our pastor that I said No, and the preaching spot has been given away. It's too late. The moment has passed.
Because I was afraid.
Well, I don't want to be afraid of my words (or lack of them). One of my new year's hopes is to speak up more, to "be bolder, more honest, more kind, more challenging, more real, more intentional." I don't think this means I need to start facebook debates (ugh...just ugh), but I would like to feel more free to express what's in my head and my heart. I don't think I'll feel it, though, unless I do it.
So I have a word for 2012. I'm only now getting around to posting it because finding (and speaking) words will always be slow for me, but my word for 2012 is VOICE.
Mandy Steward at Messy Canvas has picked "vulnerable" as her 2012 word, and she makes a beautiful list of reasons she wants to be vulnerable, including:
- to feel things out loud with less apology.
- to say the things no one else will say because they are meant for my saying them.
- to live my self-reliant aloneness out amongst intimate community.
- to learn not to cower when I make a mistake, feel embarrassed or when I anger or disappoint someone.
- to be known.
I will try this year to work on my voice, so that fewer moments pass me by, so that I look more like Her.
"I raise my foot to pound the earth, beating the earth to all the rhythms of living.
I feel the warmth of it, the raw edges of eternity scraping against my bones.
My skin shimmers with sacred light, for I look like She, the one who is ancient and alive;
I am made like Her the Holy. I reflect Her face.
She fills my lungs with holy breath and says:
Arise, my love, awake."
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