Category: Extended Reflection

Matty Healy: The Downfall of a Prophet

April 25th, 2024

I have always said that Matty Healy was the prophetic voice of a generation.

That is a controversial statement, and would be considered so probably by both the right and the left now. Before I get into who exactly he is, first:

What is Prophecy?

The typical idea of biblical prophecy is usually that its purpose is for telling the future. However, this seriously flattens the reality of the prophetic literature of the Bible, and thereby cuts us off from what I would argue might be the most nourishing aspects of the genre. Prophecy, at its simplest, is both foretelling, (For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given…) and forth-telling.

The key with biblical prophecy is that before any foretelling of God’s judgment were to be fulfilled, the people of either Judah or Israel (depending on the prophet and the year) should be harshly criticized and chastised for the dysfunctional, sinful way they were living as a society. They were not only threatened with destruction and exile, but also given hope in that circumstance. The story of Jonah summarizes this biblical trope perfectly.

In Amos, for instance, Israel in particular is criticized for living in luxury extracted off the backs of the poor in their society, and for their sexual promiscuity:

“Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they sell the righteous for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals—
they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same young woman,
so that my holy name is profaned;
they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink
wine bought with fines they imposed.”

And later Amos criticizes those who lounge on ivory beds (6:4), which would have been an incredibly expensive prestige item. Rather the equivalent of driving a Rolls Royce or wearing a custom-made Cuban chain: exceedingly expensive and wholly ostentatious.

Now, Who is Matty Healy?

Matty Healy is an extremely well-dressed, be-Gucci-ed Englishman of extremely mediocre looks, who is could be seen as perhaps growing handsomer only incidentally because he has begun to go grey early. He, like me, was born in 1989, and is one of the original nepo babies—born to two famous English actors.

The username he uses online, Truman Black, was pulled from a chosen pseudonym on his old Facebook profile, since the British paparazzi were continually trying to get a glimpse into his family’s life, and consequently his life. He says this was how he was able to have normal social media like everyone else, but avoid the press.

The reason why he has become famous in his own right is because he has fronted a band called The 1975 since 2002, with three other Mancunians he met in secondary school. After their initial 2013 debut, then went from a super indie ban with a rabid fanbase to one of the most popular and well-known bands in the world. For my little rock band-loving heart, this makes me happy.

He is also an alternately recovering and relapsing heroin addict.

Prophet or Provocateur?

As their fanbase grew, and as they released new albums, and as I attended concerts of theirs and listened to Healy hold forth in between songs, I began to consider him someone with sharp eyes and deep understanding about the deeply human dreams and desires of our generation. His motivation was always to speak up for the oppressed and the little person.

Songs like “Loving Someone;” “I like America and America Likes Me;” “Love It If We Made It;” and “Sincerity is Scary, are good examples of what I would consider his prophetic voice—critique of society, expression of angst, the desire for hope.

When he reached his zenith as a pseudo-prophet in 2016, it was the same year that both our 45th president was elected and that Brexit was ratified. We were full of so much hope, us Millennials were still considered to be young people, most of us still in our 20’s. I felt that we could rally behind him, for he was giving voice to our concerns and fears, and pushing for the right thing to be done in our societies.

The Downfall: Decadence and Decline

Of course, how could any one of us have known what would have taken place after all that, with the consequent presidential term of 45, the pandemic, and what now sounds at times like the death rattle of American democracy, or perhaps the West overall.

In late 2022 I had the great joy of going to see The 1975 live again, in an amazing venue in Seattle. Such good memories combined with such good, danceable music. Not more than two months later, on the same tour we had seen them on, he made a Nazi salute on stage in Liverpool in an oblique reference to Kanye West’s antisemitism in one of their songs; the following show he trashed the stage in response to the outcry because his message was misinterpreted; the show following that wept onstage and apologized to his longsuffering bandmates.

What’s more, within a month of all of those things, a podcast was released wherein Healy made a string of racist comments about several different people groups and ethnicities, and revealed that he was a consumer of an extremely disturbing form of pornography which portrays black women being violently degraded.

The 1975 have been my favorite band for such a long time. I always felt like it was overreaction when fans would react with feelings of betrayal and anger against their favorite public figures or musicians—until I experienced it myself. I was so pained by this that I wasn’t able to listen to their music for over a year. And despite his downfall, I still see the theme of prophecy as quite fitting for the figure of Matty Healy.

Conclusion

I have no way of knowing whether Matty Healy’s recent revolting rants were drug-fueled; if his prophetic-era rants were drug-fueled, or if they both were. But it became clear to me that his separation from normal life—whether through the numbing affect of his tragic addiction, his immense privilege and visibility as a child of celebrities; or through the extreme wealth that he has now amassed as a rock star—has muffled his ears to what really matters, and shown us that all that he is ultimately concerned with lately is himself. While society burns down around him, he too is lounging on an ivory bed.

He has been talked about greatly in the past days since the release of Taylor Swift’s new album, who ostensibly had a month-long fling with him after ending a years-long relationship, and then wrote several songs apparently about him on her new album. (The major Swifties even wrote and circulated a petition or an open letter or something heavily critiquing the unblemished Taylor for dating such a scumbag. Healy had at one point said that Swift’s mother looked like Miss Piggy. It was a major scandal last summer, believe me.)

So where are we? We don’t exactly have a roadmap for where we are as a society, but we would do well to heed these signs as a warning; that even the most well-intentioned of us can also be enticed by the idols of self and of money. We can be enticed especially by the idol of self-medicating to soothe our pain—for that is what Healy’s addiction is, nothing more than a response to the great existential pain that he carries.

It is also a good reminder that humans are fallible and can break our hearts, even our so-called cultural leaders. Matty said, while he was probably still sober, in an interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music in 2022, that he credited his bandmates with his salvation. I cannot imagine the heartbreak of those closest to him as he goes through these cycles, but I am still hopeful for his restoration and healing—even if it still feels painful to listen to his music.
Seeking Shalom Part II: Fasting & Flourishing

September 19th, 2022

When I was still living in Dublin I spent the last three years living in an area formerly known as Little Jerusalem, due to the once-thriving Jewish community who lived in the neighborhood. There are some rare Hebrew-origin streets names there which hint at this. I lived on a street called Reuben Avenue, and a stone’s throw away from my house was a Place called Rehoboth, which comes from Genesis 26:22, wherein Isaac finally finds a place to settle with his flocks and his family. Rehoboth essentially means “wide open spaces,” like that 90’s song from The Chicks!

He moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” Gen. 26:22

On the end of Rehoboth Place, there stands an enormous house that looks like it was built to be a multi-family dwelling. Rather, it was for one family in the 18th century who had twenty four (!!) children. They chose a place to live, then outside the city walls, where there were some good spring-fed wells, and they could have enough space for all their children; thus the name, and the large building.

Both this Irish family, and the family of Isaac, had to find a defined and definite place to settle down, in order to flourish. What is the connection between my exploration of weakness through fasting, and flourishing? I believe that it is to be found along our boundary lines.

Boundary Lines

A year ago I wrote about fasting and I made a claim that it should generate compassion through a recognition of our own weaknesses. “What fasting does is simultaneously heighten the threshold for personal suffering, and deepen a sense of compassion because of that suffering.” I have recently realized that I never backed up that claim, which is unscientific of me. Today I want to explore this claim a little bit, drawing from pastoral metaphors of boundary lines and wide open spaces.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage. Ps. 16:5-6

As we know from the first chapters of Genesis, each of us is like a cracked mirror–broken, weakened, flawed. Each of us has a lack, in one form or another. We each carry spiritual and therefore physical impoverishment, and to deny this about ourselves and the world would actually be an expression of that fallen state. Our brokenness should lead us back to God, without whom we cannot flourish. However, we are also finite beings, with other, normal–or even healthy–weaknesses, which delineate who we are and our abilities.

One of my now-favorite bible scholars I actually came across during the first lockdown while I was unemployed, and I reached out to him mid-2020 to thank him for how much his research had re-energized me as a scholar. (Ultimately our conversations and his guidance is what in fact led me to Germany this summer!) In my first email, I mentioned I was interested in researching fasting in the Hebrew Bible, and he responded that the isolation and low activity of the pandemic felt like a kind of fasting to him.

Although it was not technically fasting per se, many of us had the time to step away from our normal lives and to deeply examine our souls, to remind ourselves of what we truly value. We also faced our greatest fears around mortality and health, financial instability, and isolation. It was a painful denial of the goodness of social interaction for the greater good of others’ physical health and safety, as well as our own. It was a kind of vow of poverty which we all had to take.

Hangriness & Bad Habits

In one of my first posts about fasting, back in 2018, I talk about how fasting makes us hangry, in more ways than one: “There’s a deeper kind of agitated hunger that we uncover through fasting.” In my initial days cultivating this discipline, I used the physical hunger pangs I was feeling to redirect my mind toward my goal of uninterrupted time with Jesus, solely focused on Him and His Word. I became more able to tolerate the alarm signals in my body, and to train my being to understand that while I would be breaking my fast that evening, there was a greater good I was in pursuit of. This resulted, eventually, in control over my constant sugar cravings, among other transformations.

Initially I just saw this as a wonderful ascetic practice that was intended to bring about greater self-discipline and therefore Christlikeness. However, when I first began fasting, it was late 2016 and I had, for the second time, moved back from Dublin to live with my parents. I was 26 years old, living in a town where I had no friends, and the place just made me feel trapped, lifeless, and at times, hopeless that I would ever find my way back to Dublin to live there more permanently. So it makes sense that a sugar buzz temporarily dampened the depressed feeling I was living with. However, some of that hopelessness also stemmed from my fear that God would forget about me, and that He would not provide for me to return to Ireland. A spiritual wound, a sin-flaw, not to trust fully in God, and to take my own emotions as the truth.

Central here is that we often, or always, fail to see that “bad habits” are always somehow connected, especially our bodily habits, to deeper pain. If we don’t acknowledge the root cause, our spiritual impoverishment, then we will never be rid of the symptomatic bad habits that either niggle at or hound us daily. God wants deeper and deeper healing for us, but we have to have the bravery to choose it.

Boundary Lines

Let us return to the classic pastoral metaphor that I began with in Psalms. Each of us is allotted a wide open space, a pleasant and fertile land which is our lives, and it is our God-given responsibility, like Adam, or Isaac, to cultivate, nurture, and protect that land. If I am the landlady of my own life, and my silly sheep keep escaping through a broken fence in their pen, I must do the hard work of rebuilding that fence, ultimately to protect my livelihood. Then when the foxes come prowling around my perimeter at night, my sheep will no longer keep becoming someone else’s dinner.

How does this generate compassion, then, as I am claiming? Perhaps I know a younger or more inexperienced landowner who has broken fences that need mending, and they think buying border collie puppies will solve the problem, but it just doesn’t work. I could show my neighbor instead how to repair their fence. Or maybe I own a portion of forested land, and I can share timber for fencing, because my neighbor is poorer than I, and they are in need of wood. Awareness of our flaws should make us more compassionate toward the flaws we see in others, rather than antagonistic and full of blame and anger. I am no better than anyone else.

Put plainly, the goal of asceticism is to bear the fruit of righteousness, but that righteousness is not only of value in and of itself; it must be of benefit to others. This means mending fences, shoring up our weak places, and learning to flourish within our rehoboth.

Dwelling in Rehoboth

A further example from my time in Dublin: I initially thought that I loved youth ministry, but after seeing how exhausted and sick I became after one week of youth camp (two summers in a row!) once I returned to Dublin for my master’s, I stepped away from youth ministry to focus on young adult ministry, and especially, my studies. This is another kind of human weakness–a weakness at our limits, which actually indicates where our strength is. It makes sense that I would be plagued by awful sinus infection for a week or more after Pulse camp, because my body was constantly in fight-or-flight mode from overstimulation, lack of sleep, and physically pushing myself.

Our limits delineate who we are, which is why it is so important to know and fight for our boundaries. I am not responsible for guarding someone else’s cabbage patch; or if I try to pull slugs off someone’s tomatoes all day, then the rabbits will nibble away all my radishes, and my overgrown zucchini will choke out the onions, and all my ripe plums will fall to the ground, wasted.

How are my physical and mental limits also tied to my flawed sin nature? I can see now that my adrenaline-fueled time in youth ministry was actually driven by a wrong idea that I had to change my personality in order to fit in (and avoid rejection) as well as a sense of obligation to “perform” like a good missionary. That stemmed from my own previous wounds, insecurities, and dysfunctional ways of viewing the world. I didn’t respect my own limits, which is a sure path to burnout and spiritual barrenness. Once I started to respect those limits while doing my master’s, then I began to produce fruit that has led me to begin dreaming of a career as an academic and scholar.

Self-Compassion is Compassion

The cultivated pain and discipline of fasting (focused time in prayer and Bible-reading) clears our vision and gives perspective into our souls, illuminating the places where we need His healing. The time we spend reading the Bible, rather than eating, nourishes us with divine wisdom to then understand the shortcoming of others, and more broadly, the systemic dysfunction in our world. To willingly create a limit (i.e., I will fast once a week) can be perceived as weakness in a productivity-driven society. But it is within those boundary lines, on our fertile inner fields, that we can begin to flourish. That is God’s gift to us!

My responsibility–indeed, my calling– is to give that gift back to Him, through loving my neighbor as myself. If I am flourishing, then I can better serve others and find ways to help them flourish uniquely. I want to give out of a plentiful harvest. This includes the joyful responsibility of respecting my own limits and cherishing my unique strengths, but also the continued task of healing and ever-increasing in Christlike character and love. This, friends, is how we stay in pursuit of the shalom of the Kingdom, bringing heaven down to earth.
Snowdrops vs Slush

February 7th, 2022

The transition from winter to spring manifests itself completely differently in Ireland, versus here in the semi-arid steppes of the Columbia River Basin. We had over a foot of snow a month ago, and now it is melting away, slowly revealing only mud or flattened, dead yellow grass below. I recently saw someone in Dublin post a photo of snowdrops that had just appeared, and it reminded me of what I was missing. After the years I spent in Dublin, cycling through the seasons, and immersing myself consciously and subconsciously in the Irish way of things, I began to acclimate to the Celtic calendar and the rhythms of nature, which are much quieter and subtler than here in the US. Last week marked the entry into spring with the ancient feast of Imbolc, and St. Brigid’s Day.

Syncretism or Symbolism?

In nature, Imbolc brings the beginning of spring through the beginning of lambing season, the appearance of crocuses and snowdrops, and longer days, among other things. Snowdrops are tiny white flowers on slender, delicate stems, which appear at the end of January, and bring with them a sigh of relief. It brings a joy that reminds us that winter was dark and long and dormant, but that there was something lovely waiting to appear under the black soil, usually sheltered by some tree above.

Imbolc is associated with the mysterious figure of St. Brigid, who is attributed with establishing many convents, especially in County Kildare, between the 5th and 6th centuries. She was such an early saint that she is venerated both in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic church, because she was pre-schism! Brigid’s mother may even have been baptized by St. Patrick himself, making her an extra special figure.

She also has the same name as an Irish spring goddess, whose feast day was originally Imbolc, on February 1st. The goddess Brigid had a druidic shrine in Kildare. A Norman writer in the 12th century described her temple, wherein an eternal, ashless flame was guarded, and apparently no men were allowed to enter. Some scholars think that St. Brigid was a Christianized version of an already existing Celtic tradition, in Imbolc. We’re not even certain Brigid was a real person, and she could function as a composite figure representing several actual Irish Christian female saints, unnamed but roughly from the 5th or 6th centuries.

Hagiographies, or the biographies of saints lives, are delightfully mysterious and not straightforward, but the principles and truths that these compilations communicate are far truer than any accurate historical representation of how they lived. It’s not for us to say what is historical; too much time has passed. But the value in their lives lies not in the exact details, but in understanding what we can learn from these brothers and sisters in Christ. This was the ultimate goal of hagiographers who wrote about important Irish figures like St. Patrick, St. Kevin, St. Brigid, and St. Columcille. They were less historians and more theologians, weaving mysterious elements within that point the reader toward an awe of God and His faithfulness in the saints’ lives. Similarly, just because fairy tales are not “true” doesn’t mean they aren’t true, if you know what I mean. Metaphor and symbol can be much more powerful than direct speech, even for those of us who have seen and do believe in the miraculous, supernatural power of God.

We might call St. Brigid a syncretistic figure, and in missiology we don’t like that; but after living in Ireland so long, the pull of the seasons, the influence of nature and our dependence on her are irresistible reasons to associate a figure like St. Brigid with the beginning of spring. Instead of syncretism, it could be viewed as a redemption of good and natural human celebrations, only viewed through the life-changing power of the resurrection, symbolized, for the Irish, by St. Brigid’s life and ministry. All the more wonderful is the fact that women’s work in the Kingdom of God is routinely celebrated and remembered these past fifteen centuries.

Sacred Seasons and Liturgy

Much in a similar way to how our Christian holidays conform to seasonal celebrations (Christmas right around the winter solstice, Easter vaguely within spring, etc.), our daily and yearly rhythms are the boundaries and limits in which we can best understand and practice our faith. I find myself, even as a Pentecostal, yearning for much more liturgy in church. It orients us to the truth, to God, and our relationship to Him, time and again, especially when our lives look so different after living through a global pandemic.

I don’t know how to explain it, but the changing of the seasons in Ireland feels much more immediate. Spring arrives in the beginning of February, summer in May, and autumn in early September. Something about its northerly latitude and the mild weather means that within a day or two of new seasons, aligned instead to the lunar cycle rather than the solar year, there is a definite shift that occurs. Suddenly, the color of the light changes, as days lengthen after Imbolc, the air seems less oppressively cold, and with the appearance of snowdrops and crocuses, it’s a reminder of just how incredibly fertile the land is, and always was.

The green persists year-round in Ireland and there is often no snow to melt away, but fresh life and delicate flowers bursting from the ground can bring a joy that I cannot describe, after the doldrums of January pass, and the edge of depression that everyone feels after such long, dark nights. Everyone begins to feel it, and with it, more optimism, and all the chats usually contain the phrase, “Grand auld stretch in the evenings, isn’t there?” (This refers to the increasing stretch of extra daylight in the spring.)

Snowmelt

Lately as I slowly awaken to how much I do miss Dublin, after two months away, and a changing season, spring in a “foreign” place, without snowdrops or St. Brigid’s crosses, feels a little disorienting. Not only am I separate from the community and family I have in Dublin, but the evidence of spring here is just slush and mud, as the snow melts away. I crave that fresh and vibrant Dublin air, potent with humidity and tinged by the mingling of river water and salt air.

As I adjust to life in the US again and see signs of hope and spring emerging far differently and less beautifully than in Dublin, I think of all my peers who have been struggling for years to find some semblance of stability or security in our lives, our careers, our living situations. It is especially precarious for those of us foreigners who lived or still live there, and the unique challenges we face. So many from my generation have seen huge upheavals in our lives; career changes or job losses or moves back home, amid all the other losses and chaos and societal unrest. As I grieve for my old life, I grieve collectively with my friends and my two sisters, who have also lost much in the pandemic.

I don’t recognize my surroundings anymore, and it is confusing and disorienting to yearn inwardly for Irish spring and the dependable changes as this new year progresses, and to be unable to find that. The incipit of spring in 2022 represents something totally new; it represents something very uncomfortable: both hope and ambiguity. As I settle into a new job in a university, preparing for my next chapter as a scholar, still unsure of where I will be living 6 months from now, the slushy snow and mud that is under my feet when I take a walk reminds me that sometimes newness and hope can be a little bit ugly and unappealing.

Yet, hope is still hope, even when it takes on a strange form. We can still sing, like Israel did, even from the ruins.

“Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.” Isaiah 52:9 NRSV
A Brief Theology of Suffering

December 28th, 2021

I am sitting in the back of St. Teresa’s Church on Clarendon Street, next to my dear friend Donncha and his little one, Michael. It is dull mid-November and it is already night. We are there for a healing meeting at a Charismatic Catholic group called Living Water. I am weary, and desperately in need of healing in my soul. Before me, adorning the altar, as if spilling out of a tomb is a white marble statue of the broken body of Christ. It is a strangely beautiful and radiant image of a gruesome moment. The Adoration service is nearly over, and suddenly I encounter the real presence of Jesus, represented by the communion wafer visible in the gilt monstrance standing atop the altar, like a cruciform starburst. This is why I came, and at last, He speaks to my hurting heart.

I have come with fresh and bleeding wounds, and some newly healed with bright pink scars. I won’t elaborate any details, but despite the wholly positive and wonderful memories and experiences I had in Dublin, there is a common thread in the moments where I experienced the most pain over the years.

Throughout my life, at times, the defining characteristic of Leslie—her quiet thoughtfulness and hesitation to speak, her soft voice and gentle nature—were at times highlighted as rendering me insufficient, as if something was wrong with me. I have always been desperate to serve God to the utmost of my ability, and this, combined with my obliging and gentle nature, was easily exploited. I didn’t even realize until recently that I have a long history of being taken advantage of and even bullied—my unique spirit trampled, and boundaries disregarded. Even worse was that I had slowly become a people pleaser while serving in Ireland.

I had two major heartbreaks in the past two years; one was a relationship I was sure was destined to culminate in a marriage, and the other was an abrupt ending to my café job. The varying levels of emotional abuse and bullying I endured were confusing and painful, and both ended in loss and grief. It echoed some of my experiences of serving in Irish churches, which, unfortunately, is inevitable. Christians sometimes do things which can be unspeakably cruel or cold. Church hurt is the absolute worst.

I pondered this pain on that evening in St. Teresa’s, sitting in the warmly lit silence, bathed in candlelight and streaming winter streetlights through the back windows. I will admit that since that heartbreak in early 2020, which I endured near complete isolation during lockdown, I had trouble praying. One day in particular I cried and cried on my back, shrieking silently, asking Jesus why. I never felt a calming or comforting presence there with me as my heart was rent from my body, and all my dreams died.

For a while I wondered why I even followed Jesus, and during a dark period that summer I wondered whether I was about to lose my faith. It was unconscionable to me, yet I was living in that uncomfortable reality. It was well over six months before I was able to cry again, because the previous times when I cried without comfort, it brought such physical pain that my body refused to allow it. I don’t even remember how long it was before I was able to mutter prayers of just a handful of words. It must have been closer to a year. All the while, even when I could not pray, I missed the pure, simple presence of Jesus that I always encountered during monthly Adoration services with my Catholic friends. I felt so alienated from God, but I knew I needed Him.

These experiences left me feeling unwanted, unappreciated, unseen, like my work and my love had been fruitless; defeated. So when Jesus finally spoke to me in the warmth of St. Teresa’s, everything made sense, and I felt Him near me in a way I hadn’t for many long months. I asked Him why, and He showed me His body, which had been stretched out before me the entire hour. Suddenly I saw my own rejection and misunderstanding and abuse contextualized through His own.

He said that His wounds were for my benefit, for the benefit of many, for the world. My wounds had no meaning or context in isolation, only regarding my own life. Our pain is meaningless if it is kept hidden and in isolation. But when bared bravely, our painful wounds can be exactly that by which someone else is healed, for by His wounds we are healed.

As I look back on these experiences, I see moments in which I wish someone could have stood up for me, to refute the injustice of the situation. I am proud to say that all along the way I stood up for myself, but I had a lot to learn about my threshold for tolerating poor treatment. I also could not have foreseen that these heartbreaks would actually begin to shape and feed into my academic research on fasting, suffering, and compassion, and above all, to fuel me with a greater purpose for becoming a scholar. Now I will not be silent when I see injustice and oppression, and it starts with my ability to choose what I will and will not tolerate for myself.

Philippians 2:3-4 talks about how we should consider one another better than ourselves, and that we should not pursue our own selfish ambitions, but to consider the welfare of the other above our own: this is healthy humility and servanthood. This ideal does not work if it is not reciprocal, which is an extremely simplified way to define abuse.

All of this is to say that I have shied away from making strong statements in the past, but my real experiences of being exploited or abused when I was most vulnerable have kindled a flame within me. I have been an immigrant with no built-in community to fall back on. I have been in the hospitality industry, living without any savings since 2017. I have experienced emotional abuse such as manipulation, coercive control, and gaslighting by a romantic partner—someone I met in church! I have been a woman not taken seriously by peers or superiors both in church contexts and academic contexts, despite my education, training, and experience in those field—intensely frustrating.

Leslie has always been quiet. The volume level of my physical voice will not change, but I believe it is time for me to step forward and begin to raise my voice. My goal is not to condemn anyone, but to cry out for increased compassion toward others, rather than hardened hearts. This can only come if we have self-compassion for our brokenness, for we will begin to see it in everyone we meet, if we are truly discerning—even the most despicable among us. This is the only way for the light to shine through the cracks.

Please, do not let your pain be meaningless. It will not be transformed and until we choose healing, when we are ready. That image of Christ’s dead body is stark, but unyielding in its representation of His very real suffering. When we choose to bare our wounds, it does not make them hurt any less. It does not shorten the duration of the pain; it does not magically erase the heartbreak. I hoped my healing encounter that night in November would make it all evaporate from my heart, mind, and body. Instead, it lessened the burden, because I knew I was not suffering alone, or pointlessly.

As I look forward to a new chapter, it is my hope and prayer that I can use my own God-given Leslie voice to speak loudly on behalf of those vulnerable, underprivileged, and often silent. I may step on a few toes, but it is worth it if I can amplify the voice of someone else who has long been hesitant or afraid to speak. The ones who have been quiet the longest often have the deepest and most beautiful things to say. Listen to us.

This little blog of mine doesn’t reach many people, but I want to publicly mark this moment, here in the earliest hours of my 32^nd birthday, as a step forward into the light. I have been waiting to “speak” until I felt I had something of value to say, and I know now I have a message that I know will carry me forward, both as a missionary and as a female scholar in biblical studies.

Sometimes I still wonder why I had to endure such awful things, but now I understand that I can channel it toward loving others, administering healing and compassion, and founding friendships that will change lives and communities, one moment and one soul at a time. This has always been my loudest prayer, and it is humbling to know that Jesus chooses to use me in this way.
Transition and Provision

August 13th, 2021

We sometimes throw around the phrase ‘Jehovah Jireh,’ God provides. It’s easy to say, easy to tell someone when they are worried about the future. But that phrase comes from Genesis 22, the story of the Binding of Isaac. The Binding of Isaac, as in the story when Abraham brings his promised firstborn son up the mountain, and Isaac asks him where the sacrifice is, because they have everything for a burnt offering except the animal. And Abraham trudges steadily upward with his son and their servants, and tells him God will provide (v. 8).

This phrase, YHWH Jireh, or yir-eh, literally means ‘God will see.’ In English it gets translated as ‘provide,’ which is beautiful, because it is the Latin word for ‘to see’, paired with the preposition pro-, which means ‘to foresee.’ It just adds kind of a spatial element to this pericope: I get the sense that God was watching from the heavens, above the mount where he could see Abraham and Isaac in uncertainty on one side, and a ram caught in the thicket on the other side of the peak. He did not just orchestrate things so there would be a sacrifice in Isaac’s place–and what an incredible Christological parallel!–but he saw it all. This is why He asked Abraham to trust Him.

I am in the middle of a long-haul transition here. Last year I was struck unexpectedly with inspiration to pursue a PhD in a slightly different direction academically, which means it will take me to a totally new location. Last year’s moment of inspiration has transformed me as a person, as a scholar, and totally changed my life overall, in such a short period of time.

Some of you have been hearing me talk about super cool Bible scholars in all sorts of places, from Atlanta, Georgia to Germany, and month by month and week by week there has been nothing but development and growth and opening of doors. My head hasn’t stopped spinning all year. At this point I am living in the ambiguity of not knowing where I’ll be studying, but pursuing opportunities headfirst anyway.

Within only a few weeks of arriving back in Dublin, I knew I needed to find an end date for my time at the café where I’ve been working since 2019. I began to pray profusely all through July, and after a terribly difficult and stressful two weeks, made the agonizing decision to leave behind a place and people that had been my second home through a chaotic period. I started teaching recently at my alma mater, Northwest University, as an adjunct instructor for an online theology course. My priority this last number of months has been academics, and I have had to be swiftly decisive time and again to protect my studying and writing time. So I have handed in my notice, and now, my last day ever as a barista is in one week.

It is still too early to know when I’ll be leaving Dublin: I will be staying here for the time being, teaching from across the Atlantic, perhaps taking on some individual students to tutor, and furiously studying all my research languages.

But returning to this city after five months away has made me see it almost with fresh eyes, especially when the pandemic has contorted what I used to know. I have memories of this place going back almost a decade, and so many friendships spanning all these years. My oldest friends, from St. Mark’s, know me as the crazy American who would not give up until she was in Dublin. I went back and forth so many times between Dublin and the US in the span of five years, and each time I felt I was returning home.

Me and some friends on my last Sunday after a year at St. Mark’s in 2015, before I went back to the US (for the first time.)

However, as difficult as it may be for my dear friends to hear, so many brothers and sisters of my heart, I have always known Dublin would not be my long-term home. I have relished every moment here, treasured the times with friends and cherished the things I have experienced, because I always knew deep in my heart that this was for a specific chapter of my life, as a young twenty-something who was happy to live in the middle of a noisy city and make coffee while her dreams were brewing under the surface.

Reuniting with these friends after the pandemic has been a tonic, like a reminder of who I am. Yesterday I had breakfast with a friend at my favorite place, The Fumbally, and I was describing to her how I just knew it was the right thing to quit my job at the café, even though I only know I am contracted to work for NU through October, at this point. I said something like, well I guess I’m just going to have to take this step as a step of faith. And she said Leslie, that’s pretty much the norm for you. This is standard for as long as I’ve known you.

I forgot, somehow, that this is how I’ve been living my entire adult life. The only way I got to where I am, living in Dublin, with a master’s in theology and opportunity and potential to become a biblical scholar, is by taking a step before I could see the path in front of me, Indiana Jones style. Five years ago I took the scariest step of faith, and the events that followed my brave choice to summer in Ireland without plans resulted in me finding my true vocation in academia. God saw. God saw.

I’m still miffed they didn’t let me keep my master’s hood. I would probably still be wearing it now. (Graduation, 2019)

I feel very much like Bilbo Baggins, thrust out, unprepared, on an adventure he didn’t ask for when he would rather stay cozy at home, where life is stable, reliable, and predictable. It has never been easy. I made sacrifices of so much to pursue this life. I bitterly struggle, constantly, with the fact that I do not have my own house and that I am not settled down yet–separate to the fact that I am single and still waiting to find my life partner! Beyond that, this current ambiguity of not knowing where I will be living for the next five plus years as a PhD is the keenest form of torture I have ever known.

I feel weary lately, weary with not knowing, and weary from pushing myself a little too hard for the last year. I think at this stage I am almost at the top of the mountain, knowing God will provide because He will see my needy circumstance. My legs are burning, my lungs are bursting, I’m running out of water.

But I just want to record this painful moment here, so that whenever I finally get to announce where I’ve been accepted to do my PhD, it will come as the provision to a great need, an answer to all the sacrifices I’ve made, a fulfillment of a huge and long-looming question.

Me in July 2012, first time in Dublin.

For a very long time I knew specifically I was supposed to be in Ireland, and once I got here in 2014 I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to be doing. That came in time, really slowly. But now, the exact opposite has happened: I know that I am meant to be taking on a PhD and studying the topic of fasting in the Old Testament. But God won’t budge or give me any hint about where I’m supposed to be studying. Maybe He won’t reveal it until I’m at the top of the mountain.

But until then, I just have to remember that God will see me struggling upwards with empty hands, knowing I have great need of provision. Truly countless times He has met me atop the mountain of sacrifice, filling my hands when I came with nothing.

Things are falling into place. I can see some of it, and I know there must be more happening behind the scenes. But be encouraged, because when God calls us to make a big sacrifice, sometimes He is asking us to sacrifice something we don’t have yet, and we can be confident that if He is calling, then He will meet us there in that place.
Horizons

July 5th, 2021

The first career I remember dreaming about as a kid was becoming a scientist (thank you, Bill Nye). I also wanted to become an artist, because I loved painting and drawing.

I remember when we moved to Soap Lake, Washington, a woman at my new elementary school asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I told her either a scientist or an artist. I won’t forget the confused look on her face, as if those two things were opposites, and that it was a ridiculous dream.

But when we ask kids that question, what we’re really trying to find out is who they are, just as much as they are learning who they truly are. I remember feeling disheartened by her response, because she was, in essence, by dismissing my dreams, dismissing me.

Sometimes life’s path can seem a little meandering; in community college I was led by my artistic impulses to take ceramics classes for a year. I absolutely loved it, even though I was no good. Little did I know that in my thirties, I would come to find my artistic inclination come to meld deliciously with my love of science in archaeology. Looks like that pottery class wasn’t inconsequential, after all!

I’m still a budding Indiana Jones in some ways, but knowing terminology and the tactile reality of making pottery has been such an advantage as I have begun to explore archaeology in the ancient Levant.

Based simply upon how the pottery is formed, how it is finished (burnished, glazed, painted, left plain…) we can tell where it was made, which shows us that if it has traveled far, due to trade in the region; approximately when it was made, based not only on the development of the style or techniques, but how the movement of peoples and their pottery styles influenced the changes to the pottery in the area; and through petrography and minerology, from where exactly the clay was taken, within 200 meters squared! There is so much information we can gather from such a commonplace object. There are even some archaeologists that think they can discern what type of society ancient Israel was–conjectured to be egalitarian and embracing simplicity, versus materialistic–based upon the unadorned nature of their pottery.

Canaanite jar

In an archaeological dig, much of the work is done on what are called tels. It is a specific word for the manmade hills upon which ancient Levantine settlements were built, layer by layer. So each site has a tel named after it, sometimes similar to what we have in the bible, and sometimes with a different name.

The way we extract information about these ancient settlements is to dig through them layer by layer in order to uncover the artifacts that could be there in the soil, and this reading of the data is called stratigraphy. Even the soil itself is extremely useful in providing information about how the soil got there. For instance, if there is ash, did something burn, or did the ash gather there, blown by the wind? It can also give us information about the type of vegetation which flourished in that era, and therefore the climate at the time, thereby helping us understand fluctuations in population and movements of peoples.

Model of ancient Jerusalem

This knowledge, then, should give us a deeper understanding of what it means in Isaiah 61:4 when the prophet says that Israel will one day build the ancient ruins, and repair the “devastations of many generations.” One devastation after the other, these strata were built up into an increasingly higher “city on a hill.” At times the tels lay uninhabited for hundreds (or even thousands) of years, until they were inhabited again at a later period in time, and people simply rebuilt: sometimes smaller settlements, and sometimes larger, but always atop the old foundation.

Everything we can glean from a particular stratum usually shows commonalities along strata from around the same date, in the wider region. These established cultural traits are called the archaeological horizon. It reflects a reality that once existed, that once thrived, that has been destroyed and gone for thousands of years, but that still speaks to us about what once was real. And just as physically these layers provide the foundation for the next stratum, it is the same with technological advances: from the Bronze Age until now, we build a new present on previous realities.

I feel that since last year, I went through a devastation phase–again. In some ways the personal devastation wrought by the pandemic feels strangely familiar, reflecting the many times I have moved in my life. Each time I move I have to rebuild myself, in a way. I have to reintroduce myself, I have to reestablish myself in who I am, and build from the resources I have around me. Sometimes those resources have been extremely scant, and in other places, like here in Dublin, they have tended to be plentiful and rich.

I know that while I was in the US for those unexpected five months this year, I transformed. I developed tremendously as a scholar because I did nothing but read and study. But also I made conscious and continuous choices to heal from the traumatic experiences I had in 2020. I rebuilt myself from the ground up. I am still the same Leslie, but just in a new phase.

Therefore, returning to Ireland and even moving house a month ago has made me feel like I am again in a rebuilding period, post-devastation, with meagre resources. I still have the memories and even artifacts of the previous horizon: photos and gifts and mementos which remind me of my once busy social life, in which I was running in so many different social circles–academic, church ones, non church ones, work ones, etc.. Some of my friends are still in Dublin, many are not. I have changed churches. It’s different, and I feel a gentle, pervasive sense of grief that I associate with Dublin now.

All this to say that it is forcing me, in the lonesome moments, in these recent weeks when my energy levels are not what they used to be, to dig deep and reexamine my old horizons. What makes me who I am? What makes me feel like myself, when my same friends no longer surround me in their dozens? Where is my old self-sufficiency, when I had to entertain and sustain myself in seasons of loneliness?

All of these strata which make up an archaeological tel have one thing in common: they are called destruction layers, for all that remains are the foundations of what used to be there. Whatever grandiosity, whatever flourishing life was there, has vanished, but the base which held the settlements and grounded life is still there for us to examine, and to learn from.

When everything is swept away, and we no longer recognize our old lives, remember the foundation is still there. And remember that we can rebuild on our foundations, because they remain sure as ever. As we come out of this pandemic, whatever we rebuild from the devastation will be something completely new, but based on our same true selves.

Regardless of whether our old selves were “better” or more grand, my prayer for our world is that our new selves will be truer than before. Let us also remember that we cannot build something to last if it is not built on the solid foundation of who we were created to be in Him. And finally, let us have the courage to dig into our souls, to remember the previous horizons that brought us here, in order to expand into a new horizon.

Model of the second temple built by Ezra, and refurbished by King Herod
Reflections in Exodus

March 30th, 2021

In the course of my master’s, we did a class on theology and the arts, and one thing we focused on in particular was iconography. This comes out of the Eastern Orthodox tradition: icons are two-dimensional representations of saints or special moments in their lives, which act as windows to the heavenly, in essence. And due to the density of their visual theological meaning, when one creates an icon, it is called writing an icon, not painting.

Icons are written always upon a golden background, created with gold leaf. And the dimensions of an icon usually look funny, especially with their somber faces and huge eyes, but everything is shaped in a kind of reverse perspective, so that instead of receding away as things do in reality, the icon seems to be advancing toward you. It’s strange and surreal, but how else can one represent the heavenly realm?

In Greek this says, “Moses receives the Law from God.” Notice the sandals cast aside in the lower left corner.

The idea is that the saint represented in the icon is in fact looking at you, not the reverse. It is peering at you from heaven, from the presence of God, inviting you closer to Him. I get the same feeling when I read Scripture. That it is peering into me, examining me, and calling me closer to Jesus. It’s like gazing into a mirror sometimes.

In Exodus 15:22-27, the first thing that happens after the Israelites cross the Red Sea is they complain. Surprising, right? They went three days into the wilderness with no water, and when they did find water in a place called Marah, they couldn’t drink its waters because they were bitter. (Marah means ‘bitterness,’ which is why it was named that in the first place.) Possibly due to something like a thirst-induced delirium, they begin to panic and complain against Moses, wondering what they are to drink. Moses cries out to God, who shows him a piece of wood (or a tree, these are the same word in Hebrew), and Moses throws the wood into the waters, and they become sweet and drinkable.

The second portion of this little pericope (story) is a little odd, because then it says that God puts them to the test and tells them if they obey His commands and keep His statutes, He will not bring the same diseases upon them as He did the Egyptians, just a few chapters earlier. He says this is because He is Yhwh who heals them. You may know this phrase as “Jehovah Rophe.” It’s puzzling, because if the Israelites are well, why is He telling them He heals them when they don’t have any diseases? Do they need healing at this moment?

There are two levels of resonance in this text, beyond the literary context. The book of Exodus is attributed to Moses by tradition, and this statement is fraught with lots of places for current biblical scholarship to jump in and disagree. There is the possibility that Moses, as we know him, did not exist, not to mention the fact that the earliest forms of alphabetic writing did not begin to spring up in the Levant until after the Bronze Age, which is when the Exodus is located in time.

As a scholar, I can say with confidence that while Moses likely did not write down the Torah himself, if anything can be traced back to Moses, it would have to be through the oral tradition. This means that Israel only had the infrastructure in place in order to begin writing down their own history once they were exiled in the 6th century BCE. By infrastructure, I mean scribal training and physical resources, which were not widely available, only to an elite literati.

Why is this so important? What do I mean by this dual resonance? What was it the Israelites needed healing from, there in the desert? This is where I was able to add another level of resonance in my reading this morning, filtering it through my experiences in the last year.

This time of year, for most, if not all of us, is a traumatic anniversary. The experiences I had last year make it actually very painful to think about what happened a year ago. This time last year, while we were in lockdown, I went through a breakup, in almost complete isolation. It was a very unhealthy relationship, and brief as it was, I am still today sorting through wounds I received in those few months. And now, I am remembering how excruciating it was to experience such an ugly breakup while having to be isolated from anybody I love. There was no comfort at all for me. Those months made up the darkest period of my life.

I am probably not the only one who also finds it difficult to pray lately. I feel so dry and receive little joy or consolation when I am able to formulate a short prayer. I also feel somewhat emotionally dry, and haven’t been able to cry much in the last nine months or so. It’s like I used up all my tears in those months of lockdown in 2020. It’s a really foreign and strange place to be, psychologically.

By instinct, I still pray, but my prayers are like fleeting glances at the face of God, and my relationship with Him right now feels stiff and cold while I am healing. I still don’t understand why I had to experience that feeling of near-abandonment. My hope is that the total experience will be redeemed for some greater purpose in the future.

In this story from Exodus, I find my reflection there in the bitter waters of Marah. I am bitter. I need healing. I need transforming. Just as a people subjugated to hundreds of years of slavery, once freed, would have been bitter. And just as a people, subjugated once again by foreign rule, in exile from their homelands, would have been bitter as well.

God brought visible diseases upon the Egyptians by the plagues. But bitterness is inward, and while the Israelites may have been physically healthy, they most certainly were bitter at this point in their history, whether it be post-exodus, or during exile. I don’t want my pain to poison me, the bitterness I experienced to embitter me.

I look at the waters of Marah and I see my own tears. Once a few years ago, I felt God gave me a promise that what tasted bitter to me at that moment would one day taste sweet, and it came from this same story. I find myself physically in the same place as I was when He spoke that to me. I am back in the stark, sagebrush steppes of Central Washington, drinking not only the bitterness of memory, but also the bitterness of loneliness and isolation from my dear friends in Europe.

The solution is not to find new waters, but to transform these waters of bitterness into sweet, live-giving waters. The Bible says Moses threw a tree into the water in order to do that. Not only can wood be used to purify water—like Moringa olifeira seed cakes, or charcoal, both bitter things—but this tree/wood so strikingly makes me think of another tree of bitterness. The Cross.

Maybe it seems impossible. Maybe our desert thirst has made us forget the greatness we have seen God demonstrate in our own lives. But when He leads us to the waters waters of Marah, bitter though they may be, we must drink them, or else perish in the desert.

I still cling to that promise, that what tastes bitter to me—to us—now, will one day taste sweet. I am confident of that. And I am also confident that, if we choose to let Him, He will heal our souls from bitterness and create rivers of living water within us.
More Energy to Grow

August 17th, 2020

A few weekends ago, I woke up one Saturday, and, after spending essentially 5 months confined to my bedroom, I just felt like my space wasn’t a haven anymore. It felt more like a jail cell. Lockdown was hellish, and my bedroom needed refreshing.
Fortuitously, my house is located just down the street from a pretty big garden center, and so I’ve spent the last few weekends picking out the perfect plants for different ledges and corners of my room. I went from having four plants to now owning ten, from tiny ones to a couple majestic mid-size tropical plants atop my dresser. And through the process, I’ve unexpectedly discovered a new hobby in tending my plants.
It appeals to so much of me, in my temperament and interests, from the etymology of the name and the plant’s origin, to the scientific classification and other botanical information, to learning the best way to water them, and watching them grow or respond to the sunlight. One in particular is called a prayer plant because it lifts its leaves at night, and it always reminds me to pray when I see it tucked in for the night.
Peacock plant, or Ctenanthe burle-marxii
In the midst of learning something new, which always excites me, I heard a plant-lover on YouTube casually say of a new plant that she would trim off some yellowing or damaged leaves so that the plant can use more energy to grow and unfurl some new leaves.
The plant in the top photo, my marble queen pothos, had a good few damaged leaves, just from bringing it home from the nursery, and later some sun damage that was my fault. I have meticulously, almost prayerfully, meditatively, pruned those damaged or yellowing leaves off the plant, and it looks so much better, to my surprise. And the new crinkly leaves that are starting to uncurl will now have a better chance to grow, and to bring new, fuller growth to the plant.
Jade plant, or crassula ovata
But this pruning and watching new, slow growth and change reminds me so much of life right now, and of one of my favorite passages of scripture, John 15.
Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. …Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. (vv. 2b, 4)
Honestly, lately I find it hard to focus deeply on studying Scripture: my ability to concentrate comes and goes, which is hard for me as an academic. And I need the external reminder of my prayer plant, and even still sometimes I forget or just can’t pray much because of the pain. My prayers usually contain two, three, or four words, when I do pray.
My life has been pruned back majorly because of this pandemic. It’s lonely. So many of my close friends have moved away and my social circles have shrunk dramatically. I went through a devastating breakup in the middle of lockdown, which compounds every other sense of loss or grief that I encounter. And on top of all of that, I don’t know when I will be able to go safely back to the US to see my family without having to spend four weeks total in quarantine–something I am eager to avoid after the experience of lockdown. I’m not even sure I could afford to go on a vacation, which I am dying for.
I take it one day at a time and try to laugh lots, and find the joy in the moment, but really I am not okay lately. I am always reminded of what I lost, constantly aware that my family isn’t here, and in a time when I need hugs the most, people aren’t hugging. It feels soul-crushing.
I don’t know why my life got pruned back as dramatically as it did. Some leaves or vines were taking too much from my life, that is true. I have started growing in a new direction which is very exciting. But most of the vines that got cut back were really healthy.
He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. (v. 2)
But now, learning what I have from my own real and symbolic experience with these beautiful, lush growing things, is that now whatever energy I have can help me grow more. I spend more time at home and less time out with friends, but I have a new hobby that brings me so much joy. I’m reading an exciting new biblical studies book and have new fuel for my own research. And the friends I’m left with here really are true friends, for which I am grateful.
It doesn’t make it any easier or less painful. Going back to work, I can see not only my coworkers but the customers are also just crankier, more tired, more haggard. But the good news is we still don’t stop growing. And someday I’ll see what the vinegrower had in mind when He pruned my life back so drastically. I have no other choice but to grow in what I do have, and this blog is a start. I haven’t blogged in more than a year. Look, a new leaf!
I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
Chinese money plant/missionary plant (Pilea peperomioides), marble queen pothos (Epipremnum aureum), Icon of Christ the Teacher, Philodendron brasil, and my friend’s spider plant
Psalm 23: The Thrill of the Chase

June 25th, 2018
One of my favorite TV series is called Grantchester. It centers around Sidney Chambers, a young vicar in 1950’s in the village of Grantchester, near Cambridge. He buddies up with the local police detective, Geordie, and, through his special insight into the human heart and his position as a trusted man, he helps solve crimes around the area.

It’s a marvelous show, full of heart, and I really only watched it because I felt like Sidney was a real person; never have I cared so much for the welfare of a fictional character!

The final shot of the pilot episode shows Sidney and Geordie strolling through a lush, summery field, followed by Sidney’s new puppy, Dickens.

As you would with a new puppy, Sidney calls out for him to stop sniffing around and to keep following him.

As adorable as it is, pastoral as the imagery is, this is what I used to have in mind when I read Psalm 23:6 (NRSV)

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

When it says God’s “goodness and mercy shall follow me,” I imagine them following me in a bumbling kind of way, tagging along, distracted, something I always have to turn back to call, “Come on! Keep going! I’m walking this way, follow me!” Puppies are cute, but they’re untrained and it can be agitating to have to constantly direct them.

That changed a few weeks ago when I was doing some Bible study, looking into the original Hebrew of this psalm. I was struck by three words in this verse:
1. Surely
2. Mercy
3. Follow
Unfortunately, sometimes the English loses much of the original meaning, and the word follow in Hebrew is much more intense; it should actually be translated as to chase or to pursue!

How much of a difference does it make knowing that God is actually pursing or even chasing you with His love and goodness? I don’t have to call behind me, to remind God’s love to keep following me. “Come on! Don’t get distracted! COME ON!” I’m certainly glad that God’s love is behind me, pursuing me, rather than carelessly tagging along like a puppy.

The word mercy is a highly important Hebrew word, called hesed. (It would be translated agape in Greek.) The short translation is steadfast love or covenant loyalty, but it is such a densely-packed word, full of meaning. My favorite preacher, David Platt, defines it this way:

This is a uniquely divine love. This is not a man manufactured, man created love. This is love that flows from God toward his people. …There’s a picture of divine love, compassion, loyalty, kindness, goodness, mercy, grace, all wrapped up into one.

It’s such an important, heavy word that a new term had to be invented for it: in the KJV it is translated as lovingkindness. This is the loving, eternal faithfulness of God, and not only does it follow us, it pursues or chases us our whole lives long.

Lastly, the word surely is more than simply an emphatic word affirming the rest of the contents of the verse. Your bible may even have a footnote for this one: the word surely can actually be translated as only.

There is so much packed into this one verse. It is not just “mercy” which pursues and chases us, but God’s unfailing love; His faithfulness, His kindness, His unbreakable loyalty to us; all through Christ, who was descendant of the David who wrote this psalm. What a relief it is to know that I don’t have to call behind me, to remind God’s goodness (or beauty in Hebrew!) and hesed to keep following behind me, to stay close.

To know that only these things will chase after me reminds me that I have never been abandoned or forgotten about, even in times when it seems God won’t answer my prayers.

You don’t have to do anything, friend. If you feel like your prayers are more like Sidney calling back to his pup, change your perspective. It is God who pursues us, it is God who calls us closer to Him as we seek Him in prayer, especially when His answers don’t look the way we thought they would.

Take heart, because you are being pursued by a good God, the Good Shepherd, and He has never forgotten you. Let yourself lean upon His love, His hesed, because it is there for you when you are weak.
For Rashel.

April 17th, 2016

I love The Fumbally. In Dublin I went multiple times a week, sometimes for breakfast. I’d order the same every time–eggs and a flat white, for here please–and I’d sit with my Bible and slowly savor everything. But what kept me coming back was the pure atmosphere of love. Often people would walk in and enfold someone in a warm and tight embrace. I’ve never seen so much love in a café.

As an introvert, especially on days off, it is not my nature to converse with someone who’s serving me coffee or breakfast. But I grew to love that place because of the people in it, and I learned names and chatted and tried to show them how much I cared for them.

Rashel was one of those people.

Yesterday was hard. Rashel Winn, of The Fumbally, passed away on her 29th birthday. She had cancer.

Sadness and grief have been weighing heavily on me since I heard. Since I learned of her cancer she was always covered in my prayers. And I can’t believe she’s gone.

I barely knew her; she was my barista. She was ‘just’ my barista, you might say. But there is more to it.

When trying to reconcile why my heart hurts so much to lose someone I hardly knew, I see now how I have been deeply moved by the love and care that was poured into every aspect of The Fumbally. The food is amazing and the coffee is the best of the best.

Beyond that, the people who work there are a family, and the people who inhabit those mismatched chairs share a common desire for love and excellence over convenience and efficiency. It is an art form, putting your soul into something to give another soul, to be nourished and refreshed by it. There is a fellowship around food and coffee that cannot be recreated. Food unites us and we become better simply by living alongside each other.

Such a personal place, The Fumbally became somewhere I fit in, because everyone was so comfortable in their individuality. It’s not about being hipster, because you could call it that. It’s a place where you can be yourself, and that is good enough. You can wear your trendy athleisure clothes and Nikes and matte nude lipstick, or you can wear Birkenstocks and daisies and big glasses, and regardless, you will belong.

I found a home at The Fumbally I never realized I was looking for.

I flourished as a person because of my time there. And it could not have been if it weren’t for people like Rashel. The first time I talked to her, I came in to ask about barista courses and we ended up talking for almost twenty minutes. It was so fun to have someone from home there; she had lived in Seattle for a while so she just ‘got’ me.

She was wonderful. She was hilarious and sweet and bright and a joy to say hello to those mornings. Her coffee was amazing. She made me a coffee once that tasted of forest berries and black tea and it bowled me over because it was so deliciously unexpected.

The last coffee I had there was made by Rashel. She had just been to Italy for barista camp and created an amazing peacock rosetta in my flat white.

I thank God for that place. I miss it constantly and have even dreamed multiple times of being there again. My heart hurts so much for those who knew her as part of the Fambully, and I look forward to the day I go back home to heavy wooden tables and coffee cups full of love.