Walk in: Losing Your Life by Letting Go of Shaming Identities
The friend
We sat across the table.
he said, cut off your hands.
they are always poking at things.
they might touch me.
I said yes.
Food grew cold on the table.
he said, burn your body.
it is not clean and smells like sex.
it rubs my mind sore.
I said yes.
I love you, I said.
That’s very nice, he said
I like to be loved,
that makes me happy.
Have you cut off your hands yet?
By Marge Piercy, “The friend” from Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). First appeared in Hanging Loose 5 (1968). Copyright © 1968, 1982 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc. Used by permission of the Wallace Literary Agency, Inc. Source: Circles on the Water (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992)
Questions:
What shaming identities, nicknames, or accusations do you need to release today?
Are there aspects or your body, personality, calling, identity, voice, or being that you have “cut off”, dis-membered, for the sake of or at the request, spoken or implied, of another?
Center: Meeting the Holy One in Being Seen and Known
On the Way to the House of Jairus
(Editor’s Note: To view this poem with the poet’s intended indentation, please click the link that is the title of the poem.)
If I could just touch
the hem of his garment,
I could keep hidden,
and still be healed
He doesn’t need to know
I am here.
I’m good at this hiding
After twelve years bleeding.
Twelve years swindled from me
Twelve years concealing
the disgrace of what I am
I must keep hidden
Everyone knows
Women may not bleed in the
presence of men.
Why has he stopped? How can he ask,
“Who touched me?”
It could be anyone
I could still keep
hidden
But
something new is drawing me
And I know
I will step out now,
In front of everyone
And speak.
Kathleen Staudt, Annunciations, pg. 35 (Luke 8 and Mark 5)
Questions:
Though the physical healing the woman had come for had been accomplished, Jesus saw the need for a second healing from her previously required “hiddenness,” her invisibility.
Where/when do you continue to hide? When do you feel invisible?
Do you sense the Spirit drawing you forward, into being seeing and known and heard?
Walk out: Saving Your Life by Re-Membering Yourself
Passover Remembered
…Sing songs as you go,
and hold close together. You may at times grow confused and
lose your way.
Continue to call each other
by the names I’ve given you,
to help remember who you are.
You will get where you are going by remembering who you are.
Touch each other
and keep telling the stories of old bondage and of how I
delivered you.
Tell your children lest they forget
and fall into danger— remind them
even they were not born in freedom
but under a bondage they no longer remember, which is still with them, if unseen.
Or they were born in the open desert where no signposts are. …
Alla Renée Bozarth, From Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey, revised edition, LuraMedia and Wisdom House 1988. All rights reserved.
Questions:
What are the names God has given you?
Do you need help re-membering who you are? Think not only in terms of not forgetting yourself but also in the sense of restoring aspects of yourself that you may have dis-membered.
If you feel lost, how might remembering who you are be a faithful guide?
What stories do you need to speak? Are there stories of bondage your children need to hear from you?
(This past summer I re-membered my adventurous side by paragliding!)