In my last post I promised that I would tell you of one person who has been steady counsel/companionship for me in the desert. It takes me 6 minutes, but here it is!
P.S.: I say that her text shows up in chapters 16 & 23. It’s actually 16 & 21. Oops!
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Hmm… moving and thoughtful. I appreciate very much what you are saying here about Hagar, her wisdom, her counsel, her companionship. How she is kin.
In the last week, something Hagar has taught me, is how afraid I am of being thrown out of the camp. Whatever the camp may be, at any time, and there are a number of them in my life. The people. the contexts, the places where I am “supposed” to belong. Whether or not I feel any real kinship with those people, contexts, or places. And the things I do to fit in. Things I will say that are not fully true, things I won’t say that are. Bad bargains of trying to insure “safety” by being less than real, less than authentically me, less than fully authentic in my relationships.
And why? I’m terrified by the threat of being thrown out of the camp, of the group, the clan. Terrified of being the “them” when everyone else is the “us”.
Because secretly I guess I know I don’t belong.
And so, what then? Do I turn around and walk into the desert? …and what would that mean, here in the midst of my life, a web of connections, commitments, obligations… some beloved, some just-there, some onerous…
I don’t know.
I know I’m speaking up a lot more, and it is helping. In Hebrew the word usually translated as wilderness is midbar. It’s a very powerful resonant word with lots of layers of meaning — one being that the verb to speak, davar, shares the same root as midbar. (The v and b are the same letter.) So what is the wilderness? Out there where Hagar is? The speaking place. The place that speaks to us, the place where we speak. I am speaking more. It’s helping, it’s relieving some of the pressure and the falseness of those bad bargains and silenced truths.
But the question of where I belong, in the camp or outside, and whose camp anyway, and why am I so scared… still completely unknown.
wow, karen! i have much more to say after watching ronna’s vlog…but due to exhaustion, it will have to wait until tomorrow. but in the meantime, i read your comment, and your eloquence and sheer wisdom blew me away, and i had to pop in and say so. you’ve let me with a thousand things to ponder, and the sense (AGAIN) that i am not alone. keep speaking your truth into the wind, which will surely carry it to innumerable fertile places, beyond your imagination. it’s already taken root in my heart…
.-= lauren martin gauthier´s last blog .. =-.
Lauren: I love that you spoke directly to Karen here. No, it’s true: you are not alone. This is one of the many reasons why I LOVE the desert: the most amazing companions show up and journey with us – and offer us profound counsel.
I’m SO totally tracking with you, Karen, and want to continue to commend and affirm your movement! And I think that the oh-so-close rendering of madbar/davar is exquisite. SO much is in this story I just can’t get to all of it (and need to write the damn book already!!!). But yes, yes, yes: the wilderness IS the speaking place. It speaks (and calls) to us. We speak within it. We hear God’s voice there in profound ways. We hear our own anew. Stunning. Wild beauty.
And…I would wonder if the binary of in the camp or outside of it is the only way. Sometimes the desert pervades even the most lush of terrains. The grit of the sand shows up in unexpected places. And its warmth, courage, and solace may befriend you in ways you don’t expect. Either/or is most-often our default, but not our only choice.
May the desert provide you its vast and immeasurable wisdom in these dry and lonely spaces.
WRITE THE DAMN BOOK ALREADY!!!
You know I couldn’t resist!
I absolutely love how you open up the possibility of finding companionship and counsel with people we don’t yet (or never will) know. I was just having a discussion over on Facebook this week, where I identified some of the women I consider “kindred spirits” and vital companions in my journey: Anne Lamott, Sue Monk Kidd, Kathleen Norris, etc. I’d also place folks like Alanis Morrissette, Over the Rhine, Natalie Maines, Rosie Thomas, etc. in that same camp. Ok, ok, obviously the people who speak to me have a common thread- whether through memoir, lyrics, even fictional accounts, I find companionship in the midst of artists who wield words. Sometimes we definitely need a warm body, a soft shoulder, a deep hug…but other times it’s more than enough to find ourselves in the throes of compelling and relatable narrative…
.-= lauren martin gauthier´s last blog ..Sunday =-.
Gratefully it’s not one or the other, right? It’s both the real and the “virtual” companions that make the desert – and all of life – that much richer. Glad to have you in that community with me!
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