Tomorrow is my free teleseminar. People have signed up. I’m grateful, nervous, thrilled, humbled, ready.
The topic is huge: truth-telling.
The context is stunning: extravagance.
And, as with most things that matter: always easier said than done.
This blog post is a commercial – a space for self-promotion – a last-ditch effort to encourage you to sign up if you haven’t already. But it’s far more. I want to acknowledge, right here and now, that to the degree that I’m SUPER passionate about telling the truth (in extravagant ways), is the same degree to which I know it’s SUPER difficult.
Doesn’t seem like it should be, does it? It seems like we should be naturally inclined to speaking our minds – living out loud – being ourselves – honestly, authentically, and boldly. Yes, so it seems. But such is often not the case.
Consider the words of New Zealand writer Janet Frame from her autobiography:
“You’re so thoughtful,” Mrs. T. Said. “I’m lucky to have such a quiet student. You wouldn’t even know you were in the house, you’re so quiet!”
(A lovely girl, no trouble at all!)
I had woven so carefully, with such close texture, my visible layer of “no trouble at all, a quiet student, always ready with a smile…” that even I could not break the thread.
(From The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine
Monk Kidd continues in her own voice:
I thought about all the yarn on all the women, how it constricted and stopped our journeys, and I began to feel an energy rise up inside me. I didn’t know what to call it, but it made me want to tear the yarn not only off my own wrists, but off the wrists of…all the other women, too.
This “constricting” is powerful, palpable evidence of not truth-telling; about not knowing extravagance in our own lives. I certainly don’t claim to have the answers, but I’m deeply committed to having this conversation – over and over and over again.
I’ll be talking about all this and more tomorrow night. I’d love for you to join me. If you can’t make it, you might just tie some yarn to your wrist and then, sometime between 6 and 7:30 tomorrow night, tear it off as a statement and commitment to your own truth-telling, in unity and solidarity with others who struggle in similar ways.
More truth – more yarn-tearing – more from Sue Monk Kidd:
We will break this yarn. The words may begin private and small, a whimper of a sound growing until they are roaring inside, a roaring not only for oneself but for every woman. After it comes, a woman cannot be tamed back into silence.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I was just having this conversation on Saturday with another “truth teller” in my life… She asked me, “Why would you believe that God would want to stay in place of such futility and hopelessness?
Mmmm. Indeed. Such a good, important, and incredibly complex question, Rebecca.
Beautiful. Makes me want to re-read Dance of the Dissident Daughter.
And I think you’re right – there may be something interesting in the intersection between the kind of yarn-wrapping I talked about and this yarn-wrapping. Either way, it’s about remembering, truth-telling, and finding peace.
.-= Heather Plett´s last blog ..I want to wrap yarn around a tree =-.
I feel like I need to re-read that book at least once a year. Every time I do I am reminded of deep truths that somehow keep slipping my consciousness. Or perhaps I need to tie that yarn around my wrist, my finger, and every tree in sight – just to hold on to my own truths that I hear articulated in those pages. Still musing on your post today, Heather. Good, good stuff.