FOURTEEN DAYS OF LOVE

belovedarise.org Lovingly compiled by Emily Huff, one of our amazing Beloved Volunteers YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, BELOVED, AND ENOUGH JUST AS YOU ARE. Day One Fourteen Days of Love 1

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ And as the others fled and as AGAPETOS He bled, He offered me a gift, I’ll tell you how it started, Called forth kinship as I’m sure he once What was from the beginning. Called all things to be. Baptist promised me, “Behold your mother,” “This one’s worth your time, Making family out of us orphans and widows all. This lamb of God.” His tears had always been their own miracle And when I met his gaze, When Brother Lazarus breathed his last, His eyes were springtime melting The crowd was shocked. Ice over rivers in my heart, “See how he loved him.” As they spoke with silent tenderness, Now as my Nazarene wept his last, “Beloved, arise Gave up his spirit, And come with me.” My only words were, “See how he loved us all.” Along the road, he became What we each needed: His body felt so light, Light, bread, water, truth, life, wine And yet the ache in my arms lingered So many signs and wonders. A last reminder that I carried One I saw my love become the sun Unbelievably precious And speak with saints and prophets. To his rest. But no sign so strange as this: That my very God would hold me What happened next only he knows, In his arms. My joy, my Lord, my trickster love, Perhaps he charmed Death itself with those eyes, He passed the wine at table, And called all fallen softly home to life. The others found their places, made What I do know is when he walked with us beside the sea, The safe choice, respectful distance from I realized I would follow til the end The Master. Of earth, time, the end of everything His love like gravity drew me near, Until the day that his embrace might never end. His arms made firm by work encircled me His hands, though rough and callused still caressed. I am left to tell with His heart rang out a hymn, echoed in my ears. The memory of his touch As Simon put it, The fire of his heartbeat “To whom shall I go?” Turning his words round and round my head, Where else could I have been but at his breast? Like you turn a diamond over and over in your hands to catch the light.

Micah Wilger December 13, 2019 2 Fourteen Days of Love

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ If our hearts have already been tempted this day to believe anything about ourselves or others that does not take into account your creation, your mercy, your Day Two sacrifice, your grace, your forgiveness, your redemp- tion, and your unspeakable love, O God, remind us again of these truths, giving us faith enough to be- lieve and hope enough to choose to embrace them again and again. Shape our thoughts, O Lord, by your truth even as you shape our hearts by your love.

Douglas McKelvey A Prayer at Midday, Every Moment Holy

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ In solitude, at last, we’re able to let God define us the way we are always supposed to be defined—by relationship: the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence itself. Not performance but presence.

Richard Rohr

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.

Brennan Manning The Ragamuffin Gospel Fourteen Days of Love 3

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, Day Three and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.” ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self- rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence… Though the experience of being the Beloved has never been completely ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ absent from my life, I never claimed it as my core “You are the Beloved,” and I hope that you can hear truth. That voice has always been there, but it seems these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness that I was much more eager to listen to other, louder and force that love can hold… Every time you listen voices says: “Prove that you are worth something; with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you do something relevant, spectacular or powerful, and the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire then you will earn the love you so desire.” Meanwhile, to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like the soft gentle voice that speaks in the silence and discovering a well in the desert. Once you have solitude of my heart remained unheard or, at least, touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper. unconvincing.

Henri Nouwen Henri Nouwen Life of the Beloved Life of the Beloved 4 Fourteen Days of Love Day four

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ The great spiritual battle begins – and never ends— The “real” work of prayer is to become silent and with the reclaiming of our chosenness. Long before listen to the voice that says good things about me. any human being saw us, we are seen by God’s This might sound self-indulgent, but, in practice, it is a loving eyes. Long before anyone heard us cry or hard discipline. To gently push aside and silence the laugh, we are heard by our God who is all ears for us. many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear a voice of blessing… that demands How do we get in touch with our chosenness when real effort. If we dare to embrace our solitude and we are surrounded by rejections? First of all, you befriend our silence, we will come to know that voice. have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry The movement of God’s Spirit is very gentle, very soft and, in the long run, destructive… Secondly, you have – and hidden. It does not seek attention. But that to keep looking for people and places where your movement is also very persistent, strong and deep. truth is spoken and where you are reminded of your It changes our hearts radically. The faithful discipline deepest identity as the chosen one… Thirdly, you have of prayer reveals to you that you are the blessed one to celebrate your chosenness constantly. This means and gives you the power to bless others. saying “thank you” to God for having chosen you, and “thank you” to all who remind you of your chosenness. Henri Nouwen Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your Life of the Beloved consciousness that you are not an “accident,” but a divine choice… When I keep my disciplines close to my heart, I am able to step over my shadow into the light of my truth.

Henri Nouwen Life of the Beloved Fourteen Days of Love 5 Day FIVE

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Among the prophets, I found more promise. They God’s tenderness began to enfold me, like a child proclaimed a god of judgment, yet, and I felt my curling into her mother’s lap. I resisted the lies of shoulders curl in self-protection; but the longer I read, the God of American religion and clung instead the more I found they proclaimed a God of judgment to the God of a world far away and yet so much not against the minority on the edge but against closer than the false idols of power and perfection. the powers of their day. The prophets knew what is Each night my failures soaked my sheets in tears; was like to preach against the tide, to be crying out each day I felt I could not face, I remembered the for redemption and find their voices drowned by the impossible promises: You are my child, God had said religious elite who promised peace when there was to Israel- and to me. You are beloved, God had said no peace. I had once thought I was meant to fear to Jesus- and to me. I am with you always, Jesus this warrior God, unsheathing a sword against me, had said to the disciples—and to me. I knew a God the enemy; now I began to wonder if I was the one to who was controlling and made demands was far be defended. What if it was God who stood against more palpable. I knew the world preferred a God those who would condemn me? Then I was not alone who snatched away salvation when the scales of but strengthened, helped, upheld with the victorious sin were tipped just far enough. That was a God the hand of the divine. Then it was not just to Israel and church could control; that was a God that power Jacob but to me that God said: You are precious could wield against those who could not fight back. in my sight, and honored, and I love you; do not be I tried to breathe into the possibility that God was afraid, for I am with you—I have called you by name, bigger than that, was more wily and less included and you are mine. to scorekeeping. I tried to trust that the unknown prophet, surrounded by the ruined walls of Jerusalem, Emmy Kegler laden with bitterness and swallowed up in grief, One Coin Found both a sinner and broken by the sin of others, had How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins told the best of truth: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is the faithfulness of God. 6 Fourteen Days of Love Day Six

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ sliver left to hide behind. Isaiah 30:12-13 New International Version (NIV) The only safety left for you will be in the shelter of God’s wings. 12 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: Only in surrender will you find the power you have longed for; “Because you have rejected this message, relied Only when you let go will you be strong. on oppression and depended on deceit, If you try to run, the truth will follow up. 13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, If you hide, you will find honesty still with you. cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in The cave where you conceal your heart will be filled an instant. with light that searches you out. But do not be afraid. Isaiah’s words struck me in the chest. The walls were With each step, solid ground will rise to meet you, coming down around me. I had trusted in self- And you will hear a voice behind your shoulder, saying, oppression, self-destruction; I had relied on deceit, “Yes, This is what you were made for.” on lies, on pretending to be more capable than I was. Now everything was collapsing. Tears coursing down Emmy Kegler my face, I began to write my own translation: One Coin Found How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins Thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: Because you believed that appearance was more beautiful than vulnerability, And put your trust in control rather than truth, An honest word will shatter you, and revelation will be Like a crack in a high dam. If you will not cede control, it will be wrested from you. If you sacrifice your sold to protect a façade, Then God will free you by shattering it beyond repair. There will be no shield to give yourself a cover, not a Fourteen Days of Love 7

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. Day Seven Brennan Manning Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ As a little child I learned, and felt, that God is love, Followers of Jesus are supposed to be walking that Jesus loves me and that the rule of life in billboards of God’s radical affection for everyone. following him is to love others. Yet there have been That’s what he meant by being the light to a world many other voices, within and without, that have that can be very dark for so many. We need more pushed me and influenced my choices. Whenever I light-bringers these days. have worked with others around the identity of being God’s beloved, they have shared similar struggles. So I’d love to see Christians intentionally declaring many wounds from not being well-loved, from being the value of all people more often; that they’d told of failure, insufficiency, even worthlessness. step proudly and loudly into their classrooms and workplaces and family gatherings, wearing the These are lies. The biblical story assumes that God message on their sleeves—that everyone is beloved is a passionate lover, longing for abiding intimacy, as they arrive here, that they are fiercely loved giving us the Spirit to help guide our choices. Gently without caveat or condition. shifting the imagination, redefining the possibilities of the life’s abundance and hope. Jesus resisted the And as you study and work and play and live in this lying, accusatory voices and lived out the truth of world, please remember that regardless of what being the beloved. Although his life and teachings anyone tells you on signs or on shirts or in sermons: are full of invaluable messages, this one stands out Be greatly encouraged. for me as the essential one. You are the beloved. I am the beloved. Living out of that truth changes the You are fearfully and wonderfully made—and God world. adores you.

Ann Dean John Pavolvitz Dayspring Church Stuff That Needs to Be Said 8 Fourteen Days of Love

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Psalm 13

Light up my eyes with your presence; Day Eight Let me feel your love in my bones. Keep me from losing myself in ignorance and despair. Teach me to be endlessly patient. Let me trust that your love enfolds me When my heart feels desolate and dry. I will sing to the Lord at all times, ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Even from the depths of pain. Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity Steven Mitchell and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted and in the evening rain—that he loves you when from the Hebrew your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be. ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Psalm 40 Brennan Manning Hold me in your embrace, Lord; All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir Make me transparent in your light. Grant me awareness; keep My gratitude fresh each day. Let my song give blessing and insight ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ To those who can’t see for themselves. How glorious the splendor of a human heart that And let your compassion always trusts that it is loved! Shine forth from the depths of my heart.

Brennan Manning Steven Mitchell A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew Fourteen Days of Love 9 Day Nine

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Show us how to love our walk and to give thanks for each step.

Give us compassion for all those who walk beside us, and help us remember everyone who taught us how to walk.

Let wisdom be the gift on this walk so that we can show others how to follow this path.

You can always raise up laborers for your harvest of love; let us be sowers with faithful steps and boundless seeds so that love can flourish around us.

Amen.

Becca Stevens Love Heals

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor.

Brennan Manning The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God’s Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives 10 Fourteen Days of Love

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at Day ten this very moment we are standing on holy ground. Brennan Manning The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Lord, you have made us in Your image. ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Teach us to see this day, every person we meet, All of it pointed to a force stronger than the anxious whether on the streets or in the mirror, as Your formulas of religion: a radically inclusive love that incarnate face. accompanied people in the most ordinary of actions—eating, drinking, walking—and stayed with All our journeys begin and end with You-now we need them, through fear, even past death. That love to learn how to travel close to You on our way home. meant giving yourself away, embracing outsiders as family, emptying yourself to feed and live for others. Helps us seek and knock to find You wherever we are. The stories illuminated the holiness located in mortal human bodies, and the promise that people could Let us feel the cloud of witnesses that assures us of see God by cherishing all those different bodies the Your guiding hand. Whether we lie down in green way God did. They spoke of a communion so much pastures or walk in the valley of the shadow of death, vaster than any church could contain: one I had let us feel You leading us and holding us fast. sensed all my life could be expressed in the sharing of Amen. food, particularly with strangers.

Becca Stevens Sara Miles Love Heals Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion Fourteen Days of Love 11

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Day A Prayer of Accepted Tenderness Today, O Lord, I accept your acceptance of me, I confess that you are always with me and always for me, eleven I receive into my spirit your grace, your mercy, your care, ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ I rest in your love, O Lord, Live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness. I rest in your Love. Tenderness awakens within the security of knowing Amen. we are thoroughly and sincerely liked by someone... Richard Foster Scripture suggests that the essence of the divine Prayers from the Heart nature is compassion and that the heart of God is defined by tenderness.

Brennan Manning ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Prepare me, dear Lord, to start this day again. Belonging I am ready to keep climbing even through the mountain is steep. I am willing to keep searching even through the fog is ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ thick. The supreme work to which we need to address I am able to keep praying even through my words ourselves in this world is to learn love. Is life not full sound hollow. of opportunities for learning love? Every man and Take these offerings, and use them to open my heart woman every day has a thousand of them. The world to a new song. is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a Remove from me all that is keeping me unwilling or holiday, but an education. And the one eternal lesson unable to sing so that I can praise the wonder of for us all is how better we can love. clouds parting and Love revealed.

Henry Drummond Amen. The Greatest Thing in the World Becca Stevens Love Heals 12 Fourteen Days of Love

̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ God we make our prayer in silence, troubled by the fears in our hearts and anxieties in this world. Forgive all that we have yet to learn and when we feel panic and are tortured by insecurity. We can be paralyzed by the thought of tomorrow and what awaits in the days ahead. We are but children stumbling in the darkness and groping for Your hand. Do not hide Your presence from us or reject us in our weaknesses and fear. Guide us in the darkness toward Your loving light, and help us walk in peace. There are so many things to fear and so many fears that keep us lonely. Let us put our whole trust in You and come to wisdom and understanding- and all for love’s sake.

Amen.

Becca Stevens Love Heals Fourteen Days of Love 13

the dangers I have met before. I am not yet ready to give up on the church, or on Scripture, or on God. The invitation has been open to me, and each day that I have taken in, I have found myself in the midst Day of a celebration, surrounded by the resounding cry: Rejoice with me, for I have found my coin. Luke 15: 10

I am found by a divine love that is merciful. twelve This love is patient and kind, love knows me, far better than I know myself, and loves me still. This love ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ has the capacity to keep a record of my sins, even I have come to love the stories of Scripture because longer than my perfectionist brain could begin to I was found by love first. From my first days, I was surmise, and yet is unconcerned. I know the dangers wrapped in a mother’s fierce and protective love; it of what nonplussed love can do, as if it invalidates was an easy transition to believe that God, too, loved all consequences and frees me to my own wiles. But me like a thick knit blanket, close and comforting, the mercy that finds me is not cheap; it is free, and keeping me safe. I have come to trust the stories it costs everything. This grace knows how fully bare that best life up that love: the mighty force that took I had already made myself to my own faults. This the people out of slavery and, over forty years, then mercy sees how much I am broken already. This mercy took the slavery out of the people; the prophets who binds me up again. demanded satisfaction for the weak and oppressed; the cry of Mary, her child who was the child of the This merciful love goes beyond forgiveness; it puts the whole world turning in her womb, as she sang the salve in salvation, easing the weariness with which song of her ancestor Hannah: My soul magnifies the I have carried my own failures. I do not need a God Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for you who burdens me; I carry more than enough guilt on have looked with favor on your humble servant. my own. What I found in mercy instead was a love 1 Samuel 2:1 and Luke 1:46-48 that offers an easy yoke and a lighter load. I am found by a love consistent even in my inconsistencies, I am found by a divine love that is invitational. persistently present despite the lies of the world or It is not forceful or demanding, insisting on its own the missteps of my own feet. Love does not leave way, irritable and resentful. Love is a dance to which me. Love is new every morning, like a faithful dog laid God extends a hand. I know what better theologians across the bottom of my bed, ready again for a fresh have surmised about the capacity of my own free day and a clean start. Love does not leave when I will, but my experience and the stories of Scripture fail, nor can the world or the church hide it from me have borne the reality that I felt I had a choice. I for long. could have walked away. I still could. But there is something in the story that compels me, something in the promise of love that dares me to try despite 14 Fourteen Days of Love

I am found by a divine love that heals. wider net each time and drops itself down from the There is no condemnation in it. Love is not afraid heavens burdened with uncleanliness to cry out, of my sin or my brokenness. The darkness of my What I have called clean you must not call unclean. depression is not dark to this love; night is as bright Love has not tolerance for intolerance. When the as day. There is no soft chuckle of self-satisfaction as people of God told stories of exclusion, the mean my burden is pushed back onto me, no shrug of the casting out their foreign wives and children, love divine shoulders or patronizing pat on my elbow with wrote the story of Ruth, the foreigner as or more loyal the words, “It’s just your cross to bear.” Love stands than any woman of Israel. beside my bed and says, Little girl, get up. When the crowds pushes me back, when my shame is too great I am found by a divine love that is to speak and all I can do is stretch out one shaking unconditional and yet has expectations. hand, love looks down to me and says, Your faith Love does not keep space for cruelty or violence. has made you well. I cannot confess to much faith in Love laid down laws about leaving enough for the these moments—more like desperation, a willingness poor to glean and sacrificing only what a family to admit that I am not God and maybe something could afford. With every lie the world told you about else might be. No matter how much I cling to my the glory of power and the power of glory, love blows codependency and perfectionism, love looks at them against it, an unstoppable force against an object and says, Get out. No matter how often I welcome that claims immovability and yet could not stand them back, love lifts them again the moment I ask. against the whisper of God.

I am found by a divine love that comes close. I am not found by this love all at once. Love does not sit far-off, cross-legged, uninterested There is not step-by-step process to getting found; in my days except to tally my wrongs. Love had once in grief counseling, we know now that the “process appeared in blazing bushes and flickers of flame in of grief” is not a linear path by which we move from the darkness, in sheer silence on the mountaintop one stage to another but a single point that passes and in a voice that split the skies at love’s own through five dimensions or reaction, looping and baptism. Love came close and walked beside me. cycling, often in multiple directions at once. The same Love broke bread, and love was the bread, tenderly has been true for getting found. Each day brings offered to me, a promise of eternal presence. a new aspect that I had not yet anticipated. Each experience moves me along to a new point within a I am found by a divine love that is expansive. dimension that I thought I’d already exhausted. My Every time I have reached the edge of how far I perfectionism has had to tangle with the reality that, believed love could go, I have found myself instead on this side of the veil, I will accomplish none of this standing in the middle of where love has already completely, I am now and not yet found. I cannot been. Love is not for in-groups and out-groups, for reach the end of it. All I can do is witness to what tents that can only stretch so far or tables that can delivered me here, what is reaching out for all of us. only seat so many. Love keeps going. Love casts a Fourteen Days of Love 15

I am coming to believe that I am beloved. the whispers of God. These are the days I opt to lie This happens, at best, for about eight minutes a to myself. You are not worthless, I murmur, even as week. Most of the time, I am more convinced of my brain kicks back with a list of all I’ve failed to do. my own depravity than the best Calvinist. Yet I am You are not despised, I promise, even when my heart learning to reject what the world has offered; I am cracks. You are not alone, I hum, weven when my learning to believe that I am made in the image of hands and feet ache with a solitary day’s work. I call God, fearfully and wonderfully. I have had no trouble my friends, I wash the dishes. I take a scalding hot believing that God loves everyone else (well, most of bath until my body and mind and soul realign and I you), but it has been a long walk to accept that God am able to believe the lies—which were real, all along, might love me. Yet that is the reality that finds me in even when I could not receive them. On the best of the stories of Scripture and in the proclamation of my worst days, I can act as if I am beloved, until I the gospel. believe it again.

I have not only come to believe this spiritually; I am This love is not only for me. This expansive coming to know it in relationships and community. impossibility of inherent worth is etched on the heart I was loved fiercely into being by my mother. I have of every one of us. We long for it, for acceptance known what is to be surrounded by friends who know and welcome and celebration. Our hearts hunger me and love me without compromise. My friends have for the open recognition that we are more than our called me back to myself when I have ventured too mistakes, that we have the capacity to grow beyond far down the road of what I thought I should be; they the practices that hold us back, that we are part have pushed me beyond my insecurities to claim of something greater than our wants and needs. my right as a child of God. And in my wife, Michelle, In the Scriptures, by the God of the Scriptures, we I have come to know the raw terror of being loved are reminded of the truth that has long waited to and trusted for who I am—not valued for what I can resound within us: we are wonderfully made and do or rejected for what I have done, but treasured endlessly treasured, both by the God who first made and celebrated simply and consistently for who I am us and by the community of those who see us, in this at the end of the day, when all the work and play is life or the next, as we truly are. done and there is only my tired body and my open heart. What I am most afraid of, what makes me shy Emmy Kegler or anxious or self-loathing, she holds with tender One Coin Found care and such compassion that it is every day less How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins possible for me to fear it.

There are days I doubt my belovedness. These are the days when my anxiety wracks me, when my workaholic productivity drains me, when the snarls of those who would deny my call are louder than 16 Fourteen Days of Love

for their stories, too: responsible to hear when others speak, to ask when others are silent, and to act when need is expressed. I cannot do this without expanding my mind and opening up to the Day possibilities of others. Neither can I do it carelessly, lazily, with words and support tossed around without discernment. As much as I am called beyond myself, I am called to a whole community, all of which needs thirteen care and compassion. ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Love calls me to be kinder—to see the suffering of I am called to act in love for others. The love those around me, to feel my stomach twisted in of God is not reserved only for me. Love is meant to compassion, to strengthen my hands for service. I knit us into community, into belief practiced in active am invited into compassionate imagination, where love for our neighbor (who is inconveniently, best I assume better intent on the part of others than described by Jesus as anyone in need). my ego might think is merited. Love asks me to see myself in others. Love, too, asks me to see myself in Love calls me to be honest. I cannot turn my face me: to afford my broken, beat-down, shamed up self from my fellow children of God whom I have hurt, the kindness I am often more eager to offer others. intentionally or not, by things done or left undone. Love asks me to stop telling the story where there is Love calls me to own up to what I did, all of it, even one Perfectly Good Hero and one Irredeemably Evil the sins that bear down on me so much as to be Monster; the reality, inconveniently, is that as much crushing. Love calls me to pick up the phone and as I may want to cast myself in one or the other, the apologize—not “I’m sorry for what you did to me” or narrative arc will not allow such reductionism. Love “I’m sorry you felt hurt” but a true confession: I have rejects binaries. Love sees beyond two options. Love not loved you, my neighbor, myself. I am truly sorry, witnesses the brokenness in me and the brokenness in and I humbly repent. Love asks me to look around: others and asks me to see it, too. have I gone wandering down a path that took me away from love? Then I must turn back. Love calls Love calls me to be braver. Love calls me to believe me to make amends; to admit what I have done, enough in love that I do not over-expand to meet and what contributed to it, and what it has done the needs of every person nor cut myself down to to others. have no needs of my own. I am invited into risk; love may be constant, but it has a tendency to mess with Love calls me to be wiser- to pay attention, to learn, stability. I am called to trust enough in the protective to ask questions, to assume that my worldview has love of God that I am not afraid to stand up to the not yet reached the end of reality. Love shows me brokenness inside me or out. I am asked to speak I live in community; my experiences do not form when the powers that be will seek to silence me. I the ground of the reality of others. I am responsible Fourteen Days of Love 17

am challenged to offer my story despite its flaws, its vulnerabilities, its imperfections.

This call to action is not only for me. Love’s cry resounds in every corner of the world where the wounded live. Love finds us where we are and invites us not to stay there, urges us onward into better action for ourselves and for the world. Love refuses to let us pretend that we are the center of existence, that those around us are on other journeys to which we have no part; love opens our eyes and minds and hearts to see our shared humanity and its deep needs, in which we might act for the transformation of those who suffer. Love, too, refuses to let us be devoured by the needs and wants of another; love persistently preserves us.

Emmy Kegler One Coin Found How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins 18 Fourteen Days of Love

And I stand there too aghast to see your tears Too frightened now at what the leaving cost you What price, my love, That left you helpless Day Bare before my eyes In flesh that I distained As you hung upon a tree Fourteen Heaven torn in two Stars fallen, burning to the Earth ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ ̅ Like flaming death that reaps the souls of men Your body, hung upon a tree Shockwaves blast my heart Sorrows pressed upon your brow And leave me, ashen as a shadow on the all The words of friends We find now meaning in Death Bear upon you Until it finds us As a lover’s heart slowly fading Waiting in the dark You strain to hear the sound of failing breath The touch of other A promise, whispered to the night The hands you held, the feet you washed Cast by our lips in failing breath But silent hey beat and distant Fell like benediction on my brow As you hung upon a tree I would not hear the heavens crash about my feet As stars came burning to the ground A word, hung upon your lips But still In that moment unfulfilled In my foolishness, A promise waiting I lean close to hear those whispered words Beats upon you As though your death had somehow brought us closer What cost that word Torn from your throat The world ended on that day By a love almost too far gone to hear The heavens crashed The voice of other The angels came Echoed in my head And I did not see Tortured me with love But in the quiet of the night Silent and distant You whispered in my ear As you hung upon a tree That there was more For you rose again As star, hung upon a hook Brighter than before Cast by God, crying, to the ground And far more deadly As though I ripped his very heart out by my leaving Fourteen Days of Love 19

That I should dare to love you rends my soul Am I strong enough to bear the heat of your gaze? To see you, dimmed upon the cross was pain enough But this regard, this gentle look This love From one arisen To love you, gentle as a man, and harmless, That was pain enough But this power, this glory Dare I love a God?

What tokens might he ask who died in courting me? What must I do to show my love TO him who caught the stars And made the whole world new That I might not escape his love?

Joy, fills me to the brim And this I bring to you, my love Who died for me Repentance and release I bring nothing but acceptance of your gift To bring my heart to the table That it might be broken And offered up.

Lucas Mix Sanctified: An Anthology of Poetry by LGBTQ Christians “Beloved Arise”

Original song composed by ella Sharp Splintered soul, weary bones I feel the weight in your heart And Mine breaks for you Don’t you know I’m the only One Who can tell you who you are?

I want you close, sweet love of Mine You are My song, you’re My delight All that you are is by design Beloved, you were made to rise

Come alive Arise, beloved, arise

In Me, you’re free to sing at the top of your lungs Dance in the morning sun Chase out the dark And love just as you are

I want you close, sweet love of Mine You are My song, you’re My delight All that you are is by design Beloved, you were made to rise

Come alive Arise, beloved, arise

THE LORD YOUR GOD IS WITH YOU THEY ARE MIGHT TO SAVE, THEY WILL TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN YOU, THEY WILL QUIET YOU WITH THEIR LOVE, THEY WILL REJOICE OVER YOU WITH SINGING

Zephaniah 3:17 May you open your hands dropping all that troubles you at his feet, gently letting go with each exhale.

May you rest in the promise that you are never alone and your beautiful story has already been carefully and meticulously written just for you.

May you end this day not adding up where you have failed, but celebrating he beauty of his everlasting

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