Blog : Give Me Grace

Give Me Grace : Finding Your Voice

Posted on May 21, 2016July 17, 2016 by lisha epperson

The voice I have now, I got the first time I sang in a movement meeting, after I got out of jail… and I’d never heard it before in my life. Bernice Johnson Reagon

You cannot sing a song without changing your situation. – Bernice Johnson Reagon

In my second interview for my field placement assignment I shared with a woman I’d not met before, my very real concern over losing my voice. In a tiny rectors office on the upper east side of Manhattan I let loose my biggest fear. I’m intimidated by the hip young scholars I call classmates. I struggle to respond to questions posed by my professors. I can’t think fast enough. I feel as if I’ve lost my voice.

Writing is is a different story. With the luxury of time I’m free to process but I spent an entire year wondering what to say and could only articulate my thoughts on the way home. Then I’d enjoy great intellectual discourse about the days work and the ideas that seemed finally ready to flow. But only then. I couldn’t speak in front of an audience.

Something about the timbre of her voice made me feel sure of myself. Sure enough to share my secret. I looked up when I said it. “I want to work on my voice.“

Her eyes said she knew exactly what I meant and assured me we’d make time to focus on it when I began my service at the church next year. I left feeling good about the release. Holding onto that secret had been the greatest pressure of the year. To have finally shared it felt like a step in the right direction.

When I signed up for a seminar on African – American spirituals two weeks later God was already at work.

I sang in front of my class on Tuesday. 32 counts of a self proclaimed spiritual sung to myself and my then, unborn son. It was the first day of class and I was eager to make good on my promise to make an effort to participate more in class discussions. I raised my hand nervously when the professor asked the class to share experiences with spirituals and worked hard to express myself thoughtfully. When the professor asked me to sing the song I told the class about I knew it immediately as the beginning of the work God would have me do. He was in the room and had heard my prayer when I told the rector I wanted to find my voice again.

So …

I short circuited the part of me that judges every new effort and opened my mouth to hum the melody. And then sang the words. No instrument. No amplification. Just me, with my head up and my eyes open – I remembered the part of me that sings.

It’s the part of me that knows there’s meaning in the middle and that every effort leads to further growth. Part of my silence is wrapped in fear about making a mistake. I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing. Singing publicly connected me to a feeling of vulnerability, a vulnerability that creates space for authenticity. This, to me, is the heart of a true voice – one I can’t find without presenting my whole self. Singing in front of my class confronted me with the risk of being wrong – and believe it or not – I survived.

This week I’m looking at the world through the lens of Negro Spirituals and thinking about how singing is part of a faith muscle – one we have to exercise. Finding and using that muscle helps us build confidence in what we believe. Yours, is the voice that rises from this practice.

Here’s a simple song that ministered to me this week. You can find your own favorites and do more research here and a simple search on YouTube will lead you to a version you can listen to. Most of the songs are so much a part of the American soundtrack they feel familiar and they’re super easy to learn with often just a few lines to remember.

Take a few minutes to learn a song today. Ila and I are working on our version of this recording by Sweet Honey in the Rock. It’s a song of lament but singing it in its entirety transforms me.

Find the part of you that sings.

Oh Lord
And I couldn’t hear nobody pray
Couldn’t hear nobody pray
O way down yonder by myself
And I couldn’t hear nobody pray
In the valley
I couldn’t hear nobody pray
On my knees
I couldn’t hear nobody pray
With my burden, I couldn’t hear nobody pray
And my Saviour
I couldn’t hear nobody pray

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥ Continue reading “Give Me Grace : Finding Your Voice” →

Give Me Grace : on subway tunnels and seminary

Posted on May 14, 2016May 16, 2016 by lisha epperson

A week and a half into the end of my first year as a seminary student and I’ve got all the feels. But I’m silent too. It’s hard to put into words the over exposure to scholarly ideas and life lived in a covered tent, pressed hard into the pages of the some of the most influential text of all time. The Bible is a holy trip and a year in seminary leaves me with little to say.

I talked with a friend the other day and she asked me to summarize my take away. I couldn’t. I couldn’t find words to describe the indescribable but I do have a feeling and an image.

Have you ever been to Port Authority in NYC? Specifically the tunnel creating a path connecting the 8th Ave lines to the lines that run along 7th and 6th? Well that tunnel is what seminary was like for me. On any given day, at any given hour you’d not be surprised by anything you saw. If you’re a regular you’ve grown accustomed to it and if you’re a newbie you’ve likely been warned.

I’ve seen Mexican churros and acid washed jeans, an old school snake charmer with a pale yellow boa constrictor looped around his neck and women. With hair and heels and oils and herbs these women carry the hopeful dreams of believers confused. Please they sing, tell us he’s not dead. And then the voice of a lone follower crying in the wilderness – these, he says, are the last days. None of this surprises me. Writing much of it off as a distraction, I’ve learned to navigate my way forward by taking the next step. I’m mindful of keeping the images I need, of keeping my eyes and heart – forward. I listen but never leave without feeling on some level pulled apart – of needing to be put back together again.

The subway is intoxicating and over stimulating and I enter the tunnel expecting anything and nothing – except that God would be with me on the journey. Here, as in seminary, Jesus reminds me not to worry about potential areas of division and to restrain from becoming defensive about cultural debates. Here he says, don’t believe everything you see and reminds me that the point is to live in peace. The point is to get to the other side. We have to keep walking – to be known by our love.

I listen.

A sweet friend said once, you don’t go to seminary to find Jesus. To that I’d add, you have to bring him with you – and invite him to stay. There were many things I didn’t expect but none that surprised. I’d been warned.

So this is what seminary was like – there was food and images from the past I found difficult to turn away from – and women, like the ones with oils and herbs that could preach a righteous fire within you without saying a word. And there was quiet space in the chapel to process or put away things I couldn’t/wouldn’t use. In chapel I listened to a liberative message of grace. Chapel helped me to re-member.

I’m quiet now because I’ve learned to side with those who admit they know precious little. Jesus preached mutuality and love and he was a feminist and a lover of the oppressed. I saw a Jesus that didn’t waste time with silly disputes when the kingdom was at stake. Jesus preached love, above all else. In seminary I saw a Jesus who says this is not the end of Gods work.

As with my walk in the tunnel, God covers me in the unknown and walks with me when I feel reasonably sure. I’m keeping my eyes and heart forward. I keep taking steps.

Seminary was good but seminary quieted me. In classes and conversation I found it difficult to express myself in a way that felt meaningful. So I kept listening and God changed my schedule to inconvenience me into a class that gave me the opportunity to have my say with embodied expression. Seminary asked me to move and movement became my sacrament.

My seminary experience didn’t look like I imagined and I’m sure it’s that way for most. It requires an adjustment – perhaps a silence as we lean into a still speaking God.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

~~~~~~~

I’m working this summer to create movement workshops for women living in shelters and I’m going to work a lot of that out here. I’m drawn to the expression of cultural hybridity within faith communities. How we use the music and art and stories of our lives in private and communal worship and how we locate and release those stories in our physical form.

It will be textured and layered and grounded in an experience that begins and ends with the mystery of the written word.

I’d love it it’d you’ll join me in this but I’ll only share it with subscribers to the blog.

Join me.

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Jump : A Mother’s Day Repost

Posted on May 7, 2016May 7, 2016 by lisha epperson

I’m thinking this weekend about the 3 women who shared their motherhood with me and re-posting a Five Minute Friday offering about my experience with open adoption.

“Jump” for Five Minute Friday

I don’t know if I can do this? I don’t want to think about it… this. This is the sad side of adoption and if I think too hard about why we’re both here I’ll never do it. Never move forward. Never receive a gift I know is mine alone to claim. I’ll be afraid to…jump.

Reading Dear Birthmother, a book recommended by the agency, started all of this. Before, I could do this without really thinking about you. I could adopt a baby and move on. There’d be me and this baby, now mine and just a memory of you. “No. This is not my plan. This won’t be the last time you see her.” Those words and a powerful revelation…jumped through my spirit. I heard what He said and I knew what He meant. This would be an open adoption.

Recycled Lifetime movie images on televised, make-believe adoption drama made me fearful. So how can I do this? I don’t know anyone who’s done this. How do they do this? Ofcourse she’ll want her back. Ofcourse I won’t be able to. How can we meet? How can we talk about a baby, her baby in the room and act like what happened between us never transpired. How will we….jump?

If this is God’s doing, and we both believe it is, we’ll have to jump. We’ll make this thing work because we both love the little sugar ball of a girl that connects us. We’ll push past doubt and fear of the unknown, of the expectations and limitations of society and we will create a family that never existed before we…jumped.

I’ll never know the side of the story that is yours alone to tell. You’ve shared bits of it with me and I can imagine your struggle but I’ll never know it. My side of the story holds secrets unknown to you. Truth is we lived on opposite sides of the same coin of pain and by the grace of God we met – through the love of a girl. When we didn’t have to. We didn’t have to…jump.

we jumped!
Mother’s Day 2012

Happy Mother’s Day!

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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Give Me Grace : Come Alive

Posted on April 30, 2016 by lisha epperson

2016-04-25-19.55.15.jpg.jpg — rehearsing my part in the play “Hagomoro” for my ritual performance class

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman

I had my last class of the semester on Thursday evening and I’m in the throes of paper writing.

It’s been a crazy few weeks with reading, registering for fall and finalizing my field placement for next year.

Would you pray for me?

For the past few years I’ve enjoyed a flirtation with an Episcopal church a few blocks away from my home. I’ve lived an appreciation for the spirituality of architecture and have allowed God to lead me around the city taking pictures of church doors. In that time I’ve listened and learned (remind me to tell you more about that later).

I dragged my husband to silent meditations and shared bread and wine with faithful people I’d not otherwise rub elbows with during Wednesday evening Celtic Eucharist gatherings. The city is huge but small like that. We live in pockets of all levels of privilege and it’s separated by race and culture and all manner of division. So when I tell you I’m in a church that is very different from anything I’ve experienced that’s code for upper east side, white, episcopal. It’s not my world but it is – these are the people of God. I feel and know that each time I walk through the doors.

I did this for a few months before I discerned my call to seminary. Walking into the church was a tiny step in response to a whisper turned un-named longing – a vision I’d quietly nursed for 3 years.

I dreamed this but never imagined dance to be such a huge part of my seminary journey

I already told you a bit about how I ended up in seminary and how God moved mountains and opened doors the moment I spoke the word in the back of Dana Butler’s minivan. That was May 2015 when I traveled to Jumping Tandem : The Retreat with Alia Joy, Kathi, Amber and Ashley. So this is a faith walk, my like Mary’s #wilderyes to things I don’t always understand and from other vantage points might seem impossible. But God.

As part of my course work in seminary I have to choose a field education site and work as an intern for 2 academic years. The church I attend wasn’t on the list of sites so I immediately thought of the gorgeous space Gods helping me get to know. I had my second interview a few weeks ago and signed a contract this week. Ahhhhhh!

When I tell you I feel held in the palm of Gods hand I mean it. I feel cradled and loved and like a woman walking in her purpose. There is, I tell you zero doubt. Questions for sure – about what’s next and how this will all play out, but zero doubt as to whether I’m hearing and obeying God. What I’m doing is making me come alive.

I turn my final paper in on Wednesday and will participate in a music seminar in May but the summer is for family and catching up on all the things I love but haven’t had time to enjoy. One of the things I’m most excited about is developing free movement workshops for residents of women’s shelters in the city. I’m also looking forward to being around the blogging world a bit more this summer. I want to revamp my site and catch up on all the good stuff I’m missing at Fistbump University. I look forward to spending more time with all of you.

That’s all for now but I have a question – Are you cradling a dream? – holding at arm’s length something you know God’s calling you to? What makes you come alive? Go do it!
Live your #wilderyes and come back and tell me about it.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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