The Slow Way

Lately I've been reclaiming blessing, not as something we get if we're lucky or pious enough. But blessing as a gift by which we honor one another. It is taking something ordinary and pronouncing it remarkable, sacred. Barbara Brown Taylor says the act of blessing is not so much the work of conferring holiness as it is the hope-filled task of recognizing and acknowledging the holiness already there.

What if we release that other notion of blessing, the one that can make us feel small or unseen by God? What if instead we look for ways to "share in God's audacity," to boldly call the world around us good?

More in this week's #theslowwaypodcast

Links:

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Read An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.
• Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

I don't think sin is a birthright. I don't think it is original to us at all. Don't get me wrong, this world is a dumpster fire of hate and violence, greed and arrogance, exclusion and self-harm. Evil is in the air we breathe. But, that's the thing. It's in the air, not in us. God made us and called us good. Everything else — the evil, the hatred — is a lie we buy into from our earliest moments. Our egos tell us to be something we were never made to be. Our self-protective coverings insist that we can make ourselves into something valuable by rejecting the value of those around us. But none of that is true to the sacred center of us.

Let's talk about the good that grows in all of us.

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Links:

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Read The Ninefold Path of Jesus by Mark Scandrette
• Read Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
• Read Mindful Silence by Phileena Heurtz
• Read Mary Mrozowski's Contemplative Outreach
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.
• Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

It's almost fall. The wind moves through and we shiver. The boy in the pool who leaned back and moved his arms across the surface, a brief lifespan of gold across the water. He will get his back-to-school hair cut, throw on his backpack, and grow out of his hand-me-down jeans. And the world will shift on its axis, drawing us gently into a cool sunshine, apples in our u-pick bags. There's no fighting the autumn, friends. It always comes for us.

The Psalmist tells us that "all our days pass away . . . Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away." The answer to that reality? "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." There is a slowness in numbering our days, in choosing our co-rememberers, in celebrating the movement of time in all of its beautiful, achingly true reality.

Links:

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.
• Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

When we release ourselves from the burden of proving our value by what we make of time, we can learn slowness for the sake of our whole selves – our minds, bodies and souls—and for the sake of those in our world who are most vulnerable. But this is spiritual work. If we want to value the lives of those who will never produce enough to be considered good, we have to first value ourselves outside of what we can do.

"When we begin to understand what it means to reside within God's time, we are opened up to a whole new way of being in the world, a way that not only respects the difference that disability brings, but in a sense requires it."

That's why we need a vision of God that is love, and a vision of all that God has created as born from love. We are not robots set on earth to do enough work in enough time to be deemed good. We are born of love and given a loving, expansive creation: Time is a gift of love. That means we are invited to be whole bodies (not just brains), who are learning what it is to love one another.

Links:

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis here.
• Read Becoming Friends of Time by John Swinton here.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.
• Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

Today we're considering the language we use when we talk about "seeking God." How authentic faith must be a long-term, whole-hearted pursuit that involves the world around us, our stories, and our particular ways of being. Healthy spirituality needs the body. It can never be a mind-trick. It involves the kind of integration required in knowing our habits and motives and weaknesses, and connecting those to our pursuit of the expansive love of the Divine.

Links:

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Read The Sound of Life's Unspeakable Beauty by Martin Schleske
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.

Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

We're back! Episode 33 is fresh and new at The Slow Way.

As we lean into the end of summer, some of us eking the last few weeks out of the sunshine and late nights on the porch, some already back in the motion of school and schedules, I hope we'll practice a simple but transformative slow way: Listening to the stomach aches, the tight muscles, the sensations of joy or pleasure, and reminding ourselves that our bodies are actually us. They are not separate from our minds. And they have something to tell us about what's next and where God is in our story.

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Read Hillary L. McBride's "Wisdom of Your Body" here.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.

Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

Last month I spent ten days on the campus of a Benedictine monastery, where there is an incredible pottery studio that seeks to embody the Benedictine values of stability, community, and hospitality. And I was re-reminded of this instruction from Saint Benedict. That all the utensils of our lives can be sacred.

Our hands are holy, and they are invited by the Life-Peace-Grace-Maker to create meaning out of everything.

Here's a replay of episode 19, "Blessing the Work of our Hands."

Links:

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Click HERE for free downloads/printables
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.

Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

Here's your reminder that doubt is not the thing that should trouble your soul. Fear is. The blessings of Jesus are particularly there for those who wrestle with their fear, hold it up to the light of Truth, and choose to embrace suffering for the sake of joining the good work of God in the world.

Can you imagine with me that in the dark distance a figure is coming. It's beautiful. And it's terrifying, because it is somehow the combination of your greatest regrets and failures and fears. It's the embodiment of your own weaknesses and dread. And who wants to look at that? Take a moment to ask yourself, what do you need to wrestle? And what might be the blessing you need on the other side of your fear?

Links:

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find The Dream of God by Verna Dozier here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.
• Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

Growth is a gangly and uncomfortable season – whether it's the growth of our young teenage bodies, or the growth of our souls. We cannot enter into seasons of growth without instability and volatility. In other words, growth is awkward and uncomfortable. And there's nothing we can do about that.

I have been reading and loving Lisa Colón DeLay's book, The Wild Land Within. She describes the in-between seasons of growth this way: "God will always call us toward deeper, fuller lives. God beckons us toward more abundant joy and greater relief and solace." Then she goes on to say, "Healing and spiritual growth, after it happens, look and feel like peace, gracious integration of yourself, and (felt) access to love and grace."

There are so many moments of our spiritual lives when growth is going to force us to experience the discomfort of the in-between. Let's explore this in this week's episode.

Links:

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Newsletter.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.
• Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold

We live in an empire, in a human-made system of the powerful and the powerless, and since the world began unraveling the truth that was born in us, in our original goodness given by God, we learn to slowly believe the lie of the Empire. It tells us that we can earn our place in the system. It tells us how to divide one another, how to assign value. We learn who is attractive, who is smart, who is capable, and we understand that if we want to have value, there are tasks to accomplish. There are people to please. There is a path toward winning.

Who are we if any of us thinks we must carry it all? Lean toward beloved community, friend. Start with your own heart.

Links:

• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find The Church Cracked Open by Stephanie Spellers here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here
• Find Micha on Instagram
• Find Micha on Twitter
• Micha's other podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.
• Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer is available everywhere books are sold