Discover more from The In Process Collective Newsletter (Thoughts from Fabs)
Time is confusing. How is it July?? Here’s what you can find below:
A thought I’m processing
A thought I’m loving
What you guys have been processing this month
Some links I’m loving
A full recap & links to this month’s posts
A thought I’m processing [bodies are amazing]
[It feels impossible to even type those words and not acknowledge the Roe v. Wade decision. But my processing on that is far too personal to be in a newsletter.]
So instead, I’ll offer you what I’ve been processing around chronic illness and body image.
For 37 thankless years, my body collected oxygen and distributed it without complaint, without issue, to all my organs. And I never even noticed.
You know what I did notice? Every extra pound, every new dent or curve. For those 37 years, I assessed my body, I evaluated it - based on how it looked from the outside.
28 months into this weird illness I am learning a lot about my glorious body. Mostly I’m learning how absurd it is to assess your body by what it looks like on the outside. It’s like judging a pencil for how well it opens jars or judging a screwdriver for how well it losses teeth. It’s like judging a writer for how well she does math. My body is not designed to be looked at, it’s designed to be lived in.
All these symptoms that make me crazy - all they are is this glorious body doing some of its finest work. Conditions are rough in there, my autonomic systems are broken, but this body is working hard to keep me functioning in spite of the problems in the deepest mechanisms. Its changing shape is evidence of how wise my body is: able to make the choice to cut some corners on metabolism to conserve resources for more vital systems. Each ache and pain is my body’s way of communicating - letting the higher-ups know there is a problem in the system. My brave body - resisting its oppressive and foolish employer - who even now would tell it - just stop communicating problems. Just behave like everything is fine. When it’s not.
I sat and thought about my body today when I was waiting for groceries. I just felt such love, such gratitude for its divinely complicated design. It does its job so so so well. I’m so proud of my body.
I feel a sense of grief, when I think about how unkind I have been to my body and how foolishly I have spoken to it. How many performance reviews have I had with this body when all my feedback was around things that were never even in its job description.
We’re on the same team now.
A thought I’m loving
“It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste…The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean. It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-heehee! Come further up, come further in!”
What you guys have been processing this month
I asked the peeps on the gram what they had been processing this month and here’s what some of you shared:
“Trying to learn how to let my body feel what it needs, honor that & calming my limbic sys.”
👏 👏 👏 👏
“Developing a healthy honoring of anger & trying to to see how it has protected me many times.”
👏 👏 👏 👏
“How to approach God through the Bible and prayer when he feels threatening/disappointed.”
There are a lot of voices in our brain that aren’t God - but people have told us that’s “God” so now those voices are wearing His nametag in our brain.
“How rotted the American church is and how God hates this version of worship.”
I feel like I’m really getting what taking the name of God in vain means. And why it is such a problem.
“How even seemingly straightforward issues can illicit all the feelings/nuance.”
Yes.
“How certain depths of grief reignite one another.”
This is true. I think of it like hashtags in my brain. When you have an experience, your brain pulls up all the files that share the same tags.
“Just so depleted from the amount of information to porces.
It is truly too much.
“How not to let my rough feelings towards Chistians spill onto God.”
Yah. It’s hard. That’s one of the reasons I think God hates people using His name when they say or do shitty things.
Some links I’m loving
A good show,(if you’re into Mormon stuff or mysteries or Andrew Garfield)
A song I’m loving, (mainly here for this line: “you’ll learn to let people have their shitty opinions, and talk about your trauma, and like the body you live in.”
What I’m reading, (where are my third culture kids at?)
What’s on while I’m driving, (argh)
What I keep sending to people, (I’m actually sending it here for the first time. but I would have sent it to everyone if I’d had the energy)
What you missed this month
Below are some links to what I’ve shared this month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a pay-wall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them.)
Sermons and such - a post on how I feel about teaching/preaching
Censorship, superiority, and conformity - a podcast-ish thing about controlling behavior in the church
I’m a little bit done this week - some words on a hard week
Admiring my body, links I'm loving, and some other stuff.
Love these thoughts on our bodies! Gonna have to ponder them for days. <3