Ruptured Resistence
A piece of prose on a poetic experience from Congregational Leadership
This paper is written in a poetic style. It reflects how the poetic I yearn for cannot be found in theory, but in living. How I must somehow find myself in my own body, before I can hope to fulfill anyone else’s needs, before I can hope to step into the leadership that is most natural to me, and that will be the most affective for my purpose of ministry – something I am still wondering (wandering) about. It is mostly about my own resistance, delving into the question of: What complicated what I believe? Where did I feel drawn in, Where did you feel resistance?
Yesterday, I cried tears of release in front of a painting. Today, I cried tears of frustration at words. It’s an odd thing, to have the tears mix together, the salt reminding me that I have skin. That am, in fact, a person on the earth. That I am in a body, this body. That this body does not understand, it feels. All that it knows is sensation, it does not know that I have read Derrida or Tillich or McFague. Understanding the flow of time and the way the flow of time feels are two very different things, you see. Some years feel more weathered than others. Some breaths are beleaguered to the point of wondering if it is breath or the rattle of death. Being in a body that has rarely been given the choice to construct and discover itself on its’ own is a sort of exceptional violence. Root rot at its finest, some terribly oozing Being seeping from every possible place in the soul. It’s like having your ass out on the asphalt, my grandfather might say in a different form of his life. It has become this recurring thing that I cannot seem to lose sight of in the trees or off the edge of the world on Highway 287, the sickening question; child where is your voice?
Even to ask Spirit to do work in me, for me, that is the pinnacle of selfishness, is it not? The sweat behind the backs of my knees is clotting now, starting to run down my calves in a way that makes me so uncomfortable I wish I could tear the skin that carries me off. I’m tired of sitting in this chair, taking notes like I am fully invested and not feeling the touch of bone pressing in too close to my organs and muscles, like the organs and muscles aren’t bursting at the seams of my skin and I want to do anything but be here, in this room. I find something to complain about, to whine about, anything so I don’t cry and face the reality that I feel lost among the brambles of my own existence. What is God breaking open in you?
Is it just a breaking open? A tearing out of? What could it possibly be? Amongst the board meetings, ordination interviews, papers that I tried to get due dates moved on because I hate sitting with myself, it’s still there - the tension I evangelize but can’t name because how could I ever name something I’m not really willing to construct? Is the abhorrence of me really so deep, that I theorize so I can ignore the reality that I cannot recognize the body in the muddy lake water? I am filled with a gruesome unease that I will never know myself.
I never expected to ever need to meet my own body, to discover her own curves, her sharp edges, her tacit acceptances, her warning signs. I never expected to know her joy, her pleasure, her gentleness. I have only ever known my body’s tenderness as a byproduct of viciousness. I can say I can only briefly remember the sensation of joy, wrapping around the shoulders as a gentle friend in the June afternoon sun kayaking on Cascade Lake. Joy finds the body in Obstruction Pass, on the curves through the forests and fairy gates, opening wide to the sound where a boat worth more than my life’s work is docked. Joy finds her footing in long rides on Highway 114, past the rest stops, pointing out cows and longhorns and horses, trying to see the end of the road twenty miles away, wondering if perhaps maybe the world really is flat. It sure seems so out there.
Some things in ministry will die.
Some things will be resurrected.
Somethings will be renamed.
Some things will be revealed.[1]
What is God breaking open in you? The reverend asks again. The tears are back. I am unsure of where they go, what emotion to give them. Do they need one? Or are they simply… a piece of me? Is it dry bones gasping and grasping for rain? Is it the painting ‘The Spirit’, calling out, “Beloved, may you find your body among the streaks of oil on linen.” What is my resistance to resurrection? What will resurrection give to my body?
“May the God who raised Dorcas raise something in you.”[2]
[1] Rev. Vizrola Law; Congregational Leadership, May 18, 2026.
[2] Rev. Vizrola Law; Congregational Leadership, May 18, 2026.
In my own healing of reintegrating mind, soul, and body, I find it interesting how I feel as a person in life. It's so strange to be more whole that I feel out-of-body when in fact I'm restraining my mind from dominating- I am allowing my body and soul to be much more active. Even though this is all good and literally "wholesome" there is a dying to the old ways and courage needed to embrace the new. Thx for your thoughts here, Haley!!