This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us

In pursuit of liberation, we do not need to pine after the power of our oppressor; we have to long for our own power to be fully realized. We don’t want to steal and dominate someone else’s land; we want agency in reclaiming and establishing our own spaces. We don’t want to silence the voices of our enemies; we want to be able to safely center our

these were women who knew their worth. And they stood in power in front of the powerful because of it. They didn’t sulk around waiting for someone to recognize their worth, they walked in it.

And there are also voices who deeply love us but are unable to exist in the tension of who we are and what we believe and who they desire us to be and what they desire for our beliefs. This is the life of a human, particularly a human with any concern for belonging or survival—we are dragged with such a force in so many disparate directions that ou

To have the audacity to be and love and know yourself in a world content to have you live your days in hiding—this is bliss.

Whenever I become uncertain of which direction liberation lies in, I ask myself to tell the truth. Not that I am capable of comprehending what any ultimate Truth is. But I am capable of at least telling the truth about what I believe to be true—my inmost convictions, desires, or even an embodied revelation. The truth that rattles in my bones.

A life that is holy is a life that allows for all of your uncertainties, your curiosities and unbelief. That doesn’t just allow for them but holds them as sacred. Spirituality that is not permitted these liberties is merely subjugation.

hang up the phone, and I still feel it. Lacking the courage to call back, I send him a text—and perhaps it’s better written, an artifact of our repair.

There will always be people who are threatened by freedom in another person. Who have something to gain from our bondage.

Moving in your liberation does not, of course, mean people will always recognize it.