Friday, May 29, 2015

Our peeling skins: on friendship and the Everlasting









I'm drawn to them as I am to birch trees with their peeling skins, this handful of women in my life. 

These ones whose roots are mostly hidden deep under the earth, in love's sacred soil, and in part, erupting above ground where feet can tread their coiled arches.

These ones who have drunk the sky's tears to the dregs, tasted the abundance of grace, and who have waited, are waiting still, in months and years of drought.

These ones who have known the battering of winds, the pelting of rain, the tearing of branches, the toll of seasons, and still remain.

Their skins map lives of varied, exquisite textures. Gnarled knots, beauty marks of pain, of loss, of heartache, full of mysteries untold. Strips of bark, peeling back in layer upon layer of weathered parchment, reveal stories in scripts of flesh, falling to the earth. These layers exposed leave behind silken spaces, of soul and courage, open to the elements of life. 

How I love their scars, their invitations to pause. To behold. To trace the rough and smooth with my fingers and linger in the presence of redemption-in-the-making.

They are reaching toward the sun and tucking into shadowed places. Straight-backed in parts, bent and twisted in others. They give birth to leaves and buds, shelter to birds and all manner of creatures, and spread their arms out to me.

I come as I am to these women and I am known and loved in all my bare and peeling skin. We read each others' fallen parchments in holy hush, with tears and fits of laughter, without judgment. We gently hold up the broken branches and call out the beauty of scars and, at the end of the day, stand a bit stronger in the darkening night. 

These women, as these trees, carry the scent of the Everlasting.



14 comments:

  1. I love every word of this....and your beautiful peeling authenticity.

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    1. Oh. Right back at you, friend. How I love your authenticity and getting to know you in that place.

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  2. This, oh this! I walk to walk in your forests.

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    1. These forests are amazing, friend, that's for sure - trees and humans alike. xoxo

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  3. Sacred. Holy. A picture of a cloistured place which shelters tender trust. Oh how lovely is the invitation to gather 'round in community such as this.thank you, Amber. I live your writing. A gift.

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    1. Thank you for this grace, Elizabeth. There is much, much to be said for relationships that "shelter tender trust." When we come upon them, they are sanctuaries, sacred indeed.

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  4. Beautiful words. What a blessing to have those kinds of relationships.

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    1. Thanks, Elizabeth. They have been invaluable gifts in my life.

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  5. So often your words just make me speechless. This is one of those occasions. So, rather than try to express what I'm feeling, I'll just tell you this - YOU carry the scent of the Everlasting to my heart. And I breathe deeply...

    GOD BLESS you, Amber.

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    1. Sharon, this is one of the most beautiful, humbling and fulfilling things I could hear about my writing. I'm so touched - and grateful. xo

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  6. Amber, the peeling birch bark of jacquemontii are such an apt metaphor for our lives, women's lives in particular. I heard a speaker at Faith and Culture say, 'don't show people your wounds, show them your scars,' those places where there has been pain and hurt but Jesus has brought new growth over time.
    You are loved.

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    1. A jacquemontii birch, you say? I've never heard of that. Yes, trees are some of the richest metaphors for women's lives, aren't they? The safest, most healing place I've found in friendships is the invitation to show both - wounds and scars - and be loved in the midst. Thank you for your kind words.

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  7. You know how I feel about this piece, about you. Oh my word. I will return to this over and over again. I've witnessed how you see the peeling parts, seen how you hold those places as sacred, experienced the delight and sorrow of telling each other our stories, stood agape as we women tenderly trace our fingers over the wounds together...there's just no way to summarize what this kind of friendship/sisterhood does for a soul. I love you, Amber.

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  8. Amber, I wrote something here, but I must have done something goofy.
    anyway, I want you to know I see the beauty here, in the writing, in how you see your friends and I am so glad to have connected with you.

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