Strong Back. Soft Front. Wild Heart.

I finished reading Brené Brown's Braving the Wilderness this evening. This and Daring Greatly are my favorites of hers. I wanted to jot down a few general ideas coming fresh off this read. Her most recent book deals with belonging, and she defines true belonging as this:

True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.

 

I've been thinking a lot about belonging in many different aspects of my life, certainly in a more concentrated way since Grammy died. While the struggle with belonging as it relates to Grammy is relatively new, some of the other struggles with belonging are things I've been feeling my way through for several years. Brown arrives at her ideas of belonging after wrestling with and then coming to understand the following Maya Angelou quote:

You are only free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.

After an experience that led her to revisit the quote, she found it in its full context in the transcript of a conversation between Bill Moyers and Maya Angelou:

Moyers: Do you belong anywhere?
Angelou: I haven't yet.
Moyers: Do you belong to anyone?
Angelou: More and more. I mean, I belong to myself. I'm very proud of that. I am very concerned about how I look at Maya. I like Maya very much. I like the humor and courage very much. And when I find myself acting in a way that isn't . . . that doesn't please me - then I have to deal with that.

In the last chapter, "Strong Back. Soft Front. Wild Heart.," Brown relays an experience that Jen Hatmaker shared with her. Well, not so much the experience itself, but the aftermath of an experience.

I won't sugarcoat this: Standing on the precipice of the wilderness is bone-chilling. Because belonging is so primal, so necessary, the threat of losing your tribe or going alone feels so terrifying as to keep most of us distanced from the wilderness our whole lives. Human approval is one of the most treasured idols, and the offering we much lay at its hungry feet is keeping others comfortable. I'm convinced that discomfort is the great deterrent of our generation. Protecting the status quo against our internal convictions is obviously a luxury of the privileged, because the underdogs and outliers and the marginalized have no choice but to experience the daily wilderness. But choosing the wily outpost over the security of the city gates takes a true act of courage. That first step will take your breath away. Speaking against power structures that keep some inside and others outside has a cost, and the currency most often drafted from my account is belonging. Consequently, the wilderness sometimes feels very lonely and punishing, which is a powerful disincentive. But I've discovered something beautiful; the loneliest steps are the ones between the city walls and the heart of the wilderness, where safety is in the rearview mirror, new territory remains to be seen, and the path out to the unknown seems empty. But put one foot in front of the other enough times, stay the course long enough to actually tunnel into the wilderness, and you'll be shocked how many people already live out there - thriving, dancing, creating, celebrating, belonging. It is not a barren wasteland. It is not unprotected territory. It is not void of human flourishing. The wilderness is where all the creatives and prophets and system-buckers and risk-takers have always lived, and it is stunningly vibrant. The walk out there is hard, but the authenticity out there is life.  I suspect the wilderness is a permanent home for me, which is both happy and hard. A dear friend sent me a text during those harsh first steps out, having broken party lines irreversibly after publicly wrestling through a fragile doctrinal interpretation. There is this wonderful and strange story in Genesis 32 about Jacob physically wrestling with God all night in the literal wilderness, and upon realizing that Jacob was positively not giving up and in fact hollered, "I will not let you go unless you bless me!" he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of socket, a permanent reminder of the struggle of a determined, stubborn, dogged man with God; an absurd and ballsy move, as outrageous as it was impressive. My friend texted me: "You are like Jacob. You refused to let go of God until he blessed you in this space. And He will. You will indeed find new land. But you'll always walk with a limp." So I've chosen the wilderness, because it is where I can tell the truth and lead with the most courage and gather with my fellow outsiders, but this limp will remind me of the cost, what lies behind me, what will always feel a little sad and a little bruised. Was it worth it? Unquestionably. And I hope the limp shows my fellow wilderness dwellers that I am acquainted with pain and didn't make it out here unscathed either.  

 

It's certainly true that Hatmaker's experience shares common threads with my journey in Mormonism, but also with many other aspects of my overall life journey. It's wild to find oneself on the outside of a faith community - a community in which I was comfortable because of its familiarity. But, as Brown points out in much of her work, fitting in and belonging are two very different things. Familiarity is great, but it can also breed complacency. In anything. Familiarity in relationships, in careers, in communities. At any rate, the talk of belonging and finding oneself in the wilderness really resonated with me. Keeping a wild heart resonated with me.

The mark of a wild heart is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It's the ability to be tough and tender, excited and scared, brave and afraid - all in the same moment. It's showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, being both fierce and kind. A wild heart can also straddle the tension of staying awake to the struggle in the world and fighting for justice and peace, while also cultivating its own moments of joy. A wild heart is awake to the pain in the world, but does not diminish its own pain. A wild heart can beat with gratitude and lean in to pure joy without denying the struggle of the world. It's not always easy or comfortable - sometimes we struggle with the weight of the pull - but what makes it possible is a front made of love and a back built of courage.     

And finally, a daily practice:

Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don't belong. You will always find it because you've made that your mission. Stop scouring people's faces for evidence that you're not enough. You will always find it because you've made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don't negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you. 

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