this advent i need a woman’s space.
a dark space.
a silent space.
somehow i’ve got to find my way
back to the womb of my own life.

this advent i need shawls and songs.
the sacramentals of ceramic mugs
and solitary candles
standing like sentries
throwing shadows on the darkened walls
of my winter heart.

this advent i need to awaken to
the calm click of an ancestor’s beads.
to wrap myself in a whispered
pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
to breathe to the steady beat
of a grandmother’s needles
counting stitches.
counting time.
counting on jesus to
carry her through.

this advent i need a woman’s space.
a safe space.
a sacred place where i can
succumb to the rage.
surrender to my own
angry power.
a place where I finally –
once and for all –
rip the tape off my mouth
set like a seal
on my child’s lips
in the name of
a monster god.
a place where i can
tear at my hair and
howl myself home.

a place where i
can throw myself
into the fire and
embrace what remains
when the flames die down.
enter the crucible
of truth . . .
coming out of the pyre
gleaming like gold.

a place where I can
break bottles against
walls of pain
and take on the
million men who have
marched through my days
like goosestepping giants.

a place where i can
shape a future from
jagged-edged shards.

a place where i can heal.

this advent i need a woman’s space.
a space where i can lay down the
sword of insecurity
and give up the
tough girl guise.
a place of vulnerability
where i can burn
blood-stained boots
and dance barefoot
in the snow.
a terrifying place of trust
where i can uncurl my fists,
unclench my jaw,
loosen my hair,
and drop the armor
carried through life
like a wilted bouquet
from a marriage gone dead.

a place where i can take a
scared, deep breath
and declare
an end to war.

this advent i need a woman’s space
where i can be born.
a place beneath the
hardened soil of a
frightened heart.
to claw my way to the
deep down dirt
and let the worms
do their work.
to lay still in a
bed of black dirt
where wildflowers
lay winter roots that
spread like an
old crone’s fingers.

no brightly-lit birth
with legs spread wide
in a clean, white room.

this advent demands
the dark.

this advent i need a woman’s space.
a place where the
midnight wind whistles and
the pine trees genuflect
and the winter stars dance
and badass angels
come together to sing
in the cold, black night
because something new
is being born.

Published in Radical Discipleship, Advent 2017