Embodied: K.J. Ramsey's Newsletter
Embodied.
Hi friend,
Embodied is my small offering for you, a cushion on an internet couch, where we can talk about some things that matter and seek joy in the lives we have. It's a small conversation to create more room in your soul and story for joy. In each edition I include a short reflection, usually with something to practice in your ordinary life, and some writing updates. I pray you find comfort and compassion leading to action here. Jesus holds great joy in our lives, and I want us to receive it.
Crowds Can Be Chapels
I grew up hating crowds. The encroachment of the bodies of strangers brushing by. The unavoidable noises that seemed to soak into my skin, permeating my peace, dissolving calm into irritation. The feeling of panic when I'd lose sight of my family. Crowds were chaos.
My family adores Disney World, a place I hated as a kid quite seriously because of crowds and consumerism. I possessed an odd existentialism at an oddly young age, finding meaningless everywhere it could be found, judging the hell out of it with snide comments, and blocking it out with a book in my hands no matter where I walked. (Maybe there's a chance this is why I didn't have many friends in grade school?) In lines, stores, and meals, I withdrew into my own safe world. Meaning was inside pages not faces.
Sometimes I wonder if most of maturing means becoming like the child I never was.
This week we've been in Disney World with my family, a place I've learned to enjoy as an adult because it draws me out of seriousness (last night my loftiest goal was breaking my personal score record on the Buzz Lightyear ride) and because it's where I get to see my dad do the same.
I still don’t love being in a crowd, and I have my moments of judging, but I also wonder if holiness means setting apart attention for faces and not just pages. I wonder if instead of setting apart myself in judgement of others’ excesses I could find joy by participating in play.
When I walk in a crowd like this, I practice naming over and over the holiness I see.
From the tiniest babies, to the grouchy toddler, from the old couple holding hands, to the kid yelling at her mom. Every body, every shape, every ability, every person: the image of God.
I repeat it in my head, both a blessing and a prayer:
The image of God.
The image of God.
The image of God.
Every person is someone's daughter or son. Every body lives a story. Every face reflects the glory of God. Alongside and underneath the fractures and fissures I see, even the things that make me grieve--the fights, the strain of pain--is an indelible radiance. Looking at each face and body like a blessing makes me marvel. In part, I'm seeing God.
I didn't see it when I was hurrying. I didn't see it when I was focused on my rising stress, because the places where we zero in on our agenda can sometimes zero out our joy. Joy can't reside in a heart tense with hurry hiding pride. It slips between the grasping fingers of unaware self-importance.
What was threatening, what can be overwhelming, what seems like an obstacle to enjoying the thing, or the ride, or the destination, is what is holy. A crowd can be a chapel. Overwhelm can become wonder. Every face can be a note in a song of praise.
Joy is like the summer breeze, a grazing warmth; yet I think we can seek it. I think we can cultivate it. I think we can feel it like sun on skin. I think when we watch for the warmth, we more fully appreciate it when it comes. Joy can come in a reversal of attention as small as blessing and naming the people we normally rush past as bearers of the image of God. Whether it’s in Disney World or a waiting room, the goodness of naming is ours to receive.
Practicing Reverence
Practice reverence in the next crowd you find yourself. The aisles of your grocery store will do. Take a several moments to see the faces and to name them in your heart in quiet blessing: the image of God.
You can practice reverence in between grabbing the kale and the onions. You can do it while walking. You can worship right when you are overwhelmed. Name the faces long enough to notice: bearing the image of God is an incredible thing. Here is mystery in the mundane. Here is holiness in humility. Here is where self-importance slips away, in slowing enough to see the grace of existing--in remembering the radiance of God is never farther than a face.
I found holiness in a crowd at Disney World. I'll find it in my grocery story and doctor's office waiting room later this week. Alongside the stress I carry, I'll name and bless and see. Where we are habituated to hurry, we can cultivate childlike curiosity, willing to see with wonder the glory of God in the faces we see. Look up with me.
Writing Updates
The book! I'm deep into writing my first book! It is set to release with Zondervan April 2020. In the meantime, I'd love your prayers for energy, health, inspiration, and joy while I finish my manuscript. It's due to my editor May 31st! Right now the marketing team is busy finalizing my title and designing a cover. So I should have some fun news to share in that department soon.
New Podcast Interview: I had fun talking all things Enneagram with Blake Guichet on Confessions of a Crappy Christian. Listen here.
New Health Central Article: This winter marked a decade since I first got sick with Ankylosing Spondylitis, so I wrote a letter to my younger self from this vantage point. I pray it encourages you in your own experiences of hard things, whether you are in year 1, month 4, or year 17.
And One Small, Lovely Thing I think you'll love: My friend Summer Gross has started a beautiful podcast, the Slow Word Movement, where she offers 15 minute guided lectio divina (contemplative reading of Scripture). You can listen here.
Thanks for spending a little time on the couch talking about joy with me. It's an honor to share words and space with you, even in the small form of an email.
In the fellowship of the God who made us in his image,
KJ
kjramsey.com