Trust.
I’m currently in bed
with a head cold
or allergies
or some sort of
viral oppression.
And I wonder
lying here
what it means
to trust—
to trust the body—
to trust sickness—
to trust the future—
to trust healing—
to trust ourselves
at all—
what is trust
when we are tired?
What is trust when
things are foggy
and unsure,
when we feel
our humanness
deep down.
Can I trust myself
when I’m well?
Can I trust myself
when I’m not?
Can I trust myself?
If trust is a fall,
my instinct is to crochet
a net as wide as a canyon,
gather the threads of doubt
and dread and never
again will I be taken a fool.
If trust is a fall,
I construct my safety
net, make knots
from the pit of my stomach
the night you told me you lied
about that, double crochet
through side glances and promising
nothing, skip a stich or two
or hundreds of heartbeats
to slow down when memories
weigh in their habitual opinions.
If trust is a fall,
I’ve fallen far before,
still waiting to hit the ground,
my fingers wrapped in yarn.
My deepest wounding from the
theology and orthopraxy of
atonement theory and total depravity
is the relationship of trusting my
body, trusting my Knowing, trusting abundance, and trusting goodness.
Control, discipline, rigidity
created felt safety and
covered over this wound.
I’ve gradually been rebuilding trust
but the wound is now uncomfortably
exposed as my body cries out for a
trust I couldn’t even imagine for myself.
Confusion and mis-signals
bring discouragement after years
of chronic illness and restricted,
regimented protocols.
Trust requires relationship
Rebuilding trust takes time
What would it look like to
sit in the pain and discomfort
without an anxious desire
to understand and fix it?
Perhaps this is trust