everything is here to help you
PRONOIA (n.) the belief the universe is conspiring in your favor.
I’m writing from my new home in Michigan. I’ve been catching up with a family I haven’t been with in over ten years. I’m seeing with eyes I didn’t have before I made it to Portland almost 13 years ago exactly. I’m remembering things I forgot about. How my initials came from my grandfather, C. R. Denison. My first name “Cara” means friend. And my second name “Renae” means reborn. I consider all the ways my life has been shaped by my relationships and how many times I’ve started over. How after losing my son, I lived out of two suitcases for years bouncing around from place to place, trying to connect to wanting to stay alive. I was just so broken. How before that, I was a seminary student who moved from Indiana to Colorado to plant a church. That loss marks when I traded christianity for a reluctant and makeshift spiritual LOVE path I fell into after a humxn anatomy class, followed by some trippy experiences in massage school. I traded the church in for authentic connection and vulnerable conversations, real presence. (Both of which the bible taught me was the real heart of it all anyway)
Then Mae came along, within wild circumstances I still can’t yet seem to talk about outside of a very few. An unexpected and necessary reconciliation that had me rooting into the rose city to grow and bloom myself. Roots looked like physical support for our well being and it looked like clear mirrors of loving and intentional humxns, out to leave the world better than they found it. In many ways, it has been out of my control but a certain type of faith I could lean into, unfolding into my survival. Because really, what other choice did I have?
Here I am 13 years later, taking inventory of all of the relationships that got me to this point, an existence beyond merely surviving, though often times throughout of just that. I collected some experiences in different types of therapeutic and healing modalities. During the pandemic, I found myself still enough to more deeply ask who I was beyond the internalized narratives of trauma, which takes a certain kind of dreaming. To make room to let myself imagine another way required an entire education in taming anxiety and stress. (shout out to SOMATIC THERAPY) And now, I’ve landed in Michigan, with my family, hopeful of the things I get to become beyond the patterning of my pain.
This week in conversation, my brother in law was naming how faith is really just the fight against fear. How limited we are when we treat fear like a resident and not the guest it is to indicate to us our emotional state, prompting in us to check in with ourselves, before taking the next right step. As I consider my life’s trajectory and who I was or who I became as big events shaped me, I think about that 18 year old in seminary who thought they were just learning how to love and serve others better. I dropped out of school after I was sexually assaulted there. Then shortly after I returned home, I was kicked out. And eventually I returned to my faith, because again, what other choice did i have? In all my life, it hasn’t steered me wrong.
Because of this type of faith journey, I do love me some spiritual texts, birthed out of suffering and fear conquering, which I see as literary works and like most things, I glean the reflection or encouragement where I can. I’m doing the hard work of ptsd that makes me overly sentimental and cheesy so yall can just let all my meaning making wash over you if you’d like. I say this because I feel religion has been divisive and shamefully isolates, when the real meat of these messages, recorded by imperfect people is love. Just love. I have no interest in anyone speaking otherwise. But something compels me to get very clear on what words remain here with me, in spite of all the distance from the religion that weaponizes these words. (ps god loves gays)
A prisoner named paul wrote that faith alone, through grace, not by your own efforts or works is enough. Somewhere along the line, they called this ephesians. (It doesn’t seem that different than the root of law of attraction thinking) In another letter they named hebrews, paul also said “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Which makes me think of greek philospher epicurus, “do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” Hope is a part of faith. We cannot hope without imagination. We cannot become what we cannot see and why I think contemplating new ways is a worthwhile endeavor.
Jesus, the brown immigrant and refugee who liked associating with people society or religious establishment did not approve of, had a cousin named john who helped me by just renaming god “LOVE” because the spirit of love is certainly recognizable, whereas “god” has been perverted by fear in our nation, making it challenging for me to relax into. but LOVE. i can get on board with. Love is chill af and paul laid out what to look for in his letter to corinthians, which has been recited at someone’s wedding you went to, I am sure.
john was said to have wild hair and be likely eerily devoted to the message of god. if he was here today, he’d be houseless and screaming on the streets while one of us called the cops on him. (I make these points for a reason.) In the spirit of “everyone is a teacher”, i’ll say I also loved when john said “there is no fear in love, but complete love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not yet been perfected in love.” Queer mystical poet refugee and islamic philospher, rumi, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it, and embrace them.” Artist Hank Willis Thomas said “LOVE OVER RULES”
rumi also originated the concept “you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop” that the bahai faith believes is “fingers of one hand, the members of one body. . . all the leaves of one tree and the drops of one ocean.” paul continues to repeatedly write that there are no divisions, all are one body of many parts. islam, judiasm, and christianity all believe that love’s only requirement of you is to do what you believe is right or fair, to love kindness, and to walk the earth with humility.
CONSIDER WAYS BEYOND CAPITALISM // PEOPLE OVER PROFIT // VOTE WITH YOUR MONEY // COMMUNITY OVER COMPETITION
//THINGS FOR YOU
i made you a 30 minute playlist with songs for now because i love you and i miss you and i am happily here.
how to fight by thich nhat hanh
the untethered soul by michael singer
sign up for a free trial of apple tv and immediately watch ted lasso, you’re welcome.
the growing LGBTQIA+ youth and the increasing risk of suicide and self harm: why pronouns, policies, and spaces of harm reduction matter.
this youtube digital artist mae showed me, starting with the history of the world and ending with this sweet little jam where you see him dancing
michigan has nine different species of squirrels, including a jet black squirrel.
mirror of self by marlee grace
this issue of alice is dedicated to my rad child mae. mae has taken me on quite the journey of considering new ways of being and relating. the youth has their thumb on the pulse of all the necessary shifts that need to happen to help them sustain what we’ve let the earth become. i’ve had the privilege of raising this lifelong learner and wise sensitive for the last 13 years, with a pressing awareness we only have five years of this season left together.