by Ashley Hales
We almost moved to Portland in 2009 to do an apprenticeship with a church. We fell in love. We wanted to be downtown people. We wanted to walk on lazy Saturday mornings with a cup of hand-crafted coffee and browse in Powell’s. We ached for urbanism, books, meaning, and craft beers. We longed for the coming together of pubs and stories; of the gospel and hipsters; of beauty and brokenness. And then it turned to ashes. We didn’t move. And we felt like death. Six years later, this last weekend, I returned to Portland and even in the span of three days and three nights, I am resurrected.
I am more fully alive, more fully myself, more a member of a tribe than I dreamt possible. There is a quiet back and forth between the prophetic fire I feel stretching for release inside of me and the long, slow soul-digging necessary to make a life of writing work. And it all is good work. Because now I believe I have a community of soul friends; where, hunched over drinks around a table, even though we come from different backgrounds and theological viewpoints, we are home. There, around the table, we are most fully ourselves, most fully alive. Because home was never about being right. Home is belonging. Home is where we hash out who we are and what we believe; but surrounding that process, is a womb of protection. Home is where we can be messy, scared, broken, angry. And a true home can hold us as we thrash about as we are birthed into ourselves.
I found a little slice of home there in the drizzly northwestern rain. I found a home by myself, sandwiched between earth and concrete, feeling as much a part of one as the other. I found home in a Kingdom that is wide and deep and long and a breath of air. I found home in words that filled me, where I marveled at beauty and truth wrapped around one another like lovers. I found home in the eyes of my friends, when I could listen to their hurt, to their cries of lament from systemic oppression; or where I could weep at the violence done to them because they were sacrifices to a system. These are systems based on fear or control, where the image of God becomes something to squelch and squash, like my toddler squishes Play-Doh back into its plastic tin. I found home in the words of meandering faith journeys, where we hold holy space open for each other. I found home in my tears. Portland birthed me. Me. Not in my writerly garb, but just me.
I have some resolutions of sorts, some lessons to take away and tape up to my bathroom mirror, to remind myself what I will do: I will dig gently. But I will dig. I will tell myself the truth of the middle day. That there is dusk and there is dawn and at these threshold moments we are the verge of beholding glory. I will see. I will pause, slow down and not rush to resolution. My first duty is to see. I will proclaim truth. I will point others to glory. And, I will show them home.
This was Ashley’s first time attending the Faith & Culture Writers Conference. She blogs at: Website