A Ministry of Migration

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread. 

William Stafford, "The Way It Is" 

We have come to that place, yet again, where two roads diverge. After discerning with wise elders and kindreds, we have decided to shutter our home base in Central Oregon and, at least for a time, shelve the idea of a "home base" altogether. More and more, home base for us (and for our particular vocation) feels less like a place and more like a posture that pivots between the pain of solidarity and the promise of possibility. Not so much a hub, but a network. We keep hearing the call to light the hearth of home in our hearts and with kindreds scattered across the continent. To re-place a permanent address with an unfolding pilgrimage, scattered with multiple home bases. 

For the past few years, we have committed to a ministry of mutuality, a kind of soul accompaniment that values, above all else, authenticity, transparency and vulnerability. We are attempting to cultivate intimacy, community and justice by being present to the praise, protest and pain of others. We start by sharing our own. We are swapping stories of celebration and struggle, bearing one another's burdens. We believe this builds beloved community, what our souls are longing for. We know that social analysis is important, but we also know that healing happens when we move from the head to the heart so we can feel--and then to our hands and feet so we can move. Rinse. Repeat. The soul is far more than a head game. It yearns to be incarnated.

As we pack up and leave Oregon at the end of the month, we will be leaning into a ministry of migration, a kind of soul accompaniment that is on-the-move, cross-pollinating with families and faith communities, couples and congregations, post-evangelical parents and anti-establishment change agents. We feel called to both transport, and take in, spiritual nutrients across the continent, from Southern California to Southeast Michigan and spaces in-between and beyond. 

Our souls are yearning to be together, off-line, in-person, so we can process everything happening politically, socially, economically, emotionally, ecologically and spiritually. There is a lot happening and we were designed to figure it out in the flesh. Digital has been on-demand, but we are coming out of the cold, dark shadows with a double-vax jab to the shoulder and a double-dose of belly laughter for the soul. And some full-frontal hugs too. We want to position ourselves to be present, off-line and in-person, and facilitate circles, knowing full well that masking up and social distancing may still be required for this work. Questions abound over vaccines and variants. There are many possible versions of a post-pandemic world.

Our plan, for now, is to spend the entire months of April, August and December in Southern California. We will be in Detroit during the months of May and June, as well as October and November. We are keeping our calendar open in July and September. We hope to hit the road so we can check-in on folks and possibly spend a couple weeks or a month in one place, partnering with friends and faith communities in little experiments that fit the context.   

As we leave Oregon, there will be loss. We will say tearful goodbyes to Greg, Casey and Nephew Milo, family forever. We will miss the ease, adventure and deepening of our hikes, happy hours, meals and nights of TV show binging. 

We will lament leaving Angela, Amanda, Kyle, Vincent, Matthew and Hanky, our lectio divina community with its bonfire, pizza oven and spontaneous games of truth-or-dare... more than neighbors, friends who have become like family, and have provided invaluable spiritual holding and metabolizing community for us here, especially during the long isolation of pandemic. 

We shared multiple meals and meaningful moments over the course of our Central Oregon dwelling with many others, including Erika, Tom, Cora, Jason, Eoghan, and so many other new beloveds from the Storydwelling Community. We will carry with us new friendships with folks like Stephanie, Robert, Ella, and too many others to name, who have deeply blessed us with meals, drinks, laughter, and deep sharing during this season. 

And a special gratitude to the PDX-based Nilsen-Goodin Clan, who our spirit and heartstrings are forever tied to no matter where we live, but whose in-the-flesh companionship over the past two years has brought deep gift of delight, spirit sustenance, and nurture, at the place the lichen-covered mountains meet the desert, just south of the mighty Nch'i-Wana River. 

Finally, it will be sad to leave the lupine, lava flows, mountain lakes, ponderosas, cedars, waterfalls and, of course, the river that Indigenous people called Towarnehiooks, which have all rearranged us in ways we can't name.

For the past seven years, we have been steeped in change. However, on the move, we hold onto what William Stafford, the poet laureate of Oregon, called "the thread." The soul thing that we are pursuing that does not change. The thread is like a divine conspiracy, from the Latin meaning "breathing with." No matter what happens, we know our lives are threaded together by Something that breathes with the broken-hearted, with those bearing the brunt of the pain and suffering, with those bursting with brilliance and beauty rising up from the cracks and corners of empire. Our life is threaded together with love lessons, just learning how to breathe with those Jesus called "blessed." All this to say: we better catch our breath. Before we hit the road. Again.