By Amirah David Do you know your great great grandmother’s name? Do you know your great grandfather’s source of shame or even your grandma’s favorite childhood game? These days we both care about and take for granted what will surely become stories handed down at best, but more often become stranded in the dust from which they came. I don’t even know my great grandma’s maiden name. I know she birthed her babies alone on a farm and washed their clothes in a barrel with her s

By Amirah David When this tissue paper body finds gravity too adamant especially with the extra sag of tragedy - You are the ground, or the wings. I feel you like the apple tree senses her buds under concrete snow - the way a bulb knows when to grow. When I’ve failed again to reflect you fastened indoors when there is new sun calling - You are drawing out the robins and tulips to ring their bells - to be just themselves - unblurred by uncertain identity - telling of Your

By Amirah David If you were starving in the desert, I mean so hungry you could no longer lift your own tongue or bones. If you were so thirsty you’d lost speech and could only dream of water leaking from stones. And suddenly, at the end of an abandoned road, when you were prone to collapse - you found an oasis of pools and dates and shade so real it stayed after you closed your sticky eyes… And it was more than you’d achy prayed all those hot hopeless days. After you dragge

By Amirah David Dignity (problem of division or fear of other) Like the splash that scattered the line of ants Or the walls of the divided red sea See us retreat to our camps On either side of enemy lines Drawn in cyber chalk But felt as kryptonite. See our faces with all their readable poetry, Slowly pixilate into bites Boxed and labeled as black or white. See the dignity of real flesh and blood and history Real mother’s sons with courage and mystery Become a paper target T

A Communion Meditation By Amirah David As I thought about the bread of life we eat on Sunday - as the body of Christ…I started contemplating our own bodies. Our culture has a complicated relationship with body. In one way our culture is body-obsessed - hyper-focused on appearance, while also holding a low view of the body - as something expendable or subduable or only for pleasure at any cost. Nancy Pearcy in her book “Love Thy Body” says we treat it like “malleable matte

A Communion Meditation By Amirah David Galatians 2:20 - “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” In 14 years of being in mental health and getting a front row seat to secret sufferings of people from all walks of life - many of whom you’d never guess were suffering - I have learned that one of the most common ro

A Communion Meditation By Amirah David Do this in remembrance of me. I was recently shown a brand new perspective, thanks to Rick Booye - like seeing in color for the first time, not knowing it has always been there. It comes from Ephesians 2:6 “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Notice, this is stated in the past tense. This is a future past tense. God is eternal, so time means nothing to Him, but He knows it means

By Amirah David I've been preparing for a musical theater audition all week, scrutinizing how every note sounds, every gesture. Is it natural enough? Bold enough? Good enough? And then, in the middle of it, it dawned on me that communion is the actual opposite of an audition. And we are always auditioning. Yes, there's the standard prep for a play, when we live in the oxymoron of desperately trying to show off what we can do while striving to look as natural as possible. But

By Amirah David I think tears are beautiful. Pearls of something honest. The pull and grind of the not-right against the good beyond us. Her eyes were closed. Promised her body she’d listen. Her chest released from fear’s prison, and she touched a strand of compassion for a part of her she’d ran from. There through the eyes of God she could see it was the source of her passion. The warrior force that let her stand with fear and stay. And the tears sprang from the mountain spr

By Amirah David Isaiah 6:13 “Israel will remain a stump, like that of a tree that is cut down, but the stump will be a holy seed that will grow again.” Psalm 16:10 “For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave.” John 15:2 “...while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” I’ve judged people who are depressed. Yep. And I’m a therapist. Just a sick whisper: “Oh ‘come on, that’s enough rest.