Amy Julia Becker's Blog, page 45

Easter| Love Is Life

Love is the strongest power.

Love is the core of the universe.

Love is the only unending, unshakable, permanent truth.

Love is life.

Love is the narrow path to the spacious place.

Love is the creation and the new creation and the one who holds all things together.

Love is the center.

Love came and walked among us and faced all the darkness and forgave and healed and wept and rejoiced and invited us into the way of blessing. 

Alleluia. Christ has risen. Alleluia.

More with Amy Julia:

Easter 2022: Sweatpants, Social Distancing, Sickness, and HopeTIME: How Disability Changed What Easter Means to My FamilyEaster Is for Me

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Hope on Holy Saturday

There is a space that stretches between despair and joy. A painful moment. Of waiting. Of uncertainty. Of fear and grief and doubt tinged with the smallest glimmer of light. For Christians in the midst of Holy Week, we stand in that space today. 

Two thousand years ago, the early followers of Jesus waited all through this day after his death. They held onto a little bit of hope. It wasn’t hope that they would see him again. They didn’t imagine the resurrection. They simply hoped that they could tend to his body, memorialize his teaching, honor the gift he had given them through his presence. 

Hope is that space in between the already and the not yet. That space of longing for what is too good to fully believe and yet too true to fully reject. That space of pain tethered to promise. That space of grief linked ever so faintly to the thought of reunion. 

Hope on Holy Saturday

Many days on this earth are like Holy Saturday. Stretched between pain and possibility. Fragile with the question of whether things could ever get better. Fraught with waiting. Today we are invited into that fraught and fragile place.  

Today is not a day to rejoice. But it is a day to hope.

More with Amy Julia:

Sitting in the Dark on Good FridayHoly Week Is About Unmet ExpectationsWaiting on Easter Saturday

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Sitting in the Dark on Good Friday

I would like to skip Good Friday.

I would like the cross to not be a part of the story.

I would like to ignore darkness and suffering. 

I would like to deny the reality of violence and abuse.

I would like to turn my back on everything painful.

I would like to skip ahead to resurrection. 

Many days, I do exactly that. I turn towards distraction. I push through the to-do list. I look on the bright side. I drink wine and shake off the humming sense that all is not well with me and with the world in which I live. 

But today, I am invited to turn towards that darkness. To attend to the forces of sin and death. To stare at the brutality and weep.

And when I turn my face to see all that hatred and the power of evil and the coercive force of corruption and decay, I also see Jesus.

Who, even in the midst of the darkness, called upon God to forgive.

Who, even as his body collapsed, asked John to take care of his mother.

Who, even as he cried out in pain and desolation, cried out in hope.

And who, even as he struggled to face the power of evil, surrendered himself to the power of love. 

More with Amy Julia:

Christ Dying With Us on Good FridayS4 E11 | Making Art in a Broken World with Makoto FujimuraHoly Week Is About Unmet Expectations

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Jean Vanier and the Way of Blessing

Jean Vanier was the storied founder of L’Arche, a global movement of communities for people with and without intellectual disabilities. Vanier won The Templeton Prize. He authored dozens of beautiful books about the intrinsic value of all of us in our beloved humanity, starting with those who might be seen as the least and the lowest, people with intellectual disabilities. Over 100 communities around the globe now exist as a result of Vanier’s visionary work.

I remember exactly where I was in 2020 when I learned that L’Arche was investigating credible allegations that Vanier had consistently sexually abused women over the course of many decades. I believed the women. But I didn’t know what to do with my thoughts and feelings around Vanier himself. 

He had been my teacher when it came to learning and living the intrinsic worth of every human life. He endorsed A Good and Perfect Gift. I quoted him in Small Talk. I had allowed his words of wisdom and grace to sink deep into my consciousness. 

Recently, L’Arche has published a 900-page report detailing not only the allegations against Vanier but also the news that L’Arche itself, at its very core, was built upon a lie. Vanier’s origin story for the organization rested on an altruistic notion that he wanted to live with two friends with intellectual disabilities. And from those lowly and beautiful beginnings, a movement was born. 

The truth is that Vanier wanted a way to continue a banned sect of Catholicism that included mystical abusive sexual predation upon women. L’Arche provided the cover he needed. So even as this movement was spreading across the globe, even as countless individuals were living according to a different way, a way of blessing, a way of grace, a way of love—Vanier himself was manipulating and abusing women. Again, and again, and again.

For years, the abuse continued. So did the grace. I don’t mean Vanier received grace. I mean that there are indeed treasures that can emerge out of darkness. That joy can come from ashes. That the most distorted, ugly, manipulative, behavior cannot halt the beauty that can also grow from a seed of truth. Vanier planted distortions and lies. He also planted the truth about vulnerable humanity. 

Now that his own corrupted practices have been brought to light, L’Arche is doing the work to make sure they did not extend beyond him. And they are continuing the work of belovedness and belonging. 

Vanier’s life and legacy show us the distortion and evil that can lie hidden within the human soul. But it also shows us that truth and beauty, love and hope, joy and peace, cannot be suppressed. 

I hope and pray that the work L’Arche is doing now to acknowledge the harm of Vanier’s actions will ultimately lead to healing for his victims. And I hope and pray this work will allow the legacy of Jean Vanier to die with him. 

I also hope and pray that the legacy of L’Arche will live on through the faithful work of humble women and men who love one another with grace and truth. 

I’ve packed away Vanier’s books. I may throw them away altogether. But I do remember how he once wrote that even if the world never learned anything from L’Arche, even if nothing changed, he saw this work as a sign that pointed toward the truth of the kingdom of heaven. The life of giving and receiving in mutual care and support was the work of love, whether or not it transformed the world. And, we might add, whether or not it transformed the founder and leader. Whether or not it eradicated abuse.

The work of L’Arche is still a sign that points to the beauty and grace and truth of Jesus’ way of blessing. 

Lead Us Not is the Sojourner’s podcast talking through the details of these revelations. This article from The Associated Press also gives a helpful (terrible, devastating) summary of what we have learned. 

More with Amy Julia:

Jean Vanier and Abuse: Is His Work Discredited?Can Disability and Blessing Go Hand in Hand?Reruns With Jesus

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Recording the Small Talk Audiobook

I had so much fun this week recording the audiobook of Small Talk! 

Small Talk came out nine years ago, in 2014, and for whatever reason, it never became an audiobook. Last year, after I recorded To Be Made Well, I realized I might have the opportunity to narrate Small Talk myself. We made a deal with CHRISTIANAUDIO, and I spent two days in the studio this week. You can expect it to be released into the world on or about May 30th. 

I often describe Small Talk as a parenting memoir, though it is definitely not a memoir with lots of parenting advice. It is more a story of lots of grace and empathy for anyone struggling as a parent of little children! 

Now that our kids are teens/tween, it was so fun and sweet to remember back to those early years. I write in the introduction that they are the vehicles of grace, and end the book with a reflection on the sweetness of grace. I can still say that our children are a gift of grace to me.

More with Amy Julia:

Small Talk: Learning From My Children About What Matters Most The Dignity of RiskResponsive ParentingWaiting and Sharing and Parenting

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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The Dignity of Risk

She might cut herself.

She might burn herself. 

She might feel lonely, sad, scared, abandoned.

I have read all about the dangers of helicopter parenting, and about the importance of letting our kids make mistakes and experience discomfort and failure. I still desperately want to make it all work out for them. 

No bruises or scrapes or burns along the way. Not of the body or of the soul. Especially for my child who seems the most vulnerable, my child with a disability.

Penny has more physical, emotional, and social limitations than her peers and her siblings. I am tempted, daily, to intervene either to make things safer or more efficient. 

I worry when she crosses a street on her own. I worry when she cooks a quesadilla on her own. I worry when she walks through the school doors in the morning. I worry when she stays home alone at night. 

But she deserves the opportunity to make mistakes. She deserves the learning that comes from conflict with a friend, a bad grade on a test, the pain of a bruise. She deserves the joy of accomplishing something that seemed out of reach, the experience of taking responsibility for her own care and well-being. 

I learned recently about a concept called “the dignity of risk.” It underscores what I vaguely understand already. That to jump in and smooth the path and eliminate the barriers is not only to decrease the risk she faces but to decrease the dignity I afford her. 

So we buy the lightweight kitchen knives that fit in her small hands. 

And we let her decide whether she wants to participate in the school talent show.

And we force her to problem solve opening a banana when it would be easier to intervene. 

And we sign her up for learning how to ride a bike as a teenager so that she has a means of mobility that doesn’t depend upon us. 

She will always be vulnerable. She will always need help. She will also always deserve opportunities to be herself and grow. 

And each time I let go of my attempt to control and protect, and instead allow her to take risks and grow, I surrender us both to love.

More with Amy Julia:

Responsive ParentingWaiting and Sharing and ParentingS6 E7 | The Cost of Control with Sharon Hodde Miller

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Protecting Our Children

How can we change a culture of violence and horror and meaninglessness into a culture of freedom and protection and purpose? How are we protecting our children?

I wrote yesterday about employing our spiritual imaginations and envisioning a future in which little children have no reason to fear shooters in the hallways of their schools. It can be numbingly hard to believe that such a future is possible. But changes of this magnitude have happened throughout human history. The abolition of slavery once seemed an impossible ideal in the face of what some called a “necessary evil.” All sorts of rights—the right to education for disabled people, the right to vote for women, the right to marriage for gay women and men—all of these and more once seemed impossible, hopeless causes. But change is possible. 

In contemplating the way culture changes, I’ve been reminded of sociologist James Hunter’s book To Change the World. Hunter identifies four factors that contribute to cultural change: 

Change happens through both critical and creative engagement.

We need to critique the reasons we are in this place of violence and hopelessness and then turn toward creative and innovative ways to address those trends. As I wrote yesterday, we need to imagine a world in which there are no school shootings and work towards that vision. 

Change happens on an institutional level.

We need individuals with influence within their political parties and legislative chambers to envision laws on a national, state, and local level that will reduce the proliferation of guns, restrict ownership of the weapons of war like the semi-automatic rifles used on Monday, and keep guns out of the hands of people who will use them for this type of harm.

Change happens through networks.

Individuals who connect to one another can together create the conditions for legislative and programmatic change. Individuals do not change the world. Connected and like-minded, like-hearted individuals who influence their institutions change the world.  

It does not need to go on this way. We each have one small part to play in a larger work that leads us toward a better future.

More with Amy Julia:

Another School Shooting: Is There Light in the Darkness?How Can We Respond to All the Injustice and Suffering?Imagining a World Without School Shootings

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Imagining a World Without School Shootings

Three nine-year-old children were murdered in their classroom on Monday morning.

Three nine-year-old children.

Their beautiful faces captured our imagination through tragedy. Theirs are one more in a litany of kids who have died senselessly on the altar of our national refusal to imagine and work towards structural changes that would protect them. 

The gravity of that truth has pressed on my heart this week. I happen to know children who were in that building and families whose loved ones died in the attack, and so this school shooting has weighed on me even more than the other horrors in recent memory. 

But I am like many others who often shut out the news of little ones who have needed to hide and run, little ones who have seen wreckage they never should have to see and heard screams they never should have to hear. 

The reason to face this brutal, horrific reality, the reason to pay attention to this pain, is to ensure that it does not keep happening. 

Yes, we should pray for change. Yes, we need better mental health care. Yes, there is a spiritual crisis of meaning and purpose that we need to address. Yes, schools can (and should, and do) enact measures to protect their students. And yes, most of all and first and foremost, we MUST take every action possible to change legislation and reduce the number of guns on the streets, restrict ownership of guns for people with mental illness, and restrict access to semi-automatic assault weapons.

For this type of structural change to happen, we must employ our spiritual imaginations. We must have the courage to hope. We acknowledge the horror and pain, but we also envision a real future in which our kids do not flee in terror. From there—from that place of possibility—we begin the work of local, state, and federal legislation and programming that will change the landscape of senseless violence.

Change begins not with a sense of helplessness or hopelessness but with faith in and action toward the possibility of a different future.

More with Amy Julia:

Another School Shooting: Is There Light in the Darkness?How Can We Respond to All the Injustice and Suffering?

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Deficit-Based Language

The only way to receive special education services for kids is by focusing on their deficits. 

I received a DM from one of you the other day about this reality: “My son’s school district emailed me his official autism report today, and the language they use in his observations is just heart breaking, I’m so sad! Ugh.”

And I remember that feeling. The pit in my stomach to hear a report of all the things Penny can’t do, all the ways she is slower than a typical kid, all the implications that as a result she is less than that kid too. 

I remember the explanation—that we have to prove the need for services, and the only way to do that is through articulating the deficits. 

The good news is that many service providers, therapists, and teachers don’t actively see our kids in terms of deficits. They see their strengths and possibilities and inherent beauty and worth. 

The bad news is that this deficit-based thinking pervades our culture, beginning with the word dis-ability itself. 

Thankfully, Peter and I were taught early on to think of Penny in terms of a growth mindset. To see her strengths and her beauty and her abilities and to encourage her in those areas. To love her for who she already was rather than see her as a defective product in need of improvement. And thankfully, many of her teachers and therapists and doctors saw her through this lens as well. 

There is a reason that these reports focus on deficits. And yet, these official reports could include the strengths and assets each child brings. They could still underscore the need for support without using terms and perpetuating a mindset of less-than. 

We can change the narrative around disability so that kids receive both the services they need and the respect they deserve. We don’t need to deny neediness and vulnerability. But we do need to uphold worthiness and possibility.   

Deficits never need to define any one of us

More with Amy Julia:

Nonverbal Individuals in the ChurchPenny’s PATHThe IEP Meeting Every Child With a Disability Deserves

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Reruns With Jesus

Eleven years ago, we moved to a new town and Peter started a new job. I called it my “year of wine and nachos,” as some of you may recall from my book, Small Talk. It was not the pinnacle of my life as a human, a wife, or a mother. 

We’re about to move again. Peter is about to start a new job. And I’m wondering whether we can approach it all differently this time. 

In Luke 5, the Apostle Simon-Peter hauls in hundreds of fish after an unsuccessful night on the water. Peter falls at Jesus’ feet and says, “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man.” Jesus instead invites Peter to leave his nets behind and follow him.

Years later, in John 21, Simon-Peter again hauls in hundreds of fish after an unsuccessful night on the water. Simon-Peter knows in an instant that the man on the shore who told him to throw his nets into the water is Jesus. It’s a repeat of that earlier moment. 

I’ve always read that second story as a sweet reminder to Simon-Peter of his initial moment of calling. But recently I noticed something else. In the first story, Simon-Peter pushes Jesus away. In the second story, Simon-Peter leaps into the water and runs toward Jesus. 

Just days earlier, Simon-Peter has denied and abandoned Jesus. If there was ever a time for falling on his knees, pushing Jesus away, and calling himself a sinner, it is now. 

But now Simon-Peter knows Jesus. He knows Jesus is the way of forgiving seventy times seven times. The way of blessing the brokenhearted. The way of radically abundant and generous love. The way of truth and grace. He knows that in the face of his own insecurities and failures, he wants to run with abandon toward the one who loves him with abundance.

Sometimes life gives us reruns. Eleven years later, I am trying again with a family move and a new start. My hope and prayer is that we repeat this move as people who have begun to reject the way of performance and achievement and who embrace the way of blessing. We return as people who do not reject the grace of God but who run toward love.

More with Amy Julia:

Limitations vs Limiting beliefsThe Only Thing You Stand to LoseAsbury Revival: Streams of Living Water

If you haven’t already, you can  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , Twitter ,  Pinterest ,  YouTube , and  Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my  Love Is Stronger Than Fear  podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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