Author: admin

Hi Tab Family, 
This past Sunday Joanna preached on a difficult text from Genesis, one that has often been used as an excuse to wield power over people. I for one am so grateful that Joanna shared with us some of her story, both in terms of her childhood understanding of the text, and her soon-to-be-over time working with the Catholic Church. 

What stood out to me this week was Joanna’s story regarding advocating for parental leave at her workplace. To me, it is good and right, and it brings glory to God, when employers provide paid parental leave that is entirely separate from vacation and sick time. Childbirth is not a vacation. Pregnancy and parenthood of a newborn are not diseases (though as many who have been pregnant know, pregnancy transforms the body in more ways than one. It is not easy. It is physical and embodied. But I don’t think I’m comfortable classifying it as a disease to be covered by sick time). 

And it got me thinking — who told the people making decisions about parental leave– who told them pregnancy and taking care of a newborn child are diseases, to be covered by accumulated sick leave? What did their source information look like? Who did they believe? 
When God asks, “Who told you you were naked?” I think about all the questionable sources I’ve believed throughout the years. I think about all the putrid things I’ve believed about the world, and about myself, because I filled in the blanks with whatever less than accurate information I’ve digested. 

What are some things that you’ve digested over the years? What backwards beliefs about yourself and your body have you been fed? What do you think God would say to you if you brought those things to God in earnest instead of hiding in shame? 

I love that in this story, instead of being immediately critical, God is instead curious. God asks Adam a question. Maybe next time you catch yourself hating your body, or hiding your sexuality in shame, or believing the world/humanity is seeking your personal demise, you can ask yourself that some question: 

“Who told you that?”

Maybe you, too, can be curious at first instead of critical. Maybe you can try to get the whole story. 

Blessings on the end of your week, fam! 

Best,Taylor M Silvestri (they/them)

Hey Tab Family,

If I’m really going to let go of some of my shame, I feel like I need to confess a few things first.

Namely, I have to tell y’all that lately I’ve been daydreaming about running away. I’ve been feeling pretty claustrophobic these days. I have caught myself drifting into a place of pure imagination, where I build a tiny house in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by rain and grey skies, bees, flowers, vegetables, and chickens, where the temperature rarely climbs above 70 and most importantly, where I’m in a different time zone, on a coast opposite of a majority of situations I feel trapped in. I dream about packing my bags and leaving.

So when Katie talked about putting our baggage on the converter belt in the airport this past Sunday, I felt a little relieved. Because thankfully the image ended there. We didn’t hop on the plane only to be met at our destination by our shame, ripe and ready for us to drag it everywhere we go.

Our baggage is going to follow us everywhere unless we acknowledge it so we can then simply (or not so simply) let it go. There’s a song by the Avett Brothers called “The Weight of Lies” that goes:

“The weight of lies will bring you down
and follow you to every town
‘cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there.
So when you run make sure you run
to something and not away from
‘cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere.”

And shame is certainly one of the big lies we’ve been fed our entire lives to the point that now we willfully choose to ingest it ourselves. It weighs us down. It stops us from reaching our growth potential, from connecting honestly and fully with each other. It stops us from having truthful and vulnerable conversations geared toward growth and healing because when we operate from a place of shame, we will always downplay the truth of who we are– that is, we are beloved, we are capable, and our worth isn’t predicated on our perfection. And if we see ourselves through a lens of shame, we get to clothe ourselves in the illusion that we are hated, incapable, and unworthy. In that sense, we sort of give ourselves a free pass to be crappy to other people, and we let other people treat us like crap, until we construct a worldview of sheer garbage. We expect the worst because we believe we are the worst. Isn’t that convenient…

But isn’t it also burdensome? Couldn’t we just put it down, pack it up, and let it go?

I think that’s what my shame makes me want to run away from– it makes me want to run away from my potential for growth. It makes me reject the fact that I am beloved, capable, and worthy. It tells me that if maybe I can just try to pretend I’m those things, I can get away with never really allowing myself to be great, and to actually embody those things. I can sidestep the honest and vulnerable conversations that would actually push my relationships into freedom. Lately, I’ve been lying to myself in my daydreams of homesteading in central Washington, pretending like freedom from my relationships and their complications is somehow more desirable than freedom in my relationships when I choose to let go of my shame and be vulnerable. To let go of my shame and be great.To stop telling myself how wrong or bad I am. Or that other people are.

What if instead of eloping with my shame to my little microfarm in the PNW far away from it all, I could instead confront my shame, stare it in the face, stuff it in a vacuum bag and suck all the air out and toss it in a suitcase? What if I could let my shame go? What if I could throw it on that conveyor belt, send it off, turn around and walk out of that airport without hopping on the flight? What if I’m great? What if we could put down our baggage and realize greatness in each other? What if we could expand instead of contract, be curious instead of critical, repair instead of punish?

Listen to the “Weight of Lies” by the Avett Brothers here, and feel free to share what bits of shame you might be shipping off these days, so I can pray for you as you navigate that process.

Best,
Taylor Silvestri (they/them)