We are each artist in the world that God has painted us into. We forget that we have a brush in our hand and can leave of own paint strokes of divine grace…

However, I can’t help but revert to the Sunday memories of my Christian childhood in Greenville, South Carolina. I can still envision my own little white socks, freshly bleached from the night before sweating in the summer heat under my patent leather shoes. I can smell the pot roast crock pot that my mother had prepped early that Sunday morning and I can feel the hard wooden pews pressed against my back as I waited for the long sermon to be over.

Every morning I wake up and check the online news for the overnight shootings in New Orleans, Louisiana, where I have just begun a two-year pastoral residency with St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church.

The church itself is fragrant with green and white flowers, surrounded by old historic mansions. Wrought iron fences and private security systems create the illusion of overarching and expanded security that touches all the New Orleanian wards. It would be so easy for me to simply … stop checking the news each morning, but I can’t.

This week alone:

Eight women shot in six weeks in lower income neighborhoods, mere miles away.

A late night shooting in a bar on Bourbon Street.

A 10am murder in the Aurora neighborhood. ….

It never stops.

Linoleum Print x Ashley Brown

There’s something painful about this work I swear

When I look at the eyes of a person who sleeps on the ground

Behind the broken down church

His skin is covered in grime and bruises

And he swears he’s alright.

He swears he’s eighteen but we all know

He ain’t close.

For me, ordination was not simply a spiritual pilgrimage, but more a spiritual battle. And on May 19th at 4:00 p.m., the Presbytery of South Louisiana will be congregating at our church to celebrate my ordination alongside all of you in a special worship service. Bring your sons and daughters to the service so that they can witness a woman being ordained.

Photo shot x Ashley Brown, iPhone, while on retreat in Lake Charles

Elliot Moss’s song, “Lazy” sings, “I’ll never grow up, but I’m losing all my hair.” This line hits me in the gut as I see new wrinkles in my face and pull grey hairs from my temple. How is it that I am 33, and still feel 15? This life has become a rat-race, and one I am desparately trying to win.

There’s only one thing that soothes my soul, and that’s the experience of divine peace amongst my friends and colleagues or in nature. All else overwhelms me. But when I’m sitting next to someone, or in a room where spiritual work is at play- I find my grounding.

Photo x Ashley Brown, iPhone

My voice has never been silenced, but through the rigor of the ordination process, my voice was greatly hushed. Now, though, I enter an era where I can claim each thought that previously I had suppressed.

Some days I feel as if I am transitioning from mutation to microphone. Whenever I tape the headset on my face on Sunday mornings, I say a prayer of thanks that I get to be heard. Because so many women are silenced in the church.

But now, I get to stand on my two feet and speak. I enunciate. I project.

Hear me, I whisper at first.

Hear me, I say.

Hear me, I shout.

I hold in reverse memory a friend of mine who called me Valentine’s Days years ago sobbing. Her boyfriend of a year and her had had a romantic dinner, and she was waiting desperately for him to tell her he loved her. He did not that night, and instead of communicating her own love to him, she held her voice in and made herself small, so that her big emotions wouldn’t scare him off. And of course, much later- he did tell her she loved him, and now they are married. But I have been in hospital rooms with the dying, and I know the urgency of living life to the fullest, because no moments in our futures are guaranteed.

We much be responsible stewards of our lives, and we must love as big and as wide and as deep as we possibly can. It is that simple.

The games I see play out in the concerns on the freshly partnered on sharing their emotions first is a waste of our divine energy. God didn’t design us in His image to barricade our love behind walls of protective emotional barriers and earned rights. Love doesn’t have to wait until X amount of time has passed together. Love is Love.

I steal wifi, and google seminaries. I tell my family of my interest and they buy me a plane ticket to visit Princeton’s student weekend. They are proud. So proud! A minister! Sunshine, all around.

Months later, I disembark in Princeton Junction. I am cold and uncertain by the grey-ness of the buildings. I tour classes, meet with other prospects and talk to the Admissions counselor.

When I fly back home, my Dad is at the airport waiting. “I’m not cut out for seminary, “ I tell him. He gives me a hug. We let it go.

Moving to Austin, Texas occurs without crescendo.

There is no fanfare, no building up of energy, angst or excitement.

Due to the contagion, I say silo’ed goodbyes to the people who I love, unsure if I will ever see them again. My grandparents are not in great shape, and we eat one last dinner, enjoying one another’s company, and when we say farewell, it is under a rainbow in the My Father’s Parking lot.

I drive cross country with my dog, and a 12 foot trailer. The roads are empty, and symptomatic of the fear in our country. Masks litter empty sidewalks, and it feels as if the entire world has disappeared, except for Oakley and I. We are travelers, in a world without people. Storefronts are boarded up, drug needles litter the ground near gas station dumpsters. Homeless men sleeping in their cars at truck stops offer advice to me on how to properly load my trailer.

I pull over and reload the trailer, after driving away from them. My glasses fall and break.

Along the road, I listen to soft music, and fuel up on gas station sodas. I am not nostalgic during my drive, no emotions creep up, I refuse myself the opportunity to look in the review mirror, at South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana until finally, I cross over into Texas.

2019, receiving my Reiki Level 1 and Level 2 Certification with Dr. Makiko Fliss in South Carolina. This weekend really changed the trajectory of my life.

In January 2019 my dear friend and I decided to pay a ridiculous amount of money and take a Reiki Level 1 and 2 class. Upon the completion of our course, we were given a heads up that the experience could lead to profound spiritual changes in our lives should we decided to accept it.