This is a brand-new venture to me, one that in many ways does indeed feel like a ‘stepping out of the boat’ experience! Over the years, a few friends have broached to me the possibility of creating a blog, and while I loved to write and felt I had been granted a gift for it, I felt hesitant to put myself and my words, my thoughts, into public space. Much safer, perhaps, to leave them in a private journal! (And besides that, it’s much easier to start up a journal – just get a nice notebook, maybe with a cool design on the front, a good pen, and start writing. I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the blog design logistics and possibilities, but I’m learning, and I’ll keep learning, and maybe tweaking, as I go!)

It wasn’t only a matter of vulnerability, however, but that the time didn’t seem quite right; I didn’t feel prepared with a clear purpose, vision, or calling. But somehow, these things have settled into place, and so, when a good friend again encouraged me to start a blog, the answer within me was clear: “yes, now is the time!” Yes, time to use, to share, to open my gift in fresh ways, not be silent and not hide, even if it does feel like ‘stepping out of the boat,’ out of a comfort-zone into a challenge-zone.

The phrase ‘stepping out of the boat’ arose from a poem I was introduced to a few months, a poem that acted as an inspiration and affirmation of courage to take a bold risk at that time. I think it is just as applicable, just as affirming for me now, and perhaps it can be so for anyone reading it here too!

To sinful patterns of behavior that never get confronted and changed,
Abilities and gifts that never get cultivated and deployed –
Until weeks become months
And months turn into years,
And one day you’re looking back on a life of
Deep intimate gut-wrenchingly honest conversations you never had;
Great bold prayers you never prayed,
Exhilarating risks you never took,
Sacrificial gifts you never offered,
Lives you never touched,
And you’re sitting in a recliner with a shriveled soul,
And forgotten dreams,
And you realize there was a world of desperate need,
And a great God calling you to be part of something bigger than yourself –
You see the person you could have become but did not;
You never followed your calling.
You never got out of the boat

Gregg Levoy

Having begun, I hardly know where to start, except just to start! It might help a little to clarify why I chose the name I have chosen for this blog, what its story is. The word ‘belovedness’ has come to be very precious to me, as the way I experience my relationship with the Divine, but also as the way in which I want to be in relationship with others, with everyone. In my spiritual journey, I have come to know that I am beloved, that I live in Belovedness, and so this love, this belovedness, is what I want to pour forth in my being, my living, my writing.

I want to speak and write in belovedness, to send echoes of belovedness into the world, and to encourage, inspire, promote, and cultivate love, compassion, and justice. I may touch upon challenging topics at times, but always with earnest intent of speaking for and in belovedness. I’ll post happy things, grateful things, thoughtful things, playful things, joyful things, too … all are part of the echoes of belovedness!

There is, of course, a backstory, the narrative of my life’s journey, this path that I have followed in becoming who I am and who I am still becoming to be, this path to belovedness. Rather than begin with the sum of it, I’ll share as we go along together. And I do hope you all will come along, and help make this a space of honest, vulnerable conversation and connection, a place to learn and grow together!