Tag: healing

Closer to the Heart of God: a review of God in Disguise

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Today I’m excited to share the book review of God in Disguise that was just posted on the Englewood Review of Books! It’s written by Kelly Treleaven, a fellow writer and a public school teacher who has a book of her own coming out next year that I can’t wait to read. Kelly and I went to high school together, but it’s only recently that we’ve discovered what kindred spirits we are, and have enjoyed getting to connect over writing, current events, spirituality, and the quirky experiences we both share from having grown up in the same small town. Kelly has a quick wit and the gift of being able to articulate both the profound and the hilarious aspects of life, and I am incredibly honored by her beautifully written review of my book! Here’s how it starts:

“As a teacher in the American South living in an upper middle class neighborhood and wrestling with my own religious identity, I didn’t expect to feel as personally moved as I did by an account from a Christian missionary seeking solidarity with the poor in India. But that’s exactly what good memoirs do, they connect: across continents, through spaces and experiences and beliefs. With admirable narrative dexterity and piercing vulnerability, Trudy Smith relates her spiritual and physical journey in a way that will reach those longing to hear God’s voice, especially those who may suspect they are unworthy of hearing it, incapable of interpreting it, or deaf to it altogether…”

Head on over to the Englewood Review of Books to read the rest.

God in Disguise: a guest appearance on Fuel Radio

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Last week, I had the privilege of being interviewed as a guest on a friend’s podcast, Fuel Radio. It was fun to reflect with Rod Janz on the process of writing my book, God in Disguise, the lessons I carry with me from having been immersed in urban poor communities in India, and the way my spiritual journey has continued to unfold since my book was released last year. In particular, I enjoyed having the chance to intentionally remember the ways that failure and pain have unexpectedly become catalysts for the deepest healing in my life over the past few years. You can listen to the whole half-hour podcast here.

If you’ve read God in Disguise, I’d love to hear from you about how to book resonates (or doesn’t) with your own spiritual journey. Whether you’ve read the book or not, have you ever experienced an unraveling of your faith or your worldview? What happened next? Have there been times that you have found God in unexpected places, or found healing through what felt at the time like a dark and hopeless situation?

A new year and a new job

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It’s been a busy month and a half since I crossed the threshold from being eclectically-occupied-without-remuneration into the full-on, 9-to-5 work world. In December, I started a new job as a support worker with a small non-profit that serves refugee claimant families in the Vancouver area. I get to journey alongside families who have succeeded in their refugee claims (and some who are snagged in the lengthy appeals process) as they continue to navigate language learning, looking for work, and putting down roots in the soil of this strange country that is becoming home.

What does all of that look like in practical terms? Ironically, it looks a lot like what I was doing in India, except with more structure and more resources: my days are spent tracking down job opportunities, registering kids for school, celebrating birthdays, sharing home-cooked meals, and filling out paperwork for work permits, subsidized housing, income assistance. I fax and call and wade through the labyrinthine bureaucracy of automated answering systems to talk to government offices. I drive all over new streets with new people in my new-to-me car, trying to make it to appointments on time and without getting lost. I apply for legal aid, and exchange magic tricks with a bored fourth grader in the office while we wait with his parents. I drink sweetened coffee or green tea with cardamom in people’s living rooms and listen to stories—political histories of places I’ve never visited, and personal histories of the people who have been forced out of them.

The job has involved dusting off my Spanish, picking up some Kurdish, and enjoying the near-universal utility of the Arabic phrases my neighbors taught me in India: A–salaam-aleikum, Alhamdulillah, Khuda Hafiz. Peace to you. Praise God. May God be your Guardian.

Some days I marvel at the calm of a brave single mother in the midst of a storm, raising her children and calmly offering me cookies at her kitchen table while her husband waits on another continent to be able to join her. Other days I marvel at the injustice—and the absurdity—of a prosperous city in which parents work hard for years and still can’t afford market-rate rent for their families.

It strikes me that this job is a sort of second chance. I am filled with hope and energy as I connect with people, and as I channel my skills and effort into helping create a community of welcome and belonging for the strangers in our midst.  True, I can escape to a peaceful apartment at the end of each day, but again, I find myself in the situation of befriending people whose struggles and stories refuse to be contained in any professional office space or business hours. I bring those stories home with me and I think about them and I care. Again, I find myself with a finger on the pulse of pain and dislocation in our world, too close to ever forget about the bloodshed and trauma and loss that haunt the lives of so many.

It also strikes me that this job is a sort of test. How well have I learned to care for myself? How much respect have I gained for my own limits, and how well can I separate my identity from my success in meeting others’ expectations? Can I love without losing myself this time? I wonder. Passionately throw myself behind a cause without burning out? 

They’re the kinds of questions which can’t be answered apart from being lived. So with all my apprehension and excitement, I continue along this path that leads me through déjà vu and new territory at the same time. I can sense how far I have come and yet how very far I have to go, but for now, my heart is filled with gratitude for yet another spiral in this healing journey.

 

Refugee claimant

Strong Enough to Hold Me

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communion

So, I’m writing about church two days in a row–that never happens.

This essay for SheLoves Magazine is a bit more raw; more up close and personal. It explores my journey with Church from a different angle, zooming in on what it looked like sort out my faith in burn-out mode after India. This is what it was like to show up in church, dragging my baggage and doubts behind me. In particular, this is what it was like to take communion on days when I wasn’t sure I was–or wanted to be–part of the Body of Christ. This was what it was like to experience grace on the other side of failure. Here’s an excerpt:

Seeing the delight that the entire congregation took in including small children in the service, gave me hope. So did the fact that there was an old woman who felt free to dance in the aisle while the rest of us sang worship songs with typical Baptist understatement, slightly swaying or clapping where we stood.

For the past two and a half years, I had lived in slum communities in India where children were always buzzing around the edges of adult conversation and activity, but were rarely the focus of constructive attention. I had seen kids locked inside of dark rooms while their parents were at work during the day; I had seen them slapped around, kicked, screamed at, threatened, and neglected…

Head over to SheLoves Magazine to read the rest of the piece.

The story I carry inside me

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bowen island

“The past year has perhaps been the most difficult one of my life.”

So begins the blog post I’ve written for The Mudroom today. It’s the most vulnerable thing I’ve written recently: a reflection on the experience of deciding to leave India and then struggling to find my feet again in the West. The piece is a very brief snapshot of what has been and continues to be a difficult and beautiful journey for me.

For the past 10 months in Vancouver, I’ve been prevented from working or beginning grad school because of a lengthy immigration process. I’ve often felt trapped by my powerlessness to do anything about my permanent residency, and I’ve been frustrated by having so much time at loose ends. I said when I came here that I was looking for a season of rest and healing, but I have continued to fight that every step of the way, wanting desperately to jump into another busy season and another purposeful role that might provide a new identity for me instead of allowing my identity to be completely separated out from what I do. Who am I when I simply am?

When I allow myself to accept what is happening instead of trying so hard to change it, I recognize the gift of this time. I was able to go to counseling for several months to process my experiences in India (and my life up to this point); to gain valuable insights and skills. I took advantage of the opportunity to go on a few days’ silent retreat during Advent, and I’ll be returning to the same tranquil island for a 10-day silent retreat at the end of this month (a prospect which both thrills and terrifies me). I’ve had the time to get to know refugee claimants at Kinbrace, holding babies and cutting birthday cakes and eating delicious foods that remind my new friends of their faraway families and homes. Andy and I have been sheltered by a church community and befriended by a circle of wonderful people who make Vancouver feel like home for us weary travelers.

One of the biggest gifts of my enforced joblessness has been the freedom to write for long stretches of time. I’ve written a few freelance pieces here and there, but mainly I’ve been writing my book. I had no idea how long it would take. When I finished my first draft after six months, I remember thinking, “How do people spend years writing a single book?” Now I understand. Though not as much as I’m sure I will understand a few months from now, when I realize (again) how many steps I didn’t know about!

The process of writing a book has often felt like bushwhacking a trail through the jungle; I’m never sure what lies ahead or how far away my destination is. But without fail, at every moment of uncertainty a sign has appeared—in the form of a person I meet, a conversation I have, or a piece of information I come across—to direct me a few paces further. It has been by turns exhilarating, tedious, and discouraging. I’ll work on one part of my manuscript and think, Damn, this is good. Then later I’ll come back to it and think with alarm, This will never turn into a book.

I didn’t realize what a deeply personal and reflective process the writing would turn out to be. I didn’t realize how much of my own story—before, during, and after India—I would have to be willing to spill onto the page. I’ve had to face my fears of failure and of vulnerability again and again, but here—on the third draft—I’m feeling a growing confidence that there will actually be something to show at the end of all this craziness.

“The end” hasn’t yet been assigned a fixed date on the calendar, but it’s probably a testament to the growth of the past few months that the uncertainty no longer destabilizes me. In the meantime, click on over to The Mudroom to read more about the journey that is continuing to shape me, and my book.

burnout recovery process