The sacred thresholds of life, presence without agenda, and dodgeball with Joshua Barrett Tracey!
Week 2 of answering our Lenten Questions!
As I mentioned at the beginning of Lent1, I’m asking several questions as I move through the season: How do I live and move and have my being? What is mine to do? and How will I remain in my body? With the realization that I’m not the only one asking these questions, I was inspired to invite some friends to join me in the answering. Each week until Easter, I’ve invited different voices to share with us how they answer these questions. I hope you’ll join me as we learn from their stories.
This week I’ve invited my friend, Joshua Barrett Tracey, a colleague I met through Anam Cara1, to answer our Lenten Questions.2 I hope you’ll find some inspiration as you read about the good work he’s doing!
A little about Joshua:
Joshua Barrett Tracey is a procrastinator, episcopal priest, cat dad, apprentice in spiritual direction with Anam Cara, and dodgeball try-hard. He is passionate about the gentle ways in which we are formed as humans in grace and thinks summer camp and heaven are closely related. Josh wrestles with representing an institution that has repeatedly let him (and others!) down while also experiencing it as a place of abundant life. He lives outside Philadelphia with his husband, and their beloved orange cat, Pecan.
How do you live and move and have your being?
Hello! 👋🏽 My name is Joshua Barrett Tracey. I am a human who finds particular joy attending to the sacred thresholds; the ordinary stories and moments of people's lives. This is lived out in the current pattern of my life — by the bedside of a beloved elder dying or the effervescent joy of baptizing a little one, or getting burnt bits of food under my fingernails as I scrub pots and pans. But most often you’ll find me at the more subtle thresholds; blessing homes and difficult conversations, procrastinating emails, walking with folks as a Spiritual Director, and celebrating the sacraments of the Christian people. Oh, and I love to play dodgeball. Like, really love it.
As one called to the sacred thresholds of life, I find myself quite often in the middle of things- into the tension of truths and tales we tell ourselves. And these days, more than ever, this has demanded much of my energies. How does one hold the breadth of a whole community of people while centering them on what is true, good, and beautiful? How do we hold up the compassion, mercy and justice of Jesus while doing our best to do it together. What if we mean different things by that? I don’t have any answers, but I will continue to keep showing up and offering it up heavenward.
What is yours to do?
The question of “what is mine to do?” has been ping-ponging inside my head for a few months. Social media shouts at me, telling me I should be doing MORE MORE MORE but never really explaining what it means by that. My church community tells me to do certain things, and many of them are good. But some days it seems too narrow. What is MINE to do? If I sit long enough to hear the Deeper Voice, it tells me to gather folks. One of the surprises of tending to the thresholds of the Holy is that it slowly shows itself to be a meeting point. A place where paths cross. So, in a culture and time that tempts us to recoil behind ideological screens: I feel I am being asked to stand in the crossfire of that no-man’s-land. Not as a neutral factor but as a gravity point of listening in the soulless vacuum of our current divisions. As much as I have found community online (some of my best friends I met online! I even met my husband on Tumblr!), there seems to be a deep craving for folks to be in the same room with others. Presence with others, without an agenda, feels more radical and needed than ever.
As a Priest and Pastor I gather folks around the Word and Table, week by week, trusting the promise that these simple things, by the Spirit, do the heavy lifting for us and speak to us afresh, if we allow them to. And maybe that can be enough in this season of Lent.
How do you remain in your body?
A favorite poet-philosopher of mine, John O’Donohue, once said in an interview3 that we as humans like to imagine that growth happens when we face no resistance. But we actually grow, in the words of poet Noel Hanlon4, when we have something to push against. I stay in my body by getting my butt in the gym several times a week to push against something heavy. And sweat. This tends to my whole being. I have no other way to metabolize all that the threshold brings, other than pushing into the very fibers of my being and remaining amazed at the strength my body actually possesses (even if I don’t bench as much as I would like…😒). Some days this is a chore. I do not always show up with joy. Every ounce of my will is needed to get on that darn step machine. But after I am done, I am reminded that every step I take strengthens me to step into moments, places, conversations, pulpits with an interior stability I would not have otherwise.
Books that keep me tethered:
Anam Cara by John O’Donohue
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
anything written by Robert Farrar Capon
Book that is challenging and equipping me in this time:
Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment, by Leticia Nieto Psy.D.
If you’re curious about spiritual direction with Joshua you can contact him through email: revjoshuabarrett@gmail.com.
Thanks for joining us this week. I’m looking forward to more conversation around these questions and I’d love for you to join us in the comments!
Holly
P.S. If you missed last week you can read about Jen Lewis here. She also sent out some beautiful thoughts about her daughter Paige and Down syndrome earlier today you don’t want to miss!
Spiritual Direction News & Updates
If you want to stay up to date with my spiritual direction practice and upcoming events you can sign-up for my monthly newsletter for my spiritual direction community at hollyporterphillips.com (scroll to the bottom!).
I currently have space available for new directees. If spiritual direction is something that you or someone you know might be interested in, please reach out — hollyporterphillips@gmail.com. I’ve written here a little about what spiritual direction is to me, if you’d like to know more.
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be hosting an Eastertide Mini-Retreat! More details to come, but I’ll be offering it on Tuesday, May 6 from 7:30 - 9 pm CT and on Wednesday, May 7 from 12 - 1:30pm CT. I hope you’ll join m
John O’Donohue on On Being (do not miss this one!)