imperfect prose on thursdays: intertwined (on why we have belly buttons)

(guest host today: tara pohlkotte)

“mama, why do we have these?” my son asks lifting his shirt and running a finger

over his belly button.

i explained that through it mama was able to keep him fed, keep him growing,
sustained life deep within.

“but why do we have to keep them? aren’t we done with them now?”

and in an instant, those eyes, wise beyond his five years and all of mine
combined,

got me to see something i had missed all this time.

our very bodies bear the mark of our interdependence.

permanently pressed into our skin is the sign that we belong to one another,

that without clinging to another for substance, we would have never tasted the
way the air is sweet from the fresh pines and bitter with rich dirt after a
spring rain.

that while we were still being woven, we were being brought into the very belly
of humanity.

that life can only come from the dark shadows formed in mystery and grace.

we were made to bend, to carry, to hold one another.

we were not made alone, nor, of our own strength.

we were made to feed and to eat
to nourish and to grow
to sustain and to receive

and to this cycle we keep repeating. we are folded back into each other. into
our making.

through it we are able to tap into the majesty of our spiritual selves, and feel
the pain of being but dust in our depravity.

we, in our most broken and most holy of ways, are all one. intertwined.

so rest back into the womb that holds us all. feel our tie to the deep. draw
life through our shared cord of love and strength.

*post written by tara pohlkotte of pohlkotte press
*art by janae charlotte

**welcoming Elizabeth Stewart of Just Following Jesus to the Imperfect Team as another Prayer Warrior. she and Nancy Franson will be working behind the scenes, praying for the most broken of you who link up, for those with aching stories…**

1. link up a post (old or new) that you feel is ‘broken’ or ‘imperfect’ or somehow redemptive
2. put the ‘imperfect prose’ button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)
3. read other’s prose, and encourage them!