From Force to Flow

A midlife return to Mercy.

It’s a Monday in the 45th year of my life and I’m googling plate tectonics, reaching for a half-remembered science lesson. I can’t quite recall it conceptually. Somatically, however, I seem to hold a Ph.D. My interior world, wrapped in the soft blanket of my body, is undergoing seismic shifts. The geography of my being is changing—where there once was land, there now is water.

From force to flow…

There is a spot along the coast of Spain where the boat always stops. We throw our midlife caution to the wind and fling ourselves into the sea like we are thirteen again. The water is deep and so we tread as we laugh and mingle. Jessie looks at me with a bewildered look on her face. “Bekah, why are you working so hard?” It’s only then that I notice how forcefully I’m moving my body in the salty sea. The hospitable Mediterranean invites me in and offers me her guest bed of buoyancy, but even in rest I find ways to hustle. I cautiously lean back and entrust myself to the sea.

From force to flow…

My massage therapist Terri waited until three appointments in before offering me her gift of interpretation. I imagine she actually told my body on the first visit, but was warned that my thinking brain can get in the way—it would be best to wait. For ninety minutes her hands converse with my body and then she relays the message. Sometimes it’s a word (bridge, vigilance, etc.), but more often, an image. Typically, the message means nothing to me; but what I initially found suspect, I have come to revere. I leave her office, step back into my life, and soon enough my body shows me just how supernaturally sage she is. My body can anticipate what my mind cannot.

“You are a little girl holding out your hand in the waves, looking for the hand of God. You know you will be okay,” Terri tells me.

This time, the message is met with immediate recognition. I know the girl in that image.

From force to flow…

Almost drowning shows up twice in my earliest years, and once before I was born—at a pool, in the womb, and in my grandmother’s dreams.¹ All are stories I was told over and over. Perhaps this is where the enneagram 8 was formed in me—the need to be strong, and the fierce resistance of uncontrolled chaos.

In 2023 I found myself caught in what felt like “dangerous waters”—one of the hardest experiences of my life. But in the midst of much pain and heartache, a gift emerged. For the first time I came to see a fear that, for me, had been a mostly undetected and yet major player in my life story: A fear of overwhelm.

Just as I began to name this fear, I started having a recurring memory. I am a little girl and have fallen in a pool. I’m struggling, and I’m aware that I cannot save myself. Thankfully my grandma notices me, and pulls me out. Revisiting this memory allowed me to personalize my fear:

I’m afraid of drowning. Drowning in chaos—in life that feels out-of-control.

In part, the heartache of 2023 was about taking me back to that “pool” and helping that little girl see that she no longer needs to be afraid. I learned to tell her: “I’m a grown-ass woman now. I know how to swim, and I also know how to get out of the pool.”

That year, I got out of the pool and made my way to safer grounds.

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In the latter part of 2023 I sit stunned as I read these words from a friend,

“There is a whisper that is coming up when I sit with Jesus praying for you. I see you hiking a challenging trail. You are really giving it your all and I can see you are coming to the end of yourself. You come to a clearing & Jesus is there. He smiles at you & says, ‘Bekah, my brave girl, are you ready for what comes next?’ He pulls back some brush and you look across a beautiful blue ocean and on it there’s a boat full of women you know & love. There are women pouring down the mountain heading to the water, women floating on floaties. It’s a whole sea of women. You aren’t sure which path to take & Jesus turns to you and says, ‘How about we go together? They are waiting for you.’”

After months of heartache, Hope extends out Her hand to me. I have no idea what this all means, but I know I want to be part of that scene: beauty, women I know and love, freedom and light-heartedness. I say yes to Jesus’ invitation.

It’s time to return to the water.

From force to flow…

In September I embark on a journey that will take me deeper than expected: I begin the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. For nine months, I wake early in the morning to engage in the daily meditations, and then each week I meet with Josi, my spiritual director. Almost immediately, water is a prominent theme.

Water and associated words are referenced in scripture somewhere around 700 times.² It appears in the very first and last chapters of the Bible³ and represents everything from being a force that only God can control (parting the Red Sea, Jesus calming the storm) to God’s very self (the spring of living water).

One day I open up a set of feminine archetype cards, a gift from a friend. The first image I see sends chills up my spine.

I recall my body’s message from a few months prior: “You are a little girl holding out your hand in the waves, looking for the hand of God. You know you will be okay.”

It’s hard to deny just how persistently Mother God seems to be pursuing me.

From force to flow…

The first movement of the Ignatian Exercises focuses on the boundless Mercy of God: “This merciful God seeks only to liberate us from anything that gets in the the way of loving ourselves, others, and God—that is, anything that makes us truly unhappy.”⁴

To consider this merciful God, Ignatius invites us to look closely and honestly at our sin, but something about how he frames the meditations bothers me. Almost every example is so….masculine. And so, I rewrite them.

Thankfully, I have a spiritual director who, rather than feeling protective of The Exercises, delights in my uniqueness, and invites me to pay attention. Together, we trust that God is speaking in my inner movements; even, and especially, in my resistance.

When Ignatius asks me to “Imagine Christ our Lord suspended on the cross” and to consider: “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? And, What ought I do for Christ?”—I instead, instinctively imagine being in the Womb of God:

Imagine God like a pregnant mother, sacrificing her body for you, offering her body as your home. How is it that though she is God, she makes room for you, offers her very self to you and becomes a safe place of nurture, growth, rest and receiving? Reflect on yourself and ask:

What have I not done for Mother God? (What striving/hustle have I stepped out of?)

What am I currently not doing for Mother God? (How am I currently choosing holy inactivity?)

What ought I not do for Mother God? (What will I choose to leave undone?)

What actions is the Womb of God inviting me to cease, release, set aside for this gestation period—trusting that what I need and what the world needs from me will be birthed in the right time?

This re-written meditation becomes the bedrock of the Ignatian Exercises for me. Focusing on sin in light of God’s mercy then becomes an examination of all the ways I—in response to my fear of drowning—am tempted to strive, hustle, struggle….force my way through life, even though I am safe and sound in the Womb of God.⁵

From force to flow…

Reflecting daily on the Womb of God naturally takes me back to my own birth story. One day in spiritual direction I tell Josi about the trauma of my birth—how I almost drowned in amniotic fluid. Her face reflects back a deep knowing as the truest truth pours out of her mouth: “Bekah, this is all so primal for you.” She’s referring to our endless conversations of water, drowning, and the invitation to return to the Womb of God. Her word “primal” immediately shoots like an arrow into the core of my identity, hitting the bullseye dead center, and I weep. The truth of her statement reverberates through every cell of my body.

Yes. Of course.

Suddenly I see the way in which Mother God—for years now—has been companioning me back to my most primal place of fear, knowing that for me, the deep waters = deep healing.

My false self was formed in response to the fear of drowning; God in her tender goodness has invited me back to the safety of her Womb.

From force to flow…

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Suddenly everything takes on new meaning. Where I once was blind, I now see the Womb of God.

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

John 3:3-8

This week I turn 46, which means these internal tectonic shifts—this invitation from force to flow—have taken place smack dab in the middle of my life. Is this a coincidence? Nah. I know how thoughtful and intentional mothers can be, and Mother God is no different. It seems that the invitation into my second half of life, the work of crossing over, is by way of being born again.

God has watched me build a life—one that is always prepared for potential drowning—and invites me back to begin again, to be “born of water and Spirit.” To both be in the waves, and yet totally free. Mary’s enthusiastic Yes! to God becomes my own: “Let it be with me, just as you say...God’s mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.” (Luke 1:38; 50, The MSG)

My 45th year has shown me that this is the messy, generous, and gentle, midlife-gift-of-God—to invite us into the deepest of healing: “You are a little girl holding out your hand in the waves, looking for the hand of God. You know you will be okay.”

There’s a lot I don’t know in the movement from force to flow, but here’s what my body reassures me is true: I will be okay.

Happy BIRTH day to me.

Love, Bekah

P.S. I plan to take the month of July off from online platforms which means you will likely not hear from me (via Substack) again until August. I hope you enjoy your summer!

Permission to Matter is 1!

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1. My grandma was known to write down her dreams. Before I was born she had a dream about me (a “baby” that looked like my older brother) falling in a pool. And then, when I was a small child, the scenario actually happened.

2. Depending on translation.

3. Genesis 1:2 & Revelation 22:17.

4. Kevin O’Brien, SJ., The Ignatian Adventure: Experiencing the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius in Daily Life, p 87.

5. Although there may be Ignatian fans out there offended by my re-write, in truth I have not strayed biblically. If Ignatius wants us to consider mercy, then the Hebrew Scriptures ask us to look no further than the womb. “In the Hebrew, the words for Mercy & Womb come from the same root word: Rachum (רַחוּם). “Rachum describes the stirring of tender mercy within God’s own being. The word conveys the warmth of parental compassion, a mercy that is neither detached nor reluctant but eager to relieve misery and restore fellowship.” For God to “extend mercy” is to love tenderly — to have compassion, often with a visceral parental quality like that of a mother’s love for her child.” (I wrote about this here.)