A teacher once said that in solitary retreat, the first thing you do is “climb the walls.”

Mountain living is a certain kind of solitary confinement,

an intentional separation from the things that distract and entertain us.

The mountains feel soothing to anyone for a week or so,

that is,

until they get to work.

the trees don’t carry a suitcase

they have no important papers to file

or pictures to post.

they aren’t here to brag about working late at the office

and they certainly don’t keep an address book.

I talk to the trees like some people

speak to a locket that hangs around their necks.

A treasured creature to turn to in times of trouble,

Lifted to my ear,

And I ask

What should I do today?

Where am I going?

Have you been here before?

I trace my fingertips on the outline

Of weathered bark, the sting of crevices

pushing into pink flesh.

I have sat in the silence of the mountains

as my home, my peace and the ground for inner wars

and I have come to the conclusion that all of nature is pulling at my bones to return to the Earth.

Is this why we avoid solitude so eagerly, then?

I am convinced now that nature is calling us to become fully alive and fully connected with this truth: one day we will rejoin the trees in the ground.

One day our bodies will rest in the peace that ocean and sky enjoy every day. The peace that the mountains offer to our bones right now, even as they are still stuck inside flesh and skin.

The mountains pull down on my bones every day. And I am tired of their invitations…

what if the weary and the broken need shelter and safe harbor?

and when that is nowhere to be found in the doctrine and theology and hypocrisy and abuse and subjugation of women—

what if then there is a holy mantle lifted from the Church and placed on the backs of the prophets ready and willing to journey into the desert without a lamp?

I think I’ve had Grace all wrong.

I used to relate to grace in the only way I knew how: as a strings-attached currency that is exchanged between an angry person and the person who’s screwed up. I thought grace was when you deserved to be kicked, punched and left emotionally bloodied, but for some reason you were spared from the beating this time.

I thought grace worked like this because, for me, grace is tangled up in the Christian notion that there is a God who deserves to punish humans, and that as a human, I am innately flawed, sinful and rotten.

Within this natural order of things that cannot be questioned, God (the creator of all things) is rightly angry at me for being created as a flawed, sinful, rotten woman. And therefore it’s only natural that destruction and punishment are waiting for me and anyone who isn’t precisely obedient to God.

Based on all my experiences with Christianity, grace was nothing more than God showing restraint against a certain innate, overpowering rage that could obliterate us at any moment.