Thecla and Alysa Lay a Conduit
Soul Friend,
I'm curious, did Thecla's story (here) spark anything in you? If she did inspire you, what specifically in her story touched you?
Was it her capacity to come toward? Toward Paul? Toward her innate desire for radical liberation? Toward the unknown? Toward her own goodness and dignity? Toward that pool filled with vicious seals? Toward a life radically committed to the Christ?
Was it her capacity to move against? Against her own mother? Against her fiance'? Against the prevailing expectations and systems of the day? Against Alexander?
Were you drawn to her capacity to step back? To not waste energy on arguing her case when she realized there was no fruit in that? To accept Paul's willingness to let her follow but unwillingness to baptize her? To call on God's help for what was beyond her agency and control? To ground herself in an indwelling Peace?
When have you felt these energies in your own life? Take a moment to recall how that sensed in your body. Really, just pause a moment. Let that moment live in you again.
What was this energy's effect on you? How did it affect your mind? Your heart? Your action? How did it impact your own life? How did it impact the lives of those around you?
Most of us know moments or, even, seasons like this in our lives. Great saints like Thecla, and Mother Mary (highlighted by Hadewijch above), and poets such as Rumi or Hafiz, and Jesus, show us our potential.
A little closer to home, so does Alysa Liu.
Like so many of you, I was deeply touched by Alysa Liu's joy-filled, gold medal performance at the Olympics. I was equally touched by her story as the eldest child of a single Taiwanese immigrant father. He saw her natural talent and invested his time, energy and money in her success. As a teen Alysa spent every day at the rink, ultimately winning the US national champion in 2019 and 2020.
When COVID hit, it was the first time Alysa had free time to not live at the rink. And she LOVED it. She wanted more of that kind of time in her life. A new sense of possibility awakened in her, not unlike what Thecla experienced when she heard Paul preaching.
But the 2022 Olympics were ahead of Alysa, in her father's home country. Because he was listed as a dissident for his protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989, he could not attend the Olympics in Bejing where Alysa placed 6th.
Shortly after the games, without consulting her father, Alysa announced her retirement. She began to live a new life. Alysa got her driver's license. She went to college. She traveled. Like Thecla, she decided to find out for herself who she was rather than who she was trained to be. She loved this exploration. One day, skiing with friends, she felt the familiar adrenaline rush. She wondered: Could she return to skating on her own terms, for the joy and thrill of it?
Alysa did just that. She picked her own coaches, designed her own costumes, selected music she loved, refused diets, dyed her hair. She went out with friends. She determined that skating would be part of her life, not her whole life. She was no longer interested in medals. She had nothing to prove. She simply wanted the joy of entertaining the world and herself with her skating. She built a culture of mutual support with her competitors.
What we witnessed in her performance is who we all can be when we are free, when we quit orienting our lives and energies around who parents, religion or culture told us we "should" be. Alysa no longer had any need for her goodness to be sealed by some authority, whether that was her father, her coach, or Olympic judges. Alysa Liu baptized herself. She trusted the life-giving goodness awakened in her; she followed her joy.
Soul Friend, like Mary, like Thecla, Alysa has laid down a conduit. As Hadewijch insists, it is open to every humble heart.
What might it take for you to return to your life on your own soul's terms? What might it mean to baptize yourself?