whole

"i spent a great amount of time trying to be good, but was good the same as whole?"

-barbara brown taylor

from leaving church

i'm wanting to be whole.

i'm wanting to be good.

can i be both? is there a both/and?
i'm not sure anymore.




is it as black and white as good and bad?

should i believe that's the case?
i'm thinking not...

in a time and place that i believe tells me i need to be held up and seen as good or bad, i would definitely prefer to be good...please...thank you.

today i heard that someone i hold in pretty high esteem spoke positive things about me.

i'm wondering just how many gold stars are by my name on their chart...

a few? many?

just how many levels of good there are?

well now...this has gotten complicated.

regardless, it was good to hear.
i wanted to hear it.
i needed to hear it.
but why....

why must i be "good"? why can't i just be whole? just...juli?

why can't i be content being wholly juli, whether that is good or bad or somewhere inbetween?

what would it look like to not try to be whole rather than just good? what does that look like? what could i imagine for myself?