So beautiful and rich, Hannah. Thank you for sharing this. There is a gentle but terrible beauty in the idea that God does not lift us out of the ditch, but instead descends into it, muddying Himself with our hunger and helplessness. What you’ve composed here—both in song and in reflection—is not merely theology set to melody, but something closer to what Julian might have recognized as incarnational truth wrapped in contemporary flesh.
Incarnational mysticism, at its heart, holds the view that we should not seek flight from the world but fall deeper into it—not as the world appears, fractured and cold, but as it is when seen through the tear-stained eyes of the Christ who weeps with us. You capture this brilliantly: that the ditch is not beneath God’s dignity, but the very theater of His love.
“New Life” reminds us that the Spirit does not hover above us like some dispassionate balm, but breathes into the collapsed lung, presses against the cracked ribcage, speaks not in thunder but in tremors of memory—reminding us, even in despair, who we are. Not in abstraction, but in this warm animal body, scarred and radiant.
This is clearly no Gnostic hymn of escape. This is resurrection in real time. This is divinization not as a ladder to climb, but a breath to receive—a Spirit who transfigures the common grain, the broken heart, the faltering voice into something holy. You wrote of Christ feeling what we feel. And here is the scandal of Incarnation: not just that God became man, but that He remains there, whispering from within the marrow, even as we search the sky for a God who has never left the ground.
So beautiful and rich, Hannah. Thank you for sharing this. There is a gentle but terrible beauty in the idea that God does not lift us out of the ditch, but instead descends into it, muddying Himself with our hunger and helplessness. What you’ve composed here—both in song and in reflection—is not merely theology set to melody, but something closer to what Julian might have recognized as incarnational truth wrapped in contemporary flesh.
Incarnational mysticism, at its heart, holds the view that we should not seek flight from the world but fall deeper into it—not as the world appears, fractured and cold, but as it is when seen through the tear-stained eyes of the Christ who weeps with us. You capture this brilliantly: that the ditch is not beneath God’s dignity, but the very theater of His love.
“New Life” reminds us that the Spirit does not hover above us like some dispassionate balm, but breathes into the collapsed lung, presses against the cracked ribcage, speaks not in thunder but in tremors of memory—reminding us, even in despair, who we are. Not in abstraction, but in this warm animal body, scarred and radiant.
This is clearly no Gnostic hymn of escape. This is resurrection in real time. This is divinization not as a ladder to climb, but a breath to receive—a Spirit who transfigures the common grain, the broken heart, the faltering voice into something holy. You wrote of Christ feeling what we feel. And here is the scandal of Incarnation: not just that God became man, but that He remains there, whispering from within the marrow, even as we search the sky for a God who has never left the ground.
“The ditch is not beneath gods dignity, but the very theatre of his love” — mmm I love this. Thank you for your thoughtful reflections 🙏🏼