Purge Me With Hyssop

(Interpersonal Wellness)

“Purge Me With Hyssop”, invites readers to sit in scope of the Author, Sienna’s, vantage point of her desire/struggle to form meaningful relationships mid-pandemic.

Density Deep Relationships

I came into the year 2020 ready to immerse myself in interpersonal affection and to divulge my own inmost emotions. In tune with the aria of India Arie, I was and I still am “Ready For Love”.

Needless to say, that readiness trickled away when the mandate of quarantining went from mere weeks, to 7 months. It’s one thing to choose alone time, while also having the freedom to venture out at your own leisure. It’s detrimental when you’re forced to be alone after amping yourself up to acquaint yourself with the gift of Philia and Eros love.

I am not much of a social media fan, or using technology as a way to peer into my life. This time that we’ve been unaccompanied by one another, has shown some people to be illusionists and that many relationships were one-sided or from a place of obligation. I personally feel that this pandemic has prescribed me a new way of cultivating and maintaining relationships that doesn't fit my medicinal needs.

I won’t make this long, but I just want to share my glasses with you so that you’re able to see with my insight, if only just for a moment.

I share this tidbit of information often: my style of writing is scripture-esque. I describe my writing this way because I am highly inspired by written recordings of human encounters with God. I write to pass down the truth. While reading scripture recently, I found something interesting. There are two passages of scriptures that I’d like to impart to you today.

Psalm 51:7

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

John 13:5-8

5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

When you look at the inclusiveness of a Hyssop plant, “Hyssop, (Hyssopus officinalis), evergreen garden herb of the mint family (Lamiaceae), grown for its aromatic leaves and flowers. The plant has a sweet scent and a warm bitter taste and has long been used as a flavouring for foods and beverages and as a folk medicine. Hyssop is native to the area ranging from southern Europe eastward to Central Asia and has become naturalized in North America” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019, Hyssop, para. 1).

Relationally, we can all stand to be purified with Hyssop. We need relationships that consist of touch. We need relationships that are pure and honest. We need healing relationships. We need relationships that are fragrant with happiness. The internet is no replacement for the density deep relationships that I require and pray for. The screens that we tap on daily are just that—surface level—and they don’t even begin to leave a tingle on my skin.

I need a revival; a refresher; a cleanser—an intimacy that washes over me where holiness remains. I need a curative caress of violet leaves. I supplicate for a royally positioned love that chooses to sit at my feet. 

I hope at least one of you readers feels a little less lonely looking through my lavender-tinted lenses.

What will be the Hyssop of 2021 for lovers like myself?