A Room, Some Words, and Hearing From You
A friend of mine wrote recently that for some authors, adversity is the impetus for creativity, but for him it has always been comfort. I resonate with the sentiment. After four cross-country moves since 2015, having a “room of one’s own” has been the most welcome place for me. I flourish within boundaries and here, in this 900 square foot home, in this 8x20 sunroom, I have been flourishing vocationally.
Yesterday I finished the first part of a three part book I’m working on, twelve chapters thus far, each little morsel has felt sweet to write and to dream of serving up to others. And I have this room, this home, this chair, this space to thank for that in some ways. Writing in 2020 felt like trying to pull liquid gold from a glacier, which is to say impossible. It wasn’t just the difficult of the words, it was also the difficulty of the circumstances. I felt like nothing I could say was right and everyone was getting offended whether I said nothing or everything.
A few events converged upon one another in December and January, and a recalibration of sorts occurred. I was imbued with courage and hope, and began to write again. I re-membered myself, putting these disparate parts together again with the help of God and Nate, and a few dear friends. I suppose, in a way, I came home to the security and certainty of who I am as a writer and a child of God. And within those boundaries, too, I flourish.
Words from others
My friend John Starke expounded here on a Twitter thread he wrote last week on speaking the truth and speaking with love.
In a near perfect coupling, James K.A. Smith shared this long-form piece about moving through a world where truth reigned to a world where love is the most important thing. I’ve read it twice now and I know I’ll read it again.
I hope you saw that video circulating a few weeks back about the butterfly migration. It was just stunning. Here’s an article from The New Yorker on it.
My aforementioned friend from above has a piece on the shrinking soul and the collective ache of it.
Here is a piece from Michael Pollan on The Washington Post about the food system and what the pandemic revealed about it.
Listen
As a prayer, a hope, and a promise of what's to come (and perhaps a bit of the late February blues), I made a Spring playlist. So many of you followed along and loved The First Winter playlist I made for our first winter at The Little River Cottage, so I thought you’d enjoy another. Here’s a link to follow and listen too.
Books
Along with writing a lot less in 2020, I also read and reviewed fewer books. Perhaps it was the pandemic or the move and renovation, I don’t know. In 2019 I had come to the realization that I was reading far too many books because they were being sent to me and I felt compelled to, or because everyone else was reading them, and I felt as though I needed to keep up. The past year I’ve just read what I liked and recommended them if I liked them, with less concern about whether someone else liked them or wanted me to like them.
I’ve been reading Emily P. Freeman’s book, The Next Right Thing, and I’ve just really enjoyed it. I’m reading just one or two chapters a week, not rushing, and it’s a good pace for that book.
I also finally began Tish Harrison Warren’s book Prayer in the Night, and it’s just beautiful. Her story in the first chapter mirrored mine in many ways and it was both heartbreaking and healing to read it.
I finished Wintering by Katherine May in the dead of January. I liked it. It was equal parts delightful and heavy, the way winter is. There were some specific difficult circumstances in my January that this book seemed perfectly fit for, so I was grateful for it.
Jen Pollock Michel’s new book A Habit Called Faith just released and, as with all of Jen’s books, it’s destined to land on my “accessible” shelf (this is the shelf where my favorite books go, so I can grab them quickly when I need to remember a thought or point they made).
Podcasts
In a strange turn of events, after years and years of struggling to listen to podcasts, I decided to mine the proliferation of them, and listen to more this year.
This conversation between Pastor Thabiti and Preston Sprinkle had me in tears by the end.
I have been in search of elders the past few years, real seasoned men and women who are writing, speaking, and acting on their faith in public spaces. Parker Palmer is one of them. I loved this conversation with Krista Tippet OnBeing.
To Watch
This conversation between a Jewish pro-choice professor and a Catholic pro-life professor brought me a lot of hope and joy this week for a few reasons. One of which is that after I watched it, I emailed them both to thank them. The pro-choice one responded with these words, “Our ongoing conversation and deepening friendship are two of the most important things in my life these days.” It brought tears to my eyes because lives are changed for good through faithful engagement with one another, not through talking heads on news programs or pundits on social media.
Below is a short video of everyone’s favorite Wendell Berry poem, The Peace of the Wild Things.
And now a word from you
I thought it would be nice to sometimes share some words from a few of you on the end of these link sharing posts. You are such an important part of this relationship and you matter to me. I read everything you write to me, even if I can’t respond. It helps me to love you with my words a bit better. I’m sharing these with just the first initial so privacy is assured.
“I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your book “Handle with Care”. Unlike most people for whom the pandemic has been a huge year of loss, if not in terms of health and income, then in terms of community and relationships, for a variety of reasons (too many moves being but one) my pandemic year is an extension of years that preceded it. Yet the communal grief of lack of community has awakened in me the grief I carry that this has been true for me for so long. And your book, which I read at the start of 2020, helped crack open things I intellectually knew to be true but were not evidenced in my life. In a way it gave me permission to say that I want my life to look different. While we wait to return home and truly make a home somewhere, your wider writings give hope that it is possible.” —S
“As I read your post all I could think of was how sometimes action, sometimes speaking, is a direct manifestation of faith. That that is where our faith is put into action. Sometimes saying is action, is faith. As long as we hold our feelings and thoughts inside, they are only ours. But it is an act of faith to release them into the world, where we no longer have control.” —L