What I Want, Chance Encounters,
and Why It's Never Too Early (or Too Late) for the mothering of Mary
Hello, pals.
I’m in Kansas right now, with Mary on my mind. The Mary.
As someone who always wants to let November have its due, I try to reign in Christmas festivities until at least after Thanksgiving. But! Lest you think I’m here to boss you about when you choose wave your holiday flag, I’m currently speaking at a retreat called “Christmas Camp.”
We’re tucked into the most quaint, eye-candy Victorian home, Christmas trees everywhere (including a hot pink tree in one of the bathrooms.) It’s Bing Crosby and presents and Joy to the World, while outside, a late warm front collides in an epic thunderstorm. It turns out, I don’t mind the muchness of it all. My mantra for the weekend is “Yes, please!” Yes, I’ll have another margarita. Yes, apple pie. Yes, a (tiny) scoop of ice cream on top, pajamas all day, playing games, and staying up too late. Yes, please.
While the women (most of us strangers prior to a few hours ago) crafts their brains out for two solid days, my job is to bring us back to center every morning and evening.
Tonight, I shared about the unlikely way Luke opens the story of Jesus’ birth. It’s not about Jesus at all, or at least that’s what we might think at first glance. Rather, he begins with a prior generation, another family that runs parallel to the scrappy beginnings of the Holy Fam. We’re told of Mary’s “very old” cousin, Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, who would prepare the way for Jesus, even in birth.
The life of Jesus begins with a legacy of shared longing, set within the context of close community. This means something.
We can’t fully know Jesus apart from Mary, or Mary apart from Elizabeth.
The human experience is shaped by community. We’re connected, like it or not.
But it’s only November 4th, and I’m getting ahead of myself.
//
Last Sunday I took a grumpy walk. Out the door, along the paved path, across a wrought iron bridge, and into the cemetery. I traipsed passed problematic shirtless men horsing around in the park and under golden leaf canopies shot through with sunshine. Living luminaries kissing death.
I looked for a bench but found a tree, so I sat beneath it. I flicked ants off my arms and wrote a long list on my phone,
“Things I Want.”
The first item: I want to be creative again.
It felt absolutely scandalous, so I kept going. The more I admitted to wanting stuff, the more stuff I wanted. I didn’t hold back.
I bear no secret prosperity Gospel agendas. Nothing on the list is owed me. But interestingly, almost all of my ideas are within reach. When we dare ourselves toward desire, it’s so often not as much about the thing as it is about telling the truth to ourselves. (I highly suggest doing this at the base of a very tall tree, if possible.)
Eventually, my mental stream slowed and I stood, brushing October from the backs of my thighs. That’s when I saw a young man in a folding lawn chair, sitting graveside. I thought I knew him at first. Julio? No. We locked eyes. Julio?? He smiled. I took a step toward him.
By the time I realized it really wasn’t Julio, I was standing on his patch of holy ground, fresh straw beneath my feet, and someone he loved beneath that. It doesn’t matter how old I grow, certain realities are impossible to contend with. My only job was to listen.
His wife.
Six months.
“Do you come here often?”
“Pretty much every day.”
We are connected.
I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. Cory and I walked back over a few nights later. No luck. In a few more weeks, it’ll be dark by dinnertime, and I don’t know what that will mean for the gentle man whose too-young wife is buried beneath the straw.
I don’t know how he was able to smile at a stranger after only six months. I don’t know what it’s like to carry his buckets of sorrow and hope. I don’t know what lists he’s making, or if his longings are numbered past 1.
I don’t know when I’ll stop wondering about him, and I don’t know what any of it means.
But I am certain: Mary knew and Mary knows. A heart of joy. A heart pierced. All of it shared in the tender hands of her people. Maybe that’s why I keep plucking up ninety-nine-cent statues of her likeness when I find them at the Goodwill.
None of us is immune to the impact of our neighbors. They change us. We change them. Stitched into the neighborhood of God, our threads are bound to pull against each other.
It’s not Advent yet, but we are always longing for something.
Each moment is an invitation to look around, fully present, and step into the momentary bliss or crack of pain that comes from sharing our lives. This is precisely what it takes. No one goes alone.
His name is Cristian, if you’d like to join me in holding him in the Light while leaves blanket the earth which blankets his love.
We are all connected.
Thanks be to God.
This + That
What I’m Giddy about: I closed out Start with Hello with A Neighbor’s Blessing. Because God loves us, our world is rich with artists, and Lori Hetteen is one of my favorites. She’s bone-deep good, a true-blue soul. I am in love with the print she made for us!!!!! As always, you get it first. You can print it (8x10) wherever you like to have stuff printed. It is whimsical and simple and lovely. I will never recover from those tiny spoons.
Here’s Lori’s Etsy site. Here’s Lori’s Instagram.
And here’s the printable! (Click the green “Download” button below.)
What I’m Reading: I might be biased ;) but we are in such a truly phenomenal season of new releases. Come Sit with Me: How to Delight in Differences, Love through Disagreements, and Live with Discomfort released this week from (in)courage and it is the right book at the right time.
Full disclosure: I’m only about halfway through, but I have loved each essay I’ve read so far. From navigating political divisions with a spouse, to rebuilding a broken marriage, to loving one another well across deep religious differences, I’m impressed with the way these women tackle the stuff that’s squeezing the peace from so many of us right now. Massive bonus: the contributor list is richly diverse. (This is so important as we seek to learn from perspectives different from our own.)
I was lucky to chat with one of the contributors, Lucretia Berry, earlier this week on Instagram. She’s an author, an anti-racism educator, and a self-described optimist. I loved every minute of our conversation.
In her essay titled When Forgiveness is Exhausting she writes,
“I realized that I needed time more than I needed to implement a forgiveness formula. God met me in my stifled unforgiveness and gifted me with unhurried space to process. God stayed with me, and together we cultivated seeds of forgiveness that needed time to take root and blossom…God met me, stayed with me, and sustained me.” - Lucretia Berry for Come Sit with me
Buy your copy wherever you get your books.
(I recommend Baker Book House because it’s an indie shop - clap clap clap - and it’s just $12 with free shipping.)
What I’m Eating: This salad.
Chopped greens. Chopped (ripe!) pear. Crumbled bacon. Blue Cheese. Pepitas (sautéed in a skillet with salt, pepper, and cayenne.) Balsamic vinaigrette (equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil, 1 minced clove of garlic, a squeeze of grainy or Dijon mustard, a tsp or so of agave, honey, or maple syrup. Dump it into a jar with a lid and shake like mad. OR…Newman’s Own straight from the bottle!) This last element is not mandatory, but adds something special: a light drizzle of poppy seed dressing (from whatever bottle you can find.) I could eat this five times a week. I want it now!
What I’m Up To: Start with Hello isn’t even a month old yet, so I’m still very much in book launch mode. It has been a delight to hear how it’s impacting you! So many of you are picking up what I’m laying down - taking those small steps toward the people around you - and it is changing things in the best possible ways. Hooray!
Find your copy here or anywhere books are sold. If you’ve already read it, please recommend it to a friend. (And if you bought it on Amazon, a quick review helps so much in getting it into more people’s hands!)
Next week I’ll be sharing my “Things I Want” list with the Secret Soup. I hope it inspires others to jot their own list. Why not? November is all about abundance.
Love,
Shannan
Hi from Wichita, KS!!!
Thank you... this was beautiful even though heartbreaking.