September Life comes at us hard, doesn’t it?
That strike-through is my whole dissertation on being human today. My of-the-moment manifesto.
The seasons change, and so do we. All the while - life. Ah, here she is. Lovely, right? Complicated and terrible and the best thing we have ever known.
September is only half over and I’ve spent my share making homemade tomato soup for one hundred complicated neighbors and cheering for volleyball and tennis matches. I’ve been trying to make dinner a more regular occurrence and knocking on doors for my City Council bid. I’m also still juggling doctor’s appointments for this mystery leg ailment and trying to discern what I do or don’t have to offer a faith community that doesn’t want to grapple with its own sickness.
I’m feeling quiet in a full season (narrator’s note: turns out they’re all full) and I don’t mind it one bit.
Last weekend I traveled to Indy to be part of a panel at a women’s event. The theme was Joy + Peace (in the midst of heartbreak.) When it was my turn, I didn’t have a lot to say about Bible verses or worship music like some of the other panelists did. If I’m being completely honest, it’s difficult to even type that. I don’t want to be a faith-deconstructing cliche. I deeply understand all of us who find ourselves in these troubled waters. I also find us a bit gloomy and redundant, not because we are gloomy and redundant, but because the process of wading through questions of faith and doubt is not given the honor it deserves.
Plastering a Biblical platitude over a wound seems so much easier than clawing for bedrock belief. That doesn’t feel peaceful at all.
But I do know this: right around the time I turned off the Christian radio station because it kept making me mad in ways I couldn’t explain, not long after I realized I was becoming a bit quieter about my faith (is this what back-sliding looks like??) I was lying in bed, fretting about life and Love and breaking the “rules,” and for the second time in my life, I knew God was communicating directly to me. “You don’t have to be afraid.” Those were the words in the dark.
And that is what I know about peace.
As for the joy part? That’s a tough one. Our instincts are to just put it on, like a hand-me-down from our rich cousin that doesn’t quite fit. Shove our arms through. Yank at the hem. We wear joy as flimsy armor, forgetting how reliable God is at sitting with the mourners and sharing the grief.
I’m really not the one to ask about joy but I can tell you something about beauty, mostly this: we cannot escape its light. Trouble heaves our way but we can’t out-run the beauty that somehow manages to co-exist with it.
I wish I could promise us that life would get easier.
I can’t. It won’t.
But I know it will keep wowing us. We will keep stopping to stare at the goodness, delight, and ridiculosity that arrive when we need them most.
Trouble is with us, but so is the setting sun. So is our funniest friend whose finger rests on the pulse of the internet’s best memes. So are tacos and ornate shadows and inside jokes and gilded soybean fields. (Let us not forget, we are smack-dab in the season of starling murmurations. Amen.)
It might be obvious, but this is September’s swirl and it lasts life-long. It’s a lot, it always is. I’m sure you have stories of your own.
In this On Being podcast episode, theologian and activist Ruby Sales shares that life taught her to tend to humanity by asking one important question: Where does it hurt?
Notice, it’s not “where did it hurt. This is present-tense pain, and we’ve all got some.
Naming it helps. We don’t have to deny it or ignore it or numb it. We speak its name like the sojourner it is, a companion and guide. God help this leg of the journey to be a short one, we pray.
Being humans means existing within a flight pattern of tumult and surprise, of complication and relief, of desperation and delight.
So I guess what I am asking you is, where does it hurt?
I’ll go first. Yes, there’s all the small stuff (and small stuff is almost always the main stuff.) But it’s late - Friday evening has crossed over into Saturday, and I’m sleepy enough to keep digging, so
I am scared that my body will fail me.
I am exhausted by church politics and terrified of the grief of letting go.
I am confused about which battles are mine to fight (the words said to me this week ringing in my ears, “Not everything is a crusade.”)
I am afraid I’m somehow missing the most important thing. (What is it???)
I’m tempted now to give all of my disclaimers - that I’m fine, I really am; that I’m just being honest; that I don’t mean to be a downer; that all of us are afraid of something! (she says brightly)
I love us too much for that.
Yes, beauty shines in the morning and in every moment before. But for now, we name the pain as an act of “holding it to the light,” as Emily has taught me to say.
Consider this your invitation to share, if you’re willing or comfortable. What we have here is a safe space, and I hope some solidarity.
Feel free to also share the everyday, minute-by-minute, healing balms that somehow keep gas in your tank for all these dusty miles.
Happy Saturday morning, Favorites. (Surprise!)
I hope your weekend is a wondrous one. I hope stopping to think about where it hurts builds a tiny altar in your soul and God sits with you there, telling you not to be afraid. I hope there’s maybe some chocolate cake somewhere in the mix - a different kind of fuel, but necessary in its own way.
One last thing…
Kat Armas released her new book this week: Sacred Belonging: A 40-Day Devotional on the Liberating Heart of Scripture. The opening line is, “I admit, I haven’t read a devotional in years…” and that tracks for me. I plan to read every word. Kat is a theologian we desperately need, pointing us to the margins, to liberation, to the sacred truth that we are each a child of God. She writes about faith as if it’s right here in the dirt of our actual lives.
All to say, maybe some of you want to join me?
You can get your copy here.
(And one last-last thing - I know there’s a significant number of this beloved online neighborhood that does not hold to the Christian faith. I just want to say all over again, I love you, I respect you, and I’m so glad you’re here.)
With the looming election, I appreciate the "everything is not a crusade". I cannot hold space for the ongoing hot takes and manufactured drama of the American political system. It's just too much. 2016 forward took me out. My family was crushed and divided. I finally had to step back, delete social media accounts and protect myself from the perpetual outrage.
I'm better but I'm not the same person. I'm happy about that in some ways but lamenting in others. I try to focus on the small beauties around me (thanks to your ongoing encouragement to look up and look around).
“trying to discern what I do or don’t have to offer a faith community that doesn’t want to grapple with its own sickness.” Same, sister. Same. After 20 years of attending the same church, I find myself chafing where I was once comfortable. I’m the one who has changed, and I no longer fit there. Trying to figure out what that means and where I am called to be, and to what purpose.