From the messy middle of the mid-winter muddling through

The temptation in writing about hard things is to wait until they have passed, until we are on the other side, our feet firmly on the shore as we peer back out at the choppy waters and sigh, so glad we’re not still treading water and trying like the dickens to avoid a shark attack.

Where we get it twisted is not in the writing of it, but in the presenting of it. As far back as high school, I remember our brilliant creative writing teacher Mrs. Sheridan (swoon, we all loved her so) explaining that it’s fine to write through the pain, but if we want to present it as the truest thing, as the thing about which we are most confident, we need some distance.

It’s not that writing about it while we’re in the messy middle of it is wrong. It’s not that we’re unreliable narrators. It’s just that our vision is limited. We’re myopic. We’re nose pressed to the glass of the hard thing on display. We’re smelling the fresh flowers at the funeral parlor. But what a thing we’ll have to write about in a year when they’re dried and shriveled. We’ll smell the fresh in our sense memory but we’ll also have a story to tell about the bouquet that looked like it had been caramelized in a cast iron skillet.

I’ve been trying to write through my winter depression this year, rather than wait for it to pass. It’s a seasonal depression, and one I treat with light therapy and a low dose of anti-depressant, along with talk therapy and a high dose of aerobic exercise and binge reading of sadpants memoirs and inhaling Hershey’s kisses by the bagful. I wish I could say that writing through the heaviness has been leavening. But I still feel as though I wake up most days with an elephant squatting on my chest. I still feel like making a salad is possibly tantamount to climbing K2. I still want want to be hugged and for nothing to be expected of me from anyone. I am still depressed and trying to fight through it. Writing does not help to change this or cure this, but it does change my awareness of how I am coping.

Just yesterday, for example, I realized that it’s not that I become a different person, per se, that I’m inhabited by a depressed monster of a different color. I’m not unrecognizable. I’m still there. It’s that it takes so much effort to pretend that the depression isn’t also there. I still think my kids are funny and their Big Chungus memes are still ridiculous. Sometimes my face just winces instead of the easy laughter flowing out. So I wish sometimes to just go join a different body. One that doesn’t have the elephant sitting on it.

I think about the line in the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” where they resign, “We’ll have to muddle through somehow…” and I’ve always genuinely wondered what the somehow actually looks like, and how they’d carry on until the fates allow for a reunion. Those aren’t the songs that get written, though. It is the blog post that gets written by ya girl and right now I’m muddling through. I’m grateful for a husband who truly understands, two Voxer chatgroups that make me feel heard, two beautiful kids that see my penchant for sweatpants and forgetfulness and love me anyway, and Bill Cunningham’s Fashion Climbing on loan from the library.

Holla from the messy middle.

Review: Love Where You Live by Shauna Pilgreen

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When the Revel Reads program offered this book among its options, I leapt at the chance to read it, largely because I liked the subtitle of the book. “How to Live Sent in the Place You Call Home.” I thought it sounded very charming and it appealed to me as a woman who believes we are all sent with a purpose to different places, whether it be a little visit to a nursing home or a long-term stay in a state where we’ve never lived before. We as a family have entered a season of putting down roots and I was interested in what this book could offer someone like me.

When I received the book and began reading the Introduction, I found the author’s perspective to be refreshing and circumspect. I had become acquainted somewhat with the urban missionary movement in the contemporary American Christian church and some of it really bristled me. Some of it sounds incredibly naive, and other examples have sounded downright entitled. Some call it “new monasticism” and others refer to it as upside-down kingdom living. I wanted to know where this book fit on the spectrum of stories/guides to being missional in one’s own community.

After reading the Introduction, the two chief questions I had in reading the rest of the book were:
Question #1: The author is white but does she recognize her privilege in moving into a community?
Question #2:- As a transplant to a community where she and her husband are trying to church plant, do they work with organizations already on the ground to learn more about their community?

I was sorry the answer to Question #1 was…not really? I am frustrated when I read about one more white woman in the church who doesn’t realize the amazing backpack of privilege she carries. The author talks about the three places she and her family moved to in and around San Francisco. It appears she blithely moved into each home without having concern as to whether or not she would be well-received. In fact, the author speaks about not receiving anything—no welcome or acknowledgment. This actually both struck me as naive and privilege-blind. I’ve lived in the city for 10+ years and I never expect to be acknowledged. It’s part of survival in a densely populated area. You just cannot expend your energy to each and every person passing into your lane. She does not mention worrying about any looks askance or overwhelmingly suspicious surveillance of her family moving in — something plenty of people of color have to worry about each day of their lives as they move through the world. The author talks about adopting their daughter from India during their early years in San Francisco. I’m sure becoming a multi-ethnic family overnight came with its lovely points and challenges, and I would have wanted to hear more about that. Instead, here is a passage from the book that bemused me:

”In my city, I’ve got a lifetime of people to love. The immigrants. The refugees. The under-resourced. The minorities…and I joyfully say, ‘You are welcome here.’”

I could barely read the rest of the book after this passage. It sounded at turns Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, and also incredibly pompous. Really? As a transplant to a city, you still feel entitled to tell others that they’re welcome in a city? There’s nothing wrong with being a welcoming person, but maybe those folks already know they belong. Maybe they don’t need a white woman to validate their being there. Being blind to one’s own privilege is a huge turn-off and I just never found the level of awareness I had hoped to find in this book.

The answer to Question #2 was maybe. As church planters, it appeared that this family and the other planting staff did reach out to others in the trenches who were doing their best to start churches. But I didn’t see much in the way of allying with organizations already on the ground who could provide resources and an invaluable intel into the community. The author prescribes whittling away the shoe leather in walking the blocks that surround her home and meeting the people and praying for the places in which her ministerial circle comprises. I think this is great, but it’s also one of the criticisms of new monasticism: that oftentimes these idealistic ministers seem to get burned out by doing it all from scratch, when they could have sought existing, embedded resources to help them find their path.

There were many redeeming parts about the book, including the early chapters on doubt and discomfort. I loved this: “A fear of missing out is not from God.” The author and her husband offer excellent, tactical strategies for planning a purpose-driven move. The book is also filled with a tremendous diversity of perspectives from luminaries such as C. S. Lewis, Marc Batterson, Maria Goff, and Pete Scazzero whose words enriched the pages.

Overall, there were far too many surefooted explanations for how ministry should be done in a place outside of one’s own comfort zone. The blindness to privilege was a major detractor for me as a reader. However, I think this book would still be a helpful companion for those who are discerning a move for ministry because of the cards the author is willing to show in sharing her spiritual walk through discomfort and toward the unknown.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Forest Fire Caused by Inordinate Number of Americans Sparking Joy

I really feel the above was a missed opportunity by The Onion in lampooning the KonMari-ing of America.

The Magical Tidying Up phenomenon is a hoot, though, isn’t it? First, it was the calming watercolor covered book, a tiny little tome that was responsible for millions of women hugging their sequined sorority tops, thanking them for all the good times they had dancing on bar tops, before letting the sequins set sail for Goodwill. Then, we have the Netflix special bringing this petite Japanese sprite of a woman as a sort of Buddhist interventionist into the homes of Americans, showing them how to accordion fold their T-shirts in a way that is so arousing, apparently, that my husband just walked by me and said, “Not gonna lie. Something really satisfying about the Marie Kondo fold.”

I love it when small little forces are the big bosses of us. Like babies and puppies and Richard Simmons (did they ever find him?). I also like Kondo’s method which is actually the opposite of bossy. It places the real agency on the owner and accumulator of the stuff, and rather than shaming him/her into submission, it simply asks them to self-examine whether or not something brings him/her more, instantaneous joy.

Having lived in so many places that would be considered small in the First World over the years, I can attest that this self-examination is the only sustainable way to tide accumulation. Will bringing this distressed wooden birdcage/pilates body rig /hydroponic tomato irrigator into my home offer a more joyful experience? It usually does not. Minimalism isn’t always the most joyful existence, but in my home, it’s the surest way to tame the chaos and assure the peaceful vibe.

But why, I wonder, does minimalism have to be this Very Evolved State of Being that We Must Announce? Like, the other day I was rifling through the racks at Marshall’s for a white oxford shirt. There were none in my size, and, trust, I cased the juniors, petites, women’s, men’s and little girls/boys. Nary an oxford shirt to be had. But among the finer merchandise and wares was a large rustic sign, the kind one would put in her living room, announcing in brushlettering, LESS HOUSE MORE HOME.

And I was sort of like, dude. Please promise me I never have the pleasure of being in a space where someone paid $19.99 to broadcast the fact that they were aware of the square footage of their abode, and what mattered more was that everyone knew they liked it that way?

Because this little piggy would be vomiting all the way home.

I suppose it is all anchored in our hyperconsumerism, because if we haven’t commodified something, does it really exist in America? We are, after all, buying into the KonMari method. If she were not selling something, the info. would be available freely. I assume Marie Kondo action figures are available somewhere—one piles, one folds, one embraces, one carries a lighter for sparking joy—collect all 4! The bobbleheads and FunkoPops will be available by Christmas for your stocking stuffers, BE YE NOT VEXED.

It’s not lost on me, of course, that there is an excess of judgment in this post, that my mental closets are filled with reserves of cynicism that are not joy sparkers for anyone, myself included. I am not a bandwaggoner and am loathe to ever be called a johnny come lately. I am as fascinated by pop culture as I am reviled by it. But there are plenty of pockets in my kimono for more admiration and openmindedness, and I am not yet at full joy capacity, so I should probably go hug some more sequins.

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