Category Archives: community

Practicing Prayer

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Last Saturday, one friend prayed for me over a Whatsapp call, and another sent me these gorgeous flowers. I am moved to consider how I can follow the Spirit in turn. This weekend, we celebrate Pentecost. I love to think about the feminine qualities of the Holy Spirit, how He broods, hovers, nurtures–and infuses with incredible power. I wonder how living with the Spirit’s flame resting on us could be seen in us, in me.

I’d only talked with her once, last fall, over breakfast,

Between catching bites falling off her little girls’ spoons.

On Saturday, over the phone,

Our second conversation,

She was as vivacious as I’d remembered,

As thoughtful and generous

As we planned how we’ll plan

Our time together next month.

At the end of our 22 minutes,

She asked if she could pray for me now.

She’s the missionary, the busy mom,

She’s the one who needs care and support

But she prayed for me, and my day was better by her words.

That was Saturday.

Today is Tuesday, and twice

Since then, in conversations, I felt a nudge

To pray right then for the friend beside me.

Shoulder to shoulder,

Weakness beside weakness,

I got to talk to God on a dear one’s behalf,

To beg for His strength in fragility,

Wisdom in questions,

And declare my handing them into

His great care.

I love them dearly but can never save

Or give what they need most.

But I can hold them and remind them

Of what is truest and best in this

Awful, wondrous universe.

Prayer is a surprise at the end of a Whatsapp call,

An innervating string of words,

An example to follow,

A gift to speak at the Spirit’s nudge.

He hovers over us

With white wings that shade and comfort

As prayer gives wings to words

For each to fly.

A Benediction for Your Weekend

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Because I believe that Christians should be people of benediction (bene: good + diction: speaking) here’s one for your weekend. I hope to be dropping benedictions here and there (blog, social media, cards) the next while.

May sweet, glad birdsong surprise you on your walks. May golden light highlight greens and whites, and if golden light isn’t happening today, may it fall on you sometime this week. May you eat enough fluffy carbs to make your soul happy, and enough protein to make your brain strong.

May your bones not break, and if they do, may you receive so much support and care that it makes you cry. May your grey hair stay well camouflaged, and if they spiral out in odd angles, may you remember all the goodness that brought you to this good age. May you take time for at least two naps.

May your heroes be people who love God supremely, love you like Jesus, and make you a better person. May the skin tones you see and the languages you hear give you a sneak peak of our eternal home and the wedding feast that will never end.

 

Are You a Theologian?

Posted in community, recommendations, women's stuff, words by

My friends and I used to amuse ourselves by inventing cutesy, cringy names for women’s devotionals:

  • Coffee Time with God
  • Puppy Snuggles with God
  • Tea Cups and Promises

Our amusement came from what we saw as fluffy women’s devotionals that were packaged to make the content as winsome and inviting as possible, and we had no time for it.

I still don’t.

Observation 1: The devotional guides I’ve seen for women have disappointed me by being consumer-driven, comfy platitudes that try to make readers feel better. If you’re partial to a book or writer, and if you’ve found life in that content, I’m happy for you. There are some good writers out there but exceptional women’s devotional guides are rare.

Observation 2: Women need life-giving, rich input from God in order to fill their responsibilities well. I look at moms and the ways they see after their children, household, and neighbors with deep love, wisdom, and skills, and I think “How does she does she do it? She’s heroic!” Singles have other ways in which they give and feel depleted, but we all need so much more goodness and light than we can produce on our own.

This why I’m SO excited about the new Bible study guide, Kingdom of Priests! And until December 8, you can use a discount code to pre-order it: FRIENDS&FAMILY10. Run and get it for yourself and your friends, your small group, your neighbors. This is a meaty, serious, solid guide that you can take with you and be fed. A bonus for me is that my good friend Kristi wrote it, so I loved hearing her voice in it!

As a pilot tester, I got to do five of the ten lessons in the book. I loved the scope of the study, and how it explores the theme of priests from Genesis to Revelation. For years, I’ve been been thinking about the theme of temple—the places where we meet God—so studying priests fit perfectly into my line of interest.

The last few weeks, I began each day doing part of a lesson, and later, in the cracks of the day, my brain was pinging with ideas and words and concepts about priests and temples, the ways God shows His glory, the ways fallible humans represent God to their world. How does He trust us with so much! I kept thinking how much dignity and worth this calling of priesthood gives every person, how much responsibility women carry to represent God well regardless of their life calling.

In addition to probing the specific subject of priesthood, each chapter/lesson introduces a tool or a lens for exploring any Scripture passage. This give readers ways to study themes and passages of their interest, ways to teach Sunday school, and methods to study or lead Bible studies.

Probably the biggest weakness with women’s Bible studies is that we rush from the text to ourselves. We think “What’s in it for me? How does this speak to my situation?” I think that’s why those cutesy titles are wrong: they serve the reader who loves coffee or puppies instead of calling the reader to serve the text and its intentions.

Instead, we need to come to Scripture asking “Where is God here, and how is He revealing Himself? What is the author’s intent? How can I align my life with the ways God reveals His heart in His story?”

Imagine the results if women would sit in circles to explore these questions instead of talking about recipes and décor and gardening—all worthy topics in their places—but let’s not give ourselves a pass from studying Scripture, shrug, and say we’re not theologians or leaders. We ARE theologians—priests—in all the ways and places that we represent God to our world.

He doesn’t require us to be perfect, silver-tongued teachers, but shouldn’t we aim to be the best representatives of God we can be?

The Most Important Thing

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Photo by T. Kaiser on Unsplash

Back in December, I spent two weeks volunteering with ARC in Wisconsin. I went with a teen girl from church, but didn’t know any of the 20+ other volunteers when we got there.

At the end of the first week, we were in the food line at Sunday dinner and apparently some of them had been talking about me because one of the girls said, “Anita, I’ve been with you this whole week and I didn’t know you wrote a book!”

Her surprise amused me, and I shrugged. “Well, it’s not the most important thing about me.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “So what IS the most important thing about you?”

I was spooning gravy onto meat as she posed this question of shattering, earth-shaking import. We don’t plan these things. We can’t anticipate all the wonderful, unpredictable questions and conversations that pop out of nowhere and lead us to new discoveries.

“Hmmmm. The most important thing about me,” I slowly restated her question, “Is that Jesus loves me.”

It was a Sunday school answer, but I knew in the deepest part of me that this was the highest, widest, most wonderful reality about me.

Saying that wonder out loud—being asked to say it out loud—was an enormous gift my new friend gave me.

We women are too good at comparing ourselves with others. Depending on the day or the mood or the neighbor at hand, we give in to believing lies about our incompetency and superiority.

And it makes us shriveled and wrinkled and ugly. (Some wrinkles come with years, but that’s another subject.)

Inferiority and pride make us touchy and snippy and territorial and does nothing for us.

Have you noticed how a bride glows? She may or may not have the prettiest face, but her eyes and her smile tell us she knows she’s chosen and loved, and she isn’t crippled with needing anyone’s approval except her groom. 

Brides glow because they know they’re loved. Have you seen how love is a wonderful beautifier?

I wish we wouldn’t think “Jesus Loves Me” is a children’s song. I wonder what would happen if we would sing it every Sunday, all together, loud, as if we mean it and are over the moon excited about it. 

The most important thing about us has never been how much work we get done, or how little money we have. Or the way we do or don’t stay up to date with clothes and décor and hobbies and child training and world news.

When comparison stops, the game is over. The important thing stays the most important thing and nothing else matters.

The most important thing about me is not which of my spiritual gifts people see, or how much I’ve been hurt. The most important thing about me is that I get to be one of billions of people that Jesus loves wide and deep and long. If I could see Him, I would see the glint in His eye and I would see that He likes me—and not just me, but all of us—regardless of how cool or uncool anyone is, and that is the best, most important, glorious thing in the world.

Why I Read Novels

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Last Saturday night, my friends at The Curator asked me to roundtable a discussion on Why I Read Novels. It was a fun thing to think about and organize some of my scattered, simple thoughts about it. Here are some of the ideas I put out there.

Kafka said, “We ought to read only books that stab or wound us. A book must be an ax for the frozen sea within us.”

Well. I agree that books can uncover what’s inside us, but I don’t read books to be stabbed or wounded.

On the other hand, Flannery O’Connor said, “People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take long looks at anything, because they lack courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience.”

I agree with Flannery. Hope is a rare treasure these days, and reading and writing can be acts of defying cynicism and despair, because words can declare truth and light beyond the present.

In The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs writes, “It should be normal for us to read what we want to read, to read what we truly enjoy reading.” He expects, of course, that we want to read what is true, good, and beautiful.

Why I Read Novels

  • For pleasure and whim, as Alan Jacob’s book encourages.
    • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,  Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
    • Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry
    • My Antonia, Willa Cather
  • For curiosity and vicarious experience. I read a lot of memoir and biography for the same reasons.
    • Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi
    • We Are Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler
    • A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
    • A Father’s Tale, Michael O’Brien
    • The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
    • Still Alice, Lisa Genova
  • Because I like the author’s voice and skill with words
    • Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
    • Island of the World, Michael O’Brien
    • Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
    • Gilead, Lila, Home, Jack, a series by Marilyn Robinson
  • They help me understand the marginalized and characters I don’t usually cross paths with.
    • The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
    • Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
    • A Man Called Ove, Britt Marie was Here, both by Fredrik Backman
  • Novels give words for a common experience and understanding, such as eating the fruit in Perelandra or when the children shook snow off their boots and coats in the Narnian beavers’ house.
  • Novels give shape and color to important values and ways of living.
    • Strangers and Sojourners, Michael O’Brien
    • The Shepherd’s Castle, The Baronette’s Song, The Fisherman’s Lady, The Curate’s Awakening, George MacDonald
    • The Dean’s Watch, Green Dolphin Street, Elizabeth Goudge

How I Read Novels

Books are for seasons. I tried four times to read Gilead, and gave up. It moves very slowly, like all of Marilyn Robinson, and never suited me, until, in the right season, my mind slowed down enough to savor the message, and I could take it in and love it. To read the emotionally grueling but deeply impactful Island of the World, I need to be in the right season, which probably happens roughly once every ten years. (I also felt like I needed a support group as I read.) If everyone around me enjoys a novel but I don’t, this might not be the season for it. (Except for WWII novels, which have no viable season for me.)

My friend Marlene introduced me to the idea of  “cluster reading” which I aspire to, and have only briefly dabbled in, and would love to do more. Read several books around one theme or time period from various perspectives. Last year my cluster reading was:

  • A Gentleman in Moscow
  • Agent Sonya (a biography)
  • The Brothers Karamazov (which I didn’t finish–yet)

Another idea for cluster reading could be:

  • The Chronicles of Narnia
  • The Narnian (a biography)

How I Find Novels

Goodreads keeps my reading life organized, lets me see what friends are reading and what they’re saying about them. I write a review of most of the books I read, and friends can see what I put out there. I shelve books on To Be Read, Read, and Currently Reading. When someone recommends a book, I put it on my To Read list and don’t have to keep a mental list. I LOVE Goodreads! It’s an old app, loads slowly, and isn’t super user-friendly, but I still like it.

I get newsletters from my favorite contemporary Christian writers like Philip Yancey, Jen Pollock Michel, and Lore Ferguson Wilbert. Good writers are good readers, and when they recommend books that they’re reading, I listen up. I also watch what Christianity Today  says about the newest titles coming out.

I don’t know how many disclaimers I should make here. We all know there’s a lot of rubbish out there, and novels get a bad rap for being sensuous and escapist, because many are that. I try hard to not read any books I wouldn’t want to recommend to friends. There are too many good books out there to waste time on less than great stories.

Story is a powerful form of communication that can set a reader’s compass and turn them to a positive direction. Jesus must have thought so too. Reading a good novel is a way to engage in hope, declaring that today’s devastation is not the only reality and there good things to reach for. Truth, goodness, and beauty will always have the last word. Because of this, I believe good stories will change the world.

Feasting

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Photo by Oksana Melnychuk on Unsplash

Linens, candles, clink of cutlery and pottery

Paint an impression of uncounted sweet,

Friendly, nostalgic feasts

Around tables.

 

Winks, questions, stories, guffaws, songs

Stay with me much longer

Than pasta, mousse, exquisite blends

Of textures and vibrant flavors.

 

Welcomes, farewells, celebrations

Circled around platters, friends, neighbors,  strangers,

Centered for one thin slice of time

Then scattered.

 

The guests and palates changed

At every year and table,

Warming, filling, nourishing me still

At tonight’s solitary soup.

Words When There are None

Posted in books, community, life, recommendations, words by

Screenshot from Every Moment Holy website

I don’t know why, but I usually have more words than one person needs. However, the supply comes and goes. At both tips of the deep lows and soaring highs that my personality tends toward, I have no words. Only tears or gasps, like last night on my walk when I saw the enormous orange moon slipping up from the horizon. Or in times of confusion and anger and sorrow. Or when I don’t know how to pray.

My culture came away from rote prayers, prayer books, and liturgy, ostensibly because we valued direct connection with the Holy Spirit, and I’m glad for that. I don’t like to be tied to a form that becomes hollow.

But in the cascading sorrows of this season, as well as the shimmering beauty that lingers, I found a place that has words when I have none. I don’t use the book every day, but I go again and again to the first volume of Every Moment Holy, and I sit with the words that remind me of simple truth, enduring safety, and the anchor of God’s sovereignty. You too? You forget too that something bigger is going on here, and God is still in charge of the world? Yeah, me too. That’s why I love this prayer book so much.

Sometimes I call it a prayer book for millennials, because it has a prayer for drinking coffee, a prayer when reading too much news, a prayer when seeing someone beautiful, a prayer when camping, a prayer before going on stage. One of my favorites alludes to a Narnian story: it’s a prayer when feasting with friends, and reminds us that eating together is an act of war. Yes! Count me in to fight the dark side by feasting together!

Screen shot of the Every Moment Holy, partial list of contents, vol. 1

Jesus countered the proud, public prayers of His day by telling us to pray secretly, and He modeled that in His solitary nights of prayer. For all of us individually, secret times of connection with the Father shape our character and anchor our public service. If we crowd out these secret moments, we lose way more than we can know.

Other places in the New Testament show God’s people praying together and collectively pushing back the dark powers around them. Humans are finite and limited and near-sighted enough that we forget the spiritual reality that shimmers beyond our sight. If we would see and hear what happens in the spiritual world around us, it would take our breath away.

I hold enormous comfort knowing the Spirit prays for me when I have no words. I also love using this prayer book, but I dream of these prayers printed and handed around small groups and church benches and Sunday schools all over the globe. The second volume is prayers about death, grief, and hope, which I don’t have yet, but seems appropriate and necessary these days.

Liturgy for a Time of Widespread Suffering

Liturgy for Embracing Both Joy & Sorrow

In collective prayer, we hear each other say the words we can’t string together, reminding ourselves of what is enduring, verbally expressing hope and joy and sorrow, and audibly saying words we know to be true even though we don’t feel their reality. We often do this unconsciously in songs. What if we would intentionally speak words together in prayer—words and phrases and silences we don’t have but someone else wrote for times like this?

These two volumes make lovely gifts. Here’s a short list of PDFs from volume two, but you probably should buy copies of both volumes for yourself and your friends.

Instead of God’s people being known for their suspicion and outrage, I long for God’s people to be known for their love and worship. To have child-like faith. To keep our faces turned toward the God who will one day right all the wrongs that rain around us. To instinctively reach for someone’s hand and pray for them or with them when we don’t know what to say.

Imagine if neighbors would say “Have you heard about their prayer meetings? Do you see how crazily they love those who disagree with them? They look like they have a shining secret! I wonder what makes them so gentle and beautiful?”

Imagine if prayers would be the words we’re remembered for.

What Gives You Joy?

Posted in Art, community, gratitude, life, love, Uncategorized by

Last week I was in front of a group of razor-sharp students in Ethics class. I had been asked to share stories from my life that shaped me, ordered my loves, showed me a direction to walk toward. Telling stories is fun and easy. In the Q&A afterward, though, I found it hard to think on my feet and respond well.

What gives you joy? I love this question, but I wasn’t ready for it, and stumbled around it in ways that make me wish for a replay. The question and my initial response still lingers in my head, so here’s how I wish I’d have answered.

People give me joy. They are unpredictable, colorful, zany. Interacting with people, talking, laughing, hearing their stories refreshes and relaxes me. Silence, closed faces, refusal to interact makes me angry–not a response I’m proud of. I want to live so that anyone feels safe and free to put anything on the table to talk about. I’m not great with conversation and conflict resolution and asking questions to understand but it’s my goal, the direction I want to walk toward.

Simplicity gives me joy. I don’t like details. I don’t like STUFF (pronounced in a repulsed tone of voice), as in things that collect dust or peel or get grubby. They weigh me down and clog my brain. I’m impractical that way, and I’m not proud of it either. I need to learn how to live well in the tension of living in the real world where we need to maintain houses and cars and food. If Jesus’ life showed us the definition of the good life, I see simplicity in His lifestyle. He didn’t even own a pillow. I see Him caring about people, prioritizing them over stuff. I love

  • salt and lemon on avocado
  • sunshine, sunshine, sunshine
  • toddler’s giggles
  • gradients of colors like brush strokes on a cherry or apple
  • the shape of eyes and sweep of cheekbones
  • raindrops on petals

Creating gives me joy. I care deeply that God’s people create more than they consume. I love the process of creating something that didn’t exist before:

  • A pot of soup.
  • A poem.
  • A conversation.
  • A doodle in the margin.
  • A change of attitude.

In creating, I feel more whole, less fragmented, because the process aligns all the parts of me, and lets me embrace, for a fleeting moment, something of what it means to carry God’s image as Creator. I wonder what kind of woodwork Jesus made, and how His fingers handled a piece of wood. I wonder how He engaged people in conversations.

There’s limited value in putting my joys and dislikes on the world wide web unless it nudges someone else to order their loves, define their joys, and weigh them against what Jesus loves.

What gives you joy?

Songs Stay On

Posted in Art, community, life, music, recommendations by

It was a year, as everyone has already noted.

I don’t have words yet to talk well about it, and there are still clouds and questions with no answers. I am hopeful but not glib about 2021. Not chirpy, as my personality tends to be.

This not the place to list last year’s losses. That would take too long and be too depressing. But one immense loss has been choir, choir concerts, and formal and informal singing groups. I feel incredulous that last January, just before the year started unravelling, I went with friends to a packed auditorium in Cleveland to hear the St. Olaf Choir conducted by Dr. Anton Armstrong. I still listen to some of the songs I heard that night. I’m not a gifted singer, but listening to songs and singing with people feeds me like nothing else does and I miss it terribly.

In the darkest, hardest parts of the year, when I couldn’t sing, I listened to others sing. Often it was “Jesus Strong and Kind.” Or “Sure on This Shining Night.”

When everything inside me feels scrambled, I listen to choral music. When I want to rest my soul, I turn on my favorites, this curated list of chorale gems. The voices, harmonies, and chord progressions soothe something deep in me. I start breathing deeper and my focus shifts from troubles around me to the shimmering melodies or words. This list has multiple arrangements and languages of the Lord’s prayer and Psalm 23. Wonder how that happened.

This list are all my favorites depending on the moment, but indulge me while I share my exceptional choices:

  • Pieces from Stellenbosch Choir. From South Africa, they have a rare, winning blend of Dutch harmonies and African rhythms. I dream of hearing this group in person some day.
  • The first time I heard the stunning soprano lines in Arvo Part’s “And I Heard a Voice,” it took my breath away. Then I read the backstory to the song, and how he composed it in his native Estonian, and now I like it even more.
  • Sometimes I wake up with lines from Forrest’s “Come to Me” or Mealor’s “The Beautitudes” in my head, and it makes the whole day better.
  • Whenever I hear “Indodana,” I see the silhouettes of the women at Jesus’ cross, weeping with no words. I can’t listen to the song without some emotional fortitude because it’s so sad. But it gives voice to what was the most wrecked night of their lives.

I often think CCM has more honest lament than classical and sacred music does, so I find some CCM lyrics cathartic and healing, but I don’t find most CCM beautiful aesthetically. And beauty is what I need when I’m fragile or sad. Beauty (very loud or very soft) or silence.

Toward the end of last year, I got to sit in on the dress rehearsal for this recorded Christmas concert. The only thing that’s better than singing in choir is listening to your friends sing. While they practiced, I sat on the floor in the back of the gym in the dark and cried because it was so beautiful. Earlier in the year, some of them were also in on this virtual choir and I’m so proud of them.

Clearly, this is the era of virtual choirs. Even though it goes against most of what is true and enjoyable about choir, virtual choirs offer something better than silence and isolation. Last summer, I heard about Eric Whitaker’s “Sing Gently” virtual choir about two days before the tracks were due in. I downloaded the sheet music and the practice tracks, but didn’t have time to finish. That close, I would’ve joined over 17,000 singers to debut that sweet song, and it would’ve been a nice way to remember the year. Maybe another song, another time.

Hope wears thin these days, but in brighter moments, I believe that some day we’ll pack into auditoriums and sing again. I dream of attending a concert like this of Brahm’s “Requiem.” The European elegance, red and black formal wear, the singers surrounding the audience–I would be be in raptures.

Singing aligns all the parts of a person with beauty and goodness, which is one reason it’s so healing for me. In this fragmented, splintered, fraught era, we need more singing. We need songs everywhere. We need truth and beauty and goodness flung around in music and voices and community. We could never have too much.

Use Your Words

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I’ve loved words for as long as I can remember. Our family parsed words to death, arguing whether a word meant one thing or another. When I taught ESL in Poland, I made the bag pictured above with words from a favorite hymn because I thought an English teacher should have a bag with words. And Wordles were so much fun! They’ve kinda gone out of style by now, but I loved their eloquence and simplicity.

Sometimes I buy a thing just because of its fun name. Like a car air freshener called “High Maintenance” or a mini orchid because it’s named “Espresso Orchid.” It was white, not espresso colored, but it fit in an espresso-sized cup, and I found it irresistible, and am thrilled that it’s finally shooting out a bud stalk.

Words. Names. We fling them around. Label things. Describe ourselves, describe feelings, describe situations. And what a humdinger of a situation this year has been. What a stupendous opportunity to use words well, to let them sparkle, fly, heal.

I’ve seen healing words, heard them, received them. They infuse me with new energy and light. Words carry light, you know. Or darkness. Which is sobering. In mysterious, staggering power, words create our reality. We can name a thing wonderful or terrible, and it becomes that. Is this power part of carrying God’s image–the part of Him that named creation into existence? Is it akin to how Adam named the animals?

I’ve heard wise moms calm their distraught, screaming children by saying, “Use your words.” Then the child says, “I’m cold.” Or “He hit me.” Or “I want to go hoooooome.” Then the mom knows what’s happening, and the screaming stops. She worked ahead of time by teaching her child words to use.

I think we could teach each other words that are useful and clarifying. I think this weird year gives us a fantastic chance to try to name what’s happening.We’ve heard lots of yelling, words flung around like daggers, weighted with hate and anger. We’ve complained, and tried to be strong, and given up lots of dreams, and readjusted our plans a hundred times, and cried buckets of tears of deep loss and sorrow. We’ve worn out tired words like

unprecedented

anti-maskers

fraudsters

systemic

mitigation.

Anger and grief are real and valid and we should name them. Name them, own the tsunami emotions, and care deeply for those in hardship. Death, a serious health diagnosis, loss of home or loved ones, mental illness, front-line medical work, violence, and abuse deserve words like

suffering

devastated

crushed

agony.

God’s people should be leading the way in holding the broken hearted, comforting, helping, and offering quiet presence. If they speak, they should give gentle, luminous words, not judging or giving quick fixes.

In contrast, when a storm comes through and takes away electricity for more than 30 hours, or a vacation got cancelled, or masks are mandated for specific situations, we can use words like

uncomfortable

disruptive

disappointing

inconvenient

sad.

When I hear anger about masking or changes in holiday plans, I want to say, “Use your words!” And choose them appropriately. We can be sad and disappointed about many things, but if we’re not in a flapping tent in a refugee camp, and we have contact with our loved ones, and we didn’t bury a family member, are we suffering? I suggest not. We should use our words instead of screaming.

The stark pictures of boots and crocs upside down outside a UNHCR tent in Greece (upside down so the rain doesn’t get in them, and outside so they don’t dirty the living quarters in the tent) calls me to be utterly careful how and where I use the “suffering” word. When I hear people yelling about masks, and being worried about the effect of COVID on our nation, I think they don’t get out much. Am I being judgy? There are much worse, much harder situations across the globe that deserve our anger and our prayer. We can be honest about how we feel because anger or sadness doesn’t disappear by ignoring it, but we also need perspective and higher goals than keeping ourselves comfortable.

What if we’d use our words to name our situation with truth and grace like Jesus did? What if we channel our deep emotion toward gentleness, compassion, and caring for what is truly devastating? Could we create a new reality by naming things accurately?

I wonder.