On Epistles and Sea Change (Epistolary Wednesday),

As much as I’ve loved our themed epistles on Wednesdays, I’m starting to think that every blog post is an epistle. And every novel, every essay, every poem for that matter. After all, if it’s not written in a diary, then it’s written for an audience, from one person to many others, meaning, maybe I won't identify a fictionalized recipient every week. But sometimes I will. So: here’s me giving notice that Wednesdays are epistolary by nature, whether or not I’m writing to you, my husband, daughters, Jesus, Obama, or the Duggar family. Yes?

But about sea changes. I’m not really a water girl, and probably shouldn’t talk like water words come easily to me, but sea change makes me think of sailors and wet rope and a stern watch on the ocean. It’s the phrase that ran through my mind a few months ago in the middle of weeks of restlessness. Have you ever felt change coming like you feel a storm rolling in? Maybe we don’t know how loud or wild the storm will be, but we know it’s coming nonetheless. And we sit on our perches with cold anticipation and a thrill in our stomachs because we know things are about to Get Interesting.

Well that’s where I’m at, and I’ve been here before, watching for sea change. Sometimes the waters rise up and roil so slowly you can’t tell exactly when it begins. Other times, it’s a flash of lightening and a darkening sky in an instant. I’m not a boater, like I said, but what I hear is that we can get farther if we cooperate with the wind and hike our sails to catch it when it blows.

Sunday night, a small group of friends and I met and we asked each other the question about what was next in each other’s lives. Where did we feel God calling us, where did we think we were going? Funny to find out, most of us in the room were feeling a sea change too—facing decisions about babies and moves and jobs and settling or not settling down. And then we prayed that we’d catch the wind of the Spirit wherever it was leading, that we’d have our sails up at the right moment so we could move along with it.

And then we each went out into a wet and icy November night, to chilly cars, and slick streets, to the next morning's alarm clocks and waking children and meetings and phone calls and family chaos and drama. Keeping our sails up takes some diligence in the midst of the everydayness of our jam-packed lives. It means readying ourselves when we're not really ready for change, when we don't know what change looks like, and when we don't know if we really want it. And then, despite our diligence to hoist the sails, there may be the impossible absence of wind. At least for a time. And there we live: ready but not ready, ready but mystified, ready and going nowhere--all while we try to live like responsible, loving human beings--taking out the trash, greeting our neighbors across the snow-covered yards, praying, giving, blending hemp seed and fruit smoothies for our children's breakfast, and, every once in a while, checking on that cold and unmoving winter sky as it's framed by the window.

Monday Must-Reads (Monday, September 22)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Well, in case you were paying attention, I missed posting must-reads last week. I was jet-lagged and a little windswept by an amazing trip and conference at Higher Vision Church in Valencia, CA, where I had the opportunity to speak at their Masterpiece conference. In between and amongst all my travels, I enjoyed reading:

For you mamas struggling to love yourself: Sarah Bessey's Dear Body.

For you theologians: "Act Like Men": What Does Paul Mean?

For you Christians who want to compassionately understand the "other" side: What I Learned About Atheists from God's Not Dead. (And, thank you, Neil Carter, for putting into words what troubled me so much about this movie.)

For anyone alive: Glennon Melton's How We Live a Hard and Good Life.

For you bloggers: insight from Jamie the Very Worst Missionary on how Not Everyone Likes You.

Dear Pastor-Blogger (Epistolary Wednesday)

On Wednesdays, I'm writing letters.

Dear Pastor-Blogger,
(Or: Dear Person Who Writes and Cares About People),

It’s a risky vocation you possess, thinking you can straddle the fence, one foot in social media-land, engaging in global conversations with people you know and barely know, with another foot in the local church, teaching classes weekly,  preaching sermons, getting into the grit of daily life with people in your congregation. Sometimes you wonder if you’ve confused your call, if these two things you engage in are mutually exclusive. You feel like, in theory, they ought to be compatible. Isn’t it right that a church leader demonstrate what it means to respectfully and lovingly engage in challenging discourse with people who disagree or see the world differently? Yes, absolutely, you conclude. But then Real Life reminds you that not everyone is going to follow that same model. And, of course, you are human. Of course, any unresolved tensions in your own heart can creep out in your satire in ways that are Unhelpful. You never forget that, but you look for it like a guard dog on patrol and sometimes, even then, you'll miss it. But say you do catch it all: there’s no guarantee that you’ll express yourself so that you are interpreted as you intend. Words mean different things to different people. People will get offended. And it will crush you when this happens, when you’re misunderstood as being what you’re not, or when you're disliked for what you are. What will you do?

Sure, you could just give up blogging about anything significant, about anything that matters, like you've done before. Safe territory is kid stuff, kitchen stuff, Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul stuff. But that’s not who you are. Kitchens and kids and happy thoughts are not the limit of all your observations and questions about the world that you want to offer the world.

So how do we proceed with diplomacy, Dear One? How do you balance this plate of literary irony, social critique, and agape when those food groups can get out-of-proportion so quickly? And you know how your kids are with disproportioned food groups: constipated or behaviorally jacked up, depending on the kind of excess.  

Consider the following for balance.

1. Learn to care more about people than you care about having the freedom to be careless with your words. You are free, Dear. You are absolutely free. But use your freedom wisely. Use it to help and not to hurt, unless the hurt is Good Hurt, the kind that discomfits us into righting wrongs, seeking truth, making space for those who haven’t gotten any, or speaks for those who can’t/don’t/are afraid to.

2. Work out your offenses/bitterness/anger/hurt surrounding an issue before you ever publish a post about such things. Bitterness gets in the way of constructive activism; it keeps us locked into analysis of the wound, stealing precious attention from finding a solution to the injustice. Plus, bitterness just doesn’t look very pretty on anyone, and you’ll lose friends quickly (unless they’re bitter along with you about the same stuff).

3. Problems with Real, Live People in Real, Live Situations close to your life should be sorted out with those people in those situations and not through a public forum like a blog.  This is Step 2 for Keeping Friends and Influencing People.

4. You should be willing and comfortable to perform anything you write for your blog as a TED talk or a poetry reading—but not as a sermon—in a public venue with your congregation in the audience. No, you are not parsing out the meaning of Job or Genesis, but you should be the same person with the same values, expressed appropriately in different contexts.

5. Sometimes, very personal things happen that, once sorted out, also have merit as kindling for larger-scale conversations. Sometimes this is worth writing about, creating a public space for dialogue. Even when it is painful. Even when it makes the right kind of waves (see #1). Choose these conversations wisely.

6. If you’re unsure about the tone, the heart of a piece, if you’re unsure about whether it does any earthly or heavenly good, ask someone you respect to read it. Someone whose critique would mean something. Someone who would challenge your unkindness and sarcasm but know the difference between that and the irony-that-speaks-louder than any straightforward line. When they give their blessing, rest easy.

7. Think about expressing gratitude if/when you’ve made someone's life (like your boss's or your spouse's) more complicated. Appreciate that s/he’s had to answer emails and phone calls about you over the years. Thank her/him for sticking with you. For believing in you. For believing in the work God is doing in you and through you, imperfect as you are.

8. Also, it would be helpful to convey to your readers, in more ways than one, that the kind of blogging and writing you do is an art form, not a sermon, a Bible study, or a Sunday school class. Artists use motifs, craft, structure, irony, and other devices to offer their message, and sometimes that message takes ferreting out. And sometimes it doesn’t--it’s simple and clean and non-wave-forming. But it’s art, and art’s your way of honing in on What Matters.

9. Sometimes, you'll find out that despite following steps 1-8, you'll confuse people. Maybe, come to find out, your perspective was too narrow. If that happens, widen your lens. Apologize if necessary. Be humble. You'll live to tell about it, and so will everyone else.