Category: Best of the Web

But I’ll tell you what. If we make eye contact on your way out the door, you won’t see my eyes narrowed in judgment looking your way. Nope. All I have for you is a smile and a hearty thumbs-up and a go get ’em, tiger! Because I get it. I really do. And I hope you find what you’re looking for.

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Sleepless nights, interrupted showers, and piles of scribbled notes are wonderful. They may not lead to everything you’ve hoped for, but there is beauty in faithfully working at our callings.

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Hey. Welcome to the clubhouse. Here’s a weak cocktail and the secret handshake. It’s a losers club, sorry to say, and we’re all long-time members.

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I’ll be honest—it took me a while. Not to show her how to address an envelope (which, as it turned out, took much, much longer than a while, took what felt like an eternity), but for what this young woman told me to finally sink in. She really didn’t know how to address an envelope.

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I do not believe in the God of my youth, who grants parking spaces and favors certain nations. I do believe in a God who hears our muddled prayers, whose very essence is power and love. I believe in a grace not bestowed, but a grace that just IS, that lets us navigate this life and this conversation, together.

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If I’m carrying a thrashing & screaming kid out of a building, offer to carry whatever I had to leave behind. It’s most likely my purse or a bag of groceries or something.

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The Post About Finding A Church Like Finding Love On The Bachelor

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Running these ridiculous races is birth: birth to my stronger self, to the absolute core of me, solid and steely and unmoved.
Running these races…like birth: we forget, so soon, the pain.
We want another

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What were your favorites this week?

Some of the good stuff I enjoyed on the internet this week:

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I’m not blind to the hubris of comparing ourselves to Abraham and Sarah, but isn’t this in a sense, what scripture asks us to do; to enter into our own adventure, our own “wild dancing” with our untamed God, taking solace and courage in these ancients who are at once both our guides and companions?

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I awoke in the middle of the night last week, restless after another trip down the hall to a child’s bedroom, my body rhythms out of sync for most of this year. I wasn’t thinking about anything coherent, was probably loosely formulating the next day’s schedule or replaying an earlier moment, when a thought dropped heavily as if from the roof and down through the ceiling fan:

I don’t believe in God.

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It’s strange, how this all came at me. It came out of nowhere, like usual. And I’m just saying, it was strange, the whole thing. It happened at work, the place where so much of life does. And I wasn’t looking for it at all. I can’t tell you how much I wasn’t looking for it. I’ve been pretty comfortable all around, lately, telling you how free I am. And how free it all felt, what I’ve found.

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When I got the email that she was gone, that the brain tumor she’d lived with for the past ten years had finally taken her, I was walking to the coffee shop where I write on Thursdays, my little boys dressed in their Halloween costumes, safe with their babysitter in my apartment. And I walked right past the coffee shop, straight to the park. I didn’t even think of climbing the tree. I just sat for two hours. I just sat in the rare San Franciscan sunshine and I thought about my friend. God, I prayed, open up the Great Hope to her. Right now. And I imagined what mystery my friend Elissa may have entered into. The sun shining down on me, the day before All Saints Day. The day we celebrate the ones who have already gone away from us, I sat in the sunshine and prayed for light.

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Pastors, preachers, bloggers, professors, students, random questions from the audience, interviewers, friends, readers, reporters, podcasters, they want to know: how can I – me, who knows better! who hears the truth every day! who is the target of a lot of vitriol and push-back at times! –  possibly still be hopeful?

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Finally, this: A lot of our churches, like Italy, aren’t growing. That is, they are not getting numerically larger. That’s a cause for some hand-wringing on our side of the ocean as well. But maybe, just maybe, we can learn a little something from the Italians about life at a slower pace and about accepting the hand we’ve been dealt.

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You are nearing the light now, Nora.

Barely a woman when you brought

my father into this world. I wonder if

you wonder where oh where did my life

go? How did we all grow up so fast?

 

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Anything get your attention on the internet this week?

Some things that got my attention on the web this week:

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No one brings dinner when your daughter is an addict. (Really proud of my college professor, Larry Lake, for this incredible piece over at Slate Magazine.)

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So if others want to write to be known or to make money, let them use their words in that way.  I will take my path with the quieter voices – the voice of a Jewish carpenter, the voices of women who have killed for reasons I will never fathom, the voice of a Czech man who knew why a man might become an insect, the voice of an enslaved women writing back to her master about how the children in her slave school are not learning.

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I’m right there, too. Because thanking God for all the good things in my life feels right—I grew up believing there was always Someone to receive my thanks—but if He bears the responsibility for the good things, the blessings, does He also not have some responsibility for the bad things?

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Regardless of whatever pseudo-religious “calling” you feel, write. Speak. Lead. Stomp your feet and cry. Protest. Fight. Carry the banner. Fall down when you cannot speak anymore and the rest of us will carry you through. We need your voice. We need your safe spaces.

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That’s one thing I’m learning about Packing Light. So often I hold onto things (like possessions or friendships or relationships or schedules or to-do lists) because I’m compensating for something.

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Bill Cosby Wants to Make a New Family Sitcom Centered Around ‘Warmth and Forgiveness’

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If you are a novelist who has yet to be published, remember your first priority: your writing.

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When we feel guilty all the time, about all kinds of things we aren’t responsible for, it does more than just beat us down and mess with our self-image. It desensitizes us to feeling remorse in general, and to taking responsibility for the things we should feel guilty about.

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What caught your attention this week? If you’re a blogger, which of your recent posts most resonated with people?

 

 

 

Some excerpts from posts in the world wide web that got my attention in the last week:

Does this way we celebrate Jesus’ birth shout love, grace and peace or does it leave the have-nots feeling more empty, more alone and more broken than ever?

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The days truly are evil and the steady march of time has a numbing effect. We have work to go to, bills to pay, parties to plan, housework to attend to, TV shows to watch. Being vigilant doesn’t mean not doing those things—but it does mean being intentional about which of those things to do and when. To make a choice with each minute and hour, knowing that time is precious and once past, is past forever.

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Finally, we sent a decree into the land: All children of ours shall be home for dinner Monday evening, to enjoy one another’s company, to light the Advent candles, and to decorate the tree, while festively drinking hot cocoa and eggnog (dammit!).

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I look at the mysteries in my own life and while there are days they make me want to weep, right now I look at them with awe. Such possibility awaits. Anything could happen today, next week, next year.

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“Maybe you’ll be artist.” I said, hoping to encourage him. “Maybe you already are.”

His answer was as quick as a his shifting third grade body. “Nah.”

I cocked my head.

“My parents want me to be an engineer.” And he walked away.

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It should be noted that Level One Christmas decorating has not been achieved since I let my prescription for Adderall lapse over four years ago.

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We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light.

 

“In Schwartz’s estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.”