Good morning & happy Friday from sunny-but-very-cold New York!
Today is the last day of school around here because next week is winter break, and you can feel it in the air, I think…people are rolling their suitcases along the streets, bumping them up and down the stairs at the subway stations. We’re heading to the beach on a very very early flight tomorrow morning—we’re so looking forward to some family/sun/sand/ocean time. And before we go, I’m so excited to share this excerpt with you.
I’ve known (and loved!) Sarah for many years, both as a human/IRL/person friend but also as a writer I very much admire. Her writing has been a through-line for me for many years—she is a person of deep faith, but she’s not afraid of deep questions. She’s a gorgeous writer, but she doesn’t glide over the complexity of life and faith with pretty phrasing. Truly: (and I tell her this every chance I get) she’s one of my favorite writers writing today, and on my very very short list of best faith writers writing today.
Her new book Field Notes for the Wilderness is, essentially, a handbook for deconstructing in a way that’s hopeful and wise, in a way that embraces mystery and reaches toward deeper devotion. It’s essential reading for all of us who have left behind many things, but still find ourselves deeply drawn to the heart of Jesus.
Here are all the details: Sarah’s website, all about the book. Also, all about Evolving Faith and Sarah’s Substack called Field Notes. Oh, and one more thing: Sarah will be a part of the Pastors, Priests & Guides retreats outside Chicago in May—we’re so so thrilled!
Field Notes for the Wilderness comes out on Tuesday, and you should DEFINITELY pre-order it today :)
Yes, And…
I don’t recall much from the improv class I took in junior high but I will always remember the phrase “yes, and.” If you were in an improv with someone else and they said something - anything - your job as their improv partner was to respond “Yes, and..” However wild and outrageous and unexpected your partner acted, you said, “yes, and…” because you needed to keep the performance going by picking up where your partner left off. You were supposed to “yes, and” in your language and your body and your spirit in order to keep the energy flowing and the performance moving and to even create art. (Which feels like very high expectations for a junior high drama class, but this is why we love teachers,) Whatever happened in that session, your main job was to respond with open arms and a spirit of possibility. Every improv will be difference because you’re there and the other person is there and the audience is there and the energy changes.
I think of our journey in that sort of improvisational way now. This is an off-brand altar of “yes, and.”
Yes, I’ve changed. And I still belong.
Yes, I have questions. And I still belong.
Yes, I used to think one thing and now I live something different. And I still belong.
Yes, my relationship with religion is best described as “it’s complicated” right now. And I still belong.
Yes, I’m hurting and wounded and I have hurt and I have wounded. And I still belong.
Yes, I am filled with doubt and disbelief and wonder at the same time. And I still belong.
Yes, I don’t know what I think about really any of this. And I still belong.
Yes, I’m trying to figure out what it means to love God and love people well. And I still belong.
Yes, I’m anxious and scared. Yes, I’m sad and I’m lonesome. And I still belong.
Yes, I don’t even know how or what to ask and yet I will still receive.
If all you’ve done is traded in one tired script for a new one, you’ve missed the improvisation of the Spirit. You’re not a brand, beloved. On this journey, you’ll lose your scripts again and again. Life will happen. Your heart will be broken. You’ll be disappointed again. You will run out of answers again. You will think you’ve nailed your lines and then you’ll hear, “But what about…” and once again, you’ll begin again.
The poet and musician Peter Riley calls the improvisation during live music performances the “exploration of the occasion.” I think that’s part of what we’re doing now in the wilderness. Your life is an exploration of the occasion. We’re improvising, not out of disrespect, let alone a desire for sin and license or even out of fury, but out of exploration and questioning and the possibility for love. There is freedom to improvise even if there are some similarities, helpful scaffolding, shared language, rituals, and sacraments to hold us up as we grow bolder and more loving. Your life was never meant to be a brand. It was always an exploration of love and life.
Life and spirituality will be different in the wilderness this time - as compared to every time you’ve done this before - because you’re different. This moment in time is different. This place is different. Your life is different. You are in the exploration of the occasion. And that’s as it should be. An evolving faith is always a remix.
You’re in a new place and a new way because of your wanderings and wonderings, your doubts and possibilities, your healing and your hope, let alone the larger stories of your community and your people and your place. You have been working so hard to love others in a way that you yourself were not loved. You are seeking justice after being treated unjustly. You’re turning your loss and pain into a shelter for others. You glorious resurrection story, you.
It takes such holy audacity to choose a new path when the old ways turn into dead ends for you. It takes guts to realize that God is bigger than a church, a tradition, an interpretation, and then to live accordingly.
Yes, you have songs you still love and the prayers you rest in and the candles you light and the lines from Isaiah that still come to your lips.Yes, the real Jesus you’re still meeting for the first time over and over somehow still feels like a friend and the one who makes sense in the midst of all this. And it will make you glad.
We are learning to receive, not control. We are learning to improvise, to play again, and to reclaim our joy. I’m thinking of you tearing up your scripts and tossing the pieces into the fire and whooping under the full moon. Because you still cherish the Sunday school teacher who hugged you tight every week and the friend who stayed by your side during chemo and the teacher who came along at the right time for you, and the prayers of your grandmothers, the hymns that somehow are the ones you hum late at night when you think no one hears you, and the way ou still want to say “thank you” when you see the sun set into the horizon, leaving only streaks of light across a navy sky. The knowing in your heart that love is enough of an answer and even the possibility of joy is enough to say, “yes, and…”