Image Description: A blank and a question mark in black writing. The image has a gray background.
Chasidic masters told this story about Rabbi Zusya of Hanapoli:
Once, the Hassidic Rabbi Zusya came to his followers with tears in his eyes. They asked him:
“Zusya, what’s the matter?
And he told them about his vision; “I learned the question that the angels will one day ask me about my life.”
The followers were puzzled. “Zusya, you are pious. You are scholarly and humble. You have helped so many of us. What question about your life could be so terrifying that you would be frightened to answer it?”
Zusya replied; “I have learned that the angels will not ask me, ‘Why weren’t you a Moses, leading your people out of slavery?’ and that the angels will not ask me, ‘Why weren’t you a Joshua, leading your people into the promised land?”‘
Zusya sighed; “They will say to me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you Zusya?’”
Zusya, why weren’t you Zusya?
[________], why weren’t you [________]?
We can easily place our names in those boxes. In lifting this story up today, my point is not to raise the possibility of judgment, either here or in some future afterlife. My point is to raise questions like,
[________], what has gifted you to be [________]?
[________], what could be possible if you lived as [________]?
[________], how might your neighbors connect meaningfully to [________]?
[________], what is possible if you are fully [________]?
After all, there are gifts and abilities that come quite easily specifically to you. What could be possible if you felt their joy — a joy that then extends well beyond yourself? What could be possible if those very qualities, traits, gifts, abilities, and passions were turned in the direction of some of the greatest needs we witness and experience? What is possible when we feel at home with ourselves?
Image Description: A sink of dirty dishes (not mine; a different set than I’m about to describe below!) One side of the sink has lots of bubbles from dish soap. Public Domain image.
For the last year, I’ve had the great privilege of hosting a group of young adults in my home. We are an interspiritual discussion community. Over that time, our conversations have been wonderfully enriching, and our relationships have grown very deep. As both have happened, we have become a family group for each other.
Young adults in their 20s experience a lot of transience, moving often. It’s a gift to have a sense of home with one another. I feel so fortunate that I get to host them in my house, providing home-space for these home-relationships to develop.
On Sunday, they all came over for a family meal. I made tortilla soup, and we gathered at the table, which we expanded with the typically-stored table leaves. We told stories, laughed hard, and had a discussion around this question:
What does it mean to home-build?
At the end of our time, we all took a photo on couch, something that has become a tradition. Then before they left, we cleaned up, organizing dishes into the dishwasher. But those dishes didn’t all fit, so after everyone left, I organized the stacks a bit more, cleaned the counters, and went to bed, leaving the rest for the morning.
When I woke up the next day, I encountered the mess of them in the sink, and instead of inwardly groaning, I beamed. I delighted that I had had all of these beloved people with me in one place the night before.
This is part of what it means to home-build.
Dirty dishes. A memory of a shared meal. Home-space. Home-relationships.
Image Description: A wall hanging in the shape of a heart reads, “Home Sweet Home.”
Today’s piece is re-post from March 21, 2018. It was written after I attended the “Why Christian?” conference in Durham, North Carolina. These themes have been with me in renewed ways over the last few days, and I intend to write in these directions for the rest of the week. I love this language of Radical Homemaking. I also love my own calling as a Radical Homemaker. How does this resonate with you?
What could be possible if we put joy at the center?
For me, this question is connected to Radical Homemaking, and it has been energizing me since I’ve returned home after spending much of last week in Durham, North Carolina. I visited very beloved folks there and then attended the Why Christian Conference.
Some context…
The name of the Why Christian conference is actually pretty apt. Organized by Nadia Bolz-Weber and Rachel Held Evans, the conference invited eight incredible women to give testimony, answering these questions:
“Why, in the wake of centuries of corruption, hypocrisy, crusades, televangelists, and puppet ministries do we continue to follow Jesus? Why, amidst all the challenges and disappointments, do we still have skin in the game? It’s a question that may take a lifetime to answer, but we hope the next two days inspire you to wrestle with it in some new and fresh ways.”
All of the stories were remarkably powerful and compelling. They weren’t crafted to convince people of anything, or move to some sort of ‘or else,’ grand conclusion, as many of us have experienced in fire-and-brimstone churches. These were life testimonies of experience, speaking to deep conviction, love, and joy, and that took place right alongside stories of honesty, confession, loss, trauma, and vulnerability.
The piece that impacted me the most was one of the breakout sessions. I attended a session with the Rev. Amy Campbell, pastor of the BeLoved Community in Asheville. This session was called, “The Radical Art of Making Home.” “What if our primary vocation as humans is to make home?” she asked. Over these last years, she has been making home together with people who are acquainted with the painful experiences of homelessness. The BeLoved Community is an intentional community in a house in Asheville. People worship, share meals, sleep, build friendships, and beautifully celebrate one another — especially making space for people who have no shelter or people who are estranged from a sense of home in one way or another.
Radical Homemaking. . . I can’t begin to tell you how much this spoke to me. In my own context, I feel like this framework names the calling that energizes me as well.
What does it mean to be at home. . .
. . . in our bodies?
. . . in our selves?
. . . in our relationships?
. . . in connection to the Sacred?
. . . in the ways we organize our communities?
. . . in the beautiful broadening of kinship-belonging?
. . . in the ways we shape family and choose family?
. . . in the cultivation of space (including literal homes) for hospitality and nurture?
. . . in the inclusion of people (or perhaps, parts of ourselves) that feel estranged from home in one way or another?
Radical Homemaking. . . Radical: meaning, of, relating to, proceeding from a root. . . Last week, I found myself pondering this so much. This is newer language for what I know has been calling me all along.
So that brings us back here: What could be possible if we put joy at the center?
Radical Homemaking is one of my deepest joys. And I have returned home with such deep awareness that I need to put this calling and joy right at the center. Giving and receiving from this framework, I wonder what is possible?
Years ago, I attended a Thanksgiving dinner with no mashed potatoes. Gasp! Clutch the pearls! No mashed potatoes. And I love mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving.
Now I’m sure if we went around the room, we could probably all name a favorite dish that we enjoy at Thanksgiving or some other holiday meal altogether — the kind of dish we cannot imagine that meal without. And I’m just curious what yours would be.
For me, it is mashed potatoes. I pile them high every single year. But twelve years ago, I attended a Thanksgiving dinner with no mashed potatoes. That year, far away from my family, I was living in Texas, so I traveled from Austin to Dallas to visit the Thanksgiving celebration of a good friend’s family. And it turns out, that meal had far greater surprises than the mere dearth of my beloved, holiday spuds.
On the way there, I was nervous. Very nervous in fact. My friend’s family was much more theologically conservative than I was. My friend’s family was tremendously more theologically conservative than I was… To give you an example, when I arrived, I was introduced to a family friend who attends their Thanksgiving celebration every year. She was a scholar — a brilliant one — and she had recently resigned her faculty position at a Southern Baptist college because she felt they were moving to far to the left.
Now, I’m not interested in a stark delineation between conservative and liberal, at least, the ways we tend to be reductionistic and stereotypical about both. That’s too shallow. I wasn’t interested in that then, and I’m not interested in that now. What I was interested in then, and what I am interested in now is how we love our neighbors, and to be honest with you, I felt a great deal of nervousness because I was a 25 year old, young woman in seminary. I had left my own fundamentalist upbringing behind, and I loved theology and thought I might like to teach it someday, perhaps also in a seminary. I had no idea what they were going to think about me or that. I had no idea how they would engage my presence there.
And so we had the meal with no mashed potatoes. No one brings them in this family, or at least, they didn’t that year. And after that meal, the family friend, the scholar who had resigned her position, said, “Alright everyone! Let’s move into the next room. It’s time for the Plato Philosophical Society!”
Apparently, this was a tradition too. After the meal, everyone would move into an entirely different room and talk about theology, philosophy, and also, politics.
Alright… here we go… my blood pressure probably went up a bit. As we moved into this other room, I thought, “I’m going to have to defend myself, who I am, why I’m studying at a seminary, and why these things are important to me.”
But the first question at the Plato Philosophical Society had nothing to do with these. The family friend raised this question at the table:
“Do you think that the earth is is 6,000 years old?”
She was basing this question off of a fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The friend who invited me to this gathering is an astronomer. I was curious if she might feel like she may have to defend what she studies. But as for me, I can tell you that this is not a question I typically ask of the universe or even the Bible.
And so, there I was, plunged into a question that I never ask. And something very interesting began to take place… once we opened up that question… once we entered it, a whole other set of questions emerged… very human questions…
The universe seems older…
Would God trick us? Can God be trusted?
What can we know with our senses?
In fact, what can we know at all?
Can we be trusted to understand?
Who and what do we trust to teach us things we can’t understand?
Are there times when we knew something to be true, outside of rational ways of understanding?
These questions were connectional questions. Suddenly, we were thinking about human experience; our spiritual lives; our human living, learning, and loving; and our collective living with one another. And as we pondered these things together, something took me by surprise — something more surprising than a lack of mashed potatoes at a Thanksgiving meal. This family friend, the scholar who resigned a position at a Southern Baptist college because she thought they were moving too far to the left, called me, a 25 year old woman and seminarian, a theologian three times in this conversation. She said that word aloud. She assigned it to me. I felt seen and affirmed. I even felt called in that identity at the table. And I did not see that coming. I was grateful for it.
I learned something that day, and twelve years later, I still think of it:
We need each other’s questions.
We do. There are times when we are separated enough from one another that we begin to ask entirely different questions. There are some questions of my faith that frankly, I have stopped asking, and I imagine that some have stopped asking the questions that my communities tend to ask. Even if we may have very different answers… we still need each other’s questions because they are places to encounter God and meet one another. They can even be places of transformation. We may even discover that within them, we are named and called, sometimes even by people we’d readily assume would never name us or call us genuinely.
We need each other’s questions.
Now, you may wonder, Renee, what does any of this have to do with our scripture texts today? Quite a bit actually, because when I hear this morning’s texts from Isaiah and Luke, it seems they are speaking two different languages. One is filled with an abundance of hope and re-creation, and the other is filled with destruction and apocalypse.
They speak to unique contexts, of course.
The text in Isaiah speaks to the people of Judah who had been taken captive to live as exiles to Babylon. Their temple had been destroyed. They lost their homeland, their entire way of life, and their sense of dignity. They lost hope for themselves, and this passage proclaims hope in abundance on their behalf.
The text in Luke speaks to 1st century Jews who were living under the occupation of Rome. Jesus was in the presence of people who were talking about beauty of the temple — the longed-for, rebuilt temple — and he warns that it will be destroyed with large-scale, cosmic apocalypse and the personal betrayal of relatives and friends. This passage speaks about destruction.
Listen once more to these passages side by side:
Isaiah says, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.”
Luke says, “There will be great earthquakes, and in various places, famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”
Isaiah says, “They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.” And, “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.”
Luke says, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another.”
Of course, these two passages are written to two different contexts and entirely different groups of people, each with their particular emphases. But I wonder, if both of these passages could suddenly become personified, what would that be like? What if they could sit down together at a table and have a conversation? Say, have mashed potatoes together?
Maybe we’d discover that their statements of healing and destruction come from a place of different questions: “After losing everything, will we ever experience healing again?” one might ask. “Is it possible that our occupiers will ever face accountability and lose their power over us?” the other might ask.
Different questions and different statements, but once they are entered, don’t they come from similar places? Very human places? Desiring the end of evil and longing for a hopeful, flourishing future? I wonder what kind of family meal these personified passages might share with one another. I wonder what sort of encouragement they might give each other. I wonder how they might name each other and call each other.
I also wonder how they might name us and call us.
Because the truth is, we bring very different hopes, questions, desires, longings, and wonderings when we walk in the door of this sanctuary on Sunday morning, even if we’re all a part of the same community. Those hopes, questions, desires, longings, and wonderings are present right now. Perhaps some of us are filled with joy and possibility this morning. Perhaps some of us are tired, having had experiences where we were not named or called in light of who we truly are. Maybe some of us have a sense of aliveness in creation right now. You might love all this snow. Maybe some of us are wearied by the world’s troubles right now.
We need each other’s questions. Because frankly, we need each other.
We need the encouragement of one another. It’s a great gift that God has given us to each other, and here we are. So for the rest of this service, may it be a family meal, even if no literal food is present right now. May words be nourishment. May song be refreshment. May the human presence of our neighbors be accompaniment. May this place house us at a family table — all of our learning, our growing, our naming, and our calling. Amen.
Image Description: A close up image of a daddy long leg, standing on a green leaf.
I am afraid of a harmless thing.
It looks like it could creep,
or bounce,
or pounce,
or charge awkwardly with its considerable appendages.
But it does none of these.
It stays in place all day long,
content to rest in a single crevice,
or reside in clumps of countless others.
It wishes me no harm;
likewise, I wish it no hurt.
Unlike curious schoolchildren at recess,
I will not examine it,
or smash it,
or dash it,
or remove any of its legs.
But –
I will stand irrationally in fear.
I will freeze in the presence of a childhood phobia.
No matter the logic:
“It can’t bite you,”
“It can’t poison you,”
“It can’t jump on you,”
I will cringe with revulsion and anxiety.
I am afraid of a harmless thing.
It makes me wonder. . .
When
the word can’t enters our thinking, or
the word won’t enters our hoping, or
the word don’t enters our dreaming,
perhaps we fear something harmless too?
Image Description: Two, light gray, plush shark slippers are on a hardwood floor. They are both facing in the same direction. The one on the right is slightly behind the one on the left.
Story shared with permission.
N.J. is staying at my house this week. She is a great gift in my life — a person who is thoughtful, passionate, hilarious, boisterous, committed, tenacious, strong, and spontaneous. We met only a couple of years ago, but our life stories have some uncanny commonalities. Frankly, I marvel that we found each other.
She’s a student of occupational therapy. Yesterday, she left for her classes, and I began to do some things around the house. Soon after she departed, I came around the corner and spotted two friends who seemed to be awaiting her return.
There they were. The two little sharkies. She left her slippers behind, and they were just facing the back door.
Image Description: The shark slippers are facing the door in the sunroom.
This immediately made me laugh. They looked like they were waiting diligently for her to come back, eager to reunite with her feet so they could move around this house munching everything in sight.
But then after laughing, I had a sudden wave of gratitude. There is something so lovely about spotting pieces of someone’s uniqueness — symbols of who they are. And it’s an additional privilege when you have the gift of housing them, whether that’s inside a literal house or somewhere within ourselves.
These sharkies are aware they know someone special.
Image Description: A large, orange-colored full moon is on the horizon in the center of the image, within a black sky. A dirt road, down the center of the image, leads to the moon. Grass, trees, and a fence line both sides of the road.
If you close your eyes and awaken your awareness,
If you inhale deeply and let that breath fill every part of your being,
If you allow yourself to sit with the Question —
really and truly, as if you were taking it out for tea,
it will inhabit you,
it will enliven you,
it will call you by name,
and you will know what I’m talking about.
You will be familiar with the Question,
because it keeps making itself familiar to you.
It is that Question that keeps rising again
inside your being,
like an enormous, beckoning moon,
and the mysterious tide She consistently summons.
Yes, listen.
Stand on the shore of the horizon
and welcome the Question revealed in the waves
of
longing
lingering
dreaming.
. . . that Idea that keeps returning,
. . . that Love that keeps emerging,
. . . that Path that keeps arriving,
Listen. . .
In the swell of waves,
Ah, there it is – Won’t you?
It sounds for you – Won’t you?
Hear it resound and expand – Won’t you choose that which is choosing you?
Image Description: Eleven staff members from the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan, standing together, posing, and smiling in front of a white wall. There framed quotes hanging on the wall. Many of the people are wearing purple, the color of Epilepsy Awareness. I am in the front row, second person on the left. My purple shirt has white writing which reads, “Epilepsy can affect anyone with a brain; Any one with a brain can affect epilepsy.”
“Have you ever had a thought you didn’t think?”
A wise friend named Bobbie Sanders once shared this question with me more than a decade ago. Her wording has always stuck with me. She meant this: Have you ever had an insightful thought rise up within you unexpectedly, perhaps bubbling up from your intuition? One that just suddenly shows up? A thought that wasn’t a part of your logical, cognitive process?
One year ago last November, I had this kind of experience.
I had the occasion to meet Kurt Eichenwald (which is a great story in and of itself). He invited me to meet with him at the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan office. I had never been there before, but when I walked in to meet him, I was met with the unforgettable warmth and welcome of the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan staff.
In the moment, this simple welcome had a big impact on me. I sat down at a table where Kurt was signing books for the staff, and I thought, “I’ve never had a community around my epilepsy experience before. . .” I knew I liked this.
But that’s when I had a thought I didn’t think:
You should work here.
Um… what? I wasn’t expecting that.
You should work here.
My time with Kurt Eichenwald was really meaningful. But this thought would be the longer lasting impact of that day. I had never done non-profit work or formal work in healthcare, chronic illness, and disability advocacy. This would be very new, I realized. But it sat with me. For months, I just held onto this thought I didn’t think.
Then four months later in February, I saw that the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan was having an Open House. This was an occasion for people to come to the office, meet the staff members, and learn about the programs and services that the organization provides.
“I’m going to go to this, and even though there’s no job opening, I’m going to treat this like a job interview,” I told myself and also a few people close to me. And that’s what I did. I spent time with staff member after staff member. I asked them what makes this work important to them, and multiple conversations turned into brainstorming sessions of new ideas on the spot. I left that evening feeling very energized.
And then, four months later, I received an email from staff members, asking if I could come speak to them about the possibility of doing some contract work with the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan. We had that conversation, and wholeheartedly, I said yes.
I had followed that gut instinct — that thought I didn’t think — and well… here I am.
Two weeks ago, we held another Open House event, and it was structured just like that event last February. The Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan sent out an email invitation to the listserv, inviting people around the state to come to the event. I also received that invitation in my inbox. When I opened it, this staff photo was at the top. When I saw it, I was floored by it. I felt awe and gratitude.
There I am with this staff… I’m on this team for the next Open House. Incredible.
I’m glad I heard (quite unexpectedly, I might add!) that thought I didn’t think, and I’m glad I leaned in its direction. You just never know how intuition can guide us.
So are you in relationship with a thought you didn’t think? What if… you let it lead you?
Image Description: Renee is wearing purple Beats headphones, black glasses, and a purple shirt, and she’s smiling big in a closeup selfie.
I did it! I ran the Ann Arbor marathon!
. . . over 12 days on the track in my gym.
But hey! 26.2 miles. I had no idea I could do that.
Now that I have done that… I’ve decided to keep this 12 day period of time going. I’m initiating a new rhythm for myself that I’m simply calling “12 Day Goals.” I set a goal involving something that will really stretch me. Not something totally unmanageable ( <— and it’s okay when something is) but something definitely stretching. Then when I’m finished, I can say, “Wow! I didn’t know that was possible.”
I didn’t know my 12 day marathon was possible.
But I did it. Woo!
Next up: Keeping this tally going to 50 miles. (And they won’t all be running or even physical. I have some rest goals too).
Image: With a black background behind her, Mary Oliver is wearing a black turtleneck and smiling. I found this image here.
I’m participating in a Poem Exchange this week. It’s wonderful.
A college student in my community sent me an email, inviting me to this Poem Exchange. It’s structured in such a way that friends of friends end up emailing you poetry. I am now receiving poems in my inbox from people I’ve heard about and people who are complete strangers to me.
Yesterday, someone sent me this gem from Mary Oliver:
“Moments” by Mary Oliver
There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled —
like telling someone you love them
or giving your money away, all of it.
Your heart is beating, isn’t it?
You’re not in chains, are you?
There is nothing more pathetic than caution
when headlong might save a life,
even possibly, your own.
This is a stunning, simple, headlong call to action.
Lesson One:
This is the kind of poem that speaks straight into particular situations in our lives. Do it. Say what you need to say. Act in ways you need to act. You can do this.
Lesson Two (my even larger take-away from this poem):
As soon as I received this, I thought, “Goodness… I wonder… How many specific situations has this poem has spoken straight into? Straight toward? Experiences and stories that even Mary Oliver herself could not have anticipated?”
So I found myself pondering this too…
Speak the larger message you need to speak. Put it out into the world. Write the post. Create the art. Embody the dream. Lean into the collective. Release it into the community. Sow the seeds. Express the possibility.
Because… you don’t know who will hear you and how they will hear you…
I know this experience as a preacher. Sometimes, you express that sermon, and it seems you have so little to say… Or you stayed up late writing, and it still feels disjointed and lifeless. But someone still hears something! Sometimes, it’s something life-giving that you didn’t even intend. And you wake up to the realization that you are participating in what feels like a living, breathing moment. Somehow, it flowed through you… you — a relatively unaware messenger.
So this message, this post, this art, this embodiment, this leaning, this releasing, this sowing, this expressing…
Smuggling Grace 