Letting Myself Know What I Know

Remembering what faith is, plus a collection of delights for July

The tiniest baby bunnies are growing up in our backyard. All of our neighbors have dogs, and we don’t, and the baby bunnies know it, and so our yard is the bunny sanctuary now.

I used to be a grinch about it. I used to ask my husband to run through the backyard and scare them away. I used to buy those bottles of bunny repellant-spray from the plant store. I used to tsk tsk tsk whenever I saw them nibbling our grass or trying to jump into our raised beds.

Me and the aforementioned bunnies

But here’s the thing. It’s grass. And those are baby bunnies. And being cynical and controlling has worked for a long time to help me feel safe, but it has not been good for actually learning to be a whole and thriving person.

So now, I am learning to let the baby bunnies be. And often, during dinner, one of us will do a double take out the dining room window and point to a tiny pair of brown ears barely visible above the top of the grass.

The girls will scramble to the window with pasta sauce still coloring their faces, and for one brief moment, all of us will forget what we were talking about and quietly press our faces to the glass.

Those moments at the window are some of my favorite moments.

I think, mostly, I’m just happy to be in awe of something so simple, together.

A confession: I used to think I had the “gift of faith”.

(Hold for laughter.)

Whenever my husband would recount his seasons of doubt or questioning and then ask about my own, I would respond with something along the lines of: I’ve never really had doubts. I’ve always been sure. (*Insert casually smug gesture here.*)

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, being sure turned out to be less “spiritual gift”, and more “consequence of growing up in a rigid and mostly-homogenous evangelical environment.”

Upon the rapid dissipation of my perceived certainty, I have tried to claw my way back to the faith of my childhood in a thousand different ways.

But I can’t. I know things now that I just didn’t know back then.

Christian Wiman explains it like this in his book My Bright Abyss:

“In fact, there is no way to “return to the faith of your childhood,” not really, not unless you’ve just woken from a decades-long and absolutely literal coma. Faith is not some remote, remembered country into which you come like a long-exiled king, dispensing the old wisdom, casting out the radical, insurrectionist aspects of yourself by which you’d been betrayed. No. Life is not an error, even when it is. That is to say, whatever faith you emerge with at the end of your life is going to be not simply affected by that life but intimately dependent upon it, for faith in God is, in the deepest sense, faith in life—which means, of course, that even the staunchest life of faith is a life of great change. It follows that if you believe at 50 what you believed at 15, then you have not lived—or have denied the reality of your life.”¹

I have needed to hear someone say this.² I have needed to hear someone very wise and very academic and very intimate with suffering (bonus points because Wiman is also a poet) really grapple with their faith—really grasp that it just is not going to look the same throughout one’s lifespan.

I used to be one of those people he writes about in that final sentence—either not living, or denying the reality of my life, or both.

I used to be one of those people because I could be.

But I can’t anymore.

That version of me is nested deep inside now, with all my other past iterations.

Now I just have to let myself know what I know.

I think I’m getting better at this.

Still, every six months or so, in a complete panic, I will swing like a pendulum from one side of the proverbial spectrum to the other, and then back again, in an ill attempt at escaping the hellscape that is the uncertain middle ground. (God help my friends who have been walking me through this with all the patience and grace of the most revered saints).

The problem is, I like to know where I belong and to be able to stick a pin in it. The certainty of such a declaration makes me feel safe—in my relationships, in the world, and in my own metacognition³. To be in the middle of two distinct belongings, then, is—as the kids say these days—uncomfy at best and terrifying at worst.

Maybe this is why the only Bible I have been able to consistently crack open lately has been the Bible my girls ask me to read to them over breakfast most mornings.

Maybe it’s the way this big Love Story is so plainly portrayed that keeps my heart from turning into a stone cold fist of protective anger.

Maybe it’s the language—the way it cuts through all the “Christian-ese” I’ve learned to tune right out.

Maybe it’s the simplicity of what it asks of my children, which is not to stake their claim on either side of a spectrum, not to hold to a singular version of some rigid theology throughout their lifespan, not to know more the older they get, but simply this:

To let themselves be lifted to safety by the lifeline.

All they have to do is be held.

Winslow Homer’s “The Life Line”, 1884. Simeon Zahl of Mockingbird references this as one of his favorite works of art, as well as an apt portrait of faith.

What can I say about faith?

I have tried to kill it so many times—run it out of my yard, scare it away before it tries to make a home there.

But here’s the thing. It’s faith. And this is my soul. And being cynical and controlling has worked for a long time to help me feel safe, but it has not been good for actually learning to be a whole and thriving person.

So now, I am learning to let my faith be. And often, reading to my girls at the breakfast table, I will do a double take at the window of my heart, incredulous that the Story is actually sinking in—at least for the moment.

The girls will scramble to see the storybook Bible’s pictures with yogurt still coloring their faces, and for one brief moment, all of us will forget what we were talking about and quietly listen to a Love Story so uncomplicated, even my three-year-old can understand it.

Those moments at the breakfast table are some of my favorite moments.

I think, mostly, I’m just happy to be in awe of something so simple, together.

“My God my bright abyss
into which all my longing will not go
once more I come to the edge of all I know
and believing nothing believe in this.”

-Christian Wiman

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June Delights:

Currently reading:

Zero at the Bone: Another gorgeous set of meditations by Christian Wiman. He is incredibly intelligent and academic while also poetic and empathic. This book captivated me and I will be returning to it often.

The Ministry of Time: This NYT bestseller is shockingly good. I can hardly put it down (the only reason I put it down actually is to keep my children alive). A book about time travel that’s hilarious, thrilling, and romantic? OKAY.

Mockingbird’s “Mystery” Issue: I don’t buy every issue of Mockingbird but I couldn’t pass up this issue on mystery. This is a big magazine, full of rich content (think poems, essays, art, interviews) that doesn’t over-simplify the spiritual life and leaves room for nuance and many different voices.

Alive at the End of the World: Saeed Jones’ memoir/poetry collection—whew. What can I even say? This collection gave me goosebumps, made me rage and cry, and left me feeling as though I had just taken a very, very long trip from which I now need to recover but also want to immediately go on again. Required. Reading. Full stop.

A few things I’ve been loving lately:

This waterproof watch: Wow, did I underestimate how much I would absolutely love having a digital, waterproof watch. I’m not an Apple Watch person and I hate running back to check my phone all the time at playgrounds and the pool (or annoying one friend in particular who I can count on to always be wearing a watch—you know who you are). This solves the problem.

Crisp and Green’s açaí bowls: YUM. I wish I had discovered these years ago. So, so, so good—especially on those hot summer days.

Boxy cut, thick cotton tees: Am I obsessed with finding the perfect t-shirt? Probably. I like these because they hit right at the waistband of my high-waisted athletic shorts. So this is basically my summer uniform. TBH, Life is Good has some pretty weird prints most of the time, BUT they also have some nature ones if that’s your thing (it’s my thing) and plenty of solid colors too. Maybe this means I’m getting old, or maybe it means that I’m learning to like what I like. Or both. Either way, I’m here for it.

A few things the kids have been loving lately:

This Playmobile-esque water set: Busy Toddler recommended this super unique toy and, what can I say. Her recs are always a win.

DIY “Potions” table: Food coloring + water. Jumbo test-tubes and droppers. Random Tupperwares and mason jars. Pinecones and flower petals from the yard. Voila.

Diving mermaids: These are still going strong two summers later. Always a hit at the pool (and our backyard water table!)

A few good eats:

I channeled my inner

Amy Grass

this month and made a unicorn cake for Isla’s birthday (I doctored up a boxed mix by cooking it at a lower temp, swapping milk for water, and adding vanilla, and used the frosting part of this recipe).

Guess what? Sheet-pan pancakes make life soooo much easier. The kids loved these and I didn’t have to stand at the stove for an eternity, flipping. Win-win.

May I suggest this marinade as the most delicious marinade for chicken thighs and veggies. I usually roast them together in the oven, but it’s extra delicious if you grill.

Watching + listening:

A new season of the Bear! I have been waiting for this! (Also, are Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Adebiri dating?! TBD I guess.)

I will never not be obsessed with Krista Tippett and On Being. I loved this episode with Luis Alberto Urrea on how we all belong to each other, and walls as liminal spaces.

We’ve been listening to a lot of Ben Rector lately, ever since Joe and I saw him and Cody Fry live with the Minnesota Orchestra (it was fantastic, obviously). We’ve also really been enjoying Ellie Holcomb’s music for kids.

Some good writing:

This gorgeous flash piece from River Teeth Journal.

Freya India

’s stellar essay on why therapy as our new “religion” is lacking. (And you guys know I am a big fan of therapy, so the fact that this still landed with me speaks volumes).

This beautiful poem by Jen Rose Yokel for

The Rabbit Room

.

This piece on caring for people in ways they may never remember by

Courtney Martin

broke my heart and mended it at the same time.

ICYMI:

I wrote a flash piece on fragility, futility, regret, and hope. It’s about an ice cream bucket and a caterpillar, but also not at all about those things, ya know?

AND Part-Time Poets’ fourteenth issue comes out tomorrow, where I share a poem with instructions for hoping.

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That’s it, friends!

I hope you feel held right here in the in-between,

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Feature photo by Julie de Graaf via rawpixel.

1. You can read a portion of what ended up in his book, My Bright Abyss, here in its original essay form.

2. To be fair, I believe many, many people in my actual, in-person life have said some version of this to me in the last couple of years. Whether or not I have been able to hear it is a different story. When I opened up Christian Wiman’s book, though, I found myself listening. It’s rare to read of a suffering poet who still has faith, whatever the shape, after years of darkness and doubting and dying. You better believe I want to hear what he has to say.

3. I would venture to guess that this declaration makes most Americans feel safe right now, politically and otherwise, and maybe that’s part of why we’re all so polarized and separate. But that is a whooooole different can of worms.