emily p. freeman

Creating space for your soul to breathe so you can discern your next right thing.

8 Things I Learned This Fall :: 2018 Edition

If you’re visiting from The Next Right Thing Podcast, welcome! We do this every quarter and will share our next list (What We Learned in Winter) on Thursday, February 28. Grab your free printable list here to help you keep track and plan to share with us then. Now you can also share your list on Instagram using #wwlcommunity.

Welcome to What We Learned, where we pause to reflect on the past season before we move ahead into the future.

At the end of this post, you’re invited to link up to your own list of what you learned this quarter – be it silly, serious, sacred, or just plain useful. I like to share a mix of all of those.

When I link to books, I use my affiliate links which means if you make a purchase a tiny percentage helps support the work I do here at no extra cost to you. Now here are things I learned this fall in no particular order:

1. “Shame needs three things to grow exponentially: silence, secrecy, and judgment.”

This is a quote from J.R. Briggs in his book Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure. He goes on to say that “when empathy is present, shame cannot grow.” The temptation toward shame, I have learned, is to be my life-long companion. But I’m learning how to confront it with empathy.

2. Wednesday youth group night is good for our marriage.

John was a youth pastor for the first 12 years of our marriage so he spent every Wednesday night working. He’s been out of youth ministry for over five years and this year all three of our kids go to Wednesday night youth group. What used to be one of our busiest nights of the week has now become a date night. It’s basically the best.

We think things will always be the way they always were. And then time passes and everything is different.

3. Listening to friends read their own book is a delight.

My dear friend, Annie Downs, had a book come out a few months ago called Remember God. I knew I didn’t have sit-down-and-read time on my schedule this season, but I for sure had pop-in-my-earbuds-on-the-go time. Listening to my friend read her own story in her own voice was a gift and I’m so grateful for it.

4. If a show has cliffs and water, a beautiful soundtrack, and British accents, I’m probably going to love it.

John and I discovered Poldark this fall and it’s the show we hate to love (love to hate?) It’s maddening and beautiful and compelling and repetitive and I can’t get enough of it.

 

5. “The world is a basket of clues about what the kingdom of God is like.”

Lauren Winner said that during a plenary talk at a conference at my school and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. God is a clue-weaver, dropping hints and leaving love notes all over our everyday, ordinary lives.

 

6. Friendships that start online don’t have to stay there.

(Someone wasn’t listening to instructions here. It’s fine.)

Seriously, though, Shannan and I have talked for years about how John and Cory would be friends if only they could meet in real life. In October, it happened! Here we are with all our kids. They really did have fun I promise.

7. Suddenly I cannot handle owning clothes with colorful patterns.

I don’t have a capsule wardrobe, a uniform, or a minimalist style by any stretch of the imagination. But this fall I cleared my closet of clothes I didn’t wear and noticed a pattern (literally).

Ignore the fact that I kept way more than I got rid of. Until I decided to pay attention, I had not noticed that I just don’t wear floral patterns anymore. This will, I’m sure, keep me from buying something that catches my eye but I won’t actually wear.

See how reflection can save you money?!

8. I love to write books.

While I have known this since 2009 when I started work on my first book, this fall I wrote my fifth book and remembered all over again the joy of deep, undistracted creative work. I want more of that in 2019.

If you want a detailed explanation of how I reflect on my life every 90 days, you can listen to (or download the transcript of) Episode 61: Look Back: How Reflection Can Help You Make Better Decisions.


Finding Holy in the Suburbs

Today I’m glad to host author Ashley Hales in this space. She writes about home, belonging, and how to find God, even in the tract homes of the suburbs in her book, Finding Holy in the Suburbs.

Finding the sacred in the midst of everyday things may not be a new conversation, but we always need new voices telling us old things. I wrote the foreward for this one and can say with confidence that Ashley Hales is one of those important new voices and I’m thrilled to share her words with you here today.

I rush through my bedroom: scooping up stray bobby bins, putting away the earrings I’ve left on my dresser, scowling at the rogue sandal who’s mate I’ve already given away but haven’t bothered to do anything about this one that turned up unexpectedly. The laundry is folded but stacked on top of drawers. The odds and ends I stuck in a brown paper grocery sack still rests at the bottom of my bed. Suddenly, the mess has become too much. It must be tamed.

Perhaps if my bedroom is picked up, my soul will quiet down too.

I rearrange the tottering pile of books on my bedside table. I think: It would be nice to slip into bed with one of the books, shirking my mothering and writing duties for the day. I’d ease myself into a world of words, like slipping my sore body into a hot bath. And yet, here I am — the rush and hurry leading the way.

I stop to look out the window of my suburban bedroom. The tract home roofs pile up, I look to the hills and see a tinge of color in the trees. My arms full with stuff — I ache, then, for the changing seasons of Salt Lake City — how I’d lay down on the grass of our front yard and watch the yellow trees sway overhead, brilliant against blue sky.

I loved watching how a particular plant would change season to season, framed as it was from our bedroom window. I remember our city walks, the hiking in gloriously golden aspens in fall, the bundling up and the skiing in winter, the way the city awoke each spring and how people said hello on their porches on hot summer nights.

But I am here now, my arms piled of books and clothes to put away in my suburban bedroom.

My soul is cluttered.

Like practicing scales, I rehearse a familiar story. It’s easy to wish for a different time, a different landscape. That somehow “over there” or “back then” or “when I’m…” will satisfy all our longings for home and belonging. It’s tempting to idealize one bite-sized piece of geography — city, suburb, countryside, small town — and not learn how to love a place. Will I be able to take this long slow walk in the same direction of belonging?

I look all of it in the eye. I let myself fall into nostalgia and I repeat suburban tropes — that suburbanites are shallow or only care about their safety. Yet, upon second glance, I see how I, too, will rifle through the dollar spot at Target to try to be seen. I understand how granite countertops might make us feel like we belong. I understand this search for beauty and how I want it to be as easy as fitting into a smaller pair of jeans.

Yet, I know the God of the cosmos welcomes us into a belonging that isn’t contingent on the size of our home, our bank account, or our dress size. It is this spaciousness of God (which, as C. S. Lewis wrote, is bigger on the inside than on the outside) where we will find home.

And yet. There is still the ache of all the lives we have not lived. There is the ache of goodbye. And there is the ache of unknowing. Most of all, perhaps, there is the tasks of the day — the washing up, the picking up of bobby pins and laundry piles, the walking to and from school — that orient not only our bodies, but our hearts.

I know places form our loves.

How do I — how do you — begin to really belong to our places? How might we love our particular streets even while seeing the ways we’re unconsciously turned in on ourselves? How do we learn to be open, broken, and given for our places? Where might we feel free to drop the weight of pretending to have it all securely gathered up in our arms?

We embrace gentle and slow disciplines of staying put and starting small.

So on a day when my soul is as frenzied as my bedroom floor, I choose to learn how to belong here. I walk my walking paths. My husband and I clutch coffee mugs and walk our children to school.  We meet neighbors. We welcome people into our local church. We show up. I look at all the quirks of my suburban setting in the eye. I name the beauty and the brokenness.

Now, this is my one precious spot of earth I am called to be poured out for. This cul-de-sac is where I will see the glory of God.  Not in the golden aspens or green mountain glory; no. Yet, I will choose to find God in the glory of this ordinary making of dinner, in our soccer schedules, in the grace of another day, in people’s faces who are broken and beautiful images of the God who wrapped himself in flesh to be near us.

We start small and we stay put. We do the things we always do — we wake, we do our good work, we make the coffee, we pray to the God who sees, the God who embraces and clothes our failures and preening. Here, in the middle of a suburban tract home, I’ve come to the end of myself and it is very good.

I put the bobby pins in their drawer, I name the loss and yet pray for the grace to live well right here. Might finding holy in the suburbs start right here in the ordinary, and lead into a spaciousness of body and soul that’s bigger on the inside than on the outside? I straighten the teetering piles and pray it be so.

Ashley Hales holds a PhD in English from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She’s a writer, speaker, the wife to a church planter in the southern California suburbs and mother to four.

Her writing has been featured in such places as The Gospel Coalition, Books & Culture, and Christianity Today. Her first book is Finding Holy in the Suburbs: Living Faithfully in the Land of Too Much (IVP). Connect with Ashley at aahales.com or on social media at @aahales.

The Ministry of Ordinary Places

When John brings a bouquet home from the grocery store, the routine is almost always the same.

He takes those long stems still gathered in v-shaped plastic and sticks them in a drinking glass filled one inch with water, still held together with a twice-wrapped rubber band.

When I see this tightly wound love offering displayed in my kitchen, I know it’s my turn.

Cut the rubber band. Remove the plastic. Separate the stems. Throw out any baby’s breath (ew). Find the right container. Trim the stems. Arrange. Display. Enjoy.

Last year on Valentines Day, it was this same routine, long stems in a drinking glass left for me to cut and arrange.

Those flowers died a week or so later but the greenery hung on. And on and on. So long that now it’s October and just this week, the greenery from my Valentines Day flowers finally started to turn to yellow.

These stems have no business still being here. They weren’t meant to last through February, much less see all of spring, live on through summer, and now all the way into fall.

It’s so regular but it’s also kind of blowing my mind.

I realize that, in recent years especially in the corners of the Internet around which I run, it’s become the “in” thing to see the beauty in the everyday things: to notice, to slow, to pay close attention. I know some people roll their eyes about all that, make cynical Saturday Night Live-like sketches in their heads about the gift to be found in the orb of a bubble of dish soap.

Personally? I love everything about this movement to notice, to see, to finally pay attention.

I believe this is a step in the right direction and I am here for it in every single way. How can we possibly live our lives grateful or content if we don’t first notice the life we are actually living? How can we begin to move gracefully toward the people around us without stomping all over their nuance if we don’t first take the time to listen and see?

This is step one. This is breathing in and out, noticing the world spinning around us, noticing ourselves as we spin.

But this is only step one. When it comes to step two and beyond, things can get fuzzy at best, heavy and hopeless at worst. How can noticing the moments we’re living begin to change anything in this broken open world?

This is where I begin to look for teachers, people for whom paying attention is making a difference, mentors who tell me how paying attention is changing the world.

Maybe our country is divided more than ever or maybe it’s always been this way and we’re finally talking about it I don’t know. But here’s what I do know: conversations are hard and solutions can feel complicated and that can cause us all to numb out, shut it down, and dive deep into distraction.

And this is where step one can lead us into step two if we’re willing.

“We might have a zillion reasons to be jaded about our world, but that is not the kind of person I want to be. I want to be someone who clings to the grace and the gift and the good. Rather than spend my days scanning the digital horizon for a dopamine hit of false comfort, I want to keep my ear tuned to the groanings of my place.” — Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places

In Shannan Martin, I have found my teacher. You will not see her face on the side of a tour bus. You will not see her on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday (at least, not yet). But if you’re looking for a  step beyond paying attention, I hope you’ll find her book.

Because in a world where hope seems dim and solutions feel complicated and partisan, Shannan offers us a starting point that is as radical as it is domestic: widen your circle, hush your mouth, and lock eyes with the world you’re in.

And this is where I tell you how I wish, just for today, I had never met Shannan Martin.

Because she has written a book that is, in my opinion, one of the best books of 2018, and I worry you will think because she is my friend, that somehow it discounts my opinion of her writing, her message, and her brilliance.

Here’s what you need to know: My love for Shannan’s writing came first.

I read her before I knew her, I followed her before I met her, and I was influenced by her before we ever stood side-by-side and I realized how tall she is in real life.

She often says she found her voice in the country and her story in the city and I was there for all of it. I read as a stranger from hundreds of miles away when she wrote from her flower patch in Indiana and I fell, head over heels, with the way she could turn a phrase.

But slowly, over time, the gospel of Jesus turned her upside down and her writing changed as she did – the wells deeper, the voice richer, the courage more pronounced.

Her second book, The Ministry of Ordinary Places, releases into the world today and I have a hunch that if Shannan was a stranger to me, maybe you would trust me more when I tell you how much I loved this book.

This is the right book for this moment in time and I simply cannot get over it. I either laughed or cried on almost every page. We need these lyrical, prophetic words now more than ever before.

Because it’s one thing to see the tightly wound love offering in one inch of water. But it’s another thing altogether to engage it, to cut the rubber band, remove the plastic, separate the stems. Shannan shows us how.

“Living an on-the-ground, available-and-engaged, concerned-for-our-neighbors lifestyle . . . means we’ll have to unlearn what we’ve wrongly absorbed about how people are and what they deserve.”

— Shannan Martin

This book will be a kind friend to you if you have ever:

  • felt broken hearted over the state of the world but don’t know where to begin to make a difference
  • wanted to hide in the hallway when someone knocks on your front door
  • wriggled in your seat at the back of the church because you’re not getting anything out of the sermon anymore

This book taught me how to see, how to stay, and how to get over myself. I’m grateful to Shannan for living her one life well and writing it all down.

Shannan Martin is a speaker and writer who found her voice in the country and her story in the city.

She and her jail-chaplain husband, Cory, have four funny children who came to them across oceans and rivers.

They enjoy neighborhood life in Goshen, Indiana, a place they fall more in love with every year. Get your copy of The Ministry of Ordinary Places right here today.

I’m honored to share this post in glad partnership with Thomas Nelson.

6 Things I Learned This Summer

Welcome to What We Learned, where we pause to reflect on the past season before we move ahead into the future. At the end of this post, you’re invited to link up to your own list of what you learned this quarter – be it silly, serious, sacred, or just plain useful. I like to share a mix of all of those.

If you’re visiting for the first time from my podcast The Next Right Thing, welcome! We do this every quarter and will share our next list (What We Learned in Fall) on Friday, November 30. Grab your free printable list here to help you keep track and plan to share with us then. Now you can also share your list on Instagram using #wwlcommunity.

When I link to books, I use my affiliate links which, if you make a purchase means a tiny percentage helps support the work I do here at no extra cost to you. Now here are things I learned this summer in no particular order:

1. Making a To-Read list is my new stress reliever.

Because most of my reading is required reading right now, I have had to pause moving through my personal to-read list. But adding books to the list is comforting and gives hope that pleasure reading will come again!

I’ve linked to these books here in one of my Idea Lists.

 

2. Saying yes to collaboration just might lead you home.

Next week’s episode of The Next Right Thing is all about this (look for Episode 49: Collaborate coming September 4) but for now I’ll simply say collaboration doesn’t have to trigger memories of seventh grade group projects but can, in fact, help you become a more true and grounded version of yourself.

3. I know I’ve heard from God when I don’t feel ashamed and I’m not afraid.

Those are words are tweaked from Myrna Craig, as quoted on page 22 of Jan Johnson’s book, When the Soul Listens. Myrna actually said guilty instead of ashamed but I do think there’s an important distinction to make between guilt and shame. Guilt says I did wrong. Shame says I am wrong. So I changed the quote a bit to reflect that.

Still, I know that might not be exactly what we’ve grown up to believe about God.

But the more I walk with Jesus, the more I have come to believe that when he really wants me to know something, guilt and fear are not his way. His way may be corrective and disciplinary, but it’s always laced with the comfort of his love.

 

4. “There is enough for me and there is enough for you, too.”

My friend Jerome Daley said this at a workshop we hosted recently (you can learn more about Jerome here) and even though I’ve heard this sentence before, and even though I’ve said this sentence before, hearing him say it that Saturday morning when I was feeling particularly small and not in a good way, those words of abundance were just what I needed.

 

5. Thirty minute daily brainstorms are saving my life.

My idea brain hasn’t yet received the message that I’ve got stuff going on and I haven’t the time right now for new things. But it keeps generating ideas for every aspect of my work and I cannot possibly keep up.

Instead of slumping in discouragement with that constant feeling that things are falling through the cracks, I’ve decided to spend 30 minutes everyday to catch ideas on purpose. Here’s how:

  • Choose a notebook for ideas only
  • Pick one topic/aspect of work, for example Instagram stories, live events, collaborations, blog posts, podcast episodes, hope*writers, etc.
  • Set a timer for 30 minutes
  • Write down all ideas as they relate to the topic chosen
  • Just before the timer goes off, write a short list of next actions to take

It’s not a perfect system (yet!) but it’s given me some relief from feeling like I’m missing things.

6. If you have serious writing to do, pick the shop with great coffee and bad WiFi.

This is self-explanatory. And all God’s people said Amen.

***

I keep track of what I’m learning by using my seasonal reflection lists. You can get your own printable lists for tracking your reflections by signing up right here. If you’re new around here and want to know what, how, and tools to track what you’re learning, check out A New Page for Your Bullet Journal.

Some linking tips: 

  • Just use your name for the “link title” – it’s simpler
  • Be sure to link back here on  your post so your readers can join in!


My Summer in (20) Books

I’ve got 20 books here for you – some I’ve read, some I’m reading, some I hope to read, and some I have to read. Let’s get straight to it, shall we?

The books I link to here are affiliate links so if you grab one through my link, I’ll receive a small percentage at no extra cost to you. These are things I have to tell you. Now on to the sad tale of this first book.

We’ll start with the saddest book photo of all: the book that wasn’t meant to be (yet).

I took this photo of The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny in my driveway, right before I drove to the library to return it. I checked it out in April, renewed it in May, and finally returned it in late June.

I never had a chance to read it.

Here’s why.

It’s because I had 10 weeks to read these books for school and that leaves no room for Louise Penny. Seriously, I am thrilled to be learning this stuff but I do miss the extra space I used to have for fiction reading.

But do you see that stack of brilliant books?! Some have asked if I could list the books I’m reading for my Master’s program. This is only the summer stack, but here are the details in case you want to check them out for yourself. So here are the details of the books pictured above.

Books I’m Reading for School

For those interested, these books are for two classes: Intro to Spiritual Direction and History and Traditions of Christian Spiritual Formation.

When the Soul Listens: Finding Rest and Direction in Contemplative Prayer by Jan Johnson

Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life by Simon Chan

Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith by Richard J. Foster

The Enneagram and Spiritual Direction: Nine Paths to Spiritual Guidance by James Empereur

Real Power: Stages of Personal Power in Organizations by Janet O. Hagberg

Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality by David G. Benner

The Dusty Ones: Why Wandering Deepens Your Faith by A.J. Swoboda

Better Conversations: Coaching Ourselves and Each Other to be More Credible, Caring, and Connected by Jim Knight

 

Books I Found at the Goodwill

In spite of myself, when visiting the Goodwill, I still manage to wander past the color coded t-shirts and four aisles of colorful, misfit glassware and end up in front of the dusty shelves, searching for a good find, imaging my future self with time to spare and a book in hand.

Here’s what my most recent trip came up with:

A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman by Joan Anderson — I’m obsessed with books about the sea lately.

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen — Love this author and I thought I had read this one but then when I read the back cover (something I usually try to avoid on fiction books – they give away too much!) I realized maybe I haven’t read it after all.

Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story by Ree Drummond — Remember when Ree told this whole story via small installments on her blog?! It was so exciting to see what was coming next. I never read the book that resulted from that blog series. Hence, this purchase.

The Summer Before the War: A Novel by Helen Simonson — A classic case of I think I’ve heard good things about this book. I’ve at least seen the cover everywhere. I think I’ll get it just incase. As it turns out, the place I’ve seen the cover is on my bookshelf. In my house. In the paperback version. Oh well.

 

Books that Haven’t Come Out Yet

These books aren’t released yet, but you can pre-order all of them now. Of these, I’ve read The Ministry of Ordinary Places  so far and look forward to the other two!

Stretched Too Thin: How Working Moms Can Lose the Guilt, Work Smarter, and Thrive by Jessica Turner — One of the smartest, most efficient women I know in real life. Releases September 18, 2018.

The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking up to God’s Goodness Around You by Shannan Martin — You will hear me say more words about this one soon – on how to be a neighbor and love those whom God has brought near to us. Suh. Gud. Releases October 9, 2018.

A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle, Author of A Wrinkle In Time by Sarah Arthur — First, this cover is gorgeous and second, it’s all about Madeleine so naturally I love it already. And we’re hosting the author as a teacher inside hope*writers in late August. I can’t wait! Releases August 7, 2018.

 

Books I Can’t Wait to Read Once I No Longer Have Assignments

One of my favorite lists to make lately is a list of books I want to read after graduation (May 2019!) Here are four of the books on my ever growing list:

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett — I’ve never read any of Ann Patchett’s fiction. I think I’ll start with this one next summer. Next summer!

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown – I probably won’t wait until after graduation for this one. I may just read it one of these weekends because I cheated and read the first few pages and had to pry it out of my own hands to put it down.

Holy Hustle: Embracing a Work-Hard, Rest-Well Life by Crystal Stine – This is one of those books I’ve been looking forward to for a while as Crystal is a friend who is passionate about this sacred work of holy hustle, two words that don’t often go together. Can’t wait to see how she unpacks them for us.

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry – After I finished Jayber Crow, I’ve wanted to read Hannah Coulter. In fact, many people tole me they started with Hannah first. I found this copy at a church book sale and it made my whole week.

And a bonus book I have to mention because I’m so excited about it is one I’ve already read, lived, and endorsed.

It’s my sister’s newest Cozy Minimalist Home: More Style, Less Stuff.

This book helped me understand not only why certain things in my house didn’t look right but how to fix them, too – all with more style and less stuff.

You can  pre-order it now and it releases October 23, 2018.

If you see this post on Amazon Prime Day (7/16)  you can use the code PRIMEBOOKS18 for $5 off a 20 dollar book order. 

There you have it, the 20 books on my shelf this summer. I mean, I have more than 20 books on my actual shelves, but these are the ones most recently read, found and/or planned for.

Want to see more book posts?

emily p freeman

I'm Emily and I'm glad you're here! To receive gentle reminders to pay attention to your life, sign up here for my monthly letter, where you'll get first-word news, books I'm reading now, my favorite things of the month list, and a secret post you won't find anywhere else. If you need some room for your soul to breathe, I'm here to help.

 

10 Favorite Things of Summer

This post contains a few links that are affiliates and many links that are not. In the midst of a full summer, I’m pausing on purpose to list some of my favorite things so far.

It happened again. I woke up this morning with a compulsion to write on the blog again like it’s 2009. This is not the first time that has happened. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after writing four books and over twelve years of blog posts it’s when you feel the compulsion to write something down, don’t fight it.

Just follow it.

The odd (and annoying) thing is, I don’t necessarily have anything worthwhile to share today which goes against everything I teach, believe, and basically live by. Have nothing to say? Wait. Listen. Stop wasting all the breath and words.

But something else I’m learning, and this is faint and small and let me assure you I’m giving it the side-eye, is maybe there’s still a place to shoot the breeze with each other and maybe it’s okay to do it online sometimes, too.

In the spirit of late June, here are ten things I helping me sabbath this summer even though probably these things are more like “taking small breaks” than sabbath, but I’m learning the difference and showing myself grace.

 

1. Looking through old photos.

When my schedule is full as it is right now, I take less photos. This might seem a strange thing to note, but taking simple photos brings me life. (I’m talking photos from my phone you guys, this is not a fancy thing I’m doing.)

Though I haven’t been taking as many this summer, I have been scrolling through some from summers past. These are from when John and I went to Italy in 2016 for the Tuscany Writer’s Retreat.

2. This yoga app.

I saw someone’s before and after workout photos on Instagram recently and went temporarily insane and signed up for a free workout ebook regimen online, forgetting everything I’ve learned about myself.

I love yoga, zumba, and walking. Why do I, now and then, forget what I love and think I want to be Jillian Michaels real quick instead?

The work isn’t in finding a new workout routine so I can tone myself, the work is in remembering who I already am and doing the next right thing.

This morning, that meant a 15 minute yoga practice in my PJs before I took a shower.

 

3. Evening drives.

I did not understand the evening drive when I was a kid. Mom and Dad would ask me after dinner, Do you want to go for a ride?

I’d say, Where are you going?

And they’d be all, For a ride.

And I’d be, Yeah but where to?

And they’d be, For a ride.

And I’d roll my eyes and say no.

Now I realize they were probably glad for the time alone together on those warm, Indiana summer evenings, windows down, radio off. Boring bliss.

 

4. Planning to co-lead my first trip.

Over a year ago, my friend Tsh Oxenreider floated a crazy idea by me: I’m thinking of leading a trip to London next summer. Any interest in co-leading it with me?

Photo by Heidi Sandstrom

!!! This is a dream trip for me. Next month, Tsh and I will be traveling with a small group of women through London.

While Tsh will lead us in the way she loves to travel, I’ll come alongside as a co-listener and fellow journeyer, holding open thoughtful space to simply make sure we don’t miss it.

(This summer’s trip is full, but you can add your name to the waitlist if you want to learn about possible future trips!)

 

5. Arugula.

All the arugula I’ve had this summer has been right on time. I eat it straight out of the bag like potato chips and I can’t quit. For salad inspiration, listen to The Lazy Genius Makes A Salad.

 

6. Making a list of books I want to read when grad school is over.

I still have 10 months left of school which means my reading queue is straight up full and assigned until then. But I’ve been making a list (and checking it twice) of the books I want to read after I graduate and the list is long and lovely, let me assure you.

I would list them here now, but I’m working on a book post for you because I have a lot of other things to do so writing on the blog has become Very Important And Exciting.

 

7. Bocce ball.

This caveman like game was a hit at the beach a few weeks ago and we just can’t quit it. We play in the front yard, the cul-de-sac grass, the neighbor’s front yard, basically any kind of yard. I don’t have one solitary photo of it, but if you don’t have a set here’s one on Amazon a lot like the one we have. This one has a measuring rope which we do not have but I think is remarkable and much more accurate than the janky way we have been doing it.

 

8. The shade of pink in my guest room.

We have a tiny guest room in the back of our house and it’s where I do any video stuff for my work or for school. Oprah used to say a room should “rise up to meet you” when you walk into it, and when this room is clean that’s the feeling I get.

If I have to work in summer, at least there’s pink.

Here’s a list of stuff in this photo that you might ask me about listed from most helpful to least helpful.

  • Amazon: wall dots.
  • Wayfair: Day Bed – not an affiliate link, just showing you the bed.
  • Picture on the wall: Goodwill
  • Pillows + blankets: Combo of Target, Marshalls, and TJ Max
  • Drapes: local shop one thousand years ago
  • Lamp: No idea.

 

9. Palomino pencils.

I bought one of these pencils while we were in California and now I can’t read my school books without it. Maybe it’s the flat eraser? I don’t know, it just feels right in my hand.

 

10. The east coast beach.

It’s gentle and powerful and I learn something new every time I stand on this southern, east coast beach. What a gift to live a few hours away.

Well look at that. I had the compulsion to write and I feel completely satisfied now. You’re welcome (I’m sorry?) Would love to hear what your favorite things of summer are!

I send out a secret letter to my readers one time a month. Want to get it?

I’m all about helping you create space for your soul to breathe, starting with your inbox. Over 53,000 people trust me with their email address. I will never send spam or photos of bare feet. You have my word on this.

Let’s Share What We Learned This Spring

Y’all. We have so much to talk about. A royal wedding, Yanny and Laurel, a springtime snow, what your future self needs, not to mention all the things you’ve learned this season. So let’s get to it!

Welcome to What We Learned, where we pause to reflect on the past season before we move ahead into the future. At the end of this post, you’re invited to link up to your own list of what you learned this quarter – be it silly, serious, sacred, or just plain useful. I like to share a mix of all of those.

If you’re visiting for the first time from my podcast The Next Right Thing, welcome! We do this every quarter and will share our next list (What We Learned in Summer) on Friday, August 31. Grab your free printable list here to help you keep track and plan to share with us then. Now you can also share your list on Instagram using #wwlcommunity.

Here are things I learned this spring in no particular order:

1. I don’t mind a March snow.

That’s easy for me to say because it’s rare here in North Carolina. But it snowed in the middle of March this year and I found myself thrilled as I watched it fall down fast out my window, one last quieting, a final hush before spring.

 

2. On Downton Abbey, they never washed their costumes.

So basically they stunk all the time. They did have removable patches in the armpits, but I don’t like to think about this and also could that possibly have helped? This is a random fact I can’t forget.

 

3. Of all the gradual things in this life, watching as your kids grow up is perhaps the most exceptional.

The girls start high school in the fall and it feels equally shocking and like the most normal thing in the world. I have surprised myself with my current lack of overwhelm at this new impending life stage. Let’s see if it lasts.

 

4. If there’s something I miss from the past, I can find ways to invite it back into my life.

Rather than complain about how I miss “the old days of blogs” I went ahead and wrote a post like it was 2009. I loved every minute of it.

5. Your future self needs you to plan things before you think you need them.

One of the reasons those “old days of blogging” were so great was because it was how I met some of my current closest friends. Shannan Martin and I have been getting together for a writing/working/eating/talking weekend for five years now. This one was the hardest to find a date that works but we did it anyway and I’m so glad.

One year I go up north, the other year she comes down south. This was an “up north” year. Five years in a row and no plans to stop. I wrote more about this tradition two years ago (back in Chicago 2016) if you want to learn more about how we make it work.

 

6. When it doubt, take a walk.

Part two of that last one is Writing Day 1 in Chicago was a wash. It was our final day of our hope*writers launch so while I thought I could disconnect all day, that was unrealistic. I also just needed some time to settle in.

But Writing Day 2 started out with an early breakfast with Shannan, some inspiration from an Uber driver (that I ended up recording an entire podcast episode about), and a walk through parts of the city.

When I got back to my hotel room just before lunch, I was in a fantastic mood, ready to work. Sometimes it’s best to start first thing in the morning, but other times you need a little walk through the city to remember to see things from a new perspective.

 

7. “When the ego swells, the soul shrivels.”

Thank you, Dallas Willard, for these 7 words I’ll never forget.

 

8. If you have to decide between several things, pick what you like then see how it grows.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to make the “right” choice, but not every decision is between right or wrong. Sometimes it’s just this or that. I’m nearly 40 episodes into a creating a podcast all about decision-making, and this one line has hit a chord, both with me and so many of you.

9. I love black and white mugs.

Speaking of picking what you like, I’ve learned this season I’m just going to stick with the black and white mugs. I am happy about this.

 

And finally, the most epic and wonderful distraction of spring 2018:

10. We’ve learned what level of distraction and obsession we can (or cannot?) endure.

Lest you forget, this national debate about which name this voice was saying happened the same week as Meghan and Harry’s wedding.

You guys, we survived Yanny and Laurel and a Royal Wedding in the same week! I can’t believe the stock market didn’t crash or something. It’s a wonder we got any work done at all that week. I’m so proud of us.

***

I keep track of what I’m learning by using my seasonal reflection lists. You can get your own printable lists for tracking your reflections by signing up right here. If you’re new around here and want to know what, how, and tools to track what you’re learning, check out A New Page for Your Bullet Journal.

Some linking tips: 

  • Just use your name for the “link title” – it’s simpler
  • Be sure to link back here on  your post so your readers can join in!


A Soul Minimalist’s Guide for Starting Over

The internet tells us adults make over 30,000 decisions every day, but I would guess when we are in the midst of a major life transition — a job change, an engagement, a new house, a new baby, new school, injury or diagnosis, new responsibilities or even a crisis of faith — the number of new decisions goes up and the weight of the usual ones are even heavier.

If you are in a time of transition, you are a prime candidate for decision fatigue.

For anyone who needs to re-focus, to receive what this transition has to teach you, instead of running past it in excitement or running from it in fear, I give you this — A Soul Minimalist’s Guide for Starting Over.

1. Be a Beginner

When we talk about new beginnings, we usually frame the concept with phrases of hope like springtime, flowers blooming, a new love, a new start.

On a hard day, we encourage ourselves with tomorrow is a new day! Joy is going to come in the morning.

New beginnings are usually welcome. But being a beginner? Not so much.

We want our circumstances to change, to start again, to be brand new. But when they change, we often don’t give ourselves permission to be new within them.

All beginnings hold elements of both joy and heartbreak. When we enter a new beginning, we have generally also experienced some kind of ending which comes with layered emotions and experiences of grief, transition, and letting go.

And so I say all of this just to get us here: don’t be afraid to be a beginner. Be relentlessly kind to yourself.

Let yourself be a beginner and receive all the gifts beginning has to give.

If you need help in letting yourself be a beginner and receive all the gifts beginning has to give, listen in to Episode 31 of The Next Right Thing Podcast or read the transcript here.

 

2. Stop Collecting Gurus

One way I’ve discovered helps me live my life more fully is to take inventory when anxiety shows up. Rather than avoid it as I’m most prone to do, I choose instead to stop, to notice, and in this case, pay attention to the story my inbox was telling me.

When we’re confronted with starting over, it can be tempting to look outside of ourselves for confident voices to point the way for us. This isn’t a bad thing, but it can keep us from settling into ourselves and quiet enough to hear the voice of God.

Cleaning out my inbox one day, I realized I had emails from experts in all areas – online marketing, book launching, fashion, and de-cluttering. What I didn’t have was space to consider my next right thing.

It was obvious I had way too many gurus talking to me and if I wanted to get clarity, I needed to take a break from them.

“The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.”

–Henri Nouwen

If you need help in taking inventory of the voices you need to hang on to and the ones you need to set aside, at least for a time listen in to Episode 32 of The Next Right Thing Podcast or read the transcript here.

 

3. Gather Co-Listeners

If you aren’t sure what to do next, maybe you need to gather some co-listeners.

This is different than collecting gurus. There’s something powerful about gathering people who know you well specifically for the purpose of listening, question asking, and reflection. At the very least, it will force you to do some deep thinking about the issue you’re trying to discern in this transition because you’ll want to be ready for the co-listeners questions and insights.

Knowing our Father, our friend Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who lives and dwells within us, my guess is that he isn’t so concerned with the outcome of our decision at least not in the same way we are.

But he would be delighted to know that the decision we are carrying is moving us toward community and not away from it, that it is leading us to depend on others more and not less, and that it is turning our face toward his with a posture of listening with the hopeful expectation of receiving an answer.

“Listening can be a greater service than speaking.”

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If you are staring a big decision in the face and you aren’t sure where to turn listen in to Episode 33 of The Next Right Thing for tips on gathering a co-listening group of your own or read the transcript here.

 

4. Pick What You Like

If you feel unsure in a new situation, overwhelm is usually not far behind.

When I stood in the middle of the garden center with one plant in my cart and not sure what to do next, I felt stuck and began to feel that familiar discouragement I get when confronted with a simple decision that has many options in an area where I don’t have a lot of confidence.

The discouragement barreled down fast. It was familiar, it was annoying, and it was kind of ridiculous. 

What does it look like to just start or to start over, to take a next right step towards something we want even if we feel unsure? Maybe a good place to start is to simply pick what you like, then see how it grows.

If you would like to hear about a simple 3-step path to moving forward when you feel unsure listen in to Episode 34 of The Next Right Thing Podcast or read the transcript here.

“The beginning space was actually a holy space, not just a layover on my way to something better.”

–Leeana Tankersley, Begin Again

I send out a secret letter to my readers one time a month. Want to get it?

I’m all about helping you create space for your soul to breathe, starting with your inbox. Over 53,000 people trust me with their email address. I will never send spam or photos of bare feet. You have my word on this.

Forgiving God

Some writers write words that come off the page like two hands cupping your face, inviting you to slow, to focus, and to simply listen. Just slow and listen to this.

Hilary Yancey is one of those writers and she finally wrote a whole book. Here is a taste of her writing and then you can go put on your tennis shoes and run out to get her book. Or just go to Amazon Prime because you’re not an animal.

We were late to our eighteen-week ultrasound. Preston surprised me with a lunch date at a farm-to-table restaurant just outside Waco. I had been picking at my salad throughout, then picking at my dessert. Ever since the positive pregnancy test, ever since the scribbled note of “large baby for gestational age,” I had lived on a live wire of worry.

This ultrasound, which was the reason for the lunch, the reason for the celebrating, was full of fear. An ultrasound could declare that things hadn’t gone according to plan or it could bless us with uneventful normalcy, with everything as expected. I had worried for days that it would be the first, and as the ultrasound approached, I became convinced that something was wrong, that we would learn something terrible that Friday afternoon.

I sat sullenly at our celebration lunch, listlessly moving the lettuce around on my plate with my fork. Preston tried several times to ask me why I didn’t seem very peaceful or excited. He tried to remind me that we were seeing our child for the first time. Instead of answering his question, I picked a fight with him about the fact that we would be late right as the waitress brought over our check.

It was raining while we drove back, and I wasn’t dressed for it. My thin cotton skirt was covered in wet splotches. I pressed my hands against it, feeling my gooseflesh beneath.

We arrived and I was called back fairly quickly. Preston stood up to join me, but the nurse told him to wait, that they would “call Dad back later.” I followed the nurse back silently, holding my wallet in my hands because my skirt didn’t have any pockets. Once I was on the table, the technician started to swirl the transducer probe over my belly only to declare irritably that she couldn’t see much because my bladder was too full, and gestured to a bathroom across the narrow hallway.

I stood up and walked meekly to the bathroom. I was mad that I had been late, mad that I had tried so hard to drink the eight necessary glasses of water a day only to be told it was wrong. I am the kind of person who, upon deciding that she has just done the entire day wrong, cannot be persuaded otherwise. I had failed the morning; I had failed lunch with my husband; I had failed the ultrasound; I had failed this baby. I washed my hands and slunk back into the room.

The exam was completely silent. The technician commented only once, to express frustration that the baby moved so much that she was having trouble getting good pictures of the face. She sighed multiple times, tracing the same circles around and around, shifting in her chair. When she said that the baby was so active, I tried to smile. “That’s good, right?” She said nothing.

I continued to stare at the green and cream border on the walls. There was a large calendar just opposite the exam table, turned to the month of April. It was a calendar with platitudes written across a beautiful sunrise background, things like “Live, laugh, love” and “Every act of kindness grows the spirit and strengthens the soul,” things people put up on refurbished shiplap in their homes.

I read the words on the April graphic of a generic sunrise, or a sweetly blooming daffodil, and swallowed too loudly. I wondered if she could hear my heart beating against my bones. I wondered if she was judging me, my silence, my lack of questions or exclamations or rambunctious joy. I wondered if she had even registered my face before hunting for my child’s.

I prayed in that room, lying in that anxious horizontal position, my hands tickled by the paper they roll onto exam tables. God spoke one thing back, something I have forgotten until the writing of this book, something I proclaimed for a week or two, until the diagnosis, until the end and the beginning: “She can never tell you something about this person I do not already know.”

YOU GUYS.

I know it’s a cliff-hanger, I know. But this is an actual excerpt from Forgiving God: A Story of Faith and you need to get it right this minute so you can read her story.

Hilary Yancey loves good words, good questions, and sunny afternoons sitting on her front porch with a strong cup of tea. She and her husband, Preston, and their two children, Jack and Junia, live in Waco, Texas where Hilary is completing her Ph.D. in philosophy at Baylor University.

Her first book, Forgiving God: A Story of Faith is available wherever fine books are sold (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) – and you can hear Hilary read the audiobook, too!

P.S. After her son was born, Hilary posted this photo on her Instagram. I have never forgotten the stunning and compelling novel that her beautiful face expresses without saying a word. It is exquisite and sacred and I will never forget it.