Plate Spinners - a return?

did ya miss me?

Hello all -

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? My last post was Good Friday, and here we find ourselves at the start of Advent. Maybe that old liturgical calendar is playing tricks on my mind, but I felt a stirring to find my way back here to all of you. This time has been anything but ordinary¹.

I appreciate all of you who have reached out in the months between to tell me that you’ve missed seeing me in your inbox. It was a much needed break. I’m not sure if I can commit to a full return, or promise you that this will look the same as it used to, but regardless, here I am today.

If you’re here for the pop culture, the TV/music/book recommendations, or a list of great tweets², I promise they’ll be back, but not today.

My insecurity tells me that you may be saddened to hear that there is more shoe-gaze-y theological commentary coming, and that you would prefer I stick to funny stories and tweets. In the interest of trusting my gut, I shall lean into the reflective writing, since it’s what I am feeling drawn to lately. But the rest of it will find it’s way back in here, too (we’re going to need an end of year media round-up, right?)

HOWEVER, I won’t leave you hanging entirely. I know you’ve been wondering my opinion, and I am 100% on board for Taylor and Travis. I anxiously await their engagement, marriage, and whatever comes next. Cheers to them.

I’ll also offer you a Sufjan Stevens Yule Log and one Christmas-themed tweet as a peace offering:

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I have actually been writing lots (LOTS) in the time since I last wrote a newsletter here, but there’s much that I’m not ready to share. Lots of plates have been spinning in my mind, perhaps a few have wobbled or even fallen. This has been such a transformative season for me. I will remain cryptic about that for the time being - sorry! But there are some things that I’ve written that I think I’d like to start sharing with you all.

So, why now?

I find myself these past few weeks surrounded by people I love who are going through incredibly challenging times. Heart breaking, life changing, traumatic seasons of life. My heart has broken so many times recently as friends have shared their pain with me.

A crucial piece of living in nurturing and loving relationship with one another is bearing the weight of each other’s suffering.

Here’s a bible verse you’ve heard if you’ve been to any wedding ever — 1 Corinthians 13 says “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (believe it or not, this is not talking about marriage — imagine…scripture being taken out of context and changing the meaning!!)

If we are going to say that we love each other, we should bear things and endure things with and for each other. This can be a tall order, but I think it’s one of our greatest calls in life – to help each other bear and endure the hard times. Of course, we can’t often remove burdens. But perhaps we can lighten the load, or lend a hand to help in one way or another. To be the hands and feet of Jesus, who calls us to come to Him when we are weary and burdened to find rest in Him.

Alan Noble says in his book, On Getting Out of Bed, that “the task before us is to hold each other up, to remind one another of the truth that is truer than our deepest misery, to attend to the gift God has given us, and to accept that our lives are good even when we do not feel that goodness at all.”

Pain and suffering are inevitable, but we live in a world that tells us that it’s all escapable, explainable, or fixable if we just play our cards right. And so, when we are suffering, we’re offered solutions and explanations – well-intentioned, of course – but solutions that can often make us feel like our suffering is the result of our own failures. Or even that we should be grateful, or try to “look at the brightside.” Society tells us that if we had made better choices, or if we would just use a different coping strategy, or if we would just follow this magic elixir, we could escape the pain we find ourselves in. Society heaps shame on top of the suffering we’re already trapped in, instead of facing the truth that suffering is a natural part of life. 

When we accept this truth of suffering’s inescapable presence in our lives³, we allow the covering of shame to come off of our suffering. We allow ourselves to bring our suffering to our community, and to lay it at the feet of Jesus. We allow suffering to be a part of our story, and we testify that we have not forgotten each other, and the Lord has not forgotten us.

When I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York a few weeks ago, I sat and stared at this painting by Camille Corot. It depicts Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, as the angel comes to rescue them. It gives us a comforting reminder that God hears us when we cry — the angel tells Hagar “God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.”

This picture, shown at the Salon of 1835, is the earliest of four large, ambitious biblical paintings that Corot exhibited in the 1830s and 1840s. Like the Museum’s The Burning of Sodom, it illustrates the story of the family of Abraham. Because his wife, Sarah, was elderly and barren, Abraham fathered a son, Ishmael, with their servant, Hagar. Later, when Sarah bore her own son, Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael were driven away into the desert of Beersheba. For this painting, Corot chose the moment of their divine salvation.

And yet, the angel does not take Hagar and Ishmael out of the desert. The angel gives them what they need to sustain them, and they remain in the desert, and Ishmael grows up in the desert⁴. Then we read ^“God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer.”

KJ Ramsay says “Grace is not always rescue. It is often in Christ’s presence meeting us in weakness and sustaining us in sorrow. Grace is not just power to overcome. It is power to endure.”

The God that I know is a master of redemption, healing, and the restoration of broken things, but sadly that notion can get twisted into making us feel like we can only bring our stuff to God once the healing and restoration have already happened. The truth is that God desires to meet us in our pain. God wants us to know His presence in our pain, and to allow our pain to be touched by His presence. He welcomes our cries of anguish, pain, and fury as found in the Psalms. And I think He wants our communities to reflect that, too.

Our honesty about our suffering and our ability to be vulnerable with our pain is a testimony to those around us who are suffering in secret. In the clearance of the illusion that no one is suffering, we allow the reality of the continuous presence of suffering to be acknowledged so that no one must suffer alone. 

“The sad truth is that whatever darkness you may be in right now will also be experienced (in one form or another) by your friends, your children, the other members of your small group Bible study, your classmates – anyone and everyone around you. While it is terrible (and occasionally horrifying) to be under a cloud of depression or anxiety, you also have the chance to testify to God’s goodness. By watching you endure, others will know that it is possible to keep going. They will have a model for perseverance. You don’t know whose life you may save by honestly and faithfully enduring a mental affliction.”

Alan Noble, On Getting Out of Bed

Now, let me make a couple of confessions:

1. I have not been great at doing any of this. I have, many times, redirected conversation away from someone else’s pain because it made me uncomfortable. I have, more often than not, said the wrong thing to someone who was hurting. I’ve avoided hard conversations and I’ve used all the horrible cliches of “everything happens for a reason” and all the others just like it.

2. I haven’t always shared my own struggles or suffering. I have held back often and (I think) pretty convincingly. I have presented a consistent and stoic face, in spite of inner turmoil. I’ve robbed the people I love of the chance to support me in my heartaches, my fears, and my grief.

I hope that I can say truthfully that I am working on doing both of these things better. The only reason I can write about this without being fully overcome by imposter syndrome is that I have experienced the truth of it all. I have experienced it from both sides, and am inspired to share that resounding message that no one must suffer alone.

“Alongside all our griefs, we receive these glimmers of good news—good news that isn’t meant to bypass our sorrow, isn’t meant to diminish our pain, isn’t meant to make us feel as if we shouldn’t feel what we feel. No. The good news is that Jesus is with us in all of it. He embodies the hope of a path to ultimate healing, and he promises to walk us all the way home.”

Jeff Chu, Notes of a Make-Believe Farmer

If you’re someone who is going through something hard right now, I hope you can feel seen. I hope you can find people to help carry your burdens.

If you’re not, keep an eye out for those who are. Be more kind, more compassionate, and more thoughtful than you ought to be.

My phone and my DMs are always open.

Much love to you all,

Ben

1. that’s a joke about the liturgical calendar

2. I’m still not calling it “X”

3. sorry, that’s a real downer of a sentence

4. there is much to be said about what becomes of Ishmael, but that’s for another day