a roundup of things I'm loving

and scattered thoughts on peace, recording an audiobook, and "mission"

It’s been a week in which the violence of the world has been exposed and felt too close. I have grown increasingly wary of using social media at all in these moments. I light a candle and I pray and I do what I can in my offline life, and I acknowledge how little I know. It’s hard to even find a prayer that feels sufficient; here’s what one of my clergy friends sent this week. I hope you’ll pray it with me.

O God, who would fold both heaven and earth in a single peace:
let the design of thy great love
lighten upon the waste of our wraths and sorrows:
and give peace to thy Church,
peace among nations,
peace between enemies, 
peace in our dwellings,
peace in those places where we can imagine no peace,
peace in all the world -
through thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Amen.¹

I’m not sure I’ve had a complete thought in the last few weeks. All fragments. In part, I was living in the past.

During the first week of October, I recorded the audiobook version of Dangerous Territory. It was unexpectedly emotional and anxiety inducing. I woke up every morning buzzing about it. Unexpected because a)I’d re-read the book recently, and b)reading chapters aloud is a normal part of my revision practice, but reading the whole thing aloud, straight through, felt different than either of those. Repetitions became more obvious; things I’d say differently now more glaring.² At the same time, I loved doing this (and when my editor got it, she said “I can't stop smiling! The audio sounds great!” so maybe I did ok).

Unrelatedly, a parishioner who is in the Where Goodness Still Grows book club emailed me last week, having just realized that I was also the author of Dangerous Territory, which she had read years ago when she started leaving her Southern Baptist tradition. She’s in her sixties. It is one of my favorite things in the world to know people who continue to change their minds and grow as they age, rather than hardening into their safe molds. And Dangerous Territory isn’t just about missions; it’s about the ways that faith evolves as we experience more and more of the world.

The questions Dangerous Territory does raise about missions are not exactly the questions the Episcopal church is asking about missions. Since January, the rector and I have been going round and round on how to talk about service and outreach and mission at Trinity.³ In the Episcopal church, there is not a tendency to see missionaries as God’s Special Forces; there is (historically, perhaps, I’m overstating) a tendency to stay too much within our own walls, to give of our money but not our lives.

As part of that continuing conversation, last month he texted me, with no additional information, this essay. I said, sure, I don’t disagree with this! Youth group trips are great. But I am not sure that calling them “mission trips” is the right language; in fact, I think it might be damaging language, for us and for the people we claim to be serving or partnering with. Anyway, it all ended up in me writing a little response piece of my own – my first time writing for the folks at Mockingbird. It’s basically me back on my bullshit, but maybe y’all like that kind of thing.

---

More than three things, because we need extra this week:

• I was delighted to learn that my old friend Ragan is on substack. I love his reflections on the natural world and the lectionary, like this one on how to think about a strip of swampy forest next to a fulfillment center.

• Rebecca Makkai on the connection between nachos and nazis, ruining every world war II movie

• Because at least one person in my house is obsessed with Parks and Rec, we tried Rob Lowe’s new workplace comedy Unstable (with his son! playing his son!) and found it gentle and humorous and undemanding in good ways. (Netflix)

• I adore Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s writing, and her story on Taylor Swift is Taffy at her best: funny, smart, somehow both sincere and snarky, and actually illuminating on a topic that is already overwritten. (That’s a gift link — even if you’re not a subscriber you should be able to read.)

• The book with which we should all probably be ending every bedtime story session

• Easy Tom Kha soup, perfectly warming umami flavors, and easy to adapt (I would add more veggies; use part coconut milk and part coconut cream; tofu would also be a great sub for chicken in this. We added rice, as well.)

• Pear Gingerbread from the Simply In Season cookbook, one of my favorite fall desserts, especially with homemade whipped cream

  

  :

• You know that Sufjan released a new album, right? I’m also liking this new album from Kentucky songwriter Abby Hamilton.

• Louise Glück died yesterday. Of all the kinds of prominent people who die, I like it best when poets die, because a;; my social media feeds fill with poems. If you haven’t read her work yet, it’s not too late.

  

  .

Where Goodness Still Grows is available wherever books are sold. My first book, Dangerous Territory, has a second edition coming this November; you can pre-order it now at Bracket Publishing.

1. The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem works with the AHLI ARAB HOSPITAL IN GAZA, and I think this might be a good place to give, if you can.

2. I did end up making a few, minor changes to the book after this… one of the things I had never noticed, for instance, was how often the word skinny appeared in the book. It’s true, I was skinny; I was also fatphobic; seeing it was jarring. The word skinny no longer appears on page one.

3. We have finally (or at least temporarily) decided to talk about it this way: per the BCP, God’s mission is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. We participate in God’s mission through the ministry of all members. Ministry includes

-ministries of the church 

-outreach (local and regional)

-global partnerships