Michelle

When It’s Time to Love with Action and In Truth

September 20, 2017 By Michelle 10 Comments

The other night over dinner with friends I made a rather funny slip of the tongue. We were talking about sports injuries, and instead of referring to an “ACL tear,” I called it an “ACLU tear.” We all laughed at my slip, and I made a joke about clearly being in a much more activist frame of mind these days.

I thought about that statement for a long while afterwards. While it’s true that I’ve found myself in a more “activist frame of mind” in recent months, I’m also frustrated because it seems that’s exactly where my activism ends most days: in my mind. I am better-informed than ever before about the current political climate and ongoing social issues, and I have made small forays toward putting some action behind my thoughts and words (my husband and I are working on a racism awareness initiative with our denomination’s synod, for example), but most days, the truth is, I don’t do much more than stew.

And as I stew…

White supremacists carry torches in Charlottesville.

Nearly one million Dreamers who were brought to this country by their parents illegally as children stand to be deported as a result of Trump’s vow to end DACA.

Black men are imprisoned at six times the rate of white men.

More than 60,000 people don’t have enough to eat on a regular basis in Southeast Nebraska alone.

More than 30,000 people lost their homes in Houston as the result of hurricane Harvey’s wrath.

And our Yezidi friends who arrived as refugees here in Lincoln last December are still desperate to reunite with their beloved mother and grandmother, who has been waiting months for her visa to be approved by the United States, with no end to the deferral in sight.

I could go on and on. Endless problems. Endless heartache and suffering. And yet all I can say is that I am in an “activist frame of mind?” I’m beginning to realize that no matter what my frame of mind is, it makes no difference if I don’t follow it with boots-on-the-ground action. Or as John so pointedly advised: “Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

Last week I attended a lecture by attorney and social justice advocate Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, at a local college here in Lincoln. Stevenson talked at length about hopelessness, which he referred to as “the enemy of justice.” In fact, he had some choice words about hope and hopelessness. “You’re either hopeful or you’re the problem,” Stevenson said. “There is no in-between.”

That got my attention.

I was grateful that in addition to calling out the purposelessness of my hopelessness, Bryan Stevenson also offered some concrete tips for how to move from what I’m calling an “activist frame of mind” to loving with action and in truth.

Get proximate to the problems you see in society, Stevenson said. In other words, don’t just talk about the problems — the homeless, the hungry, the imprisoned, the displaced, the refugees and immigrants, the marginalized — from a distance. Get to know the problems — or rather, the people struggling with the problems — up close and personal. “We are required to get close to people who are suffering and struggling,” Stevenson said. “When we do this, we will see things we cannot see from a distance.”

Get uncomfortable. “We have to be willing to do uncomfortable things,” Stevenson also said. “It’s a choice.”

The same week I heard Bryan Stevenson’s lecture, I also had the opportunity to interview one of the new commanding officers at our local Salvation Army corps for an article I’m writing. After chatting for a few minutes about the many needs in our community, the corps commander said this:

“It’s not just about the check; it’s also about your influence, and it’s not just about your influence, it’s also about your involvement.”

In other words, get proximate and uncomfortable.

In other words, love with your actions and in truth.

Honestly, I’m not sure what my next steps are; I’m still grappling with exactly how to “get proximate.” There are a lot of options, a lot of opportunities, yet at the same time, “getting proximate” is surprisingly challenging when you live and work with people who are all socio-economically and ethnically similar to you. Clearly this is going to require stepping out and perhaps even getting uncomfortable.

Right now I do know this, though: an “activist frame of mind” isn’t enough. Yes, self-education is an important and necessary part of the process; we begin by being informed. And yes, financial support, if you have the means to offer it, is critical too. But I also think there comes a time, in the words of Bryan Stevenson, to get proximate and to get uncomfortable. And I’m beginning to think, for me at least, the time has come to step out in love with action and in truth.

How to Value the Season You’re In

September 13, 2017 By Michelle 20 Comments

My last official blog post here was June 7 – a little more than three months ago (I admit, I cheated a bit on my hiatus and posted the pieces I wrote for the Journal Star in June, July and August). It was a good and necessary break – even more necessary than I initially anticipated, as it turns out, because…

…I am writing another book…two, in fact! This past spring I signed a two-book contract with Baker Books — one for non-fiction and the second for an “Undetermined” Biography/History. I admit, before I signed my name, it made my heart nearly cease beating to realize I was committing to write my fourth and fifth books. Somehow embarking on books four and five makes the whole business of being an author feel very real. I think because my first three books weren’t knock-it-out-of-the-park best-sellers I didn’t really consider myself a legit author, which I realize is the most ridiculous thing ever, but there you go…sometimes we are our own worst enemies.

Suffice to say, I slogged through a few thousand words or so of book one this summer, and let me say, for the record, it was a S.L.O.G. I am super excited about this book. It’s something I have been thinking about and living into for at least the last two years (and I see hints of it in my journals even longer than that). This is a book of my heart. BUT…that doesn’t mean it’s always going to come easily.

Which leads me to my next point. A few nights ago I told a friend, “I failed at summer.” When she asked me what exactly I meant by that, I explained that for most of the summer, rather than accepting the different rhythms and routines (or lack thereof) of the season, I pushed hard against what I saw as summer’s limitations. I tried to force the season to be something else, something it wasn’t meant to be. For the entire eleven weeks of summer, I never stopped trying to force it. It was, in a word, exhausting.

While I knew going into it that a new part-time job and two teen/pre-teen boys and a husband home for the summer would seriously limit my capacity for the deep, creative work of book-writing, in the end, I refused to go with the flow of the season and embrace its freedom and gifts. Instead, I pushed, pushed, pushed against it with all my might. As a result, I was not only hugely unproductive, I was also constantly frustrated, resentful, and generally a giant pill to be around. I was like the Peanuts character Pig Pen, except instead of a cloud of dirt hovering around me, I emanated doomsday despair and negativity with a heaping side of grouchiness.

The funny thing is, when I finally did sit down to write actual words on the page after the boys returned to school and my husband returned to his classroom in mid-August, I found I was ready. I may not have produced much in terms of word count over the summer (which was extraordinarily frustrating at the time), but it turns out, I was still very much working on the book that whole time.

I was reading. Taking notes. Jotting down relevant quotes. Journaling. Staring into the middle distance. Ideas were percolating and gestating. By the time I sat at my desk and put my fingers to the keyboard, the book (or at least a big chunk of it) was ready to be written. Those three months of seemingly little concrete productivity had actually been an important part of the creative process. I just hadn’t recognized it as such because the outcomes were not immediately apparent or tangible.

This summer I learned the hard way about the importance of trusting and valuing the season I am in. Ecclesiastes said it best, right? “To every thing there is a season. And a time to every purpose under heaven.”

This summer was my season to tend – to nurture the scattered seeds, to water and fertilize them, to wait patiently, biding my time while the first tender seedlings rooted and sprouted. This summer was a gestational season – an important, dare I say absolutely critical time in the process of writing a book. I just wish I had recognized the necessity and value of this season and embraced the beauty and gift of it, rather than pushing it to be something else.

Trusting every season doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m great with the harvest, with seasons of obvious fruitfulness and productivity. But I’m learning that the slower seasons, the periods in which we step back, surrender, and quietly let things be, are necessary and important too. Slowly, largely through great trial and error, I am learning that there is indeed a season for every activity under the heavens. Even, or perhaps especially, when the activity of that season doesn’t look like you expect it to. Even when it’s an activity that does not produce immediately apparent results.

Put Your Kindness into the World

September 6, 2017 By Michelle 6 Comments

* It’s the first week of September…how did that even happen?! My kids have been back in school for three weeks, and I am back into a regular work routine — all the amens! Today’s post is my column that ran in the Lincoln Journal Star this month, but next Wednesday I hope to back to a regular weekly blog schedule. I’ll have some news for you, plus some thoughts on recovering from a hard season. Thanks for sticking with me during my blogging respite – I missed you!*

A couple of weeks ago I did something uncharacteristic while I was jogging on the bike path. I stopped to talk to a stranger.

You know the runners who seem like they have springs coiled in the soles of their sneakers? The ones who pass by all chipper and spry? That’s not me. My primary focus when I run is oxygen intake. I typically don’t have the energy to extend much more than a teeth-clenching smile to those I pass by.

This summer, though, I couldn’t help but notice one walker in particular. In fact, it was hard not to notice him, because every time I passed him on the trail – which I did two or three times a week all summer long — he offered an exuberant greeting or a kind word.

Sometimes when he spotted me he complimented the color of my shirt or shorts, which made me laugh, because I don’t wear the snazziest fitness gear you’ve ever seen.

But more often than not, he looked me straight in the eye as we passed each other and called out, “Have a wonderful day!” with more enthusiasm you would ever imagine an older gentleman could muster.

I began to keep an eye out for the man with the paddler’s hat and the peppy greeting. I noticed I had more spring in my step after he greeted me; I began to look forward to seeing him.

This past July my friend Amanda launched a project she called WholeSpirit – 31 days of speaking kindly to strangers, complimenting people just because, and writing encouraging notes. When the 31 days were done, she wrote a recap about it on Facebook, noting how surprisingly difficult and often awkward it was to say real, meaningful things to strangers. “I’m a tall blond woman, so maybe people thought I was trying to sell them real estate,” she quipped.

Despite the inherent discomfort in speaking words of authentic kindness to strangers, though, Amanda noticed that every single person she spoke to reacted positively. “Everyone’s face lit up,” she recalled. “They smiled. They looked genuinely shocked, and they usually responded with a simple ‘thank you.’”

A few days after reading Amanda’s Facebook post about her WholeSpirit project, I saw the cheerful man approaching on the bike trail. Before I could lose my nerve, I plucked out my earbuds and veered onto his side of the path. “I appreciate you so much, and I just want to say thank you for being a bright spot in my mornings,” I gushed breathlessly.

His name is Ted, and Amanda was right, he seemed a bit surprised by my declaration of gratitude (or perhaps he was simply startled by the middle-aged woman who had unceremoniously lumbered sweaty and gasping into his morning reverie). Seconds into our brief conversation, though, Ted’s surprise turned to delight. We introduced ourselves, he thanked me for stopping him, and then, as is his habit, Ted wished me a wonderful day.

“Being kind in our minds may be easy, but are we putting that kindness into the world?” Amanda asked in her Facebook post. “Be overwhelmingly generous with your kindness. It literally costs you nothing, and makes all the difference in this world.”

Ted puts his kind thoughts into his small piece of the world every day, and I, for one, am grateful.

How to Choose the Moment Itself

August 2, 2017 By Michelle 4 Comments

I wanted to share the piece I wrote for my monthly column in the Lincoln Journal Star last week. This moment and what I learned from it in retrospect really resonated with me, and I hope I captured it well enough so it does for you, too. Peace, friends – and thank you for this quiet break I am so enjoying during these summer months…

One afternoon last week I spotted my son, Noah, perched on the edge of one of the raised beds in the garden, his lunch plate balanced on his lap. When I saw what he was gazing at so intently, I ducked back into the house to grab my camera.

Noah was watching a particularly large and beautiful black swallowtail butterfly as it sailed from coneflower to coneflower. The butterfly’s wings spanned nearly the length of my open palm. Its iridescent body, intricately decorated with splashes of orange, indigo, and yellow, shimmered in the summer sun.

Camera in hand, I circled wide around the blooms, hoping I could photograph the swallowtail unnoticed. I crept in close from behind, zoomed my lens on the insect, and snapped six images in quick succession. Bending low at waist, I leaned in and refocused the lens for an even closer shot.

I chased the butterfly around the garden, snapping more photographs each time it alighted on another coneflower. When it glided over the fence, I followed it, bent on capturing one more picture, this time with my camera phone so I could post the image on Instagram and Facebook.

Pulling the garden gate closed behind me, I stopped to say something to Noah over my shoulder, and just as I was pulling my phone from my pocket, I caught a flash of black swoop in low over the flowers, then up over the fence. When I turned back, the swallowtail was gone, evidently plucked from its perch by a bird.

There’s a scene in the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in which Walter crouches next to a renowned nature photographer on a remote mountainside. The photographer has been waiting for the elusive snow leopard to appear, but when the mysterious animal finally creeps into sight, perfectly framed in the camera’s viewfinder, the photographer doesn’t click the shutter.

“When are you going to take it?” Walter whispers. The photographer waits a moment, peering into his camera. Finally he lifts his head to answer, his gaze still trained on the snow leopard.

“Sometimes I don’t,” he says. “If I like a moment personally, for me, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it. Right there…right here.”

These days it seems most of us rarely give ourselves the opportunity to simply be there, undistracted in the moment – to stay in an experience, observing and admiring something beautiful for the simple gift of it. My habitual response when I witness a moment of beauty is often to document it for the purpose of sharing it on social media. I appreciate the moment, but it’s a distracted appreciation, diluted by my ulterior motive.

I ended up capturing several stunning photographs of the butterfly balanced on the purple coneflowers, its vibrant wings fully open. I felt a twinge of guilt over my role in the butterfly’s demise – after all, in pursuing “just one more” photograph, I’d chased the swallowtail from the relative protection of the garden into an open space where it was more vulnerable to predators. Nevertheless, I was pleased to share the photograph on social media and pleased by how well it was received.

Noah, however, made a different choice in the same moment. He sat quietly and unobtrusively, admiring and appreciating the swallowtail’s elegance, beauty, and grace as it danced from flower to flower.

I have the photographs that document the moment. Noah had the pure, undiluted moment itself.

Practicing the Ministry of Presence

June 28, 2017 By Michelle 19 Comments

Hi friends – I’m still on a blogging break, but I wanted to share my monthly column I wrote for the Journal Star with you. Thanks for your patience and grace as I take a little breather from (most of) my writing.

Three weeks ago, the 33-year-old son of one of my father’s closest friends drowned while swimming in a small Massachusetts lake. According to reports, he jumped from a boat into the water and never resurfaced.

My parents were sleeping when the phone rang. At that point the body had not yet been found and recovered from the lake. My father’s friend, Don, and his wife had learned their son was missing and presumed dead when a police officer had knocked on their door that night. My dad was one of the first people they called.

After he got off the phone, my father dressed quickly and drove the short distance to his friend’s house, where he spent some time with him and his wife. The next morning my dad was at the lake with Don and his wife when the divers resumed their search. He was there again the following morning when the divers finally recovered the body.

Later, in a phone conversation with my dad, I asked him what he had done during all the hours he had spent at the lake. “Nothing really,” he said. “I was just there.”

My dad said most of the time he had sat on a bench a little ways away from the beach where the search and recovery operation was centered. Don came and sat next to him from time to time. They would talk a little bit, and then Don would get up from the bench to be with his wife or another one of his family members.

“He said he wanted me there, so I was there,” my dad said.

Often our inclination is to run in the opposite direction in the face of another person’s suffering or grief. We tend to make excuses for ourselves — “She would rather be alone…The family needs privacy right now…There’s nothing I can really do to help…” – because we are uncomfortable and afraid. When we do summon the courage to show up, we often feel compelled to do something or say something we think, or at least hope, will be helpful.

This isn’t to say that making a meal or mowing the lawn or offering prayers and condolences aren’t valuable things to do when someone you know is suffering. They are. But sometimes, especially in the earliest stages when grief is still registering as shock, simply coming alongside someone who is suffering when everyone else is turning away can be a precious gift.

Baptist minister Reverend Jeffrey Brown calls this practice of showing up the “ministry of presence.” “I find that among the most effective ways to do ministry is to shut up and just be there,” Brown said.

My dad and Don have known each other for 46 years. They both worked as guidance counselors at the same small high school in Connecticut. They are close in the way men of their generation often are. They attend one another’s milestone events, like retirement parties and children’s weddings. They go out to dinner together with their wives, or visit over beers on the back deck. They don’t often talk a lot about personal stuff. Yet my dad was the one Don called when tragedy struck. And my dad showed up.

Sitting on a lakeside bench in the background hour after hour doesn’t sound like much of an offering in the face of unimaginable tragedy. But in his small, unobtrusive way, my dad practiced the ministry of presence. He was there for his friend, and his presence — simple, quiet, and unadorned — was a gift.

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