what the flowers told me: on beauty in pain

“You belong, among the wildflowers.”

— Tom Petty

Living in Scotland, one gets used to gray skies and rainy mornings. On the cusp of adulthood, I discovered there that I was a closet introvert. I tend to live with everything I’ve got thrown out in the sun, engaged from head to toe. The Latin roots of extrovert explain the word suggests one who is turning outward, and I spent the first half of my 40 years doing exactly that. I constantly turned outward, to adventure, to relationships, to thrilling fun. I laughed hard and lived loud.

Then came the rains of Scotland. Walking often alone in Edinburgh, I discovered I liked the quiet. I loved to think and read and eat alone. Gray rainy days gave me the gift of my self. Nature has a way of teaching us how to be in the world, if we will only pay attention. 20 years later, my blood pressure drops a few notches when the rain comes. Rainy days wash forgiveness over us, giving all an excuse for being late, a reason to cancel plans, a lowering of expectations. Rain reminds me that enough is okay, that accomplishing less might be more enjoyable, that we should all just slow down.

For a productivity addict, the calming effect of rain provides a necessary pause. The rain reminds me there are lessons to be had if only I will pay attention. It remind us that the way we live is not the way we must, that our patterns might not define us. We withdraw, we hide away, we indulge, we rage, we distract ourselves, we pretend like we are fearless. When the pain of life delivers us at the end of ourselves though, those coping skills often seem inadequate. As the rain of Scotland exposed the beauty of turning inward and slowing down, I find myself looking again to the natural world for advice on how to survive the times that hurt and try us.

Yesterday I spent a lovely morning with a dear friend in a field of wildflowers. She is a pursuer of beauty, a chaser of wonder, and it is good to be in her presence whether I am happy or sad. As we drove through small towns, past barns and rolling fields, we began to learn the lessons Mother Nature offered up. Here are a few:

Consider the sunflower. Big, bright and beautiful, she is iconic. The deep brown center, the flaming bright petals, she stands tall with a stern stem. Today I observed her, and noticed the sunflower seems so sturdy, but those yellow petals are quite frail. The stem is thick, straight as a backbone, the brown center large and open, but the leaves, which provide the color for which the plant is known, are rather tiny. We love sunflowers for the brilliant contrast of the yellow and brown, for the large center, so stable, so open. I tend to minimize my frail parts, wanting to hide my fragility from the world. But the sunflower is the sunflower because we see the frail parts, because that flash of yellow is such a gift around the orb of brown. The sunflower teaches us to turn ourselves toward those who give us life, exposing our fragility and trusting others to call it beautiful. Could we learn to know we need to face the sun, that we must turn inward or outward toward those people and practices that give us life? Could we learn to bring our full selves, stable or fragile, toward the light, toward that which will carry and comfort us? Is it possible that our hurting, broken places are actually the most lovely? That our weak parts are made beautiful when seen alongside our strength? The sunflower has much to say if we will listen.

As we walked through the fields we also saw butterflies, fireflies and bees. Everywhere fluttering and buzzing, reminding us of the grace of rest, the freedom of flight and the necessity of nourishment. Ubiquitous, I found such pleasure in watching them dance. I saw there a beautiful reminder that perhaps the best path is not a path at all. Fully existing in a moment might require us to flit about, finding nourishment or rest wherever it is provided, unsure from where it will come. Don’t stop the journey because the rest ahead is unclear. Fly anyway, enjoying a reprieve whenever it appears. Perhaps the best paths meander.

Amidst the gorgeous bright sunflowers were also wildflowers of every shade. They were wild and bushy, mostly messy green with small pops of color. Lovely all the same though. Step back and survey the mess of life, looking for the precious color within. Might we trust that in every disaster there are moments of peace, that in every mess that is fleeting beauty? Some of the sunflowers looked like they were dying, but their burnished leaves added such depth to the sea of gold. Look for beauty in the dying, in the mess. No heart can bear only bad all the time. Allow yourself the gift of beauty if you stumble upon such wonder.

Buried beneath the flowers, we learned, would soon be tulip bulbs. Burrowed deep for the winter months, they will break through the ground in the spring, bursts of color growing toward the sun. In the beautiful wonder of our created world, cycles of life abound. God created this world to live and thrive and decay and die, only to nurture and grow new life. I am learning to face each death I encounter, knowing that in God’s baffling and cyclical economy, some gift is being deposited for the new life to come.

The natural world is a wild and lovely place. It is helpful, when the path ahead feels riddled with the traps of pain and despair, to remember that we were made to live as observers and partakers of the world around us. There are gifts of comfort and lessons of wisdom hidden within the plants and bees and rain and sun. Although we live our lives in a line, we grow in cycles large and small, as grace and pain somehow work together to teach us how to pay attention.

“The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged - keep on - there are divine things, well envelop’d; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.   ”

— Walt Whitman

on loyalty: how to support your bilbo

Notions of loyalty are in the air these days as we think about what it means to live amongst each other. Politicians are accused of disloyalty (or, increasingly, of too much loyalty). A year ago, people clashed in Charlottesville over their conflicting loyalties: to a mythic past, to a diverse humanity, to racial supremacy, to justice. Even this weekend’s theaters told the story of how a stuffed bear’s loyalty calls Christopher Robin to embrace the values of his boyhood.

Loyalty, whether to a person or a cause or an idea, is elevated in our public imagination, as if it were a rare and noble trait. At times it seems the measure of a person: When given the choice to be loyal to a friend or eager to get ahead, what will he choose? When the simple betrayal of principals, dressed up like loyalty to a boss, can make her indispensable, will she choose advancement?

I have observed, in the past few months, a change in the way loyalty functions. Honorable loyalty once arose from the dignity and value of its object. A person’s honesty, or their sacrificial commitment to the good of others, was first established, and then loyalty followed. A person’s loyalty mattered because the object of their loyalty was just and good.

Now, however, the measure of a person seems to be based on his faithfulness to loyalty itself, rather than on the worthiness of the object that requires it. We find value in the act of loyalty, with no regard for the discernment required to decide when loyalty is warranted. This is problematic; being steadfastly loyal to a terrible ideal is not noble. In fact, through their loyalty, such people actively advocate for the destruction of the common good. The transitive property applies: If I decide to be loyal to a person who bullies others and lies regularly, then I have pledged fidelity to a bad actor. In this case I cannot then expect respect, for my commitment reveals a stubborn lack of discernment. Loyalty is only valuable if the object of the loyalty is just.

This obviously applies to politics. Do we value, as a society, blind allegiance to candidates who represent the Donkeys or the Elephants? Or do we value the discernment required to find a candidate each time who happens to best embody values and policies we support? Perhaps more importantly, do we appreciate people who consider the expertise of others and think independently? Do we employ loyalty when a candidate’s way of being in the world embodies the idea that democracy requires space for diverse perspectives? I’m afraid we are so taken with the idea that loyalty is always noble that we have mistakenly replaced loyalty with enabling. 

Sticking with someone through thick and thin is a good thing. Defending a person who has been wronged is a good thing. However, blindly defending a person who once seemed worthy but is now clearly destructive is irresponsible enabling. Bad actors, bad legislators, bad policies, bad leaders keep acting badly because people remain loyal to them. Such loyalty enables their bad behavior. It is not noble or just or a sacrificial determination to stay the course; it is active support for leaders who do harm to the community. The vanishing truth is this: loyalty sometimes requires faithful resistance instead of surrender.

Consider Samwise Gamgee. He stumbles into the Fellowship of the Nine with nothing to offer except his service to Frodo and his growing faith in the necessity of the mission on which they embark. Sure, he is celebrated as a man whose worth is discovered primarily through his faithfulness to and encouragement of Mr. Baggins, but his loyalty increasingly resides with the mission, not with Frodo. When Frodo loses his metaphorical way, as he sometimes does, Sam’s loyalty is evidenced by his correction of and challenge to Frodo. If Sam believed our conventional wisdom, loyalty would mean absolute support of Frodo’s every action, even when he wants to steal the ring or murder others just to keep it. This would have been enabling, not loyalty. Sam’s loyalty might at times have looked like a betrayal of Frodo, but he was in fact more loyal to Frodo’s best self than Frodo was himself. This, it seems to me, rather than some stubborn excuse making, is worth emulating.

I count myself among those who follow Christ, who are committed to loving others sacrificially, as he did. I’ve pledged my loyalty, committing myself to seeing all others as image bearers of God, worthy of my kind care. I’m committed to finding the value of others as a given, not as something to be measured by power, wealth or even efficiency. I’m committed to seeing all the ways that loyalty to power destroys community, and have pledged myself to use any power I might have to elevate those undervalued by the city in which I live. I am loyal to this in all the ways I can muster each day. But I struggle to be “loyal” to “the church” (and even to “Christians”).  I put loyal in quotes here because I suspect some find me disloyal. Although such an accusation gives me pause, I am determined to embody a deeper loyalty. A loyalty so deep that, like Samwise Gamgee, I will challenge those who have exchanged loyalty to Christ for loyalty to a person or political party (and I expect the same correction if I lose my way). I want to be loyal to the church, but that means I must challenge any functional faith that exchanges power and privilege as evidence of God’s blessing rather than confession and the sacrificial fruit of repentance. Loyalty demands that mean-spirited patriotism or stubborn self-interest or racial supremacy or protecting the status quo or dismissing the pain of others be challenged as blasphemy, as fully outside the habits or behavior of Christ.

In these times, we need a deep loyalty, not an enabling one. Question what you protect, who you defend, and who earns your skepticism. It is easy to be either blindly loyal or apathetic, but neither are worthy of all you have to give. Instead, choose what is worthy of your energy, and support that with a loyalty that faithfully resists evil in any form. Be loyal by calling us out when we lose our way.

bad manners: how we talk politics

This week is election week in Middle Tennessee, and that means the phone calls and door knockers are out in droves. Sometimes the eager human standing on my porch has such a painful combination of nervous earnestness that I am tempted to say I’ll vote for a candidate I find unacceptable in almost every way. My favorite moment so far has been with a nearly prepubescent-looking young man who came to the door. I was dressed inappropriately, my daughter looked abandoned as she stood crying for juice with her hair only half braided, and I was holding onto my dog’s collar for dear life as she tried to attack our visitor (or maybe escape to her freedom in the civilized wilds of our neighborhood). Despite the fact that it clearly was NOT a good time, my young guest launched into his shpeal. I already supported his candidate, so I tried to listen, hunched over to hide my pajamas, clutching the dog with one hand while unsuccessfully attempting to smooth my daughter’s hair with the other. We crossed the Rubicon of reasonable interaction when I realized he was determined to use his entire script, and was actually trying to casually get to know me so he could discern which issue he should emphasize. After a few failed attempts to ask me to chat about my background or neighborhood, I tried to gently but abruptly say, “This is really not a great time for me to have a conversation, but I am grateful you are on our street, and I appreciate [specific things] about your candidate, and I’d love a yard sign. Thanks for stopping by.” If there is a way to be both gentle and abrupt, I don’t know it, so I’m sure my supportive words were diminished by my haggard and rushed delivery. Indeed, I think we all felt relieved it was over (except for the damn dog!).

“If we are unwilling to talk with people about our evolving views on life in a civil society, are we not helping sustain an uncivil one? ”

I have equal parts admiration and cringiness for such campaign volunteers.  Admiration because they believe so strongly in the necessity of an informed and engaged citizenry that they brave the heat, wild animals, hostile encounters, and awkward interactions with people like me just to tell us an election is coming and they have some thoughts to share! I admire their effort and determination. I cringe because they don’t know who will open the door: an ally or an adversary. Yesterday a representative called to tell me, with nary a pause for breath, that her candidate was committed to American values, not lying and politics-as-usual, just like President Trump. She went on to say we needed more tax relief for job creators, less government regulation, and a solid governor who was very pro-life and very pro-gun. I attempted to abruptly but gently (again, not possible) interrupt her to say, “I appreciate you calling but I don’t think it is possible to be “very” pro-gun and pro-life and I think most of those policies would be terrible for our state. Thanks for calling though!” As the call ended, I wondered why I didn’t ask her what she cared about instead of simply trying to get off the phone. Could I engage a person reading a script like that to ask them how de-regulation will help the citizenry, or how being pro-gun lines up with being pro-life? I know these positions make sense politically, but how are they aligned in real life? Do they come from the same ethical framework? She might have had a compelling argument, and I could have learned from her. Instead, I gave my opinion and ended the call, as if a conversation was not even possible.

Is it possible to discuss politics without getting defensive or aggressive? The lack of conversations like the one I imagined above is directly linked to the divisive speech and acts that fill our public sphere. We don’t know how to talk to each other about the things we care about. We don’t know how to care about our own interests and the interests of others. Even worse, we aren’t allowed to wonder aloud about the things we aren’t fully sure about.

It is considered bad manners to bring up political issues at many supper tables or work lunches, but I am advocating for exactly that. In an age in which some of our news, most of our political ads (and many Presidential tweets, for that matter) seem to stand alone, beyond any context or factual evidence, face to face discourse about issues or candidates is a remarkable thing. What if, instead of thinking it was bad manners to talk politics, we tried to talk about our hopes or convictions or understanding of economics and regulatory processes with other people?  What if we talked about school board candidates with people whose kids go to Title 1 schools, charter schools, and zoned schools, or with principals, teachers and folks who work in the central office? If we only discuss such things with “safe people” (aka people with whom we agree), then we are far more likely to vote in an uninformed way.

If we are unwilling to talk with people about our evolving views on life in a civil society, are we not helping sustain an uncivil one?  I know many have been burned in political conversations that go off the rails; however, it seems to me that we are trapped in a prison we are all actively building.  We say, “I just can’t imagine supporting that person” or, “How on earth does X think it is okay to believe this while voting for that?” What if we instead directly asked, “Will you help me understand your thoughts on this candidate (or this issue)?” or, “I honestly struggle with part of the platform. What are your thoughts?” Some folks know exactly what they believe, while others struggle to coherently justify their voting record. Those with strong beliefs need not bully those who are uncertain. Imagine being the person others come to in order to learn about an issue or a candidate. Imagine being a person who engages in conversations not to persuade or to win, but to understand, to inform, and to open new possibilities for thinking. Political conversations require patience and curiosity; it requires humility to realize you might not have thought through every possible outcome or implication of your position. Nevertheless, such conversations are necessary! If we don’t like our political climate, we need to talk face to face about candidates and issues with one another. Let’s make apathy, bullying and ignorance bad manners. Let’s talk with each other.