resistance baking

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/lhuCExhPHjw

I’ve been baking in a frenzy lately. Cookies, brownies, chewies, biscuits, waffles and pies. Sounds delicious, but baking for me is like church and therapy and confession and entering rehab all at once.

I like to think of myself as a self-aware person, but, alas, I am often late to the party when it comes to acknowledging deficits in my mental, emotional or physical health. To compensate for these blind spots, I look for familiar markers to help me recognize the moments when I am no longer crushing it. For instance, if I find myself screening calls or hiding from a knock on the front door, I usually—finally—realize that something is going on with my internal everything. It’s not rocket science. I’m even a little ashamed of it. How can I think I’m doing well when I’m clearly not?

I have an iron will that pushes me to keep going no matter what, and that will tends to bully my mental and emotional need for restoration. I insist things are all good, even if another part of my soul and body know they aren’t. My problem is that those parts don’t communicate super well, so part of me thinks I’m great while the other part of me is barely hanging on.

As an educator married to a physician with 4 school-aged children, the impact of the pandemic is everywhere. My students struggle to function and learn, my husband faces impossible life or death situations more frequently, both of us can’t find the joy that used to come easy, and my children don’t remember what if feels like to learn collaboratively in environments where they are safe, known and celebrated. The pandemic has taken a lot, and with the rise of Omicron, we all fear it will continue to do so.

Amidst this mess, I felt bombarded by updates from the cases of Kyle Rittenhouse and the killers of Ahmaud Arbery. Then a fifteen year old in Michigan got a gun for Christmas, openly fantasized about shooting up his school, and then did so.

Suddenly, I felt a rising need to bake.

The weekend after a man killed children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I made homemade cinnamon rolls for the first time. After George Floyd was killed, I perfected scones and waffles. When my psyche feels overwhelmed by terrifying grief that defies easy processing, that undermines my trust in the world, I feel a weird desire to bake or cook complicated, intimidating recipes. I don’t really understand it, but I’ve learned to trust it.

When I’m baking I am not conscious of the battles that rage within me. I don’t realize that I am searching for a way to ground myself, to trust that the center will hold even as evil swirls around my family. Still, somehow, baking becomes my creative act of resistance against the evil of this world. A biscuit becomes my mark of defiance against the dark. A scone bears witness to the fact that I believe God cares deeply about the injustice we face, that Christ laments alongside us, that God brings healing and restoration to ruined people and places.

Advent reminds us that God comes toward us. Jesus knows all is not well, and brings miraculous justice to speak good news over bad realities. Advent is an invitation to reflect on the parts of us that need hope and healing. “For those who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” These are words for people covered in flour, trying to work out their salvation with fear and trembling in the kitchen.

Wherever you go to find the ground beneath your feet when the world throws you, I pray you will lift your eyes to the God who sees and knows you. I pray your broken heart would feel bound up by your Maker, that you would find some freedom from your captivity. In the community of God, a rolling pin and a pastry cutter can be sacraments, blessed to bring healing to a weary world. In this Advent season, I hope you begin to recognize your need to push back against the dark and make room for the light. Give yourself fully to those traditions, and enjoy a God who can heal you through ridiculous routines.

the lessons of Fall

In Tennessee, the perpetual summer has finally given way to crisp fall mornings, days with a darkened hue, and leaves whose colors best Crayola. It is glorious. The cool air invites deep inhales, energizing us to get through each day. Part of the gift of Autumn is simply that it signals a change. In late spring, we welcome long hot days; in late summer, we beg for cool darkness. Too much of a good thing apparently is a thing.

Fall is my favorite season because I feel most alive and most grounded when I am outside. Put me near mountain water or the woods, and I become a contented optimist. Research has long proven that movement, activity, and immersion in nature are significantly linked to improved mental and physical functioning. Beyond the magical physiology that proves this to be true, one of the reasons outdoor activity lifts our gaze to the good is that it requires us to stop gazing at screens. Although I admit I have tried before, it is very difficult to hike a rooty trail with one’s eyes on a screen. Ill advised, indeed.  

The pervasive influence of screens, like most innovations, has transformed the way we function for good and for bad. We are more productive, more convenienced, more connected to the far reaches of the globe. We are also more distracted, more overwhelmed, and less connected to those across the table from us. Our phones allow us to divide our attention, to prioritize the unimportant as urgent, and to make subtle, tiny choices all day that fracture our souls. Our teenagers’ circadian rhythms are thrown off as their faces are illuminated by screens late into the night, and our work life balance is perpetually off as we “just finish this real quick” while those we love wait for our attention.

While the ubiquity of phones steal our silence, our solitude, and our stillness from us, the presence of social media threatens our authentic understandings of what we value. An experience becomes valuable because we can film it, post it, and quantify its value through likes. A memory becomes forgettable if we don’t capture a picture or phrase that catches the love of our followers. Hoping to offer a snapshot of our lives in an effort to stay authentically connected, we have damaged our ability to claim our own value system, and instead surrender our agency and authenticity to the mob’s clicking proclivities.

How might we reclaim our sense of self, our agency, our time, our awareness of those around us (and the crucial context that brings)? Fall has brought us answers, so look to the leaves and learn. The lessons here are simple:

First, put your phone down and go outside. Spend an hour moving outdoors, undistracted by the brilliant connections offered through your phone.

This sounds simple, but we know it isn’t. It is hard to walk away from our phone, as holding it makes us feel secure and invulnerable. We cannot be overcome if we have access to a phone. Even more, it is hard to do a thing without being distracted. We have trained our brains, our hands, our relational selves and our intellect to be distracted every few minutes. Going outside when the world is showing off its most glorious self lifts our gaze away from self, away from cheap distractions, and away from others intent on dictating what we find valuable. The woods remind us that life is mysterious, that our perspective is inherently limited, and that time can move slowly and quickly, in a straight line or in circles. These observations are powerful in their ability to impact the rhythms of life that guide us.

Whether you have access to a state park or a small patch of green space, time in it is valuable. (If your daily path does not contain grass, try this: Change your perspective by lying down and looking up under or near a tree. Watch as your urban landscape turns into an expansive sky littered with dangling leaves. Transformation.)

Secondly, Fall teaches us to yield. The vibrant colors, the diminishing light and the dropping temperatures are gorgeous reminders that the world shuts down every winter. No created thing was made to live large forever; we must rest, even die. We are each made to yield, to surrender, to pause. The world presents a stunning tableau every Fall to remind us, even invite us, to recognize our need for rest. For silence, solitude and stillness.

Autumn beckons us to yield, to slow and let others pass. Fall reminds us that the act of surrender can be a gorgeous thing to behold, that we might do well to follow the lead of the world that lifts our gaze and heightens our hope for the crisp joy a day might bring. The current that carries most of us demands constant attention, distracted engagement, and complete—if divided—availability. We know this pace to be unsustainable, and yet we fail to hold on to alternative rhythms. The growth and beauty of spring only comes because of the devastating stillness of winter. Is it possible that this truth could be manifest in our own lives as well? If we commit to slowness, to stillness, to surrender, might we also find a season of deep restoration that leads to transformed growth?

As the world begins its dazzling death, I humbly commit to bear witness often, and to follow its lead by yielding to a slower pace, a surrendered presence, and a silent practice of stillness as I wait for renewal to come. Go outside, and let the natural world teach you that striving is not the only path forward. The earth teaches us another way, if we will pause and take note.