~

Housekeeping

Better Than Normal is out! Thanks to everyone who’s posting about it, reviewing it, and most importantly reading it and engaging with its ideas. Let’s change the world together:

Get 40% off with Code NORMAL40

In or near Birmingham Alabama? Thank You Books is hosting a book event on Thursday, April 30 in the evening. I’ll be in conversation with my good friend Joe Genau. Details here.

I’m preaching this Sunday, April 19 at 10:15 a.m. EDT at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Herndon and via livestream.

Right after this Sunday’s service, I’m headed to “preacher camp,” a week at the beach with the clergy group that’s been gathering since 2008 to play, study scripture, and ponder together the headaches and joys of ministry.

In honor of these dear friends, and the book’s being out in the world, here’s a short excerpt from Better Than Normal about that group. This is from the chapter on community, in which I talk about the power of shared ritual. Enjoy:

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I often begin meetings or coaching sessions with a two-­word check-­in, in which people share a couple of words that describe what they’re bringing into the gathering. I’ve found when I pair that with a moment of shared breathing—feet flat on the ground, scanning one’s body for places of tension—the energy in the space shifts perceptibly. Author and pastor Traci Smith likes to invite people to place their hands on their thighs, palms down if they feel the need to be more grounded, palms up if they’re seeking guidance or inspiration.

Rituals don’t need to be complicated—­breathing together is a great place to start—and may accomplish more than we can imagine. A study in Sweden focused on choral groups and what happens to participants when they sing together. Using pulse monitors, researchers saw people’s heart rates slow down, which is expected when doing the kind of breathing required for singing. What surprised them is that hearts began to beat in time with one another. The readouts began as a jumble of lines, but over the course of the music, people settled into a shared synchronicity.1

Common rituals experienced over years can foster a spiritual bond in ways that defy explanation. Several years ago, one of my kids was in acute crisis and, as a result, I was having the worst week of my life. I reached out to my clergy group, asking for any prayers they could offer. Most of these colleagues lived far away, and there wasn’t much they could tangibly do to help, but knowing they knew gave me some comfort.

The next day, I got a voicemail from one of them. We love you. Breathe in, breathe out.

The following day, a different group member sent me a quick text. I’m so sorry, friend. You got this. God’s got you.

The day after that, an email from someone else.

And the next day, and the next. I heard from a new person each day, a long strand of daily check-­ins. I began to suspect some behind-the-­scenes machinations: one of our organizationally gifted members must have canvassed the others to make sure not a day went by without some contact from the group.

Months later, with the crisis in the past, our group was back together again. I shared how they’d shown up for me and asked them to fess up: “All right, which of you set up that schedule? Who made sure the chain was unbroken for all those days?” They looked at one another and at me, dumbfounded. We didn’t arrange anything. It just. . . happened that way.

And so it goes, that ritual becomes a kind of strength training, giving us the muscles to show up in ways that seem effortless and purposeful. Breathing together, hearts beating as one.

~

Steady on.

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I’m not quite ready to leave last week’s practice of visio divina—looking at an image, art or landscape with heartfelt attention—but I want to turn to some photos that did not come from my camera roll, or any other Earth-bound cameras.

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Of course I’m talking about the images of our planet from lunar orbit, which probably hit your screens this week, as they did mine. Artemis pilot Victor Glover, despite humbly saying he had no words prepared that were adequate to the occasion, had the exact right words in my opinion when he said this on Easter Sunday from the spacecraft:

I think these observances are important, and as we are so far from Earth and looking back at the beauty of creation, I think for me, one of the really important personal perspectives that I have up here is I can really see Earth as one thing…

When I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us, who were created, you have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth. But you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos.

I think maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we’re doing is special, but we’re the same distance from you. And I’m trying to tell you, just trust me, you are special. In all of this emptiness — this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe — you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist (in) together.

I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about all the cultures all around the world —whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not — this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are and that we are the same thing. And that we got to get through this together.

Before we consider that now-famous photo from the Artemis crew, let’s recall the original “Earthrise” photo taken during the Apollo 8 mission.

Here’s a short video telling the story of that image, with a new rendering of the photo from data gathered by the Lunar Reconnaissance Rover in 2013:

The first Earthrise photo was taken on December 24, 1968. I was born almost exactly three years later, in early January of 1972. That means I’ve never known a world without this view of our world.

But many of you did have an experience of “before and after.” It’s one thing to conceptually understand our place in the cosmos. It’s another to see it captured on film… and still another to hear three typically stoic astronauts in the video above, their voices almost giddy with excitement and a desire to capture the image for the sake of the rest of us.

For those of you old enough to remember that image, what was it like to see our planetary home for the first time? What sort of awe (or other feelings) did Earthrise bring forth in you?

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Now let’s turn to this month’s journey back to the moon’s orbit, as four incredible explorers ventured farther than humans ever have. I’m sure they had opportunities to gaze into the vastness of space, to see views no other human eyes have beheld. But once again, the image that captures our attention and wonder is the image of Earth, the place where it all begins for us, the only home we know. I’m reminded of those haunting lines from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding”:

The two images, taken 57 years apart, contain the same basic elements: moon, Earth, space—but they differ in some key ways that I can’t stop thinking about.

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I’m heading back to my camera roll for today’s post, but first…

Book Nook

A bunch of you have pre-ordered Better Than Normal. Some of you already have it in hand, and a few of you have already read it! Wow. Thank you.

Doing this for the fourth time means some of the milestones feel more workaday this time around. What always feels tender and fresh is the fact that people willingly purchase, read, and even champion the words I write. I cannot thank you enough.

Here are a few ways people are already supporting Better Than Normal. Please join them if you can!

1. Share about the book with three friends, or on social media. Purchases from any bookseller are appreciated. Love a deal? Eerdmans is offering 40% off to US addresses at this link with the code NORMAL40.

Order with Code NORMAL40 for 40% Off

2. Mark the book “Want to Read” on GoodReads here and/or StoryGraph here. A simple act that makes a difference for ye olde algorithm.

3. Post a short review on GoodReads here and/or StoryGraph here. Short reviews are fine! GoodReads already has some reviews posted; read them to give you some ideas. (Note: Amazon reviews will open this Tuesday, April 14, official pub day.)

4. Member of a congregation, or a pastor? Talk about the book with your adult education team or other leadership. The book includes a discussion guide. For groups and classes reading the book together, I typically offer one free Q&A session via Zoom, subject to availability.

Thanks again, truly. Onward.

On this, the week following Easter, I’m dipping into my photos to tell the story of life right now. The last time I did this, I introduced you to visio divina—the practice of looking at an image, artwork, or landscape and listening for how it speaks to us spiritually. You can do that in real time with the world around you, or by scrolling through your own photos.

Here are some recent highlights.

~

Cat Corner

I led a workshop at a conference last month in Orlando, which gave me the opportunity to stay with my sister and her family. It was great to see them, but this was the only member of the family I thought to take a picture with… their sweet kitty, Zelda:

When I look at this picture, it reminds me of the free afternoon we had during the conference. My sister and I had talked about going to Disney’s Hollywood Studios so I could (finally) experience Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. But when the time came, I was feeling run down, so we bagged it. It’s one of those moments where I could have rallied and probably had a fine time. But rest is always a valid choice, especially if there’s a cat to cuddle.

On the other extreme—this little doofus was so intrigued by the tree service pruning our maple tree. We had asked for a dwarf maple to be planted when we landscaped several years ago, but as it’s grown, it seems possible that it’s a regular maple. This could have all kinds of implications for our house’s foundation, which is alarming. But that’s a future problem. For now, all we can do is be attentive and curious as it grows, like this kitty. (I’m working on it.)

~

Gifting

We’ve been getting rid of a bunch of household stuff (a process I find thoroughly satisfying) through donations, a Buy Nothing Facebook group, and (when no other option exists) the trash. This is about half of the yarn my mother recently sent me from her stash. I kept about a dozen favorite skeins and shared the rest with the Reston Buy Nothing group, and someone snapped it up. Isn’t it pretty? I love to imagine what an unknown neighbor will create with this gift—and yes, the Buy Nothing movement frames its work in terms of a gift economy, not donations.

~

These next few images, taken on a run, need no words. Simply enjoy, as I did.

And finally…

A few weeks ago, Robert and I spent the weekend in Virginia Beach. I’m a bit famous among loved ones for not being fond of the beach. Punishing sun on fair skin, waves that make me nauseous… it’s basically trying to kill me. Give me a mountain lake any day.

But the beach during the off season is pretty great, and Robert and I have happy memories of getting engaged on the short of Galveston Bay on a cool January evening 32 years ago. It was great to be at the beach together again, to watch the crashing of waves, and chuckle at the people braving the frigid water and quickly high-stepping their way out of their poor life choice. Even “appalling terra segments” have their charms.

Life is brutally hard for a lot of people right now, which makes it hard for people who care about the suffering of others. But there is also beauty when you look for it.

What do you see when you look around today?

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Steady on.

Housekeeping

Pop Culture Pastors Hour took up The Pitt recently, and made a case for chaplains with the help of two special guests. You can also follow Pop Culture Pastors Hour on the podcast app of your choice.

And thanks again ton Father Pete, pastor of Water and Wilderness Church, for inviting me to join him for a conversation about our respective books.

Pete is the author of the upcoming Catching Hope: The Hidden Spiritual Wisdom of Fishing. I’ve started the book and let me tell you, this is a book for anyone who’s looking to COME ALIVE, whether you ever pick up a fishing rod!

As always, you can order my book, Better Than Normal: Virtues for an Off-Script Life anywhere books are sold, and at the publisher for a 40% discount with the code NORMAL40.

Pete will be with Ed and me on Pop Culture Pastors Hour later this month to talk about our favorite works of pop culture that deal with creation and the natural world.

Steady on.

As mentioned at the end of our conversation, April is National Donate Life Month. Please consider giving the gift of life by opting to be an organ donor, and letting your loved ones know of your choice. You can reflect this on your drivers license, or even in the Health app of your iPhone. All major religions in the U.S. support donation as a final act of compassion and generosity (which was reflected in season one of The Pitt!).

See you on April 28 at 3 p.m. EDT for our next episode of PCPH. We’ll be joined by , author of the upcoming book Catching Hope: The Hidden Spiritual Wisdom of Fishing to celebrate spring and talk about our favorite works of pop culture about nature. Link to join.

Follow Pop Culture Pastors Hour on Substack or in your favorite podcast app.

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A special welcome to new readers, particularly new supporting subscribers Kathy and Kris. (Supporting subscribers got a bonus post for me this week, an audio reflection on AI, death, and dust.)

We have much to celebrate here in the Blue Room! Better Than Normal officially drops on April 14, but it’s already loose in the world. Love all the photos and texts!

I also appreciated a lovely preview/review of Better Than Normal, though it described me as a “mainline denominational pastor and stand-up comic.”

I mean… not really, but OK? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pre-order at the bookseller of your choice, or use this button to receive 40% off with the code NORMAL40 at checkout:

Pre-Order with Discount Code NORMAL40

We had a great episode of Pop Culture Pastors Hour on Monday, a discussion of Project Hail Mary, the film. And this Monday April 6 at 1 p.m. EDT: four pastors make the case for why The Pitt really needs chaplains.

It’s Good Friday for those of us in Christian circles, and to honor that occasion, as well as the release of Better Than Normal, here’s a reflection on the so-called seven last words of Christ, taken from chapter four of the book, “From Artifice to Authenticity”:

For Christians, Jesus is God-­in-­the-­flesh experiencing the full range of human experience. We see Jesus’s humanity throughout the Gospels: meals, naps, even cranky conversations. This human life is bookended by a birth and a death, the two experiences that every person will undergo and cannot avoid, no matter who they are or how long they live.

Despite the gigantic impact of Christmas in the culture, we know relatively little about Jesus’s birth: a trip to Bethlehem by his expectant parents and an inn with no vacancies that probably meant a less-than-­ideal labor and delivery experience. Folklore has augmented these scant details with donkeys and stables and, improbably, a boy with a drum.

Jesus’s death, on the other hand, is recorded in searing detail, from the crown of thorns to the mocking taunts to the puncture wounds in hands, feet, and side. Focusing solely on Jesus’s utterances, commonly called the seven last words of Christ, we see the full breadth of human experience represented. Taken together, they provide a template for authenticity:

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
Authentic Hope.

In this weakened state, Jesus spends precious energy invoking forgiveness for the very people who abandoned, tortured, and crucified him. We are never the worst thing we have done, and our broken places are not the end of our story. Wholeness is still possible.

“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Authentic Union.

Jesus reaches out to two criminals, both near death themselves, and binds their fates to his own. Even on the most shattering days of our lives, perhaps especially on those days, we can be connected to God, to the Really Real.

“Woman, here is your son.” “Here is your mother.”
Authentic Relationship.

Jesus was unable to hide his broken state from those who loved him best. And yet he points squarely at the brokenness and amplifies the power of relationship. His mother and the disciple Jesus loved most are united in their heartbreak. Heartbroken people find one another.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Authentic Despair.

Some readers wish to save God from Godself, by saying that Jesus wasn’t forsaken, he just felt forsaken. Either way, Jesus experiences separation from God and complete despair, an inevitable part of authentic human experience.

“I am thirsty.”
Authentic Need.

The simplest and most declarative of the statements. Jesus was a flesh-­and-­blood person, and as such, had physical needs. We cannot run away from our creatureliness.

“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Authentic Frailty.

Even the Holy One relies on God to hold his final release into death. We, too, cannot save ourselves from the ultimate end to this earthly life.

“It is finished.”
Authentic Letting Go.

Artifice would convince us we have more control than we actually do. Here Jesus acknowledges there is nothing more to be done than to surrender to the flow of life that begins before each of us and will go on after we’re gone.

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Image: Revealed through Nonviolence, by Lauren Wright Pittman
Inspired by Luke 22:47-53; Luke 23:33-38, 44-46
11”x14” Gouache & colored pencils on paper

From the artist:

Creating this image was overwhelming. I sought to capture Jesus’s nonviolent response to relentless violence…

At the heart of it all is Jesus, tearful, looking at us. His halo shines, revealing the many faces of violence around him. From the foundation of his steady posture grows an olive tree. Its branches extend beyond his clothing, reaching out to embrace those around him.

Through his nonviolent stance, the truth of a violent world is revealed. And in that truth, the good news of peace finds soil in which to take root, to grow, and to flourish.

For this one, I decided to try something different and do a voice memo. But you can also check out the transcript (caveat: it’s auto-generated).

Here’s the original query from a Blue Room reader that prompted this particular reflection:

I have been ponder…

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Articles referenced in our conversation are here and here. The Jamar Tisby book mentioned is called The Spirit of Justice.

See you next Monday, April 6 at 1 p.m. EDT as we take up The Pitt. Two bona fide chaplains will join us and make the case for that wonderfully chaotic ER needing some chaplains on staff… See you there!

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Welcome to new subscribers this week, and a big thank you to new supporting subscriber Mark!

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Better Than Normal drops in less than three weeks! I wrote the book to help us live toward radical freedom—to stop measuring one another against impossible standards and start discovering what genuine human flourishing actually looks like.

Pre-orders are open now and help the book increase its reach. It’s available from your favorite online retailer, or get 40% off when you order directly from the publisher and use the code NORMAL40 (U.S. addresses only). And the Audible version is already out!

“What’s the worst piece of advice about coping with life stress you’ve ever gotten?” “How do you cope on a bad day?” Grateful to Hanne Blank Boyd for interviewing me for her Perfect 10 series:

Reasons Not to Quit

“Put your BRA on."

Welcome to the Reasons Not To Quit Perfect 10…

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a month ago · 10 likes · Hanne Blank Boyd

The Pitt needs a chaplain! On the next Pop Culture Pastors Hour, four pastors (all current or former chaplains) will dish about the Emmy-winning HBO series and make our pitch for joining the staff of that harried emergency department. Join us April 6 at 1 p.m. EDT. Link.

Happy Friday, Blue Roomies!

Back from a week of vacation/staycation in which I chilled, read, knit, spent a weekend with Robert in Virginia Beach…

…and left the solar system! Cinematically. My husband, daughter, her boyfriend, and I saw the fun, funny, and heartfelt movie adaptation of Project Hail Mary and loved every minute. (Ed Goode and I will break down the movie and talk broader themes this Monday March 30 at 3 p.m. EDT. Link.)

The movie has a lot of heart and laughs, but it’s also a huge creative achievement—it’s a space movie, heavy with science, featuring a five-legged rock-like alien with no face who communicates in whale song. The movie lives or dies by how deeply the audience loves “Rocky” (trust me: they nailed it), but that’s only one of many challenges the filmmakers faced.

Project Hail Mary’s directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have been on a press tour promoting the film. Their conversation on the Big Picture podcast offered a master class in creativity. Here are a few highlights from the interview (no spoilers) with the lessons we can glean from it:

Get clear on your niche.

Lord and Miller like making movies about friendship, the kind of friendship that allows ordinary people to do hard things. They also describe their work as “51% optimistic,” which is probably my favorite fuel mixture, i.e., the task is daunting but worth doing despite the obstacles. But the point is, find what’s yours to do and tackle it.

Lean on your community.

Lord and Miller screened different iterations of the movie a whopping eleven times, asking for comments on the story, the legibility of the science, etc., and then using that feedback to adjust the final product. (It seems important to combine this principle with the previous one; otherwise you lose track of your core concept, and the resulting project becomes a focus-grouped muddle with no vision at the center.)

Challenges are inevitable… maybe even essential.

When asked what was hardest about making the movie, Lord and Miller said, “hard-hard, or fun-hard?” Hmmm! Perhaps the creative life is about accepting that some hard-hard is inevitable, while doing what we can to maximize the fun-hard.

During the interview they shared a story about a friend living with Parkinson’s. Sometimes the friend would get frozen and not be able to take a step forward, and what helped was for a bystander to put their feet right up against his toes. For some reason, having that obstacle in place allowed the person to get unstuck and move forward by stepping over the foot.

Similarly, Lord and Miller relished the problem-solving required to dramatize a sweeping story like this, and the gnarlier the challenge, the better. One of the most visually arresting scenes (spoiler-free hint for those familiar: above the surface of Adrian) was filmed late in the process because it took so many tries for them to come up with the right solution to make it work. One of their crew said, “This was the hardest movie I’ve ever worked on, and I did two Dune movies.”

Embrace messiness—not just in the process but the product.

The movie is a visual triumph, but it also looks very real and lived in. The cinematographer, Greig Fraser, calls himself an imperfectionist, according to Lord and Miller: “He’s always like, I want to find something kind of messy or sloppy or imperfect about the image.” I have an aunt who passed away recently; she was an artist, and one of the last substantive conversations we had was about beauty and how the human eye is drawn not to perfection but to asymmetry.

We’re used to space movies feeling very sterile and clinical, with people floating elegantly in zero gravity as if in a ballet. But people are clumsy in space. You have to push off one surface and without anything to stop you, you’ll crash into the other side. Or without enough momentum, you’ll be stuck hovering in the middle of a room. To capture this chaos, they put Ryan Gosling onto wires and had him play around with the sensation of zero-g, and that fueled a lot of the action and the physical comedy (and pathos) Gosling brings.

Plan carefully… so you can be free.

The movie has a lot of improvised dialogue, which is possible given the careful structure of the story and the relationships between the actors. Those structures are vital “platforms” that allow for play. One of the surprises of improv is how much hidden scaffolding there is—it’s not a free-for-all—and those unspoken rules are what allow the magic to happen.

Follow the energy.

Lord and Miller were asked how they divide responsibilities as a directing duo. Rather than having specific roles, they work more intuitively. “Whoever’s most preoccupied with something in the moment” is the one in charge of that specific piece, which means that passion and conviction drive the work, not an org chart.

Whether we do our creative work in partnership or not, I love the idea of letting one’s energy, one’s “preoccupations,” be a guide for action. Granted it takes a lot of wisdom, maturity, and practice to get to that point. But a focus on energy seems more robust and sustainable—and joyful—than strict boundaries and processes.

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Keep it real.

Much has been written about the character of Rocky not being CGI but a practical effect—a puppet controlled by several people and voiced by one of those puppeteers, James Ortiz. As a result, audiences really feel the relationship between the characters—Gosling wasn’t talking to a tennis ball on a string (which is how they often shoot human actors interacting with visual effects), but communicating with something tangible and physical.

In a recent post about AI, I quoted Matt Shumer’s advice to “lean into what’s hardest to replace.” I said, What is AI not able to replace? Right now, our humanity. Our embodied reality. The tangible experiences of being a physical being in a world filled with other physical beings. Lord and Miller’s decision to make Rocky practical rather than computer-generated is central to the success of the film.

~

Have you seen Project Hail Mary? What did you think?

Or, share something you’ve read or seen recently that inspired you creatively!

Leave a comment

Steady on.

A hearty WELCOME to a big group of new subscribers, particularly the women of Westminster Presbyterian Church, West Chester PA! It was a huge joy to be with you last weekend for your annual retreat. And thanks to new supporting subscriber Jill.

It’s Project Hail Mary week! On the latest Pop Culture Pastors Hour, Ed and I talked about the book, in anticipation of the Ryan Gosling film that is out now.

Here’s the next installment of my series for supporting subscribers on AI and the church:

“My friend and fellow ‘Llama Mama,’ the Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana, is coming out with one heck of a book next month, friends… As an endorser for her new book, I had the privilege of receiving an early digital copy. Friends, how we need this book right now. It’s called Better Than Normal: Virtues for an Off-Script Life.”

Thank you, Arianne, for featuring me in your excellent newsletter, Monday Manna, this week. Your questions about the book were outstanding!

I’m on combined staycation/away-cation this week, so I’m sharing our Q&A with you all. Pre-orders of the book are brisk, and I have my Blue Roomies to thank… so grateful.

Not too late to get your copy—get 40% off when you order directly from the publisher and use the code NORMAL40 (U.S. addresses only). And the Audible version is out NOW!

Here’s the Q&A:

You thoughtfully challenge the idea of “normal” as something harmful rather than helpful. Can you share when you first began to suspect that “normal” was the problem—and what experiences confirmed that for you?

After parenting three kids through a childhood in which they all largely thrived, I had the experience of seeing them all hit a wall in middle school, which caused each of them to struggle with anxiety and depression. There are many complicated reasons for that, and each of their stories is unique. And there were also societal things going on that challenged many folks, such as covid and its aftermath.

But one of the throughlines was the way many of us educate our children, and especially the way education looks where I live: huge high school, a full day of intense learning at the highest level of rigor you can withstand, followed by several hours of homework and extracurriculars which aren’t so “extra” if you want to get into a “good college” and have a “successful life.” That model was terribly burdensome for our particular kids. They are all bright, creative, and want to contribute meaningfully to the world, but those default systems and assumptions were just killing them.

We often treat mental illness as a personal issue—get yourself some therapy and medication and then go back to the world as it is. Therapy and medication were essential for us, but what our kids also needed was a world with way more pathways to thrive than the one right path you either pursue at any cost, or diverge from, only to receive judgment or stigma for not being able to handle it.

And if that was true for our kids, who have many advantages and privileges, it had to be true for people with all kinds of differences, whether race, immigration, class, gender identity, illness and disability, etc. The line attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti was a touchstone for me: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick system.” It will take tremendous faith, will, and work to make our world a place that’s built for broad human flourishing, but as a pastor, part of my job is to help people imagine it’s possible. The book seeks to do that.

You write so beautifully and authentically from the intersection of parenting, pastoring, and lived experience with mental health challenges, sharing so vulnerably from your own family’s experience. How did writing this book change you—as a mother, a pastor, or a person?

Going against the “norm” is a lonely place, whether it’s caring for loved ones who are struggling or carrying any sort of difference yourself. It’s easy to sink into despair and shame: why is this so hard? And yet the more I told our story, the more I encountered people who were going through similar struggles; we just weren’t talking about it publicly enough. It’s been encouraging to meet others who recognize rigid normativity as the burden that it is. But I’m excited at the idea of creating more generous mindsets and systems that can better serve us all. It feels overwhelming at times—there’s a lot of inertia to maintain the status quo. But it feels like awareness is growing that the way things are just isn’t working.

Also, I’m the only one in our family of five who doesn’t have an official diagnosis of some kind of neurodivergence. I like to say I’m the most neurotypical in our family, which isn’t the same as saying I’m neurotypical, because honestly, who knows! Over the years, our kids have learned to trust their inner wisdom, advocate for what they need, and find ways of functioning and even thriving that take their unique quirks and strengths into account. But that’s something we can all do, regardless of our brain chemistry or identity. So walking this journey with my kids has given me permission to listen to my self more and honor my own limits and needs.

I loved your six shifts you offer which move us from scarcity to abundance - embracing curiosity over certainty, courage over comfort, presence over productivity, authenticity over artifice, beauty over blandness, and community over competition. Was there a shift you found to be the hardest for you personally to embrace, and why? How do these shifts work together? Is there one that tends to unlock the others?

I was very intentional in the ordering of the six shifts. Certainty felt like the first thing that had to go, giving way to curiosity. Curiosity feels like the foundation for the rest—simply asking why things are the way they are, and whether things could be different, unlocks a lot of the work for us. Author Daniel Pink lamented years ago that most people will choose false certainty over a genuine ambiguity. I think in this time of dehumanization and violence, as institutions fail and many of the “former things” pass away (to quote one of our biblical prophets), we can be open to consider what’s next.

I also discovered in the process of writing that the first half of the book (curiosity over certainty, courage over comfort, presence over productivity) was pretty individually focused, while the second half (authenticity over artifice, beauty over blandness, and community over competition) covered more communal virtues. This seemed important as well. We do this work first in our own hearts, then in our immediate circles of influence, and hopefully the work radiates outward.

Someone asked me recently my hope for the book. In a moment of raw honesty I blurted out “to change the world.” It feels vulnerable to put it so bluntly. Then again, the Talmud teaches that to save one life is to save the whole world. So maybe with this book I can change the world for one person, and perhaps more than that.

For all the church folk reading Monday Manna...many churches want to be inclusive but struggle to move beyond good intentions. What’s one concrete change that signals a real shift away from “normalcy” thinking?

I really value the work of Amy-Julia Becker around issues of belonging. As a parent, she’s seen the various ways communities have welcomed her daughter Penny, who has Down syndrome, and also the ways even well-intentioned people put up barriers without realizing it. She talks about a continuum ranging from exclusion (we don’t want you here), to tolerance (you can join us or not), to inclusion (you can join us, but don’t expect us to change the way we do things), to belonging (we’re not “us” without you, and we’ll do the work to make that real). I think a lot of churches get stuck in inclusion.

The first place to start is to simply understand “who’s here?” and to get curious about what feels good and what feels hard about people’s participation in your community. I’m a Presbyterian, and our worship is a lot of sitting quietly and listening. Yet I knew we had a lot of kids with ADHD in our congregation. We have a basket of fidgets available as people walk into worship, and for some, having something to play with has been hugely affirming of the way their brains work. And it hasn’t only been kids who’ve used them! Though one kid told her mom that she’s actually excited to come to worship now because we have them available. That’s just one small way we’ve tried to lean into belonging.

Many readers may recognize themselves in the pressure to conform, even if they don’t identify as “outside the margins.” What do you hope those readers take away from this book?

One of my guides in this work is Alok Vaid-Menon, a trans and non-binary artist and activist. Alok often gets asked how straight and cisgender folks can help LGBTQ and especially genderqueer folks. Alok likes to reframe the question from “how can I help you?” to “how can I get free?”: free from the strictures of maleness and femaleness, or whatever collective expectations we’ve all lived under for so long that we accept them without question.

So if you’re someone for whom the world kinda works just fine, yes, we have resources to offer to the work of setting people free. But let’s also consider the possibility that in doing this work, we ourselves will be liberated from the burden of “normal” in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

~

Thank you again, Arianne.

And if you’re not subscribed to Monday Manna, it’s a great start to your week.

Steady on!

First, some big-picture thoughts:

1. This technology is improving, and coming at us, much faster than we’re equipped to handle. Back in the early 2010s I did a bunch of conferences and workshops on technology and the church called Spirituality in the Smartphone Age, and even toyed with writing a book on the topic. Among other things, I talked about Moore’s Law, the idea that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every two years (which corresponds to computers getting faster and more powerful). There’s some discussion over whether Moore’s law still applies, but the point was and is, technology changes at lightning speed, and well, for all our smarts we’re also big dumb primates who may not be ready for what’s coming. (The other stat I remember from that era: 100 hours of footage was uploaded to YouTube every minute. Now it’s 500 hours. Is it any wonder we’re stressed and overwhelmed?)

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2. Despite the public being fairly skeptical of AI, most of the titans of government and industry don’t seem at all interested in regulating it, or even having a moral/philosophical conversation about responsible use. Shoutout to Anthropic for drawing a line in the sand against using their product for mass surveillance and for autonomous weaponry; for that, the Department of Defense is not simply divesting from Anthropic, but trying to destroy the company.

3. The immediate and near-term impacts are much less “the robots will enslave us” and much more “a LOT of white-collar work as we know it is going away.”

All of this said, some of the “AI revolution” may be hype:

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Three days and counting until we get to see Andy Weir’s charming, funny, optimistic, humanity-affirming book brought to life on the screen. In this conversation we recommend some space fiction and discuss our favorite Project Hail Mary themes, our hopes for the film adaptation, and more.

See you March 30 when we take up the movie version of Project Hail Mary. See you at 3 p.m. EDT via this link.

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Happy Friday, Blue Roomies, and welcome to a great crop of new subscribers from this week’s Luminosity Conference, sponsored by the Presbyterian Foundation. What a gift to be with all of you and to share via workshop some of the themes of Better Than Normal. Grateful for folks’ interest, support, and yes, pre-orders. The book drops in one month!

Pre-Order Better Than Normal

This week, I’m excited to share some good and strong words from a friend, who’s edited a book I hope will find its way into many hands. But first, a few housekeeping notes:

Happy Project Hail Mary season to all who celebrate! Ed and I will discuss the book this Monday March 16 at 3 p.m. EDT via Substack Live (link to join) and then the film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling on Monday March 30 at 3 p.m. EDT (link to join). It’s currently 95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. My excitement is sky high for this hope-filled tale of interstellar friendship! Amaze amaze amaze!

Here’s the audio from my sermon last Sunday: a reflection on the feeding of the 5000. (Also listenable via the Blue Room podcast from the podcast app of your choice.)

And finally, it was six years ago today that everything shut down. From the Blue Room archives, here are my ruminations from the three-year anniversary of covid quarantine:

A few years ago, my friend Patrice Gopo asked me to write an endorsement letter for a grant to pursue a project in which Black women explored the thorny complexities of friendship of white women. That was an easy Yes for me—Patrice writes beautifully and honestly. The book is now out, I’ve got my copy, and I hope you’ll pick one up yourself, especially if you’re a white woman. We have work to do. I’m so excited to see where the book goes now that it’s loose in the world.

Patrice Gopo is the editor of the essay anthology We Deserve to Heal: Black Women on the Perils & Promises of Friendship with White Women (University Press of Kentucky). She lives with her family in North Carolina, where she enjoys walks just after dawn and thinks a perfect day ends with ice cream. To learn more, please visit PatriceGopo.com or download the comic-book-style companion essay to We Deserve to Heal.

An Excerpt from “Seven Stones” by Patrice Gopo, Chapter 15:

I awake in the dusky hours when shadowed memories swallow the room. A hushed silence stirs around me, a distant car engine breaking the stillness as I turn and turn again. Puncturing the night, a white friend’s remembered voice, her recent declaration to me about the root of our disagreement. “Patrice, you’re not seeing things clearly.” Her tone even and straightforward, but the words sharp against my ears. “But I am,” she went on to say as if I were a child throwing a tantrum, and she the adult.

These interruptions have become my companion, a return to sleep eluding me the longer I ponder my friend’s . . . What? What would the word be? Boldness? Audacity? Hubris? Tonight, in the groggy quiet, as with past nights and nights still to come, I place this friendship and others with white women beneath the burden of middle-of-the-night ruminating. The ones where conflict ripped into the health of the relationship and left it fractured. This waking pattern is the place where I poke and prod at the friendships. The mind mulls, and the body cannot rest. In these states of ruptured sleep, I pile on the questions, the what-ifs, the mysteries of the past. Why did these friendships break?

To wake, though, is to also recall goodness I can name: the way we could converse about a topic for hours, how we could engage with the reality of racial brokenness and injustice, how we watched each other’s children, how we supported each other’s work endeavors, how we gave each other gifts steeped in thoughtfulness and meaning, how we laughed and laughed, how we took long walks, how we helped empower each other to speak up and take hard—but necessary—action, how we prayed together and ate together and welcomed the intersection of our lives. It is as if everything about these friendships were piled on a scale, the goodness weighing the scale toward health. And yet none of this could overcome the reality of so much else. None of this goodness could be enough to counter the impact of what? I ask myself that night and other nights, the question slipping into my daytime thinking, the question finding me during my morning walks, as I watch a television show, when I’m sweeping the kitchen floor. The impact of conflict. My whispered words become a shout within.

And in the night, I see stones. Stones placed as counterweights to all that was good. Stones that intensify the impact of any conflict. Stones that tilt the plate further from health, past equilibrium, cracking fissures, dragging the creaking scale into the firm realm of fragmentation. There are stones, each with a weight of its own.

Stone One: Discomfort

Moments after I arrived at the community event, a friend told me that a Black woman had just called her “an entitled white woman.” Around where we stood on the lawn, children laughed, families wandered to the various stations, and people lined up for hot dogs—the air was draped in the yawning casualness of outdoor celebration. My friend shared the story, the contours of her eyes wider than normal, her face taking on shock. And I felt the thing I have felt before, the queasy squishing discomfort that overtakes me as I witness a friend’s confusion, maybe even pain. My rush to eliminate the tension of this moment.

After asking a few questions, I told her what I would want to hear, what might move us past this awkward moment, perhaps what I hoped might be true: “I’m sure it had nothing to do with you and was more about what she’s working through.” My response sprung forth, unrestrained, without the time needed to determine if my words were accurate or a statement I believed. There would come days in the future when I would cluster this moment with so many other moments. As I sat at the edge of the couch in my therapist’s office, as I spilled endless blue ink in my journal, as I walked my daily path, I would consider all the ways I split myself apart, declaring out loud what I might realize later didn’t align with my thinking. All in the name of eliminating the pain in another. And the discomfort in me.

In the future, I would probe this ancient pattern of mine. I would fall back to early memories and see the ways I avoided hard moments with others and with me. I would observe how reshaping an interaction to reflect positivity could draw people toward me. A Black girl in a childhood saturated with white. To use words to cushion another’s discomfort eliminated tension and brought people near me. There in the grass, I was still many years from discovering how my discomfort was not an enemy. Instead, discomfort was a friend warning me of my propensity to wrap my sense of safety in my white friend’s well-being. Awareness of my discomfort would become the very thing to begin liberating me.

“I’m sure it had nothing to do with you,” I quickly told my friend that day. My attempt to soothe a stranger’s blistering words and preserve a temporary harmony.

~

Gopo, Patrice, ed. “Seven Stones,” adapted from We Deserve to Heal: Black Women on the Perils and Promises of Friendship with White Women. pp. 110-112. © 2026 Patrice Gopo. Used by permission of The University Press of Kentucky.

Text: Mark 6:32-44

Note for context: this reflection was a lead-in to the first of three all-church conversations we’re having as part of our pastoral transition process.

Thank you for listening!

Housekeeping

I’m preaching this Sunday March 8 at 10:15 a.m. EDT at Trinity Presbyterian, Herndon VA or via their livestream.

Yesterday on Pop Culture Pastors Hour, Ed and I had the absolute joy of talking about Ryan Coogler’s masterpiece Sinners with Marlon Weems of the Journeyman. Listen to the replay here or on your favorite podcast app. And mark your calendars for two Project Hail Mary conversations! We’ll take up Andy Weir’s novel on Monday March 16 at 3 p.m. EDT (link to join) and then the film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling on Monday March 30 at 3 p.m. EDT (link to join).

My new book drops in 39 days! The goal at this stage is to create buzz without burning people out on book news. I’ll have a book nook section of the Blue Room for the next several weeks, including ways people can support the success of Better Than Normal. For now, please consider pre-ordering from Bookshop or any online bookseller you wish, which helps increase its visibility with the almighty algorithms.

And it was a pleasure to be on the Gentle Yoga Warrior’s podcast to talk about the book.

Pre-Order Better Than Normal

A friend who knows my Lenten practice sent along this photo from a family member’s school. This is from a bulletin board sharing what people love about their guidance counselor. Way to go Elliot:

So many intriguing questions. How does Elliot experience the counselor’s humanity? Is she relatable, forgiving, kind? Or perhaps Elliot doesn’t know the counselor much at all and when prompted to write about her, reverted to the one incontrovertible thing Elliot knows, the one thing the two of them share.

About a month ago, I spoke at the APCE conference (pastors and church educators) as one of three daily keynote speakers. The theme of the conference was Jesus’ command to love God and love neighbor as we love ourselves. My plenary took place on “love of self” day, and you can read a news story about the talk here.

On the final morning, the three keynote speakers joined other leaders on stage for a Q&A session. One of the final questions posed to the panel was, What’s something you love about yourself? (It might have even been “What do you love most about yourself?”)

What would you say in response, right now as you read this?

Does something come quickly to mind? Could you list ten things? More? What do you notice when you even consider the question? Does it feel expansive? Gracious? Stressful? Does it poke at a painful place?

Now consider: What would you say if someone asked you this in front of 500 people? How does the answer change with strangers looking on?

In spaces like this, it’s tempting to be strategic, or at least circumspect. Maybe to share something you know others value about you, to show congruence between the inner self and outer persona. Or perhaps you might offer a lighthearted answer at the end of a very full weeklong conference—it’s a pretty personal question, after all.

I didn’t have time to consider such things, and I’m not sure I’d want to be so calculating even if I could’ve thought all that through. Something came instantly to mind and I’ve done enough improv to be comfortable going with it.

When the microphone came around to me, I said something like this:

I’m a One on the Enneagram—we’re known as the Reformers, or the Improvers, or most reductionistically, the Perfectionists. What I love about myself is something that’s true of a lot of people of that type, which is that I try so hard. Doesn’t matter what it is—if it’s important to me I will give it my all. And if that sounds like bragging, it’s actually not, because our greatest gift is often our greatest source of shadow. The love I feel for that aspect of myself isn’t puffed up but tender. I love that part of me in the same way a parent might put a hand on a child’s head and murmur, “Oh honey…” Or the way we experience the love of a friend when we realize they see us more deeply than we even knew, and they respond to that knowing not with judgment but with compassion.

I’ve continued to ponder this answer in the weeks since, and it probably helped lead me to my Lenten practice of being human. No idea how it played in the room, but it was a gift to me personally. That answer has highlighted the ways love gets mixed up with pride, something our culture unwittingly promotes. We are valued for our strengths and gifts, yes, but are those things lovable?

Do I love my husband and kids’ most admirable qualities? I do, but even more, I love the attributes that make them them, the things that, if you removed them, they would no longer be the people I cherish. That I was able to see myself in that same loving light was healing.

I wish the same for each of you reading this.

Steady on.

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~

Link Love

This Human Life, a poem by Maggie Smith:

Coming up on PCPH! Mark your calendars for TWO Project Hail Mary conversations! We’ll take up Andy Weir’s wonderful book on Monday March 16 at 3 p.m. EDT (link to join), then the highly-anticipated film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling on Monday March 30 at 3 p.m. EDT (link to join).

Get more from MaryAnn McKibben Dana in the Substack app

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Welcome, new members of the Blue Room, as well as new supporting subscribers Marcia and Jenn!

Here’s last Sunday’s sermon audio. And Tuesday’s piece for supporting subscribers is here, the first of three planned reflections on AI.

I was a recent guest on the Created Creative podcast, where I talk about the new book and also my writing process (messy as it is). You can listen or watch. Thank you Ruth and Dawn for the conversation!

And coming up this week! Pop Culture Pastors Hour will discuss Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-nominated film Sinners. Ed and I are excited to have with us Marlon Weems, who writes about race, culture, and finance at the Journeyman. Join us Thursday, March 5 at 3 p.m. EST at this link.

“How do you get it all done?”

People ask me this all the time. It’s true I wear a lot of hats, though many of the hats the world sees my sporting are ones I wear part-time, which helps. Of course, I don’t get “it all” done. I say No to a lot of stuff so I can say Yes to other stuff.

But a big part of my practice is to make the most of the time I have. This mindset was honed over years of raising busy kids and learning how to, say, work on a book chapter while waiting at a cello lesson. Posts I write for the Blue Room test out ideas that later turn into book projects. A stray quote or anecdote I read bolsters the sermon I’ve had simmering in the mental crock pot. Over the years, I’ve fallen into a way of living in time that, when done well, feels organic and tastes juicy rather than desiccated and flavorless.

Remember parkour? Also known as free-running, parkour used to be everywhere on the Internet and action movies. The goal of parkour is to move through an urban area as fluidly and imaginatively as possible: running up walls, sliding down bannisters, jumping down stairs into a forward roll, then getting up and continuing on. It’s stunning stuff.

After Sabbath in the Suburbs came out, I got invited to lead a lot of events about the book. I loved those events because in addition to talking about sabbath specifically—the regular practice of rest, play and renewal—I also zoomed out and talked about time in general: how we measure it, for good and for ill; how we move within it; how we make peace with its finitude.

I would often show groups this video for discussion. We’d talk about how the athlete/artist interacts with the world around him, not as objects or obstacles, but as opportunities to express creativity and play1:

The Jesus we meet in the gospels exhibits a kind of spiritual parkour—snatching some moments of rest as followers hunt for him, interrupting his sabbath time to teach and heal, etc. He seems to always know what each moment requires: pithy teachings and long sermons, wordless encounters and deep conversations. Tears at the death of a friend he didn’t make it home in time for. An unhurried final meal.

I’ll never do it as well as Jesus, but that’s what I mean by living well in time.

The problem is that making the most of one’s time can easily slide into optimizing. Which starts to feel more frantic than flowing, more mechanical than human (and remember, my Lent practice is to be a human being).

One morning recently I found myself with back-to-back meetings, the first on Zoom and the second in person at church. This gave me a choice of either driving to church first thing and taking them both there, or taking the Zoom meeting at home, then making the short drive to the church just in time for the second one. The second option would have cut things a little close between meetings, but would have given me 45 minutes of uninterrupted time before everything began, which is almost unheard of on a random weekday morning.

I won’t tell you what I chose, because the choice doesn’t matter. What matters is that I used my Lent focus as the guide: what is the most human-scale way to move through the elements of my day?

What comes to mind when you consider this question? I’d love to hear.

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And before I sign off—I’d be remiss if I didn’t share the other parkour video I often shared with groups. The version that often resembles my reality, and perhaps yours too. And that’s OK. Enjoy:

Parkour parkour!

Steady on!

Thanks for listening.

Being human means loving unreservedly.
Being human means there’s no such thing as a “guilty” pleasure or a “lazy” day.
Being human means not being God, not having the answers, not squeezing in one more email after my body has said to stop.
Being human means exploring my own limitations, not as a frustration but as a grace.
Being human means I have something that connects me with every other human on this planet, even if I can’t imagine what it is.

As a practice, it’s been simple and meaningful. On the one hand, it’s something I’ve done for literally my entire life. I can’t not be human. And yet, to wake up each morning and say “I am a human being” is unexpectedly touching… and clarifying in terms of what’s mine to do each day.

And also, it’s impossible to consider this practice without contrasting it with the most radical technological shift we currently face, one that brings our humanity into sharp focus, which is AI. AI has been created by humans, yet we’re still seeking to understand it. Even the creators aren’t always clear on how it works. And, the time is coming soon when AI will be programming entirely new versions of itself.

Is AI value-neutral like many other tools? Is it something that, used well, can help us live better? Or is AI not like any other tool we’ve created? Does it represent a category difference from even sophisticated inventions like the smartphone?

As a pastor, writer, and thinker, I’ve been considering these questions for some time, and am only beginning to get my mind around what these shifts will mean for us. Today I want to think about the impacts of AI on the self.

I know writers who are very public in their pledge that they will never ever ever ever ever (ever!) use AI in their writing. That feels unnecessarily draconian1. In fact let me make two admissions:

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Welcome to brand-new subscribers from First Presbyterian Church, Wilmington NC, and to new supporting subscriber Sara!

I’m preaching this Sunday February 22 at 10:15 a.m. at Trinity Presbyterian, Herndon VA and via our livestream.

On the morning of Ash Wednesday, I woke up with absolute clarity on what my Lent was going to be about.

My inbox and social media feeds were already stuffed with invitations to various Lenten practices, complete with bespoke hashtags, glossy graphics, and promises of daily (!) articles, courtesy of the Guru Industrial Complex which had cranked into high gear.

Any shade I’m throwing at the GIC splashes back onto me, by the way. I have a book coming out on April 14, nine days after Easter, and my publisher would probably like me to find a way to point there thematically. A Better Than Normal Lent?

(I mean, I think it’s a good book though, and I hope you’ll pre-order it)

Pre-Order Better Than Normal

And as a One on the Enneagram, I never met a self-improvement project I didn’t like. I’m really good at smuggling personal renovations into the season of Lent, which at its best should be about relinquishing ego and focusing the spirit. That’s why some people give up certain foods, for example—not as a spiritual weight-loss program but to cultivate simplicity, awareness, and gratitude. One of those aforementioned gurus likes to say that Lent, with its inexorable pilgrimage toward the cross, is the one time the church acknowledges what it’s like to be on the losing team. In a world bent on making everything great again, few things are more countercultural than this penitent season that begins with our mortality on ashy display then proceeds, purple as a bruise. But the more countercultural something is—the more taut the elastic between the world as it is and the world as it can be—the greater the sting when the band suddenly snaps. Proceed with care, Blue Roomies.

Anyway, I woke up on the first day of Lent with this simple sentence, fully formed:

I don’t know where it came from, but I’ll cup it in the palm of my hand like a sweet little morsel from God/the Universe/the Great Whatever.

No giving something up. No taking something on. No promises to post on a certain schedule. No worries about missing a day. Like the gurus, I invite you to join me, but you can join me in the spirit of putting something you’ve already done on your to-do list, just for the pleasure of crossing it off. Unless you’re an AI agent or a sentient cat, you’ve already fulfilled this Lenten intention. If you whisper Alleluia, I won’t tell.

The longer I sit with it, the more intrigued I am to see where it takes me.

Being human means loving unreservedly.

Being human means there’s no such thing as a “guilty” pleasure or a “lazy” day.

Being human means not being God, not having the answers, not squeezing in one more email after my body has said to stop.

Being human means exploring my own limitations, not as a frustration but as a grace.

Being human means I have something that connects me with every other human on this planet, even if I can’t imagine what it is.

Being human means knowing this existence will end one day. Not just my own life, but everything we see, which can either terrify us or thrust us into gratitude, as it did for the late poet Brian Doyle whose piece crossed paths with mine this week:

What does being a human being feel like for you today? Please share with the Blue Room community of fellow humans:

Leave a comment

Steady on.