Living the Book
tougher than writing it
There’s writing the book, and then there’s living the book.
I felt this acutely in 2019. Caroline was in the throes of a major mental health crisis. It was a year after God, Improv, and the Art of Living came out, and every day was a new improvisation, a new yes-and. Much of it was stuff we really didn’t want to say yes to (oh hey: not enough people talk about depression as a life-threatening illness), but what choice did we have? The only way out was through, and the only way to keep it all under control was to admit we had none. I would do speaking events about the book, and encounter these nervous Nellies and Neils, intrigued by improv but petrified to go off script, to loosen their grip and step into not knowing. So much anxiety at a low simmer, so much clamoring to have it all locked down and managed and I wanted to yell PEOPLE. I’m telling you. This Is The Only Way.
It’s not 2019 anymore. Thankfully the college kid is thriving… kicking ass, even, in a splendidly imperfect way. A week before Thanksgiving, there’s so much to be grateful for. But I don’t mind telling you, the Danas are in the big thick of it. Some of it’s familiar, some of it’s new terrain. We’ve pushed off the bottom of the pool but it’s a long way up. Add to that the mismatched patchwork squares that make up the crazy quilt of everyday life: A minivan on its last legs. Vocational stuff. Bills. Appointments. Extended family. As I said recently, a 500-piece puzzle with 600 pieces in the box. I woke up the other morning and this was my first thought as I came to consciousness: I run a tight ship as a way of coping with my own anxiety. I can’t do that right now, so I need to find other ways. Rarely have I been so cogent before my daily Wordle.
Meanwhile there’s Hope: A User’s Manual, which I wrote and now get to live.
As I write this on Thursday evening, I’m resting my voice after three hours spent recording the audio version of the book. I’ll be back in the studio Friday afternoon to finish up. It was fun and interesting and unexpectedly grueling. (Preachers of 15-minute sermons, imagine doing that twelve times in a row, but all of your expressiveness must come from your voice, while your body remains quite still. I’m not complaining, but yeeouch.)
It seemed ironic to remain so motionless while recording, especially during the “body” section, which is where I finished up today. A group at church has been studying the book and they just discussed that section. “The group struggled with it,” the leader reported afterward. I’m not surprised, because I struggle with it too. Presbyterians are very good up in our heads. But as I wrote in the introduction to that section, “Hope is embodied, or it is nothing at all. …Do we believe that our bodies—their strengths and their frailties—are vessels for hope? And if we do, what does that mean for how we live in them and care for them?”
I run a tight ship as a way of coping with my own anxiety. I can’t do that right now, so I need to find other ways.
I felt unexpectedly light when I had that thought, because I realized, there are other ways. (Certainly better ones than white-knuckling it all the time.) Right now, I’m accepting Mary Oliver’s invitation to “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”: Ice cream for dinner. The Good Place reruns with Robert before bed. My practice of daily “dayenu” (see last week’s article). Runs that last only as long as I want them to. Walks, when runs are too much to manage. Good immersive work sometimes, cancellations and pajamas other times. Melody Beattie’s The Language of Letting Go. “The Wood Song” by the Indigo Girls, reminding me that a tight ship never gets you where you need to be.
And the conviction, sometimes against the evidence, that all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Steady on.
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What I’m Up To
The work continues. I’m preaching this Sunday morning at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Herndon VA at 10:15 Eastern time. Livestream here. And I’ll be in Birmingham AL on Friday December 2 for an event I’m calling “Hope All the Way Down.” Learn more here.
After a long hiatus, the Blue Room podcast will be back in 2023. I’ve got a number of interviews scheduled with some fascinating people over the next few weeks, then we’ll go into editing. Season 2 will be a bit of a read-along to Hope: A User’s Manual, so it’s a great time to get the book, and also catch up on season 1.
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Link Love
“Wrought” is a 20-minute film that calls itself “a visual exploration of matter in various states of microbial transformation.” That is: decay. The video is captivating and arresting and a little disturbing and incredibly well done–the narration is deep and poetic and the photography is mind-blowing. If you’re super squeamish, maybe skip it. But if you’re like me and find the idea of compost deeply fascinating, give it a look.
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P.S. Continued thanks to new paid subscribers… your support lifts my spirits!