A Church for Starving Artists

When I lived in Charlotte, I called the offices of both senators from the great state of North Carolina every day. “I’m Jan Edmiston, a Presbyterian Pastor living in Charlotte and I am asking you to . . . ”

I asked them to vote against the confirmation of certain people who seemed ill-equipped to serve. I asked them to hold leaders accountable when they went off the rails. I asked them to be brave in spite of the fact that standing up to Power might result in being primaried or threatened.

Even after one of those senators announced his retirement, he continued to be fearful. One day he would write an editorial speaking in favor of sanity and kindness. The next day he would vote the opposite way. Did he worry that a post-senate career in consulting might be damaged? Was he fearful that his political friends and neighbors might turn on him?

Now he wants us to buy his book. Now he shares stories of regret. Now he writes about the times he challenged the President. Now he discloses that many who serve our nation oppose the cruelty and the foolishness coming from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, but they are afraid to cross party leaders.

It makes me angry to listen to him as makes the rounds promoting his book.

It would have been brave to speak up in 2025. Sharing his second thoughts now to sell a book with a pithy title feels cheap. If he had feared God more than human leaders, he could have prevented adding to the world’s instability.

The world is indeed wobbly and not just because earth is shaped like an oblate spheroid.

Fraternity assaults. Bombed buses in Ukraine. Nonstop strikes in Gaza. Infrastructure destruction in Southern Lebanon. Unspeakable trauma from the October 7 attacks. Famine in Sudan. Unconstitutional immigrant detainments in for-profit warehouses. Terrified innocents in Haiti and Myanmar. Domestic unrest in France. Ugly political ads desperately mischaracterizing candidates. Preemptive accusations of voter fraud. The Rule of Law mocked every day.

It was just announced by the Pentagon that the execution of a military inmate will be livestreamed for public consumption next month. This is what terrorist nations do. What have we become?

It’s no wonder that we disengage and numb out. It’s no wonder we don’t have the energy to care beyond our private circles. And also, we are afraid. We are afraid to speak up when we know innocent people are being terrorized, maybe even in our own hometowns. We are afraid to stand up against the culture of our communities even if that culture is racist.

What if . . .

• We’re called names by people we love? (Woke. An Agitator. A Radical. A Fool. A Do-Gooder. A Dreamer.)
• We lose opportunities? (A future job. Membership in a certain club.)
• We are ostracized by our friends and family? (You voted for a Democrat? You voted for a Republican?)
• We are misunderstood? (Yes, I’m pro-choice but I don’t treat abortion lightly. Yes, I’m a Christian and I support trans kids.)

Maybe we need to pray for the kind of faith that makes us brave enough to do the right thing, especially when there is a social or economic cost. Imagine caring more about what God thinks and less about what our friends, family and colleagues think of us.

We are called – CALLED – to be sure-footed in this wobbly world and we can only do that if we take the courage God offers. Our bravery comes from remembering our ancestors who fought for what is right, even if they never saw the fruits of their struggles. Our bravery comes from the God whose Spirit is with us, if we’ll accept it.

Courage is risky. But – God help me – I want to take the courage God offers us to do the right thing today. The upcoming elections, the protests against everyday cruelty, the financial donations we give that align with our faith, the sacrifices that present themselves to stand with vulnerable people – all are opportunities to be courageous in the name of the LORD. Let’s take them.

Image is a “ghost sign” painted on the brick wall of the old Courage Brewery near the Borough Market in London. I love that it says “take courage” rather than “have courage.”

I wrote in 2018 about the blessings of having a female pastor. This morning I met with one of my new favorite female pastors and we compared notes on our experiences – mine as a retired clergywoman after 42 years of ordained ministry and she – a much younger clergywoman living in the thick of it while raising children, doing laundry, and serving her congregation faithfully. She loves her church. She loves her family. She is – frankly – quite wonderful. I’m also guessing that she is particularly exhausted, not just because she is a pastor, but because she is a female pastor.

When I was leaving parish ministry in 2011, I had been serving individual congregations for 27 years. In that time, I had also given birth and raised our kids, did the laundry, driven to soccer games, cooked dinners, etc. My spouse, fondly known as HH, is one of the only men I know who made professional sacrifices for his family in that he and I each worked part-time when our children were little. While his male friends were moving up the ladder, he was juggling all the things I was juggling. He is the best of men.

Nevertheless, when we were co-pastors, we started noticing something that seemed to have to do with our genders. My husband has an approachable personality. He is a good listener. He is empathetic. He is not judgey.

And yet, I was the go-to person for every personal situation our parishioners encountered whether it involved cancer, child protective services, stalkers, putting the cat down, or job changes. The walk between the Pastors’ Study we shared and the sanctuary was less than 50 steps. It took HH about 2 minutes to make that journey. It often took me 15 minutes – and that was because people stopped me along the way to share everything from news about a scary mammogram to an invitation to take a quick look at their honeymoon pictures.

Again: I was on my way into leading worship. There was no one who – in a million years – would have stopped HH on his way to the chancel to show him photos.

Are clergywomen considered Girlfriends? Church Moms? Sisters? I remember talking with a friend who happens to be a female attorney and she said that – yes – some clients talk with her like they are talking to a best friend. My internist back in Charlotte was a young mom and I asked her once if her patients talked with her differently than they talked with male doctors. For what it’s worth, she said yes.

Full disclosure: I’m making many assumptions and generalities here. Not all clergywomen are warm and approachable. Not all clergymen are taciturn and reserved. But just this week, I needed stitches in an ER after a dumb fall and every female doctor/nurse/tech and I had a friendly rapport that I wouldn’t have had with male medical staffers. The CAT Scan tech and I compared notes on the joy of never changing our earrings because we both wear gold hoops. The nurse (with 6+ piercings) overheard us and commented as we returned to my ER bay that the tiny backs on her earrings were so hard to remove. Another nurse commented on my cute top.

Does this happen – ever – with male people? Again, I am speaking in broad stereotypes.

So, aside from what it’s like for other female professionals, clergywomen are different. There are things I’ve dealt with in ministry that no clergyman I know has ever dealt with, and I know hundreds of male clergy. I might know a thousand male clergy. But every clergywoman I know has dealt with similar pastoral experiences. Not even Shonda Rimes could make up the stories that my sisters in ministry have experienced.

• Almost all of us have been in danger at some point. A scary guy once came into the church building where I was working and threatened me with a knife. I received death threats after a handful of church conflicts.
• Almost all of us have had men make comments about our clothing, our hair, our bodies. On the way out of worship one Sunday, a male parishioner said – out loud – that he had had a dream about me the night before and I was wearing an outfit that I don’t feel comfortable describing here.
• Almost all of us have dealt with an array of situations in a single morning that include quite a variety of life experiences. On a given day, I might counsel a woman whose being harassed by her supervisor, sit with a widow while she chose her husband’s casket, and pack up some housing items for a refugee family. To be clear, we had trained elders, deacons, and others who often accompanied me in these tasks. But often it was just me.

On my last day as a parish pastor, someone asked me what I would do that first week I was gone. And I said, with all seriousness, that I would probably sleep for the next month. I was exhausted. She responded by saying, “Why are you so tired?” And the answer is “Because – honestly – nobody really knows what we do all day.” Clergywomen carry the emotional weight of a congregation in ways that most clergymen do not.

In the course of my ministry, I have held the hand of a woman while she gave birth, been asked to offer my blessing before a man asked a woman to marry him (as if I’m the Father of the Bride and it’s the 1970s), calmed a sobbing military officer because her own commanding officer was threatening her if she didn’t have sex with him, mediated an unplanned encounter between married couple and his on-the-side girlfriend in somebody’s kitchen, sat beside a parishioner as he told his parents he was gay, helped a single mom review film footage of her potential child in an orphanage in Asia looking for possible health questions, sat in my study with a bipolar man off his meds while he told me he was “tired of being Jesus” and slicing his hands with a knife, dismantled an altar dedicated to me in the church’s front yard created by a man from one of the AA groups, made twenty lattes for female prisoners in a court-sanctioned NA meeting in the church parlor because they couldn’t leave the room to get their own coffees.

My breakfast companion today wondered out loud if people who staff male pastors are hired to support the male pastor, while people who staff female pastors are hired to support the mission of the church. Think about it.

Now it sounds like I’m complaining, but actually I have loved professional ministry. It’s simply exhausting.

In these first months after my retirement, I find myself sleeping more than I’ve ever slept in my life. I’m talking naps. I’m talking first coffee at 10 am. I shared this truth with my therapist wondering if it was unhealthy to be sleeping so much and she said, “Consider this: you are back from The Great War. Of course you’re exhausted.” I’m not sure that professional ministry was war, but there were battles, often involving how I use my time.

My hope is that this post generates some conversation. Are clergywomen different?

Image from Young Clergywomen International. Note: I’m using lots of binary gender words here. Please forgive me. In this context, I wasn’t sure how else to write this post.

No. I believe there is still a movement in the world – and in our country – to do the right thing even if it means being called a traitor or crossing party lines or being condemned to hell – which is now an everyday response from those with whom we disagree.

Our current President isn’t the first to call his political enemies “vermin” or “the enemy of normal Americans.” Newt Gingrich wrote his 1990 GOP Memo called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control” to be used to train political candidates in how to communicate “more effectively.” Among it’s teachings:

Apply these (words) to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party:

decay, failure (fail) collapse(ing) deeper, crisis, urgent(cy), destructive, destroy, sick, pathetic, lie, liberal, they/them, unionized bureaucracy, “compassion” is not enough, betray, consequences, limit(s), shallow, traitors, sensationalists, endanger, coercion, hypocrisy, radical, threaten, devour, waste, corruption, incompetent, permissive attitude, destructive, impose, self-serving, greed, ideological, insecure, anti-(issue): flag, family, child, jobs; pessimistic, excuses, intolerant, stagnation, welfare, corrupt, selfish, insensitive, status quo, mandate(s) taxes, spend (ing) shame, disgrace, punish (poor…) bizarre, cynicism, cheat, steal, abuse of power, machine, bosses, obsolete, criminal rights, red tape, patronage.

Because of the demonization of our neighbors (and both political parties are guilty of this) our Congress has become ineffective, our friendships have become more narrowly hive-minded, our churches have divided. The congregation I served for many years outside Our Nation’s Capital had members who had served every administration since Ford. Today – while it’s still a great church – there is much less political diversity in the pews.

There are Southern Baptists who believe that Mainline Christians believe are enemies of the LORD. And there are Mainline Christians who believe that their Southern Baptist neighbors are too hateful to call themselves Followers of Jesus. What I am saying: The Bible is an equal opportunity offender. We all fall short of God’s glory. We all have something to learn from each other. What I’m NOT saying: there are some denominations that are holier than others. Every spiritual community in every faith has righteous and unrighteous people – and most of us are both.

We are either too tired or too conflict averse or – and this is the worst – too indifferent to have friends, leaders, and neighbors who disagree with us. We don’t love each other enough to fight for what’s right. We don’t value each other as Children of God enough to speak up when we see cruelty and disrespect. We don’t take the time to listen to each other before we bark at each other.

Has the fire to do the right thing been forever extinguished in our nation? Call me naive, but as I hear people prepare to vote in November, I hear hopeful voices. More and more people are saying that we can come together, that some government actions (even in America) must be stopped, that cruel leaders must be held accountable. For people of faith, this has everything to do with God. Serious reading of our holy scriptures make it clear that we were created to love and serve God and each other.

I am hopeful. And I’m also tired – but not nearly as tired as those activists who’ve been trying to light fires under all of us who are complacent. Our urgent calling is to be more inspired by the love of God than frightened by the hate of powerful people.

Love is the strongest force in the universe. One of our political candidates keeps repeating that statement as he campaigns. I think he might actually get elected.

Do you remember
The 21st night of September?
Love was changin’ the minds of pretenders
While chasin’ the clouds away

The song “September” makes everyone want to dance. It was written by Maurice White (pictured) and Allee Willis – and although it was released in 1978, it continues to be played at countless wedding receptions. Eian Rivera dances to it in airports, parks and through the aisles of Walmart.

I was thinking about this song today and wondering what “love was changin’ the minds of pretenders” meant to the writers. It’s about romantic love and love’s ability to alter the minds of people who pretend like they don’t need it.

Obviously we all need love. We need authentic, unconditional love. It’s what gives life meaning. It’s the foundation of the teachings of Jesus, even though many followers of Jesus seem to believe that his teachings are more about exclusion, judgement, and transactions. (If we do this, God will do that.) Obviously there are consequences for bad/cruel/selfish behavior. But the God I believe in has created a world in which grace trumps sin. (Sorry.)

As many of us – from journalists to psychologists to politicians to regular folk – try to process the actions of our current President, my ongoing theory is that he has never experienced unconditional love. He has never experienced the grace of being loved just because he exists. I’m not sure his parents, his wives, his children, his business partners, his fans have ever loved him beyond what he could give to them or withhold from them.

I pray for that guy every day and not because I’m a good person. I pray for him because only the love of God can change him. In spite of all the power and the money and the women and the bluster, he is a lost child of God.

It really ticks me off. But Jesus taught that we must pray for our enemies and those who persecute us. And not only pray for them. Love them. Ugh. It’s infuriating.

So today – on the 21st day of September – I’m remembering that God loves Donald Trump. Dammit.

A friend gave me Sarah Longwell’s new book about how we as a divided nation might move forward, especially as elections are closely upon us and then – probably immediately – we’ll be looking at the 2028 elections. I’m already exhausted.

But please read this book.

I encourage you to read it if you feel despair about the politics of these days. And because I might be retired but my brain still filters everything through a Church lens, it’s also informative for the Church.

Sarah Longwell spends most of her time listening to people in political focus groups which must be endlessly fascinating and often frustrating. I’m not sure I could keep my mouth shut when people express views like “the Muslims are trying to bring sharia law to our state.” But she does. She listens to people who love our current President, people who voted for him but do not love him, people who loathe him, and people who don’t really care.

One my favorite comments she makes is this: ‘if it were a drinking game every time focus group participants said they were voting for “the lesser of two evils,” everyone would be dead.’ No matter what your political proclivities might be, our political system is clearly broken. Both political parties are broken.

So . . . how can we who love this country but feel exasperated/infuriated/disgusted/heartbroken over what’s happening in our nation – no matter where we land on the political spectrum – find hope? Sarah has learned things from talking with a wide variety of our neighbors and we – in the Church – could stand to learn these things too and then act upon them.

[Note to Church Book Study Groups: we pride ourselves in staying informed and then we go home feeling smarter but nothing ever changes. Imagine if – with every novel, Bible story, or non-fiction book we read – our behavior changes a tiny bit for the better.]

Lessons from How to Eat an Elephant:

• “The easiest way to build community is to be a community.” We talk about our “Church Family” and yet we are so busy and distracted that we might miss it when people in our chosen family are hurting. We treat prayer lists more like gossipy news sources rather than reaching out with practical support. We ignore certain family members when they annoy us. We give the stink eye to non-conformists. We treat those dealing with certain traumas as if they are contagious. The blessing of being in community is that we are not alone in our traumas, our doubts, our very bad days. (Yes, God is with us but also we are called to be with each other.)
• We need to retire people and programs that are keeping us stuck. I’m not just talking about chronological age here. I know some 40-something pastors who will not let go of the annual church BBQ even though everyone hates doing it. I’m talking about being A Bake Sale Church in an AI Fundraising World. I’m talking about being able to share clearly and succinctly why we do what we do as followers of Jesus. The average age of a pastor in my denomination is 54, and again, chronological age is not the issue. If our leaders are not connected to “modern life, modern challenges, modern communication” God’s people are missing out on opportunities to be the Church.
• “What would you do if your life depended on it?” This is the question one of Sarah Longwell’s mentors asked her when she went to him with a problem. Our calling is urgent but we don’t act like it’s urgent. But people are starving for hope and connection and authenticity. This is the season in Church when we are starting a new program year. For our Jewish neighbors, it’s literally a new year. Do we look upon the upcoming season with dread or disinterest? Or are we excited for the possibilities? What would we be willing to do to protect immigrants, mentor someone seeking guidance, feed people who are having a hard time affording groceries? Political people want to restore democracy. Christian people want to expand the Reign of God. Life is short. We have work to do.
• Are we feeding “The Good Wolf” or “The Bad Wolf:? Sarah shares this Cherokee parable:

One evening, a grandfather sat down with his grandson. “My son,” he said, “Inside us all, there is a battle between two wolves. One is good: It is joy, peace love, hope, serenity, kindness, empathy, generosity, compassion, faith, and truth. The other is evil. It’s is anger, envy, jealousy, sorry, regret, greed, resentment, superiority, arrogance, self-pity, and lies” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked. “Which wolf wins?” The grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”

How do we feed The Good Wolf in our spiritual communities? Be The Church. Know why we exist. Be confident in our mission to love God and our neighbor. Worship, pray AND actively serve. Don’t be fake. We are not supposed to be “Christian Influencers” who share our awesome and amazing spiritual lives while – behind the scenes – we yell at the kids and drink too much and depend on a team of therapists and meds to keep it going. Claim who we really are and admit that we need a Savior and each other.

Read Sarah’s book, both for the political tools and for the spiritual connections. And have a great week.

Some are probably tired of hearing about it. Some were not yet born. Some are living with physical symptoms from breathing the air. Some still weep.

The article below showed up on my feed this past week from the first anniversary of 9/11 (2002) when the church I was serving at the time lit 3000 candles on the front lawn and in the sanctuary to remember that we shared a trauma and were also united in working towards healing. It’s a day when our church, our community, and our nation were united in empathy. May it be so again – but please God – without the tragedy.

HH and I sat with a beloved parishioner in her apartment many years ago as she was preparing to move into an assisted living facility in another state. She had once lived in a spacious custom built home with a spectacular backyard large enough to host the entire congregation. “This is what my life has become,” she said, surrounded by boxes. “I can pack my whole life into just a few boxes.” Clearly she didn’t have dementia. She knew she was saying goodbye to her former life.

HH and I have now moved four times in our marriage and with each move I have increasingly donated or tossed more possessions. Our current home is a 1031 square foot apartment with dramatically less closet space than we had in Charlotte.

I am the heartless one. “Who needs six pie plates?” But I live with someone who has a memory of every pie plate.

(That’s an exaggeration, but not by much.)

This post is about two things: saying goodbye to our stuff and saying goodbye to institutions we’ve loved.

About the stuff: Dr. Yolanda Pierce says that the difference between treasures and trash is that treasures have a story. Those pieces of broken glass might look like trash, until we realize that they came from the stained glass windows of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama the day white terrorists set off a bomb that killed four little girls. They are forever treasured, now displayed in the Museum of African American History and Culture in Our Nation’s Capital. But the broken Coke bottle from a family reunion in 1982 probably doesn’t need to be saved.

It hurts to give away items with a story. Even though the clock is broken, we remember who gave us the clock. Even though Grandpa has been dead for 40 years, it hurts to throw away his moth eaten brown sweater because we remember when he wore it. If the sweater is in good shape, someone else could wear it (i.e. give it away.) If the clock cannot be repaired, nobody will need it (i.e. throw it away.) Note: if you don’t have the heart to do this kind of gleaning yourself, invite someone like me to come over.

I’ve noticed that we lie to old people moving into smaller spaces. “Sure, we’ll donate this mini-fridge” we tell them, but then it goes into the dumpster. But they can rest easy believing someone will use it in the future.

We all know that saying goodbye to our stuff is about grief for times that have passed. How wonderful that we have those memories though: when we won the trophy, spread the tablecloth, read the book in high school. If we are lucky, the memories remain clear and we can thank God.

About the institutions: I am in a never-ending furor these days about institutions that I and tens of thousands of others have loved and appreciated in Our Nation’s Capital that are being defaced and/or torn down for no good reason. I remember our young children’s faces when Tinklebell flew over the stage at The Kennedy Center. I remember getting everybody up early to see the cherry blossoms before the crowds every spring, and telling our children that they were a gift from Japan. Word has it that on this very day – September 4 in the year of our LORD 2026 – a team of people are examining the roundabout between The Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery in preparation for erecting a massive arch that only one person seems to want. It makes me feel sick.

I’ve also known church buildings that were once the site of weddings and baptisms and funerals being torn down after decades of unaddressed maintenance issues. Money pits that haven’t had proper heating for years get bulldozed for affordable housing. Or the little church in the country with less than ten members, now worshipping in a tiny classroom because the sanctuary roof leaks so badly that the walls are covered in mold. And because of the location, nobody buys the property and the building deteriorates until it collapses along with all the memories.

We all know that saying goodbye to institutions is about grief for times that have passed. It makes us angry when it didn’t have to happen. Different decisions in the past could have opened possibilities for a different future. Or – in times of war or political narcissism – we rage against unnecessary violence. Still we thank God for what was.

I have no easy answers about saying goodbye to things. Usually, it’s not about the things; it’s about the people connected with the things. I have a good cry (a really ugly one) and then I toss the box of love letters between my parents. I don’t need 50 of them. I only need one, and that single love letter will one day be tossed or lost. And then I thank God for my parents and friends who have passed and children who have grown up. This is life. Being thankful helps.

AI image of Marie Kondo being sad to say goodbye to her stuff.

“Last time I hired you, it was for all the wrong reasons. This time, I absolutely wanted you for the right ones.” Rebecca to Ted Lasso, Season 4

Every organization has a culture and I’ve been obsessed with the culture of religious institutions for a long time. Although it’s usually the Head of Staff, the CEO, the President, or the Chief of an organization who sets the culture for an organization, I’ve seen powerful culture shifters among – in a church context – a single elder, a Christian educator, an organist, or an Associate Pastor.

I’ve witnesses church cultures in which:

• There was no energy (because the lead pastor had no energy)
• Everybody walked on eggshells (because the church bullies might unexpectedly explode if they don’t get their way )
• Office doors were rarely left open (because the staff didn’t speak to each other)
• Door slamming was the norm (because everybody was angry)
• People loved “coming to church” (because the leaders were clear about the mission and the mission was lifechanging)
• Staff members regularly help each other when somebody’s plate is too full (because they were a team more interested in building the Kingdom than tending to egos)
• Generosity was the standard (because people saw the concrete difference their generosity made)

Many of our congregations are hiring/calling new leaders these days. For the love of God please hire/call them for the right reasons (vision, energy, imagination, joyfulness, collaboration) and don’t hire them for the wrong reasons (appearance, special relationship with a church member, pedigree, resume, in order to sabotage the mission.)

Rebecca hired Ted originally to sabotage the mission. She hired him the second time for his ability to create a life-giving culture. We can still learn from Ted Lasso in Season Four.

Yes. We have good reasons and not-so-good reasons.

According to Merriam-Webster, lying is “the act of saying something you know is not true to trick someone else.” It’s the definition of disinformation.

Misinformation is sharing information that we believe is true which might not actually be true. (Note: People who say that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute or the sin at Sodom was about homosexuality might honestly believe those statements, but neither is Biblically true.)

There are lies that ruin lives. There are lies that save lives.

It feels like lying is more rampant these days, but that’s probably because we can track lies almost instantly using digital media. Fiction would be less interesting – from Odysseus to Mayella Ewell – if characters didn’t lie.

Nevertheless it also feels like a spiritual crisis these days.

• Political leaders declare under oath that they will or will not take a specific action, and then they break their word minutes after swearing in.
• Aspirants think nothing of padding their resumes.
• (And I’m intentionally offering a partisan view here) The so-called “leader of the free world” told a documented 30,573 lies during his first term, according to The Washington Post.

Jimmy Carter ran on this pledge in 1976:

“I’ll never tell a lie, I’ll never make a misleading statement, I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you has in me.”

Historians have a hard time pinning down a lie Carter might have shared, but – ironically – some religious leaders perpetuated lies both before and during the Carter Administration. It wasn’t the beginning of political disinformation and it obviously wasn’t the end.

Is there any hope for bolstering our willingness to tell the truth? How do we share The Truth of our faith while also deceiving each other in Church World? Pastor Nominating Committees withhold conflicts from candidates they interview. Pastoral Candidates always tell Search Committees that they lead “collaboratively” whether they do or not. We advertise that “all are welcome” but we don’t truly mean everyone.

There are quite a few lies told in church.

Nevertheless, the feeling that happens when we are told the truth – by political candidates, by Pastoral Nominating Committees, by preachers feels inspiring. Telling the truth often brings growth and positive change. (“You seem unhappy in this volunteer role. What do you sense God is calling you to do next?”) I increasingly love it when leaders speak difficult truths. I’m finding that I lose patience when friends and family withhold truths from each other.

What I’m not saying: Bring a hammer to a family/office/community meeting and take no prisoners.

What I am saying: We must speak the truth in love to each other. It’s healthier in the long run.

• Don’t marry the city person when you’re secretly a small town person.
• Don’t accept the call to a church that won’t accept your LBGTQ+ child.
• Don’t call a pastor who looks good on paper but one of the references shared that they don’t work well with women.
• Don’t avoid sharing hard but essential information with loved ones because they will eventually find out and then they’ll wonder what else you kept from them.
• Don’t keep the church office volunteer who sabotages the mission, but you fear that nobody else will do it.
• Don’t let the bullies rule for fear they will take their money and leave.

All of us tell lies about ourselves and each other. But we can do better. We can expect more of our leaders and each other. And I am so ready for it.

Image of liars who changed history in devastating ways, from center top clockwise: Carolyn Bryant Donham, Anna Anderson, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard M. Nixon, Kim Philby, Bernie Madoff, Theodore McCarrick, James Watson and Francis Crick.

“Everyone has something. This is yours. Each life has a defining crisis.” from Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden

I waited until a public library copy of Belle Burden’s bestselling memoir was available instead of ordering it on Bookshop . Ordinarily when I really want to read a new book, I order my own copy. Impatience.

I didn’t really want to own a copy of Burden’s book although I wanted to read it. I loved her 2023 Modern Love essay. And her story said so much about the choices and assumptions about men and women, husbands and wives. But Burden’s privileges (multiple homes, vaunted family tree) made me wary that most of us could relate. It’s a quick read and especially interesting, perhaps, because of her privilege. Gwyneth Paltrow will be playing Ms. Burden in the Netflix series.

Nevertheless, it’s true that every life has a defining crisis and I’ve spent my professional life sitting with people in theirs: the sudden death of loved ones, the long slog of death from terminal diseases, betrayal, violence, poverty, defeat, abandonment, self-destruction.

For some people their defining crisis might be something seemingly less catastrophic like the death of a nonagenarian parent or knocking out a permanent front tooth. (Seriously, I remember an acquaintance who told me that this was the worst thing that had ever happened to them – losing a front tooth at summer camp when they crashed into a diving board.) For other people, their defining crisis smacks of an Alexander Hamilton childhood. Pain is pain.

My hope, like Belle Burden, is that my children and grandchildren “will move toward people who are in pain, rather than away.” This is how we become community. This is how we become Church.

Our nation is in a state of overwhelming discombobulation right now. Legal residents of the USA are being detained and held in substandard facilities without their constitutional rights. Both political parties conflate partisanship with the common good, and everybody seems to be out for themselves.

Many of our families are in a state of discombobulation for all the usual reasons. You know them.

Retirement can feel like a state of discombobulation, at least at first. Today marks Retirement Day 158 and I only know that because I have a countdown app that hasn’t been updated.

I’ve known newly retired men who died suddenly months after ending their professional careers, possibly because losing their identity became their defining crisis. And I’ve known retired people who never look back. Personally, I’m still trying to figure it all out and I thank those who’ve retired before me whose advice was:

• Don’t make any new commitments for at least a year.
• Be gentle with yourself. (Naps are our friends.)

[Note: Retirement is an enormous financial privilege. According to The National Council on Aging “45% of older adult households (more than 19 million) lack the income needed to cover basic living costs.” In other words, they will not be able to stop working. Ever.]

Feeling disoriented impacts everything from our appetites to our energy levels to our mental health. When talking with my adult kids, I often ask them – at the end of a phone call in which we’ve reviewed all the ways our world is a hot mess -“Where do you see hope?” At least once, they’ve had to ask me the same question.

Looking for signs of hope is a spiritual practice. And when we don’t have the strength to even attempt to look for hopeful signs, there’s usually someone out there who is feeling hopeful, who can share hope with us. It’s good if we are not all feeling hopeless on the same day.

We need each other. If we have the capacity, one of my hopes is that we will practice gravitating towards people in pain instead of distancing ourselves. Imagine living in a world defined by our shared discombobulation instead of our human isolation.

Image of osprey chicks photographed by Andy Morffew. If you read Belle Burden’s book, you’ll know why I featured confused-looking ospreys.