What do you want your community to celebrate about your life whether you partner, parent, or procreate?
It was the closing question at our last Good for You Gathering for women discerning “the good life” with no child of their own. And I was facilitating, feeling good, creating space, doing my non-anxious presence thing which is very genuine while I’m “on” and pretty fragile when I’m not.
All I can remember now is that I said something about wanting to be remembered for my research. Which felt weirdly vulnerable to admit. But it’s true. I want to leave a legacy of words that are sent out two-by-two. To make not disciples but friends. Friends with God. Friends with kindred. Friends with oneself.
The day after the gathering, I was having a thick time with that last one. “Who says that?” I asked Rush. “I want to be known for my research? Sounds kind of sad. Or, like, super ego-y. Like I’m more in love with ideas than people.”
Rush looked up from his lunch plate piled high with beige. Beige chips. Beige sandwich. Beige cashews. Even his expression was beige, which riled and soothed me all the same. He has never been troubled with my troubles.
And, then, these untroubled words: “Erin, when are you going to realize that writing is how you love people?”
I don’t know why I’d never thought of that.
This past week, I got to spend time at the Louisville Institute with pastoral leaders who received grants to study and scheme innovations in American Christianity. There were folders and tumblers and mixers. Worship and ritual and resources. A lot of non-spiritual sitting. I couldn’t have walked more than a quarter mile while there. It was pretty much bliss.
But the true blessing came when my friend Mike let us peak into his pastoral imagination. We were talking about the practice of confirmation, like theologians do, when Mike said they’d done away with the whole thing at his church and upgraded to celebration.
Instead of corralling students into the church, they have a party in each youth’s home. If a youth doesn’t have a home, they have it in someone else’s home. You learn more about what your community members really believe in their homes, Mike says. (And my autographed Friends picture would agree.)
So, each youth gets to invite whoever they want to this celebration. Then the guests go around naming gifts that they see in this youth. At the end of it all, the youth names what they see in themselves, or what you might call their call. People are asked to raise their hands who share this care. And then the gathered people bless that call, trusting it to evolve, but also trusting the youth’s resolve.
I told Mike and the rest of the group that no church community ever laid hands on me when I thought I might like to write. Or when I graduated from divinity school to become not a pastor but a bridge-builder. Or when I declared myself purposefully and prayerfully “childfree for the common good.” I felt jipped now! Jipped but juiced.
Like, how many blessings are we missing out on by baptizing not just babies but knowings? Confirming not just pre-teens but callings? Marrying not just lovers but strangers with shared cares? How many blessings are we missing out on by not blessing our work as love?
Honestly, I very often feel incapable of love. Or at least the love other people seem to feel. “Like your heart is beating outside of your chest,” they say, and I go cross-eyed. Like I’m trying to do the emotional equivalent of one of those Seeing Eye posters.
I believe this kind of chest-love exists for other people. I’ve just never been able to work it out for myself. And working it out, people tell me, about both Seeing Eye posters and chest-love, is not the point. Which makes it hard to see the point in trying.
But more and more, I’m embracing that the mind can love, too.
Did you know the Greek word for mind, nous, can mean “the soul’s angel”? Nous, like the French word for “we.”We who grow worlds within us.We who glow from a distance.We who protect the soul’s existence.
You may not have a community to bless your work as love. You, like me, may have to ask: for an ordination of sorts. For an anointing, if you will. For a confirmation of call, if you can. You may have to ask for you or for her or for him or for them. Asking is everything.
But a self-blessing, the poet knows, can be just as lovely, too.
XO,Erin
Want more tools for practicing purpose?
I am in the blessing mood thanks to The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief by Jan Richardson. Although written after her husband’s untimely death, Jan has a way of penning gems for all sorts of ordinary moments, like her Blessing for Dining Alone or Insomnia Blessing. It’s also this month’s pick for the Everything Happens book club, which means you can find discussion questions to go along with it here. You may even try your hand at writing a blessing of your own, like I did with this Blessing for You Who Are Incapable of Love.
My pastor friend Mike is a humble genius. If you’re into the kind of upside-down thinking he’s throwing down, please pick-up his book Having Nothing, Possessing Everything: Finding Abundant Communities in Unexpected Places. There are lots of stories to spark your communal imagination. Like hiring someone called The Roving Listener. Or threatening to fire someone if they started a youth group. Think less meetings, more parties.
I have to admit that I reluctantly watched the Oscars last Sunday. And I was smitten. With not just Janelle Monae’s performance but also her power nodding throughout the night (and that cape!). With Utkarsh Ambudkar’s spontaneous freestyle. And Cynthia Erivo’s gut-wrenching freedom song that should have won. If you need a vision of what a legacy of “work as love” looks like, look no further than her portrayal of the childless Harriet Tubman in Harriet.
