This conversation is a great way to get to know Elizabeth, get a taste of her book, and begin to consider the ways in which we see the maternal heart of God within Scripture and within everyday life. Two things I want to point out is that:

1. Our chat is not for mothers only. (Especially if we are defining motherhood by having children.) Elizabeth offers us a wider definition of the maternal heart, and I think no matter our gender or family composition, we all have something to gain from contemplating the ways in which God mothers us.

2. Considering God’s maternal heart does not diminish or negate the ways in which we know him as Father. Elizabeth does a great job in our chat of pointing out that she’s not trying to push back or to eliminate our understanding of God the Father. The concept of mother and father are our human ways of trying to relate with and understand the Divine, and we must remember that even in connecting attributes of God to paternal characteristics can only go so far because God is not a human person. Plus, for we who have experienced wounds from our parents or parental figures, our understanding of mothers and fathers can also adversely affect our views of God if we do not maintain space for the Other-ness of God. We use these terms and ideas because we are humans doing our best to reach out for and connect with the Divine.

All that said: Elizabeth is a gem. She’s relatable, heartfelt, funny, and deeply kind. I hope you enjoy our chat. And if you want to hear more about the maternal heart of God and Elizabeth’s work, here are ways to connect:

Substack:

Website (buy the book/preorder bonuses): ElizabethBerget.com

Instagram: @elizabeth_a_berget

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Last Thursday, I quickly mouthwashed on my way out the door to dinner at a friend’s house, only to wonder in the car whether I had even brushed my teeth that day. What good is mouthwash with a layer of grime underneath? I cringed. Already en route, I made a mental note not to stand too close to anyone and popped a Werther’s candy into my mouth, hoping a sugar-coated layer would mask whatever lay beneath.

This is my confession, I guess. I have no other reason to tell you about my bad habit other than to push back against my own desire to appear shinier than I am. I want you to think I have it all together, it’s true, but some days, I cannot handle even the most basic of adult functions. I forget to brush my teeth.

Yesterday marked the third day I have been able to sit outside to work on the back patio this spring. I live for these mornings when the air is crisp enough that I can still see the steam rising off the top of my coffee but all I need to wear are sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt.

Just beyond our yard, near the large oak tree, a group of daffodils have emerged all bright and yellow, and I wonder how they got there. We are in our eighth year at this house in Indiana, but this is the first time I have noticed the flowers in that particular spot. The placement is completely random, the blooms cropping up amid sticks and brambles on common neighborhood ground. My best guess is that the daffodils are a gift from an overzealous squirrel who took it upon herself to relocate the bulbs. Their arrival is a mystery, but a happy surprise nonetheless.

Daffodils are the first flowers to burst into color in these parts. We do not even have leaves on the trees, so my eyes are drawn to their cheer every time I step outside. I smile, and I swear to you, they smile back.

I have been thinking a lot lately of rupture and repair, especially in relation to the church. In any relationship, rupture happens, sometimes in small fissures and sometimes in cracks that are more Grand Canyon-shaped. Our humanity bangs and clanks into one another, and in the process, wounds happen. Breaks occur. Sometimes those ruptures turn into traumas, and other times they are essential and good, especially when the relationship is unhealthy or the system fails to create flourishing for all its parts. Like bones, breaking is often part of the healing. Rupture must happen before the repair.

Within the American church (because that is the context in which I was raised), I have seen a pattern of breaking and remaking, again and again over the years, and our current moment is much the same. Many of the table legs we have used to prop up our systems of faith are cracking against the weight of all that presses in (the price of gas, treatment of immigrants, involvement in war, the list goes on and on).

I am grateful for the voices who are pointing to the weak foundations and calling for reform, especially within the church. But the question I have found myself asking day in and day out is: What is my part? Am I a person of rupture or of repair?

I believe we need both. We need people who can point specifically to the cracks in the foundation and are able to name what we have gotten wrong. But just as much, we need faithful followers of Jesus willing to enter the crevices, sit down in the wreckage, and begin to imagine how this broken place might become fertile ground. We need people of repair, not with quick fixes or ten-point plans but with resurrection on their minds.

And more often than not, I find myself wondering how—within my small circles of existence—I can enter into the larger conversation with repair in my heart and tenderness in my hands.

I want to leave you with a quote that I am keeping close these days as I finish writing my new book on human longing and our hunt for good. I hope the words not only bring you comfort but also open up your imagination, right where you are. I pray that throughout your day you can “taste and see that the Lord is good.”1

together with you,

PS: the dwell journal is a weekly(ish) reflection on the communal life, where we ask how to live more deeply with God and each other. Once a month I send the journal to my full email list (like today). You can become a paid subscriber to get all the posts or to support my writing work. Either way, I’m glad you’re here.

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a few good things

Paying attention to our lives is one way to participate in the goodness that is already here, so each week, I share a short list of little things that have enriched my communal life and invited me further into flourishing:

• I started reading Sacred Companions by David G. Benner, and much like his other books, I am finding it to offer a nourishing view of how we can link arms in our journeys of faith. This book offers a lot of wisdom on how we might be people of resurrection and repair.

• Color offers comfort. I know there’s a bunch of psychology around that. But I recently painted our downstairs bathroom the Sherwin-Williams’ color Leather Bound, and every time I am in there, I feel like I’ve stepped into my favorite well-worn journal (even if our four boys say it looks like poop).

As always, you are welcome to share your good things as well, either in the comments or by sending me a DM. May goodness find you along the way.

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Sometimes we forget that we too are part of the created. We too are among the things God imagined and made. So it would make sense that humankind also depends on reciprocity—a mutual give and take not only with the rest of creation, but with one another as well.

But reciprocity can be a struggle. While plants and animals seem to instinctually continue in their patterns of flourishing, we humans can so easily get out of rhythm. We hoard. We consume. We shut others out. We keep a tight fist to protect what is ours, or we give and give and give hoping to be accepted or to find ourselves. Sometimes, our boundaries serve us, but sometimes they shut the world out.

Many things complicate reciprocity, especially in human relationships.

Sometimes, people want more than what we can give in a particular season. Like the moon, our capacity can wax and wane, and depending on the situation, we may not have any more time, energy, or emotions to share. Or maybe we are the one giving, reaching out, not understanding why no one else is reaching back. I have also found that relational wounds often need time for healing, so we pull back and self-protect. We are in a BandAid season, avoiding new wounds and letting old ones heal, and that healing is good. But sometimes those patterns of self-protection continue, and we struggle to trust.

Adding to the complexity of it all is the way we in the Western world have elevated the individual self over the communal. From government policies to restaurant menus to church activities, we search for what is good, but most of the time, we define “good” as “what is good for me.” We filter decisions through the lens of our own lived experience, and instead of bending a knee for the sake of a wider creation, our vision remains narrow and we reach for what we want.

The sad reality is that the more individualized we become, the more we feel the intensity of our communal ache. Loneliness rises. Wounds fester for longer than they should. We become blind to the good already within and around us. Like the Pharisees, we fail to see the sacredness already unfolding—”the kingdom of God is in your midst!” (Luke 17:21). As a result we become even more detached from the web of creation for which we were created.

Our flourishing flounders when reciprocity is not intact.

It’s easy for me to see the way that others have failed me. It’s easy for me to see expectations that fell flat. It’s easy for me to look at the plants, animals, and things in my home as mine to use rather than mine to tend. That is why, like so many things, returning to rhythms of reciprocity requires us first to look inward and to consider how we can better participate in the common good. For flourishing to happen, we need some honest contemplation about our give-and-take relationships with God and the created world.

Toward that end, here are a few questions we can consider to reflect on our patterns of reciprocity:

• Think about your current relationships as well as your posture within everyday life, and consider: Where do I see patterns of reciprocity (both give and take)? And where are relationships more one-sided (either give-and-give or take-and-take)?

• Where, when, or with whom am I hesitant to give of myself? What am I trying to keep in or out? Where might healing need to take place?

• When I give, do I give freely or with expectation of return? If I have expectations, what do I hope they give back (or in other words: what are my unmet desires)?

• Where do I sense God’s invitation into the mutual nature of flourishing? (Remembering that no act of generosity or gratitude is small.)

These questions are aimed to help us see beneath the surface a little more clearly. We can look at our answers as curious observers, without judgment or shame, because what we are interested in here are understanding our own patterns of reciprocity and beginning to name the source of our communal ache. Only from there can we perceive how to respond or what needs to change.

Reciprocity is a key ingredient to belonging—to flourishing in the life we already have.

But because the world is fashioned out of God’s abundance, the good news is that we can always return to our reciprocal roots. With open hands, we can receive the goodness already given. We can contribute to the flourishing of the world from right here. We can step back into the ancient rhythms of creation and hear the divine whispers of “It is very good.”1

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together with you,

PS: the dwell journal is a casual weekly reflection on the communal life as we learn how to dwell more deeply with God and each other. Once a month I send the journal to my full email list (like today). Glad you’re here!

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a few good things

Paying attention to our lives is one way to participate in the goodness that is already here, so each week, I share a short list of little things that have enriched my communal life and inviting me further into flourishing:

• A quote: “Love needs no justification; it is not because it gives life that love is good: it is because it is good that it gives life.” —Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World)

• Multiple walks outside on the days it was warm (see pic below)

• The quiet of the early mornings (made quieter by the return of daylight savings)

• Post-workout conversations with fellow spin class friends. I don’t know what was in the air this week, but many people stayed behind after class to chat about real-life things. Those conversations felt like a gift.

As always, you are welcome to share your good things as well, either in the comments or by sending me a DM. May goodness find you along the way.

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St. Ignatius named them consolations and desolations. Consolations are the aspects of the created world that bring us into holy attachment to God and build within us a capacity to respond in love for the good of the world. It’s that feeling of coming more alive, more awake to divine presence already in our midst as we settle further into our own skin.

Desolation, then, is that which leaves us in a state of disintegration; it is anything that becomes a barrier or dulls our senses toward God and each other. Very simply put, consolation leads to life, and desolation leads to death—yes, in the spiritual sense, but I am beginning to think that we can also perceive consolation and desolation in the other aspects of our humanity too.

Another key concept to this approach to Christian spirituality is what Ignatius calls indifference. In my modern American context, indifference conjures up the image of a brooding teenager, shrugging and apathetic to what is happening in his midst. Indifference implies not caring.

But based on my current understanding of how Ignatius used the word (I am a beginner to these contemplative practices, mind you), indifference is not detachment. It’s not turning off our emotions or turning inward in self-protection. It’s not living without attachments or a care in the world.

Indifference is an invitation to pause before giving things, situations, people, or ideas the label of good or bad. Because, Ignatius said, we cannot fully predict the things that will invite us into a deeper sense of God’s presence in the world. We cannot place situations, things, people, or ideas into neat and clean categories so that we can say “always” or “never” to experiencing God in our midst. We cannot always know quickly or clearly what leads to disintegration or to a fuller, freer life. Indifference is a posture of open receptivity to the living presence of God, no matter how it arrives.

It’s a difficult idea to hold. As much as we have been shaped by hard things, we do not easily welcome them. And I think that speaks to our human instinct toward survival as well as the part of the soul that says “it shouldn’t be this way.” For me, the complexity also speaks to my theology—my own lived experience of God that has shaped how I understand him and how we relate—and my theology says that God is love—fully of mercy and impossibly kind. He is not out to get us, causing us harm just to get his way.

Rather, I believe that this idea of indifference says more about how we live out the idea of God’s omnipresence—that God is everywhere, all the time. Because while we may believe this concept in theory, I wonder how often we really expect him to be with us in the room. Do we expect him at parties and political rallies, at movie theaters or on walks? Do we expect him to equally occupy brothels, bars, churches, schools, funeral parlors, and downtown city streets?

We cannot will God to reveal himself. That is grace. But indifference helps us slow down and acknowledge that he is in the room, to live as if all created things can speak his name. Indifference helps us to loosen our grip and to receive, because no matter where we are, we can live as if “the kingdom is in your midst” and God is actually right here.2

The more I sit with this idea of indifference and ponder consolation and desolations, the things of life and death, I find myself hungry to see what is already here. And not only to see, but to experience his presence with the fullness of my senses. And not only to receive but to respond. I want to move in the direction of love, wherever it might take me, even if it is moving into a space or situation I deem as hard. And in that notion, I sense I am becoming more free.

It’s been good for me to remember that discerning between consolation and desolation isn’t a matter of right or wrong. God is not standing at the street corner with a clipboard wondering if we will pick the right path. Because if God is everywhere, he is with us in both life and death. In the things that connect and the things that pull apart. He goes with you, and he goes with me. We do not have to fear misstep because God whispers, “I go with you.” And he is already there.

We can embrace a posture of indifference to see, receive, and respond to God in our midst, believing that creation sings a song of homecoming and we can learn to sing along. We can awaken to his substance in the smallest of things. We can let both consolation and desolation reveal what we could not see before: that God is truly here, the Creator woven into the fabric of creation, and he longs for us to see his look of love.

together with you,

PS: the dwell journal is a casual weekly reflection on the communal life as we learn how to dwell more deeply with God and each other. Once a month I send the journal to my full email list (like today). Glad you’re here!

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a few good things

Out of a ongoing desire to pay attention to and pass on goodness as it crosses my path, here is a short list of little things that have enriched my communal life over the last week:

• Two consecutive days of sunshine and temps above 50 degrees

• All our kids piled together on couches to watch the Purdue basketball game

• Conversations after indoor cycling classes (and remembering names!)

• A quote: “Wisdom grows out of the goodness of life. The two mutually nourish each other like the roots and branches of a tree. But it’s our practices, not our good ideas, that keep us rooted.” (from Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most)

As always, you are welcome to share your good things as well.

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We are six days into February, and already, we’ve had two decent snows and I have been to the doctor’s office three times this week. At home, I find myself looking for comfort. I’m steeping my way through my stash of vanilla chamomile tea. The lavender tea is already gone. If there isn’t a fire in the fireplace, I am lighting candles just to have something warm and flickering nearby.

My sister-in-law left a box of turmeric shots in our refrigerator that advertised “Immume boost!” and with a shrug, I thought, “What the heck… it couldn’t hurt.” I drank the liquid down in two gulps, the orange substance tinged with ginger and black pepper burning all the way down. The next morning, I did it again. This time, I did not wince as much, but like a leathery old cowboy sucking back his whiskey, I tossed that turmeric down.

Caring for ourselves while caring for others is tricky. I do not always get the ratios right. I do not always know how to tend my own needs amid multiple snow days, sick kids, and work deadlines that cannot be moved.

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But that particular morning, I was in conversation with God when I felt a gentle nudge to consider …

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Throughout the fall, in preparation for our January in-person residency, I had been reading about the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Having not grown up Catholic or Jesuit (traditions more familiar with the history and application of St. Ignatius and his Society of Jesus), I came into the conversation fairly new. But the more I began to understand about Ignatius himself and his approach to experiencing the living presence of God, the more I felt like I was finding language for soul-deep realities that were already at work within me.

One of the foundational premises of Ignatius’ teaching about the Christian life is finding God in all things. His Spiritual Exercises are deeply embedded in the belief that if God is omnipresent, everywhere and in everything all at once, within and around us, then we can posture ourselves to be open and attentive out of our own free will and agency to attune to God who desires to be attuned to us.

In other words, God is everywhere, and by paying attention to our soul-deep desire to dwell with him, we can follow that longing to cultivate a life of contemplation and action that leads us to not only know God in theory or in belief, but to encounter his loving presence like a friend—a communal relationship that shapes us more and more to extend the fullest version of ourselves to God and to the world.

As George W. Traub, SJ, writes,

“We need only to learn how to pay more attention. The experience of God is not only for a selected few mystics but for anyone who would listen.”

There are a lot of implications for this premise, a ripple effect that can easily unnerve any of us who grew up with a faith tradition that resided primarily in the mind. Contemplation—encountering and lingering with the active presence of God within our everyday lives—can feel like shaky ground. Unfamiliarity often elicits fear, and if even my short description of St. Ignatius makes you a little leery, that’s understandable. It is human to take a step back from what we do not know or understand. Go gently.

But no matter your faith background or current place of belief, one thing I think we can take from the life of St. Ignatius is the idea of attention as prayer.

While we may have times and spaces dedicated for lingering with God, we can carry that same attentiveness into the rest of our everyday lives, so that as God’s goodness, beauty, and love comes into our purview, our awareness of his active, intimate presence increases and our souls share a knowing where words are not even required.

It’s like this: Think of the person with whom you are the closest relationally. Imagine the two of you are in a crowded room, conversation humming and bodies moving and hustling about, and you catch each other’s gaze. Even amid the activity and the physical distance between you, are there things you are able to communicate, to know about one another, without verbal communication taking place?

This is what I mean by attention as prayer—we can lock eyes with God too. And in this way, attention becomes a prayerful, conversational practice. We not only believe in the living presence of a loving God in theory, but in uncertain faith, we also look for him in our midst, right where we are. “Finding God in everything” is not just a good idea, but a way we can pattern our lives and posture our inner selves, because while we cannot control whether, when, or how God chooses to reveal himself (that is pure grace), we can exercise our own agency to pay attention so that we do not miss all the ways we might encounter God’s loving gaze and experience the embodied presence of God With Us.

I have many more thoughts about attentiveness, St. Ignatius, and an intimacy with God that does not have to wait until an eternal someday. Earth does not have to be a place for holding your breath. I am sure, by and by, I will share more here. But today, I want to leave you with this poem from Mary Oliver, which I think gets straight to the heart of attentiveness within our communal life of faith.

If you have any additional thoughts about attention as prayer or ways that help you become more aware of the living presence of God, I’d love to hear them.

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together with you,

PS: Wondering why you’re getting this? The dwell journal is a weekly (fairly in-process) reflection on the communal life from Human Together. Once in a while I share the dwell journal post with all Human Together readers (like today) to widen the conversation. If you want to get the dwell journal weekly (in addition to the monthly-ish free posts), you are welcome to upgrade your subscription to support the publication, sign up for a free trial, or simply email/message me and say “dwell for free” for a no-questions-asked upgrade to your subscription. All are welcome, and you can cancel whenever.

a few good things

In a desire to pay attention to and pass on goodness as it crosses my path, here is a short list of little things that have enriched my communal life over the last week:

• Once There Were Wolves, a novel by Charlotte Mcconaghy set primarily in the Scottish Highlands that explores creaturely relationships between the created (people, animals, and place), wounds we carry and cause, and all the kindness in between. (CW: physical abuse, language)

• time spent lingering the table with my doctoral cohort (people from all over coming from various traditions who I am grateful to consider friends)

• the peace of falling snow

• a quote from Frederick Buechner (Now & Then): “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it…”

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But no matter what is happening around us, I want to continue to be someone who creates space for naming the good and giving ample room for delight—those little things that make up a life and where we find God’s loving gaze looking right at us. I want to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”1 So in that spirit, I did not want to get too far into 2026 without sharing a few of my favorites books from 2025 and some questions I am carrying into the days ahead.

Favorite Books

I recently told my friend (co-owner of Nooks bookshop in Lancaster, PA) that 2025 was the year I fell in love with Elizabeth Strout. Out of the twenty-five novels I read last year, eight of them were written by Elizabeth Strout. Beginning with My Name is Lucy Barton (and then making my way through the Amgash series and then the Olive Kittridge books), I was compelled not only by the layered and overlapping plot lines, but most of all, I found such raw humanity in each of the characters. Like actual people, they had moments of being deeply endearing and other moments when you simply did not like or understand them at all. Every character had equal parts villain and hero, and I found this complexity something I needed to remember within my actual life.

So 2025 was hands-down the year of Elizabeth Strout, but a few other memorable reads (the ones that stuck with me) included:

• Our Unforming: De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation by Cindy S. Lee - If you and I have talked about spirituality, discipleship, or the church as of late, it’s very likely I have mentioned this book and the beautiful way it articulates a non-linear, non-performative approach to Christian faith. I read it early in 2025 and have thought about it all year.

• The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon - This book was pure delight. While a book intended for a younger reader, I found the world of Millicent Quibb to be a fun, mysterious, and freeing for all of us needing to let our weird out. Plus, I listened to this book, and because it’s read by the author Kate McKinnon and her sister, it’s chock full of voices, quirky asides, and audio effects. I loved it.

• A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan - I do not mean to induce whiplash here, but A Fever in the Heartland was almost the exact opposite type of Millicent Quibb. Yet, I cannot stop thinking about it, not only because the majority of the events take place in my home state of Indiana (a sobering and revealing reality for me to hold), but also, the book depicts how evil can grow under the guise of “good,” how fear can compel even the best of us toward dehumanization and hate. It’s a really hard read. I won’t lie. But I think it’s an important one, if you can.

• The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller - I have not read a more poignant and profound book on grief. While this book came out many years ago, I am glad we finally crossed paths. Weller’s prose has an invitational quality that allows the reader to enter the topic of grief softly and to entertain hard-but-good ideas about the role of grief in our everyday lives. (Plus, it was a very good chaser to A Fever in the Heartland!)

  ---

Questions I’m Holding

Ideally, I spend January in some deep personal reflection on the year behind but also my desires for the year ahead. It’s also a time I try to acknowledge what remains unresolved within me—questions that I carry. I name them not as a “goal” to have them solved by year’s end, but more as a prayer. I name them as a way to live out my faith and allow God to meet me here.

Some of those questions are too sacred and tender to mention here, but I do want to share a few things I’m considering within this transitional new year space:

• What is my current capacity? Relationally? Mentally? Emotionally?

• What do I want to continue to hold? What do I need to let go?

• What’s working? What’s not working? (Personally, professionally, as a friend and family member, financially, etc.)

• Where do I sense God’s invitation?

• What makes me come alive (a fuller version of myself)? What is a source of disintegration (the things that make me want to pull back from God, others, even from myself)?

• What does it look like for me to be part of God’s church (as Dallas Willard called God’s “redemptive community”2) within this particular moment in history?

You are welcome to borrow these questions, and I invite you to share any additional questions you are currently holding for personal reflection and growth.

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Where We Are Headed

The truth is that I do not know where Human Together is headed as a publication, at least not in a detailed sort of way. I have some ideas brewing—ideas that I’m trying to hold up next to my capacity and realities of everyday life. But I plan to continue to show up here and to invite in other voices as we ask the question “How can we be more human together, in order to embrace the communal life for our common good?”

You are welcome to continue as you are, or if you want a bit more, you can also upgrade your subscription to receive the weekly dwell journal as well as additional extras throughout the year. However you decide to engage (or to remain quietly in the back, just checking things out…), I’m glad our paths have crossed.

together with you,

PS: If you want to upgrade your subscription but can’t swing the cost, no worries. You can sign up for a free 30-day trial to check things out, or just message/email me and say “I’d like to upgrade for free” and I will make it happen, no questions asked.

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I have been thinking about the potency of love. I am not talking about the love of grand gestures or romantic ideations, but love that slips in quietly, almost unnoticed. These small moments of love are not the kind of which we tell stories. They do not become bigger with age. Like Mary the mother of Jesus, they are the kind of stories we silently treasure—too sacred to put into words. They are the kind we hold close.

On this fourth and final week of Advent, I invite you to turn your attention to the small acts of love that may appear common to the wider world but that have become part of your own story of Love Come Near. Here are three stories of my own.

Grandpa stood behind her wheelchair, fine tooth comb in hand. His farm-worn hands moved carefully as he smoothed Grandma’s course gray hair gently to one side. On the bureau next to them was a picture of them side by side. They could not have been more than thirty-one or thirty-two years old. Their faces were flushed and full of life. Grandma did not have a single hair out of place.

“Okay, Erlena,” Grandpa stepped back, “What do you think?”

Grandma held up the gilded hand mirror that had been resting on her lap to inspect Grandpa’s work. Her once-blond, soft hair was now course and gray. It was difficult to comb, let alone to curl. But Grandma turned her head from side to side, nodding her head at her reflection, “That’s fine, Bill.”

The family room was starting to fill up with women. Next to the fireplace, a small pile of brightly wrapped gifts began to grow. My hand rested gently on the top of my round belly, out of habit but also because I was so large my hands had nowhere else to go.

Grandma Dottie motioned for me to come over. Since the cancer had spread throughout her body, Grandma had taken up residency in my parents’ home. Her bedroom was at the front of the house. I walked toward her, and she leaned in as if she had a secret. I bent my head down.

“Here,” she held out a stack of coupons for Pampers and Huggies. “These are nearly as good as money.”

She placed the pile in my hands, and I knew that no other gift waiting for me in the family room would compare to the slips of paper she had so carefully collected. Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes as I whispered “Thank you, Grandma,” and we held each other close.

Steve came into the delivery room with beads of sweat dripping from his bald as he peeled himself out of his winter coat and gloves. We must have all looked at him with nothing but questions in our eyes, because he soon explained, “I couldn’t get my car out so I ran.” My eyes glanced outside the window at the swirl of snow and ice and then back at him.

What kind of pastor runs through a blizzard? I wondered but did not ask out loud, because the answer soon became evident.

Steve stepped closer to Ben who was holding Carter, his infant breath becoming shallower with every moment that passed. Silence swelled, and Steve’s eyes filled with a mixture of sorrow and delight.

“He’s beautiful,” I think I remember him saying. All I could do was nod. All I could do, knowing Carter would not live long in this world, was receive the gift of this man’s presence that had required running on roads not fit to drive. All I could do as a mother was receive his admiration of our son, the way his eyes lit up as if Carter’s short life would carried the weight of a lifetime.

These small moments are written within me, evidence of Love in a world that often feels cold. And in the days ahead, I hope your mind, emotions, and body are filled with memories packed with the potency of love. I hope you can taste the goodness on your tongue. I hope in the midst of all the metallic wrapping paper and the ho-ho-hos that we remember that love does not have to be flashy to be faithful. Often, love is nothing more than coming close.

together with you,

Sarah

PS: Thank you for joining me this Advent season. Merry, merry Christmas from my family to you. From here on out, I am going to take the remainder of 2025 off to hunker down with my people and rest, but in January, I will be back to writing the dwell journals every Friday as well as the occasional essay (maybe the return of the podcast?!) that will be free for all. More ahead. :)

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness
and the world’s deep hunger meet.” —Frederick Buechner

The third Advent candle is lit, and anticipation grows as we hold joy out in front of us. People gather together in churches or around tables, shoulder to shoulder singing “Joy to the World” (which, of course, makes some of us want to trill our tongues or channel Chevy Chase’s deep baritone rendition of the very same song. Go ahead, you can do it now).

But what is joy, exactly?

Having grown up in the Christian church, joy is a familiar but often confusing word. As a child I sang, “I’ve got that joy, joy joy, joy, down in my heart! (Where??)” with gusto, but I also heard rather frequently that joy and happiness are not the same. I grew up with an early understanding that happiness is situation-dependent, whereas joy is sturdy. Joy remains when happiness wears thin. These distinctions were a helpful place to start, but the more life-weary I became and my soul craved substance over shine, this introductory definition of joy failed to capture the intricacies that weave within and among us, less like a textbook more like a dance or a song. Because while steady, joy is also soul-deep and transcendent, and that touch of mystery makes it hard to contain or pin down with just a few words.

Traditionally, in this third week of Advent, we talk about joy alongside the part of the Christmas story where angels appear to the shepherds in the dark of night.1 It’s ironic that we come to this passage to talk about joy, because joy was certainly not what the shepherds experienced first. Just trying to stay awake and do their job, these shepherds were scared out of their wits. “They were terrified” one translation describes them (Luke 2:9 CSB). Another notes, “They were filled with great fear” (ESV). I have never met an angel, but I know the fear that leaves you paralyzed, frozen and shaking and struggling to breathe.

This week, as I re-read Luke’s account of shepherds and angels in search of joy, I began to picture these night-shift shepherds face to face with heavenly beings: the shepherds worn, weary, and stinky while the angels shone iridescent like the inside of a shell. The juxtaposition is extreme in both image and feel, and as I came to the soothing words of the angel, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people,” I felt both the beauty and the anxiety within my body (Luke 2:20 CSB).

I was reminded just how complex great joy can be.

The phrase that keeps coming to mind as I dwell on joy is “deep gladness.” I borrow the words from the late Frederick Buechner who wrote about vocation as “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”2 While Buechner focused his words specifically on human calling, I cannot help but think that these ideas also hold wisdom for locating joy within our everyday lives and within ourselves.

I picture deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger in a Venn diagram (two big circles that overlap). Deep gladness steadies and soothes us like the swaying arms of a mother. We can almost hear the soothing words of the angel, “Don’t be afraid,” as that childhood joy resurfaces like an unseen river reattaching us to the mystery of Love. But in the other circle, we see hunger. We see shepherds alone in a field and unhoused teens with a new baby in a nearby town. Not all is well, and yet, this “good news of great joy” is for all people. Even here. The second circle reminds us that the undercurrent of Love often rises up with longing, for good news that is not yet and invites us to reach out beyond ourselves.

And in between the two circles, there is a middle space where both gladness and ache exist. Here we find joy in its most potent form, because in the middle space, joy is not the absence of pain, fear, or sorrow—Christmas carolers all neat and tidy in their Sunday best. Rather, joy lingers in the place between shepherds and angels. Joy is where the lowly and the holy intersect.

The middle does not require defined lines but lingers within blurry edges, which is why joy becomes so hard to capture and define. But the mystery—for you, for me, for all people— is that deep gladness holds hands with deep need. Joy is not turning a blind eye, but an invitation to see reality as it truly is while remembering that we too are already seen.

On this third week of waiting for Christmas, may we remember that joy is that space between angels and shepherds, tucked between deep gladness and human ache. May our longings lead us closer to God and to each other as joy becomes our common ground.

together with you,

I don’t know whether the internal chaos was brought on by our family readjusting after a busy season, my rush to finish projects and papers that were due, the excitement of a kid’s upcoming birthday, my perimenopausal hormones, the state of our country, or the big ol’ full moon. Most likely, it was a little bit of all of it that kept my nerves just on the edge of frayed, because peace felt less like something I could conjure and more like an absence. A hole in the ground.

The truth is that I have nothing wise to say about peace, not on my own. I have no secret recipe or six-step plan for cultivating peace this holiday season in your heart or in your home. I wish I did. Truly. I wish I could say “go light a candle” and make everything well. But instead, I find myself in this season of Advent like a woman walking around with a lighter, looking for something, anything to light and create some calm.

I googled “Advent themes” yesterday afternoon while waiting in the car for my grocery pickup. Albeit, it truly felt like grasping at straws. But nonetheless, I came across a website that talked about the significance of each Advent week candle, and in addition to representing peace, this second Sunday’s candle is also called The Bethlehem Candle.1 By lighting this second candle, we are invited into the part of the Christmas story where Mary and Joseph are journeying from Nazareth to Bethlehem at the government’s decree—and that struck me as odd.

Is it not strange for us to focus on peace when we are not yet to the part of the story when Jesus has arrived?

My eyebrows furrowed and head tilted to the side as I tried to imagine what peace looked like in those days and hours. I peeked back through Luke 2:1-7 where the Bethlehem journey took place, and while we are not given an abundance of details in those few short verses, we do know that the Prince of Peace is still hidden, folded within the womb of his mother as she made the harrowing, uncomfortable journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The journey is suggested to be anywhere between 80 and 90 miles on foot.2

As a woman who has been pregnant five times, this part of the story does not paint a picture of peace, especially for Mary who had to make the journey very near giving birth. My back and feet hurt on her behalf, as I remember my own pregnancies. I still have scars that run like tiny rivers around my belly telling a tale of how my body was stretched in those final weeks. Maybe Mary was like one of those superhuman marathon runners, who win races hours before giving birth. But the more-likely reality was that Mary was more like the rest of us who strain to tie their own shoes let alone feel peace in walking 80+ miles.

And that’s just the physical burden she must have been carrying. Both Mary and Joseph were under the thumb of the Roman empire; their journey was not chosen, but forced. The decree for everyone to register in their hometown was a “tool of subjugation, conducted to register subjects to taxation.”3 Their displacement was seemingly fueled by power and greed—generally not a recipe for peace.

Yet here we are, lighting The Bethlehem Candle. Here we are, revisiting Mary and Joseph’s story of powerless-ness and sojourn that does not end all cozy but with Mary giving birth. Without a place to call their own, no hotel room or guest bed, she goes through the pains of labor right out in the open, wrapping her newborn son in whatever cloths she had available and placing him in the nearby animals’ feeding trough.

And I wonder: God, where is the peace?

All week that’s the very question I have been asking. All week peace has felt less like comfort and more like void. More like being restless and out of place. But maybe that is the point. Maybe The Bethlehem Candle is not a recipe for instant peace, but a space for all who wander and ache. Maybe we do not light the candle to say “peace is here,” but rather, “peace is coming.” Maybe peace really does begin with a candle, after all—a candle that holds space for all that is yet to be.

In this second week of Advent, may we find solace as fellow sojourners. May our brains and bodies remember moments when we have been at rest, and may we carry that peace forward. May we put one foot in front of the other in pursuit of peace within and around us, even if we do not know what is ahead. May we know in that soul-deep kind of way that God is with us, even if we cannot see him yet.

together with you,

As Ben, the boys, and I traveled to be with family last Thursday, I got to thinking about what stories would be told around the table. Certainly, each family would give updates about life and school. We’d ruffle kids’ hair with exclamations of “look how much you’ve grown!” but inevitably, well-worn stories started to emerge:

…the one where Ben and his sisters would sleep under the tree at Christmas.

…the one about how Grandpa Bender would turn down his hearing aids at dinner.

…the one about Monsterama (after twenty-plus years after marrying into this one, I’m still not sure what it is…).

…the one about how my younger brother’s sweater caught fire during Christmas dinner.

I have been known to roll my eyes on occasion at the way at which our families return to these tales. When it comes to our family narratives, we are creatures of habit, to be sure. I wonder, “Are we all just living in the past?”

But the truth is that the past never really goes away. All of us carry around former versions of ourselves and our families—the good parts and the bad. There is something sacred about returning to the good, old tales, because these stories remind us not only where we have been but also where we going. They are tales not only of remembering, but also of waiting. They are tales of hope.

And isn’t that what Advent is all about?

The word advent was not in my common vernacular as a kid growing up in a small Baptist church in northeast Indiana. I don’t think I even realized there was a church calendar apart from Christmas and Easter, so my introduction into these broader church traditions has evolved in my adulthood and continues to unfold slowly over time. But like the stories of my in-laws that have become tangled into my own, the story of advent has become woven into my own, and the communal practice of returning to the same, old tales is more than tradition for the sake of tradition. Advent is an exercise in hope.

We come back to the story of God inhabiting world and womb not because we are stuck in our ways. We return to be reminded where we are going. We return, holding our collective breath and wishing to feel that “thrill of hope” because while the wanting is too delicate to say out loud, we feel the longing deep within our bones.

Maybe we all enter the Christmas story in various places. In many ways, the narrative began hundreds of years before Mary and Joseph, as the Jewish people longed for the coming of a Messiah. For today, I invite you to step into the story in Luke 1:26-38 (NIV)—when the angel Gabriel first appeared to Mary:

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

If you have been in the church more than one Christmas season, have been to a Christmas-themed musical or play, or have simply watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, these phrases from the book of Luke may feel familiar. Like me, you have heard them all before, and you may feel the urge to rush on by. But sitting with the story a little longer, I think there are some important things for us to recognize about hope—for Mary and the Jewish people, to be sure, but also for the rest of us.

1. Hope emerges in unexpected places.

Reading: Luke 1:26-27

These first few sentences feel introductory in nature, but so much more is happening within the details of time, people, and place. The specifics themselves are rather radical, especially in that day.

First, an angel named Gabriel (who we discover has been sent by God) appears. I have never knowingly been visited by any sort of celestial being, and that kind of occurrence seems quite rare both then and now. It is certainly not an everyday thing. This detail in and of itself has been repeated over and over for thousands of years, so its familiarity somehow makes Gabriel’s presence commonplace. But let’s face it: An angel appeared, and that alone was a wild start to the story.

But the angel Gabriel did not appear to just anyone. Out of all the people who could have received the message of the Messiah’s coming arrival, the angel appeared to Mary—a peasant from a “backwater village” called Nazareth. Mary had no wealth or rank.1 Apart from being engaged to a man named Joseph, she had very little to attach to her name. This young Mary, who is believed to have been somewhere between 12 and 14 years old, was certainly an unexpected choice not only for this celestial appearance, but also to become the human dwelling space for God himself.

I also find it important that God chose a girl who was not yet married. While we might conjecture that this detail demonstrates a number of things (like God’s ability to bring all things into being or how Jesus was fully divine and fully human), I also wonder whether his choice of a virgin is yet another example of how God disrupts our cultural ideals as a way to come near and remind us of our worth.

2. Hope stretches us.

Reading: Luke 1:28-29

The Scripture says that Mary was “greatly troubled”—and rightly so! When our brains and bodies encounter a new story, situation, or idea, we become unsettled because we don’t have a container to put that newness in. Like us, Mary likely had predetermined narratives for how she thought her story should go. Her imagination did not yet have room for the story that would unfold, let alone for what was happening in that moment with the angel Gabriel.

Yet Mary’s worry quickly gave way to wonder, as she contemplated “what kind of greeting this might be” (v. 29). In wonder, she acknowledged the fear but held curiosity close. Instead of running away, she leaned in to what she did not understand, and in the process, Mary suspended her version of the story thus making room for a wider (and wilder) tale. She let herself be stretched, and fear held hands with wonder as hope grew.

As we re-enter the story and let ourselves really entertain the wildness of what is happening between Gabriel and Mary, we too are stretched. Our human imagination expands until tiny fissures appear within us like a flicker of hope. The more we are stretched, the more light appears and the more space we have for hope.

3. Hope contains both promise and possibility.

Reading: Luke 1:30-33

The Jewish people had waited and waited for the arrival of the promised Messiah (like it or not, they knew how to Advent well). Mary had likely heard the stories of the coming king, the one who the prophet Isaiah had spoken about:

“For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”2

Along with her people, Mary longed to see this promise become reality. Hope is what helped them endure, so Mary comes into this moment knowing deep within that hope is more than a little fleck of positivity. More than a speck of glitter amid the dust. Hope is substantial; it is the seed of a promise long embedded within the human heart. For Mary and for us, hope points us back to that unalterable reality that humanity was created out of and for love—to dwell deeply with God and each other. Hope reminds us God is making his Home within and among us.

Mary did not anticipate the way in which the savior would enter the story, let alone her own womb. But hope reminds us where we have been but also where we are going, containing both promises whispered long ago as well as mysteries that have yet to appear. While these little vestiges of hope often arrive small or in unexpected ways, hope holds both promise and possibility of a kingdom not always visible by the naked eye but steadfast and without end.

Sometimes that hope arrives less shiny and more like longing, but we can call it hope all the same. We ache because there is still part of us and of the world that is not yet–a promise “breaking us open” to new possibilities.3

4. Hope turns us into fools.

Every time I read this story in all its absurdity, my eyeballs pop out when I get to Mary’s response. Given all that we know about her, the culture, and the stories that would follow her around, her simple “May it be done to me according to your word” makes me want to raise a hand, “Uhm, Mary…are you sure?” (v. 38 CSB).

To believe all that Gabriel had told her would not only change the trajectory of her story, but also paint her the fool. And yet, she agreed. Something about the mysterious plan Gabriel laid out stirred her soul, and all she could say was “yes.”

I think that’s what it really means to hope. Hope cannot exist without mystery–without a touch of absurdity and a heap of unknowns. In the words of apostle Paul, “hope that is seen is no hope at all” (Rom. 8:24 NIV). At its core, all hope is foolish, at least on the surface of things, because hope invites us to say a settled “yes,” not because we can see clearly but because we are learning to pay attention to those whispers of the soul.

Hope speaks a language that may defy circumstance, culture, authority, and age, while clinging to the larger story we do not yet know.

Today on this first Sunday of Advent, we join the Christian church near and far in lighting one candle—one single flicker of hope. We let the light dance amid the darkness. We watch the flame with the expectancy of fools. We let longing stretch us with both promise and possibility. We lean into the story with anticipation and ache and unseen hope that “newness is on its way among us.”4

With every hint of light, may our hope expand and settle us within.

together with you,

PS: If you are new here, welcome. I’m glad our paths have crossed. Feel free to say hello.

Music pulsed from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. I could feel the reverberation of drums and guitars in my chest. We slid into our seats, and immediately, two of our boys reached out their hands. I handed both of them a set of ear plugs, which had become part of our Sunday morning routine. Each boy opened a package and then held them up so I could position the spongy blue cylinders into each of their ears. Once in place, the eight-year-old settled into his seat, content to play with a handful of LEGOs he had strategically stashed in his pockets, while our other son sat down. He bent over until his face was nestled between his knees and his hands covered his ears for an added layer of protection. I knew he would stay that way until the music was over due to the volume of the room. Watching him made my insides splinter. Sadness flooded my chest.

He never complained, not really. But as I sat down next to our son and rested my hand on the curve of his spine, I ached for his body to know more than survival on Sundays, more than getting by.

Our reasons for staying within this faith community were complicated. Ben and I are both loyalists. Many years ago when we were first married, a beloved pastor of ours gave us some well-worn wisdom about the goodness of staying—of doing our part within the body to work through the problems that inevitably arise—so we were not eager to move on and let go. That particular church had been a home we had known and loved for nearly seven years; we cared deeply about people we considered friends. Plus, Ben had started working for the church part time, assisting their audio and visual team behind the scenes.

Our reasons for staying were many, but the discontent did not go away. Instead, the unsettledness slowly grew into unease. The church had changed, and so had we. Like a favorite pair of jeans that had grown too tight, the fit was off. I could feel in my soul, mind, and body that it was time to make a change.

Huddled beneath the din of the music, people standing on every side, the boys and I sunk down into our seats, and I wished I could keep shrinking, that all the lights and the sounds would fade. I craved a simplicity of gathering, a communal experience that was not quite so large and loud. While I did not want to diminish that particular expression of worship or the authenticity with which others were encountering God, I also could not ignore the growing dissonance gnawing at my bones, because what my soul craved was a quiet substance, but all I felt around me was noise.

Knowing what I did not want came easier than knowing what was on the other side of the longing. I knew I was hungry for more—but more what? I kept coming back to that story from the book of John, when Jesus is being followed by two men along the road, when finally he turned around and asked them, “What do you want?”1 That question echoed around inside me.

What do I want? I wondered. I had no desire to leave the church as an institution. As broken and feeble and awkward as we can be, the church as a collective continues to be part of God’s eternal kingdom unfolding in our midst, and I am a part of that. But the more I sat with that question, the more I recognized that what I wanted for myself and for my family was to belong to a faith community that let us breathe. I wanted my children not to reach for ear plugs but to encounter the peace and welcome of God as we gathered, a simple space with an open invitation for our anxious, weary, and wandering hearts.

There were many specifics at play that led to our decision to leave, but I am going to keep those details close. The things that made me uncomfortable and self-protective within that church environment speak not only to my personal history, but also to values that our family holds. I have no desire to err my grievances or to create a laundry list of right and wrong, because my concerns were not ethical in nature. What was wrong for me may not be wrong for you, and I want to leave plenty of room for the broad expression of the church. There’s not one ideal church setting or format. There is not one model that other faith communities can replicate in a rinse-and-repeat kind of way. What is good for one local church may not be good for another, and deep discernment is essential in the good work of shepherding and caring for people. Of shepherding and caring for souls. Each of us has to find our own way. We must all seek our own answer to the question “What do you want?”

Yet, as I look out at the landscape of culture here in the United States, I continue to have one area of concern—not only for myself but for us as a whole. I see how easily we have been wooed by the lights and the shine and the noise. I too have been seduced by the stage. As a writer and speaker/teacher, I’m constantly faced with the reality that gentle voices are rarely heard, and the temptation is to stir up some rage. Metrics can easily become how we measure our worth, and the same is often true of our faith.

Many of us grew up in the collective soup of “bigger is better,” and as a result, our ideas of spiritual growth and faithfulness have followed the path of bigger, faster, more. Intentional or not, performance became part of our ethos, and church shifted from the table to the stage. Even our spirituality is measured, and growth is often depicted as linear paths with behavioral markers and upward progression. Formation is a one-way street. Discipleship models are often shaped like pyramids, always aiming to move us higher and faster, never sideways or back. And no matter what package you put that in, I am concerned that when “bigger” or “better” becomes our metric for Christian spirituality, we are not being formed to be faithful but to be seen.

After quietly stepping away from the church we had known and loved, we eventually began to visit some other local churches. For years, on our visits to the downtown library, our four boys would point out a church building made of stone and sharp steeples with copper roofing that had patinated with age. “Hogwarts Church”—that’s what they called it. And I had to admit the structure was rather castle-like, and we all wondered what we might find inside. Neither Ben nor I had much experience with higher church traditions with regular liturgies, sacred rhythms, vestments, or well-worn routines. All six of us were curious, so we made a plan to visit.

One cloudy Sunday in November, we slipped in through large wooden doors and did our best to nestle quietly in a wooden pew in the back. Understandably, many people turned to look at us. We are a circus on our better days. But instead of wondering what rowdy crew had wandered off the street, kind smiles spread across their faces. I watched as our boys tipped their eyes upward. It was as if the space itself with its stained glass windows, warm candle-like lighting, and ornate stone architecture beckoned them to look up. I found my gaze drawn skyward as well.

Over the next hour, we participated in the liturgy, paying close attention to the order of service in our hands. We stood and sat down when prompted, enjoying the collective groan of a hundred hind ends settling into wooden seats. The message was simple but filled with invitation. The people were warm, quick to look us in the eyes and shake our hands.

We did not end up staying at Hogwarts Church long term, but in retrospect, our experience helped clarify our answer to the question, “What do you want?” The simplicity of service created space for silent transcendence. The quiet gave us room to breathe. The up-and-down movement reminded me that faith involves not only our mind and emotions, but also our bodies. A kind smile and handshake indicated more heartfelt welcome than a proclamation that “we are family” from the stage. None of these little things were extraordinary, but my soul soaked them up like a sponge.

THIS, I thought. THIS is what I long for when we gather—not shine but substance. I want abundance that settles all the way down and lingers on the tongue.

Like the psalmist, my soul had been longing to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8 NIV), and I had to rid myself of all the extras to experience the everyday goodness embedded within the small. The “more” I had been craving had nothing to do with visibility or accumulation or having my theology all figured out; I was soul-hungry for a collective spirituality that did not require striving but invited us to become settled and to experience God’s delight right where we are. Because that divine look of love is not something that can be manufactured and is nearly impossible to detect amid the noise. At least, that has been the case for me.

And I tell this story not as a before-and-after or a “come follow me!” I believe deeply in the diverse ways we encounter God within the fabric of our days, and I am still figuring it out. Faith is risk, not a copy and paste, so I want to keep plenty of room for all that I do not know and have not lived.

But I will say this: I am deeply glad I paid attention to the rumbling of my spirit and for our family’s courage to let go of the familiar in order to go searching for substance—for what our souls have come to recognize as good. Not the “good” of right and wrong, mind you. Not a “good” defined by black and white. But the good that tastes like bread and wine and that silently shapes and sustains us in the unseen places and at the pace of the human soul. I tell the story with hope that you will not turn away from the things that unsettle you but will lean into longing with curiosity, consideration, and compassion. I hope you will allow yourself time and freedom to sit with Jesus’ question “What do you want?” and find his goodness is already there.

together with you,

Note: the dwell journals is a weekly letter I send out to paid supporters of Human Together. It’s a space to continue the in-process conversation on how we can dwell deeply with God and each other within everyday life. To get all the posts as well as access to The Listening Room (starting in 2026), you can become a paid supporter or request an extended free trial (just email or DM me). Glad you’re here.

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Sara’s newest book Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics releases this week (Tuesday, November 4!), and to say this topic is timely is an understatement, for sure. We’ll chat a bit about the book here, but I hope you will go get a copy.

order the book

If you’re new to Sara’s work, I put a full bio at the end of this post, so you can learn more and connect. But let’s get right into our conversation about goodness, individual and collective anxiety, and our longing for shalom.

Sara! Thanks for saying “yes” to coming back! So…small talk really isn’t instinctual for either of us, but maybe we can ease into this conversation by having you share a little bit about where or how you have been experiencing everyday goodness over there in Seattle.

Neil Young has a new song I love called “First Fire of Winter”. It’s sounding better and better on these short, rainy days and in my particular season of life. My parents have both been sick for a long time, my mom with Parkinson’s Disease Dementia and my dad with blood cancer. We managed to host them both last weekend for the first fire of autumn in our living room fireplace. I took a photo of them sitting together in front of the fire, which is a little moment that captures the many feelings of this season of life—intense, mundane, difficult, slow-going.

I can almost picture it: the weightiness alongside the calm. How do little bits of goodness like this fireplace moment affect you individually or communally?

This particular goodness, this fireplace photograph of my parents, was hard-won. I mean, literally, it was a minor feat helping my parents up the steps to our house and keeping them comfortable all day. But the experience was attached to visceral happier times, and I think we could all feel it, me and Drew and my kids. Something normal—a winter fire with my parents—overlapped with the sad reality of this time. Everything and nothing was the same. But instead of it being heavy, it was set apart, this couple of hours. It reminds me of how it’s usually the small, ordinary things that you remember the most.

Yes. So true. Your family clearly matters deeply to you, which is also evident in your work. Your new book Nervous Systems is part personal narrative and part invitation for the church as a whole to “live well in the very presence of anxiety.” Give us a little behind-the-scenes peek: How did this book come into being? Why was anxiety a topic you decided to tackle?

When Jesus says in the Beatitudes not to worry like the lilies and birds, I’ve bristled. Even as a kid, when I heard those verses, I had a longing for being able to not worry, which seemed impossible.

In the book, I wanted to look at this central question I’ve had carried since I was small, which has magnified and grown as an adult. I wanted to see if I could understand something about how to live well in the presence of anxiety. I mean personal worry, as well as communal and collective worry about the church and politics.

One thing I appreciate in your book is how you write about our collective anxiety, using the body both literally and as a metaphor. How do you see our individual anxieties impacting how we relate within the larger body?

I think that first, our level of anxiety impacts how we show up for other people. Can we be our best selves on a certain day or not? Can we be kind and generous or hurried and impatient? Are we paying attention and aware? Anxiety draws our gaze in, and we may miss what’s happening to other people in our lives or the larger world.

Anxiety can also be like a contagion in community. It can spread from friend to friend, or among pastors and leaders. I talk in the book about non-anxious presence. Family systems therapist and rabbi Edwin Friedman said the immune system can “turn on the host.” That image feels uncomfortably right. Political anxiety is as much somatic as it is civic—and I think we can draw a line between tending to our body to help tend to others. Bearing a non-anxious presence helps.

I’ve been seeing the words peace and peacemaking floating around quite a bit in the news and online as of late, and to be honest, I’m not sure we all have the same ideas of what peace is. Based on your research and writing, what is peace? What does peace look like—both at the personal level but also as you look out at the wider cultural landscape?

From a Biblical standpoint, the idea of shalom is not just one of “peace and quiet” or taking a digital fast. Shalom is about wholeness and flourishing in our individual lives and in culture. When we have our needs met and are in a healthy and safe space, we can move closer to this Biblical sense of shalom. Ultimately, true shalom is eschatological: it will be fulfilled when Jesus makes all things well. We should all work for shalom now, of course. Any claim to peace that is based on ignoring part of the population and their needs (ie “why do we have to keep talking about this issue, can’t we just let tension rest”) is suppression, not shalom.

Those words wholeness and flourishing really elicit a soul-deep hunger. I can literally feel longing for that kind of peace in my body.

Alright, so Sara… on the eve of your new book hitting actual shelves in the world, I want to know: What is your hope for Nervous Systems?

My hope is that readers would see some of their own story in the book in a way that makes them feel less alone and that readers would carry a practice for cultivating calm forward into their lives.

Well, thank you, Sara, for writing it. Thank you for living it. I’m grateful that in a very busy season you took some time to share a little of yourself with us, and I hope you will have many more moments cozied around the fireplace in the weeks ahead.

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get to know our guest

Sara Billups is a Seattle-based writer and cultural commentator whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Christianity Today, Aspen Ideas, and others. Sara writes Bitter Scroll, a monthly Substack letter and co-hosts the podcast That’s the Spirit. She earned a Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing at the Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary.

Sara works to help wavering Christians remain steadfast through cultural storms and continues to hope for the flourishing of the Church amid deep political and cultural division in America.

Her first book, Orphaned Believers, follows the journey of a generation raised in the 80s and 90s of evangelicalism reckoning with the tradition that raised them and searching for a new way to participate in the story of God. Her second book, Nervous Systems, will be released November 4, 2025, from Baker Books.

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