Today’s Substack newsletter is my final one for the year. I’ll be spending the Christmas holidays with family in North Carolina, and look forward to resuming The Bread Box in January 2022.
“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand.” –Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
The past 12 months have been an exercise in “building sand castles with words,” digging into an inherent creative side that had long been neglected (nearly abandoned). I now call myself a writer, not because I can pay the bills through my writing, and certainly not because I’m widely published or widely known (I’m neither of these things). I’m a writer simply because I must write.
I entered 2021 battered and weary. The new year looked bleak after a previous year of canceled plans and unfulfilled goals. After the disappointment and sadness of 2020, I didn’t dare hope for much in the way of professional or personal progress. I’d experienced heightened anxiety, an all-consuming sorrow that lodged deeply within my soul. Those first few weeks of lockdown were lonely and confining. Our once busy street was empty and we saw few people apart from the upstairs neighbors we’d occasionally exchange “hellos” with (and a one-time socially distanced happy hour that briefly lifted my bruised spirits).
Writing came slowly as a way to cope with the uncertainty and despair. I journaled and took to social media, growing in confidence as pent up angst and frustration eased from my fingertips onto journal pages, into Google Docs. I’m not new to writing. I was a journalism major; I’ve been a freelance writer on and off. I once blogged with a certain kind of gusto and vitriol I was convinced Christian writers were supposed to possess. Eventually I grew annoyed with myself. My writing lacked empathy, grace, honesty, and imagination. I wrote from a perspective of certainty and condemnation my later deconstruction and maturity would topple piece by piece.
This time last year I’d just begun to write again. I returned to the pen in frustration, sadness, overwhelm, but also grace, empathy, and a renewed sense of passion. I wanted my writing to provide a hospitable space. I wanted to dig into the dearth of books I’d been reading, give voice to the questions and doubts that had long lain dormant in my mind. In a year of political, religious, and social unrest, I wondered how I could write humbly but truthfully. I’ve grown increasingly unimpressed by certain Christian books, the kinds likely found at Lifeway, full of Bible verses *sometimes* taken out of context, wrapped up nicely with a Jesus bow. Good writing requires a level of vulnerability that doesn’t always have easy answers. To write honestly means grappling with profound mysteries, bucking the status quo that limits creative expression.
I started writing as a first step towards self-clarification. I kept writing for community, for anyone who might stumble along and find comfort in my rambling words and this truth: you are not alone in your questions or your doubts. You are not alone in your midnight wrestling and desert wandering.
I have spoken to dozens of people this year from various demographics and generations who have buckled under the crushing weight of faith deconstruction. They’ve been beaten back by overwhelming questions while hearing from pastors and leaders and parents that their questions are nothing more than a trend. They’ve been gaslit and misunderstood; some have even lost community. I don’t pretend to hold answers, but I will hold space for you. In this sacred work, may our writing tear down harmful infrastructures and legalistic traditions, and lay bountiful tables for the lonely, the questioning, the despairing. This is the good work of the artist and the writer: to be, as Makoto Fujimura writes, culture-carers, border-walkers.
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I’ve long struggled with goals small and large. 2021 was officially a goals-less year until I decided to start a newsletter in April with one simple goal: a weekly essay. I couldn’t have known, just nine months ago, where that small goal would take me. I won’t share everything here yet. But one day I hope to tell the story in greater detail: how I’d struggled and grieved professionally and creatively for years, how little I regarded my abilities, how much I doubted my husband’s encouragement. And the difference it makes when people believe in you, champion you, write alongside you, connect you with others, share your work, offer feedback and solidarity, and speak goodness into you.
I talked with my therapist a few weeks ago about writing and my progress this year towards self-confidence, goal completion, skill development, and the unexpected steps taken towards dreaming bigger than I’d previously dared.
“How does that make you feel?” She asked earnestly.
Goodness, the tears began flowing. Between sniffles and sobs and an embarrassingly runny nose, I said: “I feel proud.” I can’t remember the last time I said that…
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There’s a scene in the movie “Chariots of Fire,” where Olympic runner Eric Liddell says, “When I run I feel God’s pleasure.” I mentioned this scene to my therapist as we talked about writing and why I believe something unlocked in me this year. When I write I feel the presence and pleasure of God.
We are deeply creative souls. But sometimes that creativity needs to be unearthed from fallow ground. Sometimes we forget what it is to feel God’s pleasure. I’d grown familiar with seasons of limited inspiration and soul-sucking despair. And while 2020 felt like a wasted year (a sentiment I also relayed to my therapist), it was also a year of new beginnings, the tiniest seed thrusting me into 2021—the year I officially started writing again.
Favorite Posts from 2021
Thank you for writing here. Grateful to have found you and your work. I look forward to the next year of The Bread Box.
So grateful for your words here and the space you’ve created on Insta - a beautiful and needed place of humble and heartfelt encouragement for the weary and broken and wondering