Beauty
Beauty is all around. And lately, I’ve been finding it in the quiet. Not the literal quiet, because our days are full with our three little olive shoots, more so in moments like a morning prayer rhythm, watching a mother bird feed her fledglings, the sun hitting a spot in our kitchen signifying summer has arrived. I’m finding beauty I haven’t noticed in some time. And I think a lot of this freedom and creativity is stemming from not being on social media.
Over the years I’ve had a good relationship with social media, and simply screens in general. I had strict boundaries around the times when I would take my phone out of the drawer in our kitchen where it would sit unoccupied for hours on end, set times I would tap the Instagram icon to post a few things, I rarely scrolled and instead used platforms to encourage and inspire, I even turned my phone off once a week for our Sabbaths and multiple days at set times throughout the year. But somehow, amidst all the boundaries and discipline, I still grew weary, anxious, defeated and unsatisfied by the endless, never sleeping online world.
Within all of the inspiration I was curating, was I making a difference? It’s for Jesus, I would say to myself, but is this the quiet life Jesus wants me to lead and make my ambition (1 Thessalianians 4:11)? Or was I actually creating distraction for moms with young kids, thinking they had to check their feed for what I taught next about rest, social media detoxing, taking a Sabbath, real community, slow and quiet days with their kids…as they were scrolling.
Those are the topics I talked and taught about. Topics I still love to talk about and teach about in my home and write about here. And although my audience was the right audience to speak to, I was teaching on this double-edged sword. Don’t spend your moments scrolling…but be sure to check my next post. Look your child in the eye and grow an authentic community…while double tapping this picture and see you in the next reel.
In a culture that is obsessed with information, is only satisfied with instant answers and believes that knowledge will save us (which is actually what gnostics and platonists believe and is not Christian theology), I believe there is a real need to push against how most of the world is currently living in this online world, to resist the temptation of tapping, scrolling and posting. We were created for beauty, intimacy, imagination and adventure. Beauty is found right where we are, intimacy is best understood with a hug and empathetic listening ear to our innermost thoughts; imagination isn’t curated, and the real adventure is living in real time with real people.
Yet we urge you (to love the family of God), brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependant on anybody. 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12.
Books
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim is a beautiful story based in the 1920’s. And interestingly enough, written in the 1920’s as well. It’s a lovely, comical, simple story about four women who gather their resources to go on holiday in Italy. The four of them are very different in personality and lifestyle, so the mix is quite entertaining, but Lottie, the endearing woman who initiates this trip and gathers the others, represents joy and humility and childlikeness that every one of them, and perhaps the reader too, desires to become like. The ending is just as good as the beginning and middle.
It’s a great read for those summer days outside while kids are playing. I personally read it on our Sabbaths before taking an early afternoon nap.
Childhood
Oh sweet summertime. It brings back so many memories from childhood – running barefoot everywhere, scootering across the street to the neighbors, playing night games well past dark, peeling the burnt exterior to only eat the gooey part of a well-roasted marshmallow, jumping on a trampoline with the sprinkler spraying underneath. I have delightful memories of summer from my own girlhood which has taken a large part in my yearning for my kids to look back on their childhood summers with fondness.
Our days have been full – of sunshine, friends who are beginning to feel like family, weekly book club with 20 kids running around, lake days playing in the sand and watermelon juice has been the stains of this summer.
I spoke more about our plans for summer in my Flourishing Summer post, and I’m sure I’ll share photos and stories in my Summertime seasonal post soon.
Shabbat
Summers seem to take rhythm from our days and weeks, but our Sabbath has continued to be what grounds us. My husband and I are delving into (again) St. Benedict’s “rule of life” lifestyle. I haven’t the time to write in full all of what we’ve learned and are learning, but the ways of living we find most gratifying and glorifying are in seasons where our days and weeks have Biblical rhythms and patterns set by the early church.
It might sound monotonous or rather boring, but in our fast-paced world that, even as Christ followers, believes we can order our days however we desire, this could be the most countercultural, and dare I say necessary, idea we choose to linger on, to ponder and to even wrestle with. Would living in a such a way where we have set times of prayer, weekly Sabbath feasts with other brothers and sisters, times when time doesn’t rule when we eat or sleep, hospitality actually practiced by opening our homes to the fatherless and passerby, reciting Scripture as a family, and the like (this list could go on), draw us closer to Jesus and therefore we become more like Him?
My husband and I (I more slowly than him) are currently reading The Benedict Option, written by Rod Deher, which expands on why, if we want to see change in our country, our world, in politics, schools and churches, we need to make drastic changes in our homes. This concept is not new or unheard of, but then why are we still not making changes in a familial manner? I have a suspicion…it’s very difficult. Which is saying it lightly. When we start to make changes like this at a familial level, it isn’t a schedule change or diet upset, it is a generational overturn.
Have you ever heard the saying, “Jesus may be in your heart, but grandpa is in your bones”? A well-known and true saying by Pete Scazzero. When we begin to make decisions and live in such a way that is drastically countercultural, whether it’s your first go around or one thousandth, you are working against all the generations before you. And with this in mind, most of the scholars I’ve read encourage us to think about the fruit of this in the generations to come after us. We most likely will not taste and see the fruit of our labor in this pursuit but what if our great great grandchildren will? Isn’t that the story of the faithful we read about in Scripture? Read Genesis and Hebrews chapters 11 and 12.
Where do we begin in this culture shift? There is not one way or the best idea, but something that has worked well in our home is taking a weekly Sabbath. This is not a day where you decide your plans, but it’s quieting your physical life and heart long enough to experience the gentle voice of your Creator. This practice could look like turning off your phone for 24 hours or having friends over to break bread and drink wine with, choose a “sabbath novel” – one that is good for an afternoon read aloud session with your whole family (James and the Giant Peach, the Little House series or the Narnia series are ones we’ve read on our Sabbaths).
I’ve enjoyed learning from John Mark Comer, Wayne Meller, Ruth Haley Barton and Sarah Clarkson on leading a quiet life.
Well friends, it has been a joy to write all this. I found myself awake at 4am and began to write. I’ve told my husband that when I’m not sleeping well it’s usually because, despite having young kids, I’m not being creative enough in my writing. How true that presently feels as the sun is still rising and birds are making melody. Have a blessed day.
