Hello from here

"Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place." (Psalm 118:5)

Dear friends,

It’s been almost a year since I’ve written an At Your Leisure letter. This started as a pastoral letters project rooted in a specific place, though it quickly became something more than that. I’ve always had subscribers who were far afield. Still, I intended to wait a full year before commencing with letters from this new place. I planned to go to one of the local Appleton coffee shops I love, buy myself a cup of coffee and a sweatshirt, and start writing. (The sweatshirt will definitely still happen; I’ve decided to grant myself one piece of coffee shop swag upon each anniversary of our move.) But it turns out I didn’t need the full year to be ready. 

To say that leaving Western Springs was difficult is an understatement. I knew that it would be hard, but I couldn’t have foreseen just how excruciating it was to live into that farewell. I have never handled change well. I was actually diagnosed with adjustment disorder - “excessive reactions to stress that involve negative thoughts, strong emotions, and changes in behavior” - when we moved to California in 2002. The move to Wisconsin in 2024 was infinitely harder, even though I liked Appleton right out of the gate. It was never about not liking Appleton. 

I wrote this in May:

Sometimes relocation feels like locomotion. Exhilarating movement in a new direction. There is more open space. You are suddenly free from the old patterns that had held you in thrall. Hello to the woods you haven’t yet explored and the waters by which you haven’t yet wept. Hello to possibilities and potential.

Sometimes relocation feels like dislocation. Painful and disorienting. Your kneecap liked where it was, thank you very much, and the tendons and ligaments holding it where it belongs are screaming in protest. You don’t know where the uneven patches on the sidewalks are and you don’t recognize the cashiers and you don’t have a doctor. You sit at your kitchen table and feel homesick. Hello to unfamiliarity and the exhaustion of everything being new. Even the things you know how to do, you don’t know how to do here. Hello to here.

I remember that when I wrote it I felt like I could hardly breathe I was buried under so many layers of sadness. I grieved the loss of our life in Western Springs as if it were a death - and, for many reasons, a complicated death with a complicated grief. But at the beginning of December, I experienced sudden and unexpected healing during a brief trip back to the Chicago area. On my way down, I stopped in Milwaukee for a transformative appointment with my spiritual director, who has repeatedly ushered me into the presence and power of Jesus in astonishing ways. Three thousand cheers for spiritual direction. From there, I drove straight to my favorite spot in all of Chicagoland, the Korean Spa. Haters gonna hate, but I remembered my baptism in those hot tubs, and experienced deep sabbath rest and renewal. I met another friend in the city, then wept through much of an Over the Rhine concert in the second row by myself. I ran with my old running group, broke bread with my beloved next door neighbors, attended a Christian Century board meeting, and headed back up to Milwaukee for Genevieve’s swim meet. I was originally going to attend that board meeting via Zoom, but when I realized that Over the Rhine was playing the night before, it kind of felt like I was being personally invited to Chicago.

There was more to it than this - much more than I can or will say. But it was also this: those people and places are not lost to me. I can’t get back as often as I want, or see everyone every time I go. It will always be different, but this is not a death. 

The turning point was profound. For the first few months I lived here, I spent many mornings praying Padraig O’ Tuama’s words from the Corrymeela prayer book: May we love the life we are given. Those were hard words to pray at the time, because I did not love the life I was given. I missed the life I had surrendered too much to love the life I’d been given. But that’s the thing about prayer. Sometimes you have to keep praying for something you don’t want - like, thy will be done - and eventually you begin to want it. Eventually it becomes true. 

(This is not to say I love all the things about the life I’ve been given. I have spent a lot of time sadder and angrier than I’ve ever been in my life lately. For example: Executive orders regarding transgender people, USAID, the disintegration of democracy in general, shall I go on?)

I do love the life I’ve been given here. I’ve made great friends. I love my church, and working collaboratively with my Co-Pastor and Director of Operational Ministries and the rest of our wonderful staff. My family is of course having all the ups and downs that you’d expect in this chapter, but I’m not sure things are any easier or harder for where we live at this point. I love living in a house that fits us better. I’m not isolated from the rest of the family when I’m cooking. We have a room with a fireplace and reading chairs. (I just finished reading Middlemarch by that fireplace, and I think everyone should hurry up and slow down to read Middlemarch immediately. Oh, Dorothea!) And we have a guest bedroom for visitors. 

Another prayer I would pray before that I didn’t really mean, but do now, is the Centering Prayer by the Porter’s Gate. It’s a song. The refrain goes:

I want to be where my feet are

I want to breathe the life around me

I want to listen as my heart beats

Right on time…

I want to be where my feet are

It’s a gift to want to be where your feet are. I’m grateful. 

I don’t know how often I’ll write here - as ever, I will only write when I have something to say - not more, and not less. I can tell you that Devon Spencer and I received the cover of our co-authored book, Love Letters to God, and it is so exquisitely beautiful I’ve been carrying a printed copy of it with me pretty much everywhere I go. So I’ll definitely tell you about that when I know more. 

In the meantime, here’s my advice for the tragic moment in which we find ourselves.

1. Pray.

2. Learn as much as is wise and healthy for you to know about what’s happening from a legitimate news source.

3. Find an organization you trust that issues calls to action about issues you are passionate about (5calls.org, the ACLU, the United Church of Christ Office of Public Policy and Advocacy, etc). For me right now, 5calls.org is working.

4. Follow through on one call to action each day. (Or week, if that’s a more sustainable rhythm for you.) I added my representatives to my speed dial, and made their contact cards entertaining. Ron Johnson is a koala, Tammy Baldwin is a unicorn, and Tony Weid is a giraffe. It’s something fun to look at while I leave messages on their voicemails!

5. After you’ve completed your action, let it go inasmuch as you’re able. Do something that brings you joy and connects you to another human being outside of social media. After I made my calls yesterday I blasted music and texted an old friend who I was pretty sure also liked the musician I was listening to.

6. Pray, again. I like Cole Arthur Riley’s breath prayers, like this one: 

Inhale: My practice is love.

Exhale: My path is justice.

7. Keep being where your feet are. Say hello to your neighbors. Donate and volunteer and move your body. Go to worship and sing a broken alleluia.

And then, repeat.

And finally, here’s an article I wrote for the Christian Century about Bishop Budde’s sermon. It was personal for me. 

As always, thanks for reading.

Peace,

Katherine