a humble book list

A tweet catches my eye as I scroll through my phone while tapping my foot against the tough old linoleum. I'm beginning my new job the next day, the job I never dared dream I might have, and my stomach is lined with butterflies beating their soft wings. So as I look through Twitter, hoping for a distraction, hoping that someone will tell a funny story about falling into a puddle or tweet something sarcastic and fabulous about Girls, I see that Sarah Bessey is writing about 10 books every day for a week. What would I include in a list of 10? I used to play this game with my friends - what books would you bring with you if you suddenly went mute and people could only understand your heart through these books? What would you give them? What books would you bring to a desert island? What books would you travel with, even if you had no money, and no way to get home.And there it is: the inspiration for my 10.What books make home for you, even if you aren't home? Here is my list, humble and small - if you like, share yours too?1. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (Roberto Calasso)2. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)3. In the Time of the Butterflies (Julia Alvarez)4. Letters to a Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke)5. Sense & Sensibility (Jane Austen)6. The Living Fire (Edward Hirsch)7. Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)8. The Complete Short Stories (Flannery O'Connor)9. Watership Down (Richard Adams)10. Til We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis)May books ever bring us home, make homes within us.Love,Hilary

dear hilary: the best kind of balance

(this blog post is a bit belated, friends, but it seemed good to write and share it, anyway).

dear hilary, 

I just graduated from college. How do I balance and prioritize relationships with people that are now long distance, versus the people who are actually around, in my physical space? How does that work? 

sincerely, a social introvert

Dear a social introvert, 

My first temptation when I read your question was to tell you that there is no difference between the people who live far away from you and the people who live close to you. In terms of your heart, that is - there is no difference. I want to tell you to hold fast to those people far away - to invest your time in them and your energy in them. To write them letters and call them and keep tabs on their lives.

But (you knew that was coming, didn't you?). There is something different. There is something different about telling a funny story over the phone while lying on your bed in 93 degrees, laughing until your sides ache, and telling the story across the same table while the person can see you actually laughing. There must be a difference, or else why would we miss each other when we're apart? There must be a difference, or else why would there be so much joy and so much sadness in airport terminals? 

So much for my first temptation, social introvert. You and I both know there is a difference between the people who inhabit our immediate physical space and the people who don't. And I want to acknowledge that fully. 

But (did you know there would be another "but" in this letter?). I also don't think that distinction is the first one you should pay attention to when you think about how to invest your time and your self. If you're really looking to love others, if you really want to create in your life homes for the people you love? You shouldn't worry too much about whether or not they are close or far away. Each has its own difficulties. That funny story that's so much easier to tell the person who lives next door? It has its equivalent. It's easier to share deep things across distance - we don't waste as much time on the silly or unimportant as we tend to when we're in person. When we're at a distance, friendships stretch and bend, but they find a different strength. They're tested. They give us the chance to be brave  and practice loyalty and work hard. When we're in person, we're tested by proximity. Those friendships give us the chance to practice patience, persistence, and humility. 

I don't want to tell you to balance them by having an equal number of long distance friends and next-door-neighbor friends. We all know that wouldn't work. Instead I want you to find balance by looking at the people over their place, the friend behind the phone call or the letter or the surprise visit after work. Look at the person, and then go for it. 

The best kind of balance is the one where you love more than you think possible. 

Love,

hilary

I pray the Collect for Purity, a letter to preston

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Preston and I write letters back and forth. We share about mystery, wonder about faith and the long walk of obedience, tell stories about Gossip Girl and God's grace. We would love for you to join us in the comments. You can read his last letter to me here.Dear Preston,I have a confession: I'm afraid of the hungry. I avoided feeding them in the Saturday morning ministry in college. I crossed the street too often in Boston when I saw them ask their silent question. I once ran two full blocks away from one man outside my favorite Starbucks in Washington, DC because I knew he was the face of Jesus and I couldn't look at him.So when I read your beautiful, gut-wrenching piece about these vagabond wounded, this circle of prayer and the way they taught you to pray, I'm reminded that I don't know how to pray for them. I'm afraid to try. I'm afraid to offer them my silly, selfish, full-of-petty-desires words.I read what you wrote about the spirit of that place, Jerry's thundering voice and call to repentance, it made me wonder about my own whispered prayers. You see, I don't really know how to pray well out loud for those big, bold things - how to call out for repentance or tell the story about death and life, or pray that the Spirit of the Lord be mightily upon a person. It's not that I don't want to talk to God. I talk to Him more than anyone. When I run I ramble on and on about my heart and His heart and the marvelous things He does and the things that make me mad because I don't understand. I want to talk to Him all the time. I want to pray.But the words, Preston? The big words about the big story? I'm tongue-tied. I open my mouth and nothing happens. Remember when I said that I am on my knees but without an altar call? When I told you I was in love with God, rooted in that love, but it's a quiet story? This is where I feel my whole self wrestling with whether I can do this, walk this Christian walk, and be tongue-tied about preaching the good news.I don't know how to pray for the hungry. For the brokenhearted. For the people I love to love Jesus. For the curious and wandering to find Him (or be found by Him). I don't want to pray a laundry list. I don't want to fake it. I don't want to be silent. So I run away from homeless ministry or from altar calls or from talking about my faith with people who only know the barest skeleton of it. I hide behind my books and blogs and theories about St. Aquinas and St. Anselm.And then every Sunday I hear the Collect for Purity. Almighty God, unto you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we might perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. I cry because there the Church has found a way to help me pray when I'm tongue-tied. There the Church has met my feeble laundry lists and filled it with riches. For we pray this prayer over all of the world - saints and sinners alike. The Church in all her history has reminded those of us who don't know what to say that God is mighty, all-seeing, a cleansing Spirit. The Church reminds us that our hope rests in pursuing perfect love of Him who died, and magnifying His name with every fiber of our being.So I pray the Collect for Purity, Preston, because I love God and I love His people. Because I don't know how to pray. Because I am afraid of the altar calls. Because I am a tongue-tied lover of Jesus.Love, and the whole Collect for Purity is prayed over you,hilary

I am Atalanta

There is no traffic today. We drive through towns we know too well, across the old bridge, wheels kicking up gravel. Zoe Keating loops her cello through our hearts and the car, and the sun wanders in and out of the afternoon. I am staring out from behind sunglasses, stretching my arms out towards the dashboard. She laughs as I heave a sigh, groan about these lessons we must learn. "The deep trust?" she asks. "Yes, that," I reply, and nothing more needs to be said. We change the music to Ben Knox Miller, park the car at the edge of the ocean and look out. 

The water is grey and fiesty. It tosses the boats, fighting against their bright oars and heavy nets. We watch for a moment, how nature and humans dance together. "The water today - it's... you know." I nod - we do know, finishing in our heads those endless analogies and comparisons we make: I am like water, she is more like air. We play with the ideas - how I love the ocean, and she loves the wind, how I think freedom is anchored somehow to earth and for her freedom is flying. 

"What's your siren, Hil?" she finally lets the question slip through in between the guitar and piano chords. "What does it sound like? Where does she come from?" And I recognize the bigger question - how do you understand relationships? How do you protect yourself, tempt others? What's the story of you? 

"I don't think I am a siren, actually... I think I am Atalanta." I can't believe the story until I speak it, but then I remember. How Atalanta believes everything is a competition, her worth determined by her victories. She is the untouchable, the challenger. Race with me? she asks those around her. Atalanta loves the thrill of the race - mind and heart and body all engaged together, the elegance and danger of running. "Oh, Lil. I challenge them all. I challenge them to race me." She shakes her head in amazement. I am Atalanta. 

Two days later we're on the phone. "Oh!" I say, interrupting her train of thought. "The golden apples, Lil? I get it. They are the brighter truths. The bigger things. I stop racing when I am distracted by something more beautiful than the race. When something beyond myself appears, and I chase that instead of victory." She laughs. "But really! It's the comedy kind of deceiving - I am deceived only to realize a bigger truth. It's beautiful, isn't it?" 

"Yes. It's beautiful, Hil. And powerful, too." We keep talking, and I keep pacing the warm floorboards of my room. I am Atalanta. I love to run, but I can see something more beautiful than the race. I'm compelled by what is beyond running. Brighter truths. 

But what is most beautiful isn't the story, Atalanta or the sirens or Jacob wrestling with God, or any of the hundreds of stories we find ourselves in, wanderers looking for a way home. What is most beautiful is this phone call, and this drive, these hours of wandering together. What is most beautiful is this friend, who opens the back door of my heart and steps inside. What is most beautiful is walking through the story with her.

"So I am Atalanta." We laugh again, and say our goodbyes. I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Tonight, I'm thankful for fellow wanderers in words. Tonight, I'm thankful for the bright, beautiful stories - and for the hearts that explore them.

all my wild love, hilary