Lauren Winner on Practice and Belief

I have long held a deep fascination with Lauren Winner.  If you have never encountered her writing or had the opportunity to hear her speak, I would encourage you to do so.  I have actually spent more time listening to her speak than I have reading her books.  Her works include Mudhouse Sabbath, Girl Meets God, Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Christianity, and, most recently, Still.  Winner is absolutely brilliant.  When she walks into a room, you understand immediately that her level of intelligence far surpasses yours or that of anyone around you.  Her signature style includes cat-eye glasses.  Her voice is deep and textured like gravel.  She has tattoos.  I know this because she wore a shawl when I saw her speak last year.  It was not entirely cooperative and fell several times, revealing the ink on her upper arms.  None of this is particularly important to what I want to share with you, except that these things make her all the more fascinating to me. 

As I said, I have seen her speak more than I have actually read her work.  I read Still last year.  I highly recommend it for anyone, but especially for those who have been mucking through life's hard stuff and whose faith is suffering.  It isn't that this book will cure what ails you, or that it will make your doubt dissipate.  Rather, Dr. Winner's voice whispers in your ear, giving you reassurance and providing a companion for your loneliness and uncertainty. 

I am finally reading Mudhouse Sabbath.  It is a slight book, written in part at Mudhouse, a familiar-to-me coffee shop in Charlottesville.  In the volume, Winner considers the shift that took place in her spiritual practices when she left Judaism and become a Christian.  Several years into her new found faith, Winner discovered that she missed the intentionality of Jewish life.  She explores eleven practices that she found important and considers how they might be applicable in the life of a Christian. 

While reading the introduction, I was struck by this:

Practice is to Judaism what belief is to Christianity.  That is not to say that Judaism doesn't have dogma or doctrine.  It is rather to say that for Jews, the essence of the thing is a doing, an action.  Your faith might come and go, but your practice ought not waver. (Indeed, Judaism suggests that the repeating of the practice is the best way to ensure that a doubter's faith will return.)  This is perhaps best explained by a midrash (a rabbinic commentary on a biblical text).  This midrash explains a curious turn of phrase in the Book of Exodus: "Na'aseh v'nishma," which means "we will do and we will hear" or "we will do and we will understand," a phrase drawn from Exodus 24, in which the people of Israel proclaim "All the words that God has spoken we will do and we will hear."  The word order, the rabbis have observed, doesn't seem to make any sense: How can a person obey God's commandment before they hear it?  But the counterintuitive lesson, the midrash continues, is precisely that one acts out God's commands, one does things unto God, and eventually, through the doing, one will come to hear and understand and believe.

 Upon reading Still, one sees this practice come alive in Winner's life.  Through doubt and heartache and even rejection, Dr. Winner continues to attend church, to participate in liturgy, to pray (or, when she could not, to have others pray for her).  She does this though she does not necessarily believe. 

I have been in this place.  I stayed in the realm of doubt and uncertainty for some time.  Strangely, I always felt most comforted when speaking the words of the Confession with my church family.  Many weeks, I did not honestly believe the words, but I felt secure resting in the arms of those who did believe. 

I still have a lot of doubt to confront.  I believe that I will always live with this tension.  Yet, I am determined to continue practicing.  By God's mercy, may I learn to believe in the deepest part of my being.

Practicing Resurrection for Lent

In the last few years, I have come to hold dear the season of Lent.  This is not because I have maintained any serious practices or held any season long fasts, but because I find it to be a meaningful time of reflection.  I find myself thinking more often of Jesus, of faith, of the beauty around me.  Beginning Lent with the imposition of ashes is especially meaningful to me.  The reminder that I am dust, and that to dust I shall return, evokes paradoxical feelings of trepidation and utter peace.  The ashes remind me that I am but a fleeting whirl of dust; they remind me that God can make even dust beautiful and valuable, that God, in some unknowable way, is spilling out of the cracks and is making all things new.

I received a pack of Lenten devotionals from the local church where Jordan and I have twice attended an Ash Wednesday service.  I flipped through the pages and discovered that a poem by Wendell Berry had been included.  I have been reading Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front over and over.  I had been contemplating what practice I would assume for the duration of Lent.  I hadn't landed on anything specific, only that I wanted to be intentional about having daily practices that connected me to God and to the beauty that is around me and is me.  As I came to the last line of Berry's poem, I paused, struck by the simple wisdom of his directive:

"Practice resurrection."

This has become my Lenten journey, to practice resurrection.  I suppose I should say instead that it is my journey to discover, as far as I can, what it means for me to do this.  Thus far, it has meant fighting anxiety with deep breaths and reminders of God's faithfulness.  It has meant positioning myself to be available to people.  It has meant setting aside work in exchange for time with a friend or a walk.

I wonder, what would life be like if one actually believed in the practical applicability of the resurrection in her everyday life?  Does the mundane become beautiful, enchanting?  Does, as my friend Anne Paulus has phrased it, the "ordinary glow?"  I hope so.

A Tree Grows

Last night, I finally finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.  I say finally because I have been reading this book since mid-December.  When this semester began, I slipped the volume in a space alongside the other four books I am reading and abandoned it for several weeks.  I finally returned to it last weekend and, over the course of the week, spent spare moments reading a paragraph, a chapter, fifty pages. 

If you have not read this book, I would say that you must.  I generally allow some time before I determine whether a book has truly impacted my life, but in this case, I can honestly say that the story of the Nolans has sunk deep into my mind.  It is a story of poverty and its cycles, addiction, brokenness; more importantly, it is a story of family, hope, and resilience.  Smith's descriptions of poverty in Brooklyn in the early 1900s remain relevant and poignant even today.  She adeptly demonstrates the work ethic, determination, and struggle of the poor, revealing how the world devalues inherently valuable human beings based on their socioeconomic status.  Brilliantly, she does this through the eyes of a child who, through no fault of her own, is born into poverty and who necessarily sacrifices education and freedom so that her family can eat.

The book begins and ends with the description of the tree growing in Brooklyn.

The one tree in Francie's yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock.  It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas.  Some people called it the Tree of Heaven.  No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky.  It grew in boarded up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew of of cement.  It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.

You took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came to a nice neighborhood, very refined.  You saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone's yard and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district.  The tree knew.  It came there first.  Afterwards, poor foreigners seeped in and the quiet old brownstone houses were hacked up into flats, feather beds were pushed out of the window sills to air and the Tree of Heaven flourished.  That was the kind of tree it was.  It liked poor people.

That was the kind of tree in Francie's yard.

We are reminded of this tree's presence throughout the book, and, in the final sentences, its significance as a symbol of hope, determination, and resiliency is reiterated and reinforced:

She looked down into the yard.  The tree whose leaf umbrellas had curled around, under and over her fire escape had been cut down because the housewives complained that wash on the lines got entangled in its branches.  The landlord had sent two men and they had chopped it down.

But the tree hadn't died...it hadn't died.

 A new tree had grown from the stump and its trunk had grown along the ground until it reached a place where there were not wash lines above it.  Then it had started to grow toward the sky again.

...But this tree in the yard -- this tree that men chopped down...this tree that they build a bonfire around, trying to burn up its stump -- this tree lived!

It lived! And nothing could destroy it.

About a year ago, I was reading in Job and encountered these verses: 

For there is hope for a tree 
 if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
 and that  its shoots will not cease. 
Though its root grow old in the earth, 
and its stump die in the soil, 
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put out branches like a young plant.
 But a man dies and is laid low; 
man breathes his last, and where is he?

These words, found in the midst of many disheartening observations and laments, were particularly piercing to me.  How often I have approached my own life with this kind of bleak, despairing perspective.  In the midst of struggle, loss, uncertainty, and loneliness, it certainly feels as though I am being cut down.  Need we remember how the slow process of dragging a saw back and forth against a tree's rough bark, gashing its lifeline, until it falls?  Yet, the tree does not know that its seeds will spread, or that its roots may give life to yet another tree.  In the same way, we cannot know what life our suffering will bring.

One of my favorite songs is "The Sun and the Moon" by mewithoutyou.  With the words from Job resounding in my mind, I understood these lines for the first time:

Daniel broke the king's decree,
Peter stepped from the ship to the sea
there was hope for Job like a cut down tree,
I hope that there's such hope for me

 There was hope for Job, even as there is hope for a cut down tree; there was hope for Francie, even as there was hope for a tree that had been hacked down and burned.  The tree lived.  And nothing could destroy it.

Friends, a Tree of Heaven grows near each of us.  Even in the most uninhabitable spaces, beauty springs forth.  Hope stretches its branches, allowing each of us to rest in its cool shade, even if for a moment.  It is this beauty and this hope that gives each of us the strength to continue.  It is a tree that grows in the midst of poverty, addiction, hunger, violence, and despair; it flourishes in these spaces, even without water, sun, and pure air.

Much more could be said, yet perhaps I have already said too much.  Look around you, see the beauty seeping out from concrete corners and spilling forth from broken people.  It is there.  Nothing can destroy it.

resolution

This morning, Jordan and I finally got around to beginning the process of taking down the Christmas tree.  I had already packed up the other decorations around the house, but the tree has been standing unlit and un-watered since the day after Christmas.  Due to a few interruptions, the tree is still standing, entirely stripped of the baubles, ribbons, and lights that adorned it. 

While we pulled the ornaments off of the tree, I thought about how much has changed over the last year and wondered what life will be like next year as we place those same ornaments onto another to another tree.  Last year, as we were taking down our tree, I dared not even dream that we would practice the tradition in our own home this Christmas.  Yet, here we are, the tree and me, spending a few moments alone in our sweet house. 

Jordan and I have had a lot of good, but difficult, conversations in the last few weeks and months.  It is likely that 2013 will bring about some significant changes in our lives.  (Don't get excited, I'm not talking about a baby.)  Yet, I am comforted in this moment by the graces of the year gone by.  I am comforted that one such grace, our home, has tethered us to a place and a people.  Already, both Jordan and I have had moments of resentment, have wondered if we made the right decision, have had waves of anxiety roll over us at the thought of not being able to pick up and go when things are tough.  Yet, our decision was not made blindly or without guidance.  The potential for change in our lives will, I hope, only strengthen the ties and deep our roots.  As I realized this morning while placing a metallic dove into its box, next year, Lord willing, the first or second weekend of December, Jordan and I will bring a tree into this home, place it in front of our staircase, and adorn it with baubles, ribbons, and lights.

I have a few goals for myself this year.  Until last year, I was not one for resolutions.  But, I set a few attainable goals for 2012, and want to do the same in 2013.  Last year, I resolved to run a 5k.  I did.  This year, I have resolved to run a 5k in the spring and fall.  I'm hoping this will give me some incentive to keep running, as I promptly stopped after running a 5k this summer. 

I have also resolved to write more.  Considering I have a thesis to write this semester, I suppose it may seem an unnecessary goal.  But, I have found that writing for school has cast a shadow over writing itself, a practice that I find therapeutic and enriching.  So, I am determined to write.  To help push me along, I've decided to set a goal of having something published this year.  It can be published by a little online journal or community, a barely distributed magazine, or in a never-to-be-read book, but I want to at least try to see this realized. 

I have plenty of other goals.  Some are very personal.  Others are entirely public.  These will include a lot of house projects that I'll post over on Open House 932 (there is a link at the top of the page). 

A giant, heartfelt thank you to all of you who have been part of my life throughout the last year.  Some of you have been friends in the truest meaning of the word and have committed yourselves to loving me.  You have changed my life.  You know who you are, and, if you happened to include "change a life" on a resolutions or bucket list, go check it off.