🌮 Lil Treasures #92: Taco Bell poetry and some tips for staying sane
Plus Chadwick Boseman and ways you can help this week.
Oh heyyyyyyyy.
Just checking in here from the Land of Still Functionally Homeless as we wait to close on our house. We have been living that AirBnB/residential hotel life for officially Too Long™️ now, but we got some good news yesterday indicating that next week might be our week. Please, everyone, join hands and pray in agreement, as we have been diagnosed with a really tough case of We Aren’t Emotionally Fit for This.
It’s very hard to be a person right now, and yet it’s never been easier. I tend to overcomplicate (every)thing(s), wanting to solve all the problems with some giant Nerf bazooka gun of compassion, aimed directly at the worldwide dumpster fire that is happening. But I know the starfish analogy. I know I’m just a person who can only do what one person can do, and that’s true for you as well. My friend Savannah Locke (do you follow Savannah? She’s great) posted this the other day and I’ve just been really grateful for it:
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone and everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our inner capacity for peace.
It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
— Thomas Merton
So we’re just gonna do our best to help where we can, pray where we can, and do whatever it is God has placed in front of us. I told God this week: I have stress horse blinders on, so if you need to show me something, please put it where I can see it. I’m going to be faithful to those things and ask for mercy and forgiveness where I drop the ball.
Here’s what’s helping me right now:
Clinging to hope. When I say clinging, I do not mean casually riding in hope’s sidecar with a helmet and goggles, looking cute. I mean this:
I mean I am a black hole of hope. A Paralympics guide proposes to his partner? I’m absorbing it into my psyche. Watching a great dog video right when the CBD gummy kicks in? Will power me through the next four hours. Scrolling and seeing Sister Beth feeding Donk some carrots? An emotional life vest.
Getting off social. I know. But it helps.
Stupid Walks™️. Again, I know this is dumb, and I wish I understood why a walk helps, but I promise if you eat a brownie on your walk, it makes it better.
Lectio365. May I remind you about this app? When my eyes are at capacity, it is just straight up restorative to have this app walk me through some scripture and a meditation. It’s the first thing I do in the mornings: pop an airpod in and wake up with this app.
Helping others. I got accused (that sounds dramatic, but I can’t find another word) of doing things for other people because it makes me feel good.
You can look at this two ways: 1) doing something for someone else is selfish because you get a high from it, it makes you feel morally superior, or you like being in a position where you can look down on people and save them OR 2) God made us to be in community with each other and when someone helps me or I help someone else, that feeling is a tiny hit of how we are supposed to take care of each other, the way we were designed, a glimpse of heaven. I’m choosing option 2, and I am delighted to share some with you today, in a new section of the newsletter I’m calling We are the Helpers, because apparently we are all gonna need each other if we’re gonna make it.
❤️ First up: one of my dearest and oldest friends is a go-getting BA. She’s loyal to the core and will move heaven and earth to help her people. Last week (a couple of weeks ago? Time is whatever) she and her husband were doing everything in their power to get his Afghan translator, along with his family, out of Afghanistan. Long story short, through a network of people here and there, they were able to extract all of them, and they landed in DC earlier this week. Another long story short, it looks like the whole family is coming to Texas to live near my friend and her husband (potentially even with them for awhile). Now obviously, when they left Afghanistan, they left pretty much everything they owned and they have to start completely over. If you are interested in supporting this precious family as they build a totally new life in a totally new place, you can donate and learn more about how the money will be handled and all the ways they’ve invested in transparency to ensure it goes directly to them, click here.
Other ways to help Afghan refugees and those still stuck in the country who want to flee: @_operationrecovery, We Welcome Refugees. If you have additional resources, share them in the comments!
🤝 Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana this past week, and brought with her so much devastation. If you’re looking for ways to give to those hurting from Hurricane Ida, this is a great list of various resources you can donate to who are currently helping people and animals for those who were in Ida’s path.
Other ways to help those affected by this absolutely brutal storm: @kristen_inanutshell is collecting supplies, this post by @elarroyo_atx has great info in the comments. If you have additional resources, drop them in the comments.
I know there are other things happening around the world and they are all equally dire. So many of you have passions for other causes and I would love to learn more about where you are leaning in and giving of your time, resources, and money. Please share in the comments!
Okay now on to treasures, because frankly we just need those too.
👑 Kiss the ring, peasants. This week’s episode of Faith Adjacent was on The British Royal Family. If you binge-watched The Crown this year or have any general interest in the monarchy, you won’t want to miss it!
📖 Pete Enns wrote this article a few years ago, but I still think it extremely relevant today. Pete talks about how the Bible can be messy at times - which is such a helpful perspective, especially for those of you who are working on untangling the knots in your faith.
👩👧👦 Shannon K. Evans, author of Rewilding Motherhood is hosting a Rewilding Motherhood live series on prioritizing our spiritual health as mothers. This three-session live series is free (!) and should be a great time of nourishment and encouragement. I can’t wait to read Shannon’s book (I don’t know her but recently started following and very into her whole thing) and am equally excited to learn from her in this reflection series!
✏️ We’re only a few weeks into the school year, and to be honest it has already felt so heavy and chaotic. If you’re like me and worried that your kids won’t get the school year they need, take a moment and read this blessing.
☕ One thing I got hooked on this summer is the iced brown sugar shaken espresso from Starbucks. IT IS SO GOOD. My beloved Half Baked Harvest has whipped up her own delicious version here, so maybe Starbucks won’t be taking AS MUCH as my money next week. At least when it comes to this drink (I mean, the fall menu is here so…my hands are tied).
🌮 And finally, I leave you with this ode to Taco Bell, the patron saint of late night cravings. LIV MAS.
Give it up for this week’s Tweets:
🐑 We did not deserve you, Chadwick
Alright, that’s all for now! Hopefully by this time next week I’ll be less homeless and more optimistic. Make sure to drop all your treasures in the comments - we need all the warm fuzzies we can get!
Hiiiiii everyone. I've been MIA mostly because I subscribed to too many email newsletters and it got overwhelming and I never checked the part of Gmail where they all piled up. But I have figured out how to exile the ones without a thriving comment community to Feedly (via Kill The Newsletter) so I can read them when I have time, and can now devote more time to my favorite Friday friends.
TBH, too, I was previously in a job where I was pretty comfortable, and if I am honest, somewhat bored. I could afford to hang out in the comments for a while on Fridays, and it was lovely. Now, I am in a new managerial role God basically forced me into (in His own loving way!) and my schedule has picked up considerably. Which is actually good for me, I think, because I think the boredom in my previous job was making me depressed.
All that to say... I haven't been here in a while, but I want to be. Will you take me back?? xoxo
I laughed out loud at that tweet about Noble Blood. It really was something to hear how not graceful that beheading was 😅