Two weeks ago I submitted a completed manuscript for my forthcoming book, What You Sow Is a Bare Seed: A Countercultural Christian Community during Five Decades of Change in the Church. It’s a group biography of ordinary but extraordinary people in the ecumenical Community of Christ in Washington, DC, who were engaged in movements for renewal in the church and justice in broader society.
I wrote about all 51 years of the Community’s life together, as well as the wider context it was part of, taking a journalist’s approach. I don’t think objectivity is a necessary or realistic goal for journalists. Yet there are times when we are more removed from our subjects than others. Writing this book, I met some people for the first time and read articles and books by people I never had a chance to meet. Those parts of the project were similar to any research and interviewing I have done in my career.
In other cases, I researched and wrote biographies of people I spent time with weekly if not daily between the ages of seven and 17—perhaps the most formative decade in anyone’s life. Some of those dear people are now among the cloud of witnesses, including my father, who died while I was working on this book. Instead of writer’s block, I had a different obstacle. I took what I called grief breaks at moments when I was overwhelmed that I couldn’t talk with Dora or Doug, that I couldn’t ask a question of Sally or Phil, that I hadn’t known Valborg or Carrol better. My grief is also for the Community itself: it ended as a formal worshiping body in 2016 after local members made a faithful and courageous decision to let it go and to give our building to a partner in mission. It is still a loss, even as I felt resurrection power when I visited the health and action center currently housed in La Casa.
This Easter Sunday was a strange one for me for a variety of reasons. I had no sermon to preach, no worship to lead. And it was the anniversary of the last time I spoke to my father. I visited family and joined Assembly Mennonite Church for worship. There was an interpretive dance to a song I love, Jim Croegaert’s “Was It a Morning Like This?”* Being an actual gardener and not merely mistaken for one, I love the idea of the earth and grass rejoicing at the weight of Jesus’ body walking on them again.
Periodically in the past year, a thought appeared in my mind: “We buried my father in the ground.” Sometimes this is my first thought in the morning after a dream where my father is still alive. Grief is bewildering.
With that state of mind, I listen to the stories of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in these weeks after Easter. I imagine how Jesus’ dearest friends felt after enduring his death, laying his body to rest, and then encountering him living again. I can’t make any more sense of these stories than I can of my own grief. I can simply listen with wonder.
* Some of you may be thinking, “That sounds familiar, but how do I know that song?” If you grew up with contemporary Christian music, you probably heard Sandi Patty’s more-famous cover of this song.
Book update
My book manuscript is currently in an editing and typesetting queue. After several more steps in the process, I hope it will be released later this year—possibly just in time for me to send you a bunch of messages suggesting it as a holiday present. Sorry in advance.
To make it up to you a little, here are two more hilarious voice-to-text transcription errors that I found while fact checking:
Can you imagine the Zoomies?
“I don’t remember when the dog started using cocaine.”
Aren’t we all glad?
“I guess they should be glad they’re not squirrels.
Reading & listening
I’ve been learning more about the harm-reduction approach to addiction. This first-person essay describes beautifully why we need this approach.
“The message I sent by giving him naloxone and instructing him on how to prevent an overdose wasn’t permission to get high, but to stay safe and alive and to know that he was a valuable human being—whether or not he continued to use drugs.”
“Living in Adoption’s Emotional Aftermath,” by Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker, April 10, 2023 Issue
Gearing up to promote my book, as mentioned above, brings all sorts of temptations to compare myself with others and find myself wanting. “Angel” by First Aid Kit is an antidote.