This is by Austin Kleon who does poetry called newspaper blackout. So delightfully lo-fi.
There was a video going around the internet last year of Rainn Wilson, the guy who plays Dwight on The Office. He was talking about creative block, and he said this thing that drove me nuts, because I feel like it’s a license for so many people to put off making things: “If you don’t know who you are or what you’re about or what you believe in it’s really pretty impossible to be creative.”
If I waited to know “who I was” or “what I was about” before I started “being creative”, well, I’d still be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it’s in the act of making things that we figure out who we are.
Lots more stuff like that. Thoughts+drawings. I find the whole thing charming and inspiring.
Digital Memory Archive
Although we’ve always thought of ourselves as rather minimalist, we’ve been realizing that we have attachments to things that we don’t really want or need anymore, and have a hard time letting them go. What we are really attached to are the memories and associations the object spurs, afraid we’d lose the memory if we could never see the object again. As a solution, we started photographing things we wanted to let go of to create a digital archive of “Memory Stuff”. It freed us up to give stuff away.
I like.
Pay Attention to What You Envy to Discover Work That You Love
Jealousy and envy are not necessarily the most attractive traits of humanity, but at least they’re honest. If you’re having trouble figuring out what kind of work you love, try paying closer attention to the things you envy.
I love the thought of mining one’s shadow side for the sake of personal growth and discernment. And that’s all I’m going to say about that at the moment…
Prompt: Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?
We’re making a lot of our Christmas gifts this year, and buying less stuff. So I have made a lot of different things in the past week or so, but I can’t say what any of them are because gift recipients read this blog. But here are a few materials we have used:
butter
acrylic paint
sharpie
wrapping paper
nutmeg
laptop
Slight digression: We’ve been studying the Advent Conspiracy at church, and yesterday the topic was “give more,” which emphasizes “relational gifts” rather than the easy and impersonal sweater or gift card. Back when Robert and I were newly married, we did the Hundred-Dollar Holiday for several years. I’ve loved Bill McKibben’s stuff for years and wish we were related; I suppose we are if you go back far enough.
We didn’t stick to $100 strictly, but we bought very little other than supplies for whatever we were making. We did it because we resonated with the concept of simplicity and spending less, particularly at Christmas. We also did it because we had more time than money back then. Now the exact opposite is true—it’s time that’s scarce, and the time we have is measured in little fragments between piano lessons and dinner, or kid bedtime and adult bedtime. So it feels more sacrificial, in a way, to make things. The Advent Conspiracy folks are really big on making gifts ultra-personal: thinking about each specific person, what he or she means to you, and what would make the person feel loved. We’re not really doing that, but I like the place we’re standing nonetheless.
Back to reverb: one thing I want to finish is a shawl/poncho that I started a year ago and have worked on in fits and starts. It’s been a bit of a disaster, as much of my knitting turns out to be. It’s a little short in the torso—the pattern in the book had a mistake in it, and the correction makes everything a bit more compressed (it’s a lace pattern). I have no idea what I’m going to do about that so I’ve been in this sort of perfectionistic denial about the whole thing. I really need to just finish it already and figure out what to do.
I’m thinking fringe. Fringe makes everything better.
Robert and I had our monthly calendar/planning conversation on Tuesday… ok, we only manage to do it every three months or so, but hey, gotta start somewhere! During these conversations we sit with a couple of glasses of wine, reflect on the previous month (or three), and decide what our priorities will be for the next month (or three). We dipped briefly into Advent and Christmas, and I realized that it’s not too soon to set some intentions for that busy time. Especially with kids, and especially as a pastor, you blink and it’s over.
We’re planning to do the Advent Conspiracy as a study at church, and in its wisdom, the session decided to start the study a week before Advent actually begins. ‘Cause if you’re going to talk about spending less and giving more gifts of service and time, it’s too late to start that discussion on November 28. The wheels are in motion by then.
I struggle with Christmas every year, and have written a lot about that in various places. Our house is not overloaded with toys, and we don’t buy them at random times during the year. So Christmas is a time when we replenish our supplies, along with birthdays, which are all within a couple months of Christmas.
But I’m not completely comfortable with that.
According to the Advent Conspiracy folks, Americans spend $450 billion on Christmas each year. By contrast, it would take $10 billion to ensure that everyone in the world has access to clean drinking water (which is the AC movement’s mission of choice). Those figures could be wildly exaggerated on either end and it would still be a sobering statistic.
We did The Hundred Dollar Holiday for several years, until time became more scarce than money. But we still try to be intentional and thoughtful about the gifts we give, and we do alternative gifts, donations to charity, etc. We don’t give just for the sake of giving, though we have some family members who are notoriously hard to buy for. My personal theology is that it all works out. Some years, we might find the perfect object that would bring joy, other years not; and in those cases, an alternative gift would be given.
That’s what I believe… but I’m not there in practice.
I’ve been enjoying Rowdy Kittens, a blog about about “social change through simple living.” A recent post talked about how the author keeps Christmas. She is not religious, but she does observe the holiday as a sort of feast day/celebration with family.
A couple of things struck me. The first is a discussion in the comments about how to handle loved ones who do give a lot of gifts, when you don’t. One person said he gave away the gifts he received and eventually people got the message that he didn’t want to receive gifts. This got me thinking about the spirit in which we receive gifts. What does it mean to receive something graciously, even if it’s something you don’t want or need? I have no doubt that our loved ones will get a message if we consistently give their gifts away, but what message is it? That we didn’t want gifts, or that tangible expressions of the giver’s love and affection were not welcome? (Standard disclaimer that I do not know the people involved. I am only musing here.)
The other thing that struck me is the author’s recommendation to contribute to a child’s college fund or charity in lieu of gifts because “with children, they likely won’t remember a single toy you give them.” I have to say, that is just not true in my experience. Kids remember gifts. Maybe not every single one, but sure, big or unusual ones, definitely.
Here is one of the inconvenient truths of the simplicity movement.
There is magic in the new bike under the tree with the pink streamers and strawberry pattern on the seat. There is magic in that first brand-new stereo. There is even magic in the first 15 Sweet Valley High books! These are all things that I received as a kid, remember vividly, and was wildly happy with. And I don’t consider myself particularly materialistic. Receiving gifts is not one of my primary love languages (though I do enjoy them).
I’m not saying you can’t experience the spirit of Christmas in other ways—sure you can, and that can be a fun challenge—but people often remember what they’re given. I even write down the gifts we receive each year, along with things we did, what we had for Christmas dinner, etc.—and those lists are capable of transporting me to a particular time and place.
That’s because we are embodied beings, beings who collect stuff. Yes, most of us have too much stuff. Yes, our acquisitiveness is destroying the planet and can destroy us spiritually. Yes, I’m tired of plasticrap toys from China. But I’m with Michael Lindvall, who wrote recently in the Christian Century that the problem isn’t that we’re too materialistic, but that we’re not materialistic enough. Our stuff is cheap and disposable, when it should be precious and infused with meaning. “God,” Robert Farrar Capon once quipped, “is the biggest materialist there is. He invented stuff. . . . He likes it even better than we do.”
Lindvall:
We acquire things, but then quickly tire of the things that seemed so important when first obtained. We replace rather than repair because we have such fickle and passing romances with our things. The real soul danger is not exactly in liking things too much, nor in owning them, nor in caring for them well. In fact, there can be great virtue in such a caring relationship with physical things.
The soul danger lies in the insatiable longing to acquire new things one after another, more and more things, as if the getting of them somehow proves our worth in comparison with others, as if the having of them can fill the emptiness. It’s this insatiable drive to acquire stuff rather than the stuff itself that’s the problem.
The clipping is long gone, but I read several months ago in the Washington Post about a new trend in upscale dining in New York City: “pop-up” restaurants, with five or six tables, total, or even one large table where the entire evening’s clientele sits together to dine. Chefs are opening these eateries as a way of downsizing their administrative workload and living out their vocation in a more personal way.
Rather than overseeing the many complicated operations of a large kitchen with a large staff, chefs get back to basics by doing all the cooking themselves. They offer just a few dishes each day, change the menu based on their own preferences and availability of ingredients, and serve a small group of folks (sometimes as few as 10) who are up for an adventure with a group of friends or strangers.
As I read the article, my mind went immediately to the downsides. Sure, it could be fun to try something new, and I’m enough of a foodie that I’d give it a go… but sometimes (more often than I’d like to admit) I just want to slip into the booth of some large, comfortably generic chain place and eat food that tasted exactly like it did the last time I was there.
It would be much harder to be anonymous at such a micro-restaurant. Sitting with people one doesn’t even know? What if one of the other patrons turns out to be a first-class boor? You’re stuck with him for the whole night. And the economics of the thing must be daunting for the proprietors. Dining at these places isn’t cheap (though to be fair, the price tag isn’t that outrageous, given that it’s New York).
And yet, I saw plenty of upsides. In many of these places, atmosphere is secondary—the focus is where it should be, on the food. It seems like a big (OK, maybe a small) “in your face” to our culture’s decades-long slide toward homogeneity and away from mom-and-pop establishments. How cool would it be to have an accomplished chef explain the evening’s dishes that have been prepared just for you—a little bit of intimacy, connection and care in a big bad anonymous world. Yes, you walk into one of these places not knowing quite what the menu will be, but isn’t that just a little fun and unpredictable? And while it’s true that the stranger sitting next to you at the table could be a boor… so what? That’s life—real, gritty, authentic life. And who knows? He or she could be perfectly delightful: an angel unaware. (Maybe this is why some people like to stay in B&Bs over hotels.)
As I near my first year as pastor of a small church, I’m intrigued by the parallels between these tiny restaurants and the congregation I now serve. People have asked me “is it really part-time?” and the answer, at this point, is yes. Sure, the buck stops with me, but it’s a much smaller buck, so it’s manageable. We’ve also had a season in which the pastoral care load has been very low—we’re pretty healthy at the moment—which helps keep ministry manageable. And I am blessed with capable lay leaders and elders, who keep things running smoothly. They also appreciate the gifts of the smaller church—they’d rather serve a few dishes well, programmatically speaking, than to try to become the church equivalent of the Cheesecake Factory.
Certainly we don’t have all the bells and whistles, yet our hospitality is unmatched. Like the chefs of these pop-up restaurants, I’ve had friends who pastor small churches say that they feel free to experiment in worship in quirky ways that may be more difficult in larger places. (A friend of mine did a fun summer sermon series on “spiritual lessons we can learn from the Roomba.” Yes, the vacuum cleaner.)
I also know that in our culture of “bigger is better,” small church folk can sometimes feel a little inferior to larger churches with more resources and members. Perhaps this restaurant trend provides a way of thinking about the work of local congregations that honors their own unique flavors—regardless of their size.
Each month I develop a short list of daily practices—things I try to do or think about each day. I was inspired by The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, who was in turn inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s list of Virtues, which he tracked each day to check his progress. You gotta love a Founding Father who found time to be so anal-retentive…
My daily practices might include walking (which is on my list every month), singing in the morning (always makes me feel good, and is one of Gretchen’s favorites too), or reading something that I’m not required to read (fiction, “fun” nonfiction, poetry).
Anyway, one of my practices in September is “let something go.” This may mean leaving something unsaid, but also includes leaving something undone that was on my to-do list.
Now, leaving something undone is kind of a no-brainer, like eating breakfast, or breathing. There is rarely enough time or energy to complete absolutely everything I hope to do in a day. I’m always coming to the end of a day and moving one or multiple things to the next day’s list.
But this month I’m trying to shift the focus. Instead of working diligently throughout the day, then looking at the leftovers each evening and saying, “Oh well, maybe tomorrow,” I’m trying to pick something out in the morning that I had planned to do and to say No to it. To let it go, preemptively and intentionally.
I’m doing this to give myself some additional space in my schedule, but I’ve been surprised to realize there’s something deeper going on.
You’ve probably heard the old thing about the “Persian flaw,” which is the practice of rugmakers to include an intentional mistake in their rugs. Only God is perfect, you see. The Persian flaw is as an act of devotion and humility.
I think of “letting something go” in the same way. The way I figure it, my life is my great work (I mean great in the sense of large, and only in that sense!). One of the most important materials at my disposal is Time, and after many years of ministry and motherhood, I’ve gotten pretty skilled at utilizing it. Sometimes too skilled. I’m trying to make Time my friend again—a real friend, not just the friend I call when I need something, amiright? So leaving something undone is my Persian flaw. It’s an act of devotion and humility.
The poetry of the creation story (Gen. 1) is very linear: this on day one, that on day two, rest on day seven. Nothing rolls over on the almighty to-do list, eh? Letting one thing go each day is a way of acknowledging a perfection, a coherence that will always be beyond me. It also helps me find a little bit of Sabbath each day.