An intervention
In thinking about what I learned during my first year of seminary, two main ideas keep surfacing. They aren’t, it turns out, directly about Jesus, the Bible, church, salvation, and the like. They aren’t directly about denominations, sermons, ministry, theology, one of the many other -ologies, or languages. They are, instead, about us. They are about the state of things.
So, from my window to the world, which is, I grant you, small, there are two things I see happening, and going back to school taught me both things. There are plenty of other ways to learn these things, but my way was school.
Thing 1: Before returning to school, I had lost the art of focusing for a really long time on one thing, and losing that skill made me super discontented, anxious, antsy, dissatisfied, unhappy, unendingly longing, and lost. This is natural. While momming, one goes from mini-crisis to mini-crisis. I really leaned into that, which wasn't great for me. Before seminary, the only time I really focused for hours on one thing was while writing my book or gardening. But even with those, I never focused as hard as I did on Hebrew. Hours, y’all. Hours and hours and hours on Hebrew. Studying, memorizing words, staring at verb paradigm charts, writing the charts hundreds of times, sitting in class, reading the chapters over and over, going to tutoring. It was SO much time.
And it turns out, there are some things that just take time. But we don’t have time, do we? We have time for a reel. We have time for a quick snack. We have time for an episode. We have time for a chat. We have time for a Like. We have time for a text. But we do not have time for a long, drawn-out conversation where we just listen to our friend who’s miserable. We do not have time for a long drawn-out meal where things haven’t even been put into the oven yet when we arrive. We do not have time to read paragraphs, much less essays. We don't have time to gather for no other reason than to be together and just...hang. We do not have time for a trip to the movie theater to watch something we could stream on our phones while we scroll on our laptops. We do not have time to flip the pages of a book to the very end. We do not have time for a phone call, a handwritten letter, or a project with many stages and lots of planning and mistakes along the way.
If you, too, are on the road to losing the ability to focus for a really long time, I think you’ll probably still come out alright in the end. But there are things you and I will miss if we carry on at this pace and rhythm. Deep things that take time. Hard things that take sweat. Seemingly impossible things that only begin to make sense after you wrestle them till you’re broken. Like faith.
And as a society, if we all begin to lose the will to focus for long periods, then one day, no one will really know anything, and everyone will hope someone else does, but no one will except for those few who spent the most precious thing they had: time.
My advice, though probably no one wants it (come on, we all sort of hate advice, but alas, as a mother, I give it freely and force it upon the tiny people in my space, because not wanting advice doesn’t mean they don’t need it)—my advice is this: pick a new thing and get into it. Nerd out on it. Make it to where your friends are honestly kinda sick of hearing you talk about it. And if we all do, we’ll remember how wonderful it is. And then we’ll remember how impossible it is to truly get to the bottom of things like foreign policy or gender or God in the space of a 15 second video. And we'll all be so much better for it.
Thing 2: Adjacent to learning the art of sitting with something till I’m sick of it but then learning that that’s where the treasure is, I learned another thing. It’s that the other way to save ourselves is by forcing ourselves to be together. Community is it. Community is *IT*. It’s THE thing. It’s the thing we’re supposed to be doing. Being with people in person, yes, IN PERSON, is critical for the health of humanity. We have to see each other’s facial expressions. We must hear the up and down of people’s voices. We need to see which socks they chose, where wrinkles are forming, how they’re developing along the path of their lives. We need to smell their stinky socks when they take their shoes off. We need to hug them. We need each other, because the pieces of God are hidden inside each of us, separate puzzle pieces, and don't you see, we need each other so desperately. There are a lot of things that damage life, humanity, and progress, but I’ll tell you what, separating us and making us not know how to be with each other is a real sneaky evil nasty trick, and it is working. It’s working. When you see me, hug me. And when I see you, I'll do the same, unless it weirds you out then just put that fist up for a bump. And then I'll listen to you. And I will spend my time on you, because I'm convinced it's the key to everything.
So, my second piece of absolutely unsolicited and probably unwelcome advice is this: make excuses to be with people. Hug them. Listen to them. Leave your phone in your pocket, and look that person in the eye and know them.
Alright. Speech over. I’m sorry, people. I told myself that if I went back to seminary, I would 100% not get preachy. I would not return to the ol’ proselytizing ways of my youth. But y’all need an intervention. We all do. So just, like, take this. You can handle hard things, just like I tell my kids. And you can handle this: put down your phone and go dig real deep into something till you are the president of that thing’s fan club, so you can know how to learn and search and seek again. Then go hug your neighbor. Do it. DO IT.
I guess I should say something nice now since I got a little fussy there. I guess I should say something about the Bible. You know what…I think I will. The Bible is about new beginnings. Fresh starts. Connections. And that’s what I’m saying we can do right now. Start again. Turn down the noise. Reclaim your life. And be with each other.
Thing 1: Before returning to school, I had lost the art of focusing for a really long time on one thing, and losing that skill made me super discontented, anxious, antsy, dissatisfied, unhappy, unendingly longing, and lost. This is natural. While momming, one goes from mini-crisis to mini-crisis. I really leaned into that, which wasn't great for me. Before seminary, the only time I really focused for hours on one thing was while writing my book or gardening. But even with those, I never focused as hard as I did on Hebrew. Hours, y’all. Hours and hours and hours on Hebrew. Studying, memorizing words, staring at verb paradigm charts, writing the charts hundreds of times, sitting in class, reading the chapters over and over, going to tutoring. It was SO much time.
And it turns out, there are some things that just take time. But we don’t have time, do we? We have time for a reel. We have time for a quick snack. We have time for an episode. We have time for a chat. We have time for a Like. We have time for a text. But we do not have time for a long, drawn-out conversation where we just listen to our friend who’s miserable. We do not have time for a long drawn-out meal where things haven’t even been put into the oven yet when we arrive. We do not have time to read paragraphs, much less essays. We don't have time to gather for no other reason than to be together and just...hang. We do not have time for a trip to the movie theater to watch something we could stream on our phones while we scroll on our laptops. We do not have time to flip the pages of a book to the very end. We do not have time for a phone call, a handwritten letter, or a project with many stages and lots of planning and mistakes along the way.
If you, too, are on the road to losing the ability to focus for a really long time, I think you’ll probably still come out alright in the end. But there are things you and I will miss if we carry on at this pace and rhythm. Deep things that take time. Hard things that take sweat. Seemingly impossible things that only begin to make sense after you wrestle them till you’re broken. Like faith.
And as a society, if we all begin to lose the will to focus for long periods, then one day, no one will really know anything, and everyone will hope someone else does, but no one will except for those few who spent the most precious thing they had: time.
My advice, though probably no one wants it (come on, we all sort of hate advice, but alas, as a mother, I give it freely and force it upon the tiny people in my space, because not wanting advice doesn’t mean they don’t need it)—my advice is this: pick a new thing and get into it. Nerd out on it. Make it to where your friends are honestly kinda sick of hearing you talk about it. And if we all do, we’ll remember how wonderful it is. And then we’ll remember how impossible it is to truly get to the bottom of things like foreign policy or gender or God in the space of a 15 second video. And we'll all be so much better for it.
Thing 2: Adjacent to learning the art of sitting with something till I’m sick of it but then learning that that’s where the treasure is, I learned another thing. It’s that the other way to save ourselves is by forcing ourselves to be together. Community is it. Community is *IT*. It’s THE thing. It’s the thing we’re supposed to be doing. Being with people in person, yes, IN PERSON, is critical for the health of humanity. We have to see each other’s facial expressions. We must hear the up and down of people’s voices. We need to see which socks they chose, where wrinkles are forming, how they’re developing along the path of their lives. We need to smell their stinky socks when they take their shoes off. We need to hug them. We need each other, because the pieces of God are hidden inside each of us, separate puzzle pieces, and don't you see, we need each other so desperately. There are a lot of things that damage life, humanity, and progress, but I’ll tell you what, separating us and making us not know how to be with each other is a real sneaky evil nasty trick, and it is working. It’s working. When you see me, hug me. And when I see you, I'll do the same, unless it weirds you out then just put that fist up for a bump. And then I'll listen to you. And I will spend my time on you, because I'm convinced it's the key to everything.
So, my second piece of absolutely unsolicited and probably unwelcome advice is this: make excuses to be with people. Hug them. Listen to them. Leave your phone in your pocket, and look that person in the eye and know them.
Alright. Speech over. I’m sorry, people. I told myself that if I went back to seminary, I would 100% not get preachy. I would not return to the ol’ proselytizing ways of my youth. But y’all need an intervention. We all do. So just, like, take this. You can handle hard things, just like I tell my kids. And you can handle this: put down your phone and go dig real deep into something till you are the president of that thing’s fan club, so you can know how to learn and search and seek again. Then go hug your neighbor. Do it. DO IT.
I guess I should say something nice now since I got a little fussy there. I guess I should say something about the Bible. You know what…I think I will. The Bible is about new beginnings. Fresh starts. Connections. And that’s what I’m saying we can do right now. Start again. Turn down the noise. Reclaim your life. And be with each other.
