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Archbishop Justin Welby: Suspicious of Joy

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BLESSING EVERY WEEK

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Jul 3

Blessed are you, faced with the impossible.
You who do not take your eyes away
from what threatens to swallow you whole.
You who stare down reality,
though your heart quickens.You for whom action comes swiftly,
as you chart the next step
or bulldoze a new path yourself.
You know how to turn hope into action.And blessed are you who,
when you’ve come to the end of what is possible,
find the courage to live there too.Blessed are we, who are learning
how to hope. and how to let go.
when to act. and when to stop.Balancing the impossibility of so much love
and so much to fear. Together.P.S. Thank you to the lovely @katiecouric who inspired this blessing.

Jul 1

There is a city smack dab in the middle of Canada called Winnipeg and it is my absolute favorite thing to love and rail against. Winnipeg, you have mosquitoes and you are almost done with hanging worm season. And the floods were brutal again this year and someone I know needed a row boat to get groceries. But I love you and to prove that I will continue to make it my life's mission to talk about potholes all the time.Happy Winnipeg Day, otherwise known as Canada Day. And to all my favorite Canadians who have ever loved Winnipeg @itsrickmercer @jannarden @sarahbessey @niavardalos @chantalkrev, and @hayleygenepenner you are my favorite champions of the underdog of the prairies.

Jun 30

We need a lot of love to get through this week. Here's to all of it, my champion truth tellers. May we live to love and fight another day.🎨: @dianaweymar for @tinypricksproject

Jun 26

A Blessing for telling the truth (no matter how bitter or sweet)Blessed are you, resisting the urge to reframe. You who are sick and tired of silver linings.Blessed are you, speaking honestly about what is right in front of you:
This is hard.
Things might not get better.
This really has gone horribly.
There may not be a different way.You who risk honesty,
especially when the world around us craves a brightside.Blessed are we in our gratitude and our pain,
our pleasures and our limitations.Blessed are we, the truth-tellers.
Whose candor finds a chorus that echos back: “Same.”May we feel ourselves answered
by this language of love,
changed where we can,
and confirmed where we can’t.But loved loved loved all the same.

Jun 22

You know what is better than junk food from the gas station? Junk food from other people’s gas station. 🙌Ever since I moved to the United States, I have been obsessed with figuring out every flavor of American chips and chocolate bars. Mostly because I was convinced that the chocolate bar “100 Grand” was a local treat because I lived on Grand Ave, St. Paul. It was years before I realized it was not a local delicacy.But I am obsessed with foreign junk food. And the weirder the better. These were some of my favorites, and ones I threw up into my hand quietly.Any horrifying delights you’ve tried?

Jun 21

I can explain? I have a deep and abiding love for other people’s relaxation rituals even though I am SO VERY UNCOMFORTABLE AT THE SAME TIME. So of course I signed up for the Bath House while in London where there were so many exciting rituals promised. Have you ever wanted to be beaten with birch branches? Me neither. Have you wanted to be heated to 158 degrees Fahrenheit? Me neither. But will all this happen while you are wearing a felt hat and the heat is so strenuous that two people have to TAKE TURNS hitting you with the birch branches at 158 degrees? Yes it will.They would not sell me the hat. But I did get to use my four years of Russian language instruction enough to say “you can stop hitting me now, sir.”Please tell me that you’ve also had a surprising spa experience. This one was for the books.

Jun 18

a blessing for the kind of love that costs something
(It's the best, worst kind)Love can break your heart.
(I think it’s probably in the fine print.) Blessed are you,
whose ability to love crosses differences
and divides that would keep others apart.

Whose love advocates for weakness and fragility.
Soft heartedness and “Are you okay?” You who know that this kind of life-expanding love
will cost you something, maybe everything. Blessed are you,
whose heart has grown three sizes.
Regardless.
You who push through the fear of intimacy,
the fear of loss, the fear of
all the unknowns and love still. Blessed are we, loving beyond our limits.
Loving when it doesn’t make sense.
Loving without any lifetime guarantees.
Loving when it might break our hearts. That is, of course, the best thing about you:
Your great big heart.

Jun 16

I’m celebrating 42 years today with some serious gratitude. Life feels joyful and overstuffed again and there is nothing else I need from the future or the past. These moments are rare and I WANT THEM ALL.At the base of a waterfall, I met a Viking with whom I ate sheep milk ice cream with rhubarb slapped on some fresh waffles. And at the top of the waterfall, I did what I always do and met everyone and took what we are all hoping will be their Christmas card photo. (My favorite conversation ended with me resolving an argument between a German couple about whether their identical jackets made them look like brother and sister.)Yesterday I saw a puffin colony and, if you can EVEN BELIEVE IT, I didn’t talk for 30 minutes because you’re not allowed to talk. Puffins need us all to shut up so they can mate, and I respect that.And I have worn THREE. SEPARATE. FLUFFY. ROBES. And I mistook someone’s house for a restaurant and sat in their backyard. (Sorry about that, kindly older man I met.)Thank you for being such a special part of my life. Honestly the fact that I have meaningful work and a beautiful community makes each of these bonus years into annual miracles.May you have lovely moments this week that suck you in and refuse to let you go.

Jun 15

Oh hello Iceland! 🇮🇸 You are a wonder. I just got here and already I have been in a lagoon (who knew I needed a lagoon? I do), eaten reindeer (I AM SORRY) and met 200 Icelanders who want to talk about the weather (Is it raining? Is it sunny? Holy crap why is that volcano turned on and can we turn it off?)You know I don’t believe in bucket lists. I don’t believe that any checklist of experiences will make a life beautiful. But i also don’t believe in “retirement” as the great moment where suddenly you pay yourself back for all capitalism takes from us. We just have to reach for whatever is there. And this week it’s an affordable direct flight from North Carolina and all these audiobooks explaining the history of Vikings with my favorite people.Have you been to Scandinavia? IKEA counts if you’re in NJ right now. That’s a great one.

Jun 13

Remember how I started this podcast as a guise to make friends? AND FRIENDS I HAVE MADE. Meet Dr. Haider Warraich. You heard him on the podcast a couple of weeks ago when he talked to us about the intricacies of chronic pain. It is the most validating message to hear from a doctor: Your pain is real. You are believed. You deserve to have someone help you through.Search for "EVERYTHING HAPPENS" wherever you get your podcasts to our full conversation or click on the link in my bio. And search for any restaurant to find me forcing yet another podcast guest into life long friendship.

Jun 12

A blessing for when we lose ourselves in other people's problems
(wait, didn't I have needs too?!)God, I am a shapeshifter.
Hidden in plain sight.
A great disappearing act.Every now and again,
when I am spinning in a tornado
of other people’s needs and wants,
I worry that if I stepped out of it
to stand dumbfounded for a moment,
my body would cast no shadow.God, I vanish.
The unnecessary pain and necessary needs
of others feels durable. Measurable.
God, look at how much they need me.
Isn’t it necessary that I am not myself today?God, remind me of my own goodness.
The way you look at me and grin.
The way the earth can stretch to hold
my own dreams when I remember them.God, let my stomach grumble and I eat.
Let me be delighted and I laugh.
Let me tire and I rest.
Give my heart peace as today
I am here
surprisingly myself
as the storm rages on.

Jun 10

I warn you. If you come on my podcast, I will love you forever and see you on vacation. This is the world’s loveliest human, nurse and memoirist @christiewatsonwriter. And she has a gorgeous new book coming out, Quilt on Fire, which I absolutely loved. (And not just because she talks about me at the end CHRISTIE I CRIED HOW DARE YOU.)But she is the realest about the high cost of loving people, learning to live with courage, and being wildly fun at the same time. Christie, I adore you. Thank you for making us all braver.Have you had a nurse in your life? Feel free to tag them so we can say YOU ARE A WARRIOR AND A BADASS AND WE LOVE YOU.

Jun 8

God, Let me see things clearly.
I must accept the world as it is,
or break against the truth of it:
my life is made of paper walls.
And so is everyone else's.
If you are paper today, we love you.🎨: @dianaweymar for @tinypricksproject

Jun 6

Well, these pirates have set sail. We’ve been cooking up the idea of a pirate kayak named “The Gentlemen’s Agreement” for sometime now. (And our companion kayak is called “The Lady’s Prerogative”). Here Zach is carefully showcasing his IMPORTANT GOLDEN MEDALLION and the skull and crossbones flag he made is ALSO VERY FULL OF PIRATES.All I want to do this summer is find enough joy to keep my big dumb heart open enough to all the sorrow. AND THIS IS MY BEST IDEA SO FAR. Have you found any good joy ideas lately?

Jun 5

A blessing for when today already feels like too much
AND TOMORROW DOESN'T LOOK GOOD EITHERI was hoping to be the kind of person by now
who doesn’t tumble, headlong, into the day
falling, falling, falling
from the high board
without nearly enough water below.God, I swear I didn’t plan it like this.
But here I am, hoping for another miracle.Lord, bless these dumb plans
that will short circuit my thinking
and make me fragile, brittle.Lord, bless these multiplying tasks
that swarm like mosquitoes.Underneath this to-do list
and these calendar invites
and these many obligations
is a set of loves.Keep love in front of my eyes.
Love in the car.
Love in the waiting room.
Love on the phone.
Love at my laptop.
Love in the laundry room.And love, especially,
for the soft heart—mine –
who cared enough to be this tired
in the first place.

May 29

for when you’re running on fumesSometimes I am paper
thinning at every touch.
Responsibilities and duties and errands
are wearing me down.
There is not enough time or energy
or finances or imagination.
I hardly recognize myself.
I can’t keep going, but I can’t rest.
God, can You help me slow down?
I just need a little shelter and a long breath.
Give me space to curl up for a while.
Hold me until I can feel my shoulders drop,
and I am freed from what can’t happen right now.
Let me think only about what is gentle and lovely,
what is bountiful and unencumbered on this too-heavy day.
God, scoop me up into life as it is.
Stop me from running ahead,
so I can be here,
in this space,
for the moment.
And breathe.
Amen.

May 25

for collective grief (when thoughts and prayers are not enough)

This world.
Impossible.
Unthinkable.
We are brought to our knees.

God, today, there is no true north.
And when I last checked,
the sun did not rise at all.
Today, the innocent still suffer,
teachers still risk their lives,
families still grieve.

A world has ended without
any reasonable fanfare.
And we are sold the fantasy that nothing can be done.

Help us to know what to feel—rage, grief, sorrow.
And what to do—advocate, protest, lament.

Blessed are we who let reality in,
though our bodies shudder.

Blessed are we
who ask and wait, and ask again
for the courage to change our culture
whose laws and complicity subsidize death.

God, give us hope that seems hard to find.

May 22

A blessing for if you are in pain
(because so few people let us talk about it)Blessed are you on this pain-filled day.
When getting out of bed deserves an award.
When you can’t remember what it feels like
not to be so aware of your own body.
When you arrange your weeks around limitations or side effects.Or when you stop telling the truth altogether about how badly it hurts,
how scared you are of your own mind
or the boring details of another non-diagnosis
because you’re afraid people have stopped caring.You speak a language of suffering
the world doesn’t try to understand.
So blessed are you whose world has shrunk to a space
so small it’s defined most by what is no longer possible.You count dear one.
And so does your pain.
It does not and did not disqualify you from belonging.When the world feels too full of everyone else’s possibilities,
God, remind me of mine.
This body.
This day.
These joys within reach.** For more on this topic, listen to conversation with Dr. Haider Warraich on chronic pain. Search for "EVERYTHING HAPPENS" wherever you get your podcasts or at the link in bio.

May 19

“Our journey was and continues to be about fostering a longing for life and about seeking that life when death seems to surround us.” - the endlessly correct Katherine Wolf (@hopeheals)This beautiful human is someone I’m sure you already know. Katherine Wolf is a stroke survivor and advocate for so many. And she is a dreamboat person. Funny. Kind. Loves sarcasm which is #1 of any gifts inventory. She and her amazing husband Jay founded Hope Heals, which has an incredible camp for families with disabilities. She is one of those people who looks honestly and unflinchingly at how hard life can be and decides to find God’s truth there, somehow.I met her when I was researching my book about women and ministry, and little did I know how much I would need friends like her to learn to walk through my own pain. So, blessings on you, Katherine the Great.Do you have a friend who didn’t just tell you how to move forward, but *showed* you? I’d love to hear about those miracle friends.

May 18

IT’S ROOMMATE REUNION TIME (check out the before & after). It’s my 20 year college reunion and apparently, this fetus is ready to have some memories. About the time she made everyone endure her BIG MOMENT beatboxing for her all-girls acapella group. And the intense feelings she had about Heath Ledger. And when she didn’t know that Diet Mountain Dew is (as it turns out) caffeinated. But *in her defense* it is caffeine-free in Canada. Also why am I speaking in the third person.This is my Andrea and my Mindy and thank God they stuck with me. Highly caffeinated and all. Did you end up staying friends with your college roommate? (All joyful and horror stories welcome.)P.S. Why yes, these photos have been scrapbooked. Don’t worry I had all the corrugated scissors.

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