You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

A few decades later, the Apostle Paul told Timothy that it is “good and acceptable in the sight of God” that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way.”

Though the instructions are clear and consistent, I wrestle (read: fight) with these passages. I routinely fail to apply (read: I disobey) these passages.

I know I’m not the only one praying along with the Rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof: “May God bless and keep the Tsar... far away from us!”

I do not have it in myself to pray sincerely for the blessing of someone I dislike, distrust, and believe to be dangerous and intent on harm. Left to my worst impulses, I would rather despise, mock, and look down on someone God has created and called me to love.

I can’t do it.

At least not without getting a running start.

Loving-kindness meditation is one of the most valuable practices I’ve learned from my Buddhist friends, and it’s how I’m currently able to at least try to follow the command of Christ to love my enemy, and to pray for “kings” and those in authority. Maybe it will be helpful for you, too.

A very simple loving-kindness meditation can go something like this.

Take your seat. Sit or lie down in a neutral posture and quiet yourself by focusing attention on your breath. Inhale deeply, exhale deeply, and allow the body and mind to settle. Allow your breath to settle into a natural rhythm.

Send quiet attention to yourself, as though you are your own benevolent caregiver and able to pour loving-kindness over your own self.

Think or say aloud some variation of these words:

May I be safe.

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I live with ease.

Notice any feelings or sensations that arise in your mind or body, and let them pass as though they are leaves floating along in a stream of water.

When you are ready, call to mind a person who is dear to you. This could be a partner, a family member, a close friend, even a pet.

Send your loving-kindness to this dear one:

Sit again with the feelings that arise, and when you are ready, move on.

This time, focus your loving-kindness toward someone you don’t know well and who does not stir up emotion for you. Perhaps this is the cashier at the supermarket, or the mailman, or a neighbor you wave to when walking but whose name you don’t know.

Using the same script, send your loving-kindness to this neutral person. Acknowledge again and release any feelings that arise.

When you are ready, call to mind a person you find difficult to love.

Hold them with the same tenderness you cultivated when you held yourself, your dear friend, and a neutral person close to your heart.

Send them safety, happiness, health, and ease.

Again, neutrally observe any emotions or thoughts that arise, and let them go.

Sit quietly for a few moments and bring your meditation to a close with any final thoughts you wish to carry with you.

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I don’t generally have the strength built up to go straight from neutral mind to compassion for a difficult person. I have to work my way there gradually. Cultivating a soft heart toward myself, then to someone dear to me, to someone further removed, and then to someone difficult for me to love is how I get a running start.

There’s debate about whether belief comes before practice, or whether practice leads to right belief. We like to talk about “hearts and minds” being key to changing behavior. But in this case, I know of a surety that as I practice loving-kindness, I do become more loving and kind. This is one way I know of to live the quiet and peaceable life to which I’ve been called.

There are many, MANY variations on loving-kindness meditation (also known as Metta Bhavana); a quick search will turn up a plethora of resources for you. Use what works for you and pass by anything that doesn’t.

And even now, I don’t flatter myself that anyone’s been holding their breath as they waited for my opinion. Rather, I simply think it’s important for people of good will to go on record as having worked against this outcome and intending to resist it, and I want to raise my voice in that chorus of protest.

I began multiple drafts of a post-election essay as I tried to capture some thoughts this past week, only to be frustrated each time by my inability to get what was in my head and heart on to the page with any clarity at all. As I’ve paused before responding, I’ve come across several folks who have said so much of what has been swirling inside me. They’ve said it better in many ways, so, with a little bit of commentary in between, I’ll share their words here instead of mine. (Everything’s clickable, so please follow the links as necessary.)

This is my first and deepest grief: that people I trusted and admired and have learned from my entire life looked at someone so deeply flawed and voted for him to lead the free world. The same exact people who were in absolutely sincere hysterics over Bill Clinton’s deceptions in the 1990s are now willing to elevate someone exponentially worse to the same office. The same people who, in 2016, said, and I quote, “That man is an ass, of course I can’t vote for him!” somehow, in 2024, despite knowing even more of his disqualifying and despicable traits, decided that he was now somehow an acceptable candidate.

In 2016, I could understand the excuse of voting for Trump as the outsider, the change candidate, and not genuinely understanding the Pandora’s box of his character. But in 2024? You knew. We all knew. And with your eyes wide open, you said okay.

I simply do not understand. I do not understand trading a legacy for a pot of stew. I do not understand having the devil offer the world in exchange for a soul and thinking that sounds like a pretty good deal. I do not understand the crowd recognizing an insurrectionist and still screaming GIVE US BARRABAS.

There is so much I do not understand.

@sweeper698Its been a rough week. And I couldn’t figure out why I was SO beartbroken and disappointed over the #election2024 . But now I know. #election2024🇺🇸 #trump

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I don’t feel the shock I did in 2016. This time I’m just disappointed. I wanted to think that our national character had matured, grown, improved over the past 8 years, and I am so, so very disappointed to be wrong.

Spicy language in this next one, but he gets to the point: people are going to die because we elected a con man.

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So where do we go from here? What changes in how I navigate the world? What stays the same?

Where Ryan Holiday uses the word Stoic, swap it out for Christian:

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As a Christian, I have my orders: I am to love my neighbor; to seek justice, mercy, and humility; to cultivate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I am to forgive, to love my enemy, and be willing to suffer wrong. I am to serve the poor, the hungry, the sick, the orphan, the widow, the prisoner, the stranger.

I am to be the aroma of Christ to a broken world.

A transistion in this country’s leadership changes none of these things. Erin Jean writes beautifully to this same point in her post about moral courage. (Note that reading Erin Jean’s post was the only time I’ve cried since the election.)

After having five days to process the election news, I am feeling a bit less drained than on Wednesday. Roughly 150 hours of voter registration work and election volunteering (every bit of it non-partisan, I might add, and all also unpaid save for one day as a Travis County Election Day Poll Clerk) over a couple of months has left me spent. I would gladly do every minute of it over again, even with the same result, but that said, the physical effort has left me feeling emotionally depleted and without the energy to summon stronger outrage, though the situation absolutely warrants it.

I feel afraid for my BIPOC friends and my friends with medically-fragile children and my queer friends and my Dreamer friends and my poor friends and so many vulnerable people I could name but I can’t because it’s my job to protect them, not out them.

More than any real sensation of anger, fear, or sadness for myself, I feel a sort of anticipatory exhaustion, as though someone signed me up for some kind of non-optional marathon and even though I dislike running and have no particular aptitude for it or gift for speed or agility, I have no choice but to start running laps in preparation. I don’t want to run a marathon, I did not choose this, and yet it is my assignment. I will learn to be proficient at running, oh yes, but just the thought of having to fills me with trepidation and fatigue.

As always, I have more questions than answers, but one thing is clear:

We have elected Barabbas, and half the people I know are, at the very least, okay with it, or even enthused about it.

And that makes me tired.

The Dutch watchmaker’s family worked together to aid over 800 Jews and resisters during the Holocaust by hiding them behind a hidden wall in Corrie’s bedroom. They helped many survive and escape Holland, until Corrie, her sister Betsie, their brother, nephew, and their aged father Casper ten Boom were all captured in 1944 and sent to prison camps. Corrie was the only one to survive much past the war, passing away at age 91. 

I first read Corrie’s family biography, The Hiding Place, when I was about ten or twelve years old. I read The Diary of Anne Frank around the same time. Later, I would discover Brother Andrew, Richard Wurmbrand, and Maria Anne Hirschmann, and absorb their stories of surviving totalitarianism.

I watched Reagan, Gorbachev, and the fall of the Berlin Wall as a child, and came of age in the confluence of Y2K and evangelical end-times fervor, both of which were taken very, very seriously in my circles. I lived with the expectation of the bottom falling out for American Christians at any time. 

The small walk-in closet of my childhood bedroom was in a corner of the house where several planes of wall and roofline came together. I have clear memories of discussing how, because the inset corner would make it hard to tell from the outside where the interior walls lined up, it was an ideal spot to build an extra wall to create—if ever needed— our own “hiding place.” 

For my 20th birthday gift, I specifically requested (and I still have) a pocket Bible with minuscule print, taking my cue from the tiny Scriptures that Betsie ten Boom hid on her emaciated body while imprisoned in Ravensbrück. 

The “Liberal Elites” hated both Christians and America, I was told, and people who followed Jesus would eventually be persecuted for their faith. "They” had a “New Age Agenda” that would “indoctrinate” us with a false and atheist history, a la Orwell’s 1984. Meanwhile, radical “feminazis” wanted to "tear apart the family" and "destroy traditional marriage" by weakening "real" womanhood and tearing down good men. Liberals and feminists had already successfully "watered down" the Gospel through "mistranslations" of the Bible, particularly the NIV and the Living Bible. Along with "the gays," they had also "infiltrated" every level of the Academy, using public schools and colleges to gain access to young people to systematically destroy their faith (and recruit them to homosexuality). This evil paradigm was being set up to support the “New World Order” that would take away our King James Version Bibles, force us to turn in other Christians so they could put us all in camps, and partner with the “Godless Communists” to usher in the “End Times.” 

The preceding paragraph may seem extreme to some readers, but I do not speak here in hyperbole. I did not simply misunderstand, or come to wild, childish conclusions, nor hear something once and take it to extremes. I use quotation marks because those were the exact words used in my world.

All of these disastrous events were so imminently anticipated that I had zero expectations that I would have a long life. There was simply no questioning whether these things were just around the corner. I assumed I would probably not have time to get married or grow middle-aged, much less old. Growing up as I did on a steady diet of the stories coming out of Eastern Europe after the Iron Curtain was drawn back, perhaps my fatalism is unsurprising.

It took me many years after Y2K to even begin to release my fatalism and fears, reform destructive (not to mention wildly incorrect) eschatology, and begin to relax and enjoy my life without feeling an ever-present sense of doom, a constant wondering if I’d be called to be imprisoned for Jesus like Corrie was, or to die for Him, like Betsie did.

I only recently became aware that every day since 2000 has felt in some subconscious way like a bonus, something I never expected to have, and in the days since I had this insight, I’ve realized that I want to wring every drop of life out of all the days I’m given, no matter how many or few they are.

But now I find myself revisiting so many of the old fears, only this time the adversaries—much as it pains me to call them that—are largely from the same camp that planted the fears in the first place. 

The spiritual and cultural heirs of the ones who looked at Germany and Russia and said "We can't let that happen here!" are now the ones setting up the framework for exactly that to happen here.

It’s not a member of the Liberal Elite who has referred to me as “the enemy within" and threatened to use the military against me.

It’s not a crystal-wearing New Ager asking me to inform on my neighbor who suddenly doesn’t look pregnant anymore. 

It’s not the leaders of the New World Order who have cozied up to a dictator whose stated goal is to reconstruct the Russian Empire through force.

It’s not the left-wingers who want to choose which books I can and cannot read. 

It’s not the Academy who’s skewing textbooks to sugarcoat atrocities committed in the name of America and/or Christianity. 

It’s not a Godless Communist who wants to enforce mass roundups and build camps. 

It wasn't the gays who ended my marriage.

It wasn't college that brought on my dark night of the soul.

So far, there's no one trying to take away my Bible. Rather, it's been added to, having America’s founding documents exalted to the same place as holy Scripture, hawked for sale as a fundraiser to pay legal fees. Most of Jesus’ words have been entirely ignored, while selected passages from the Old Testament have been mandated as a public spectacle in tax-payer funded spaces.

Instead of the world persecuting believers for a faith that looks like Christ, people who claim to be following Him are laying the groundwork for the persecution of others.

Maybe it wasn't the atheists who indoctrinated me.

We’ve spent the last year or so in my home having increasingly frequent conversations that ask questions of the type I thought—hoped— I had left behind forever. Corrie ten Boom remains one of my heroines of the faith, and for the first time in over two decades, I feel it’s a real possibility that I may be called upon to answer the same question Corrie asked:

Who would I hide in my closet?

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Today is the final day of registration to be eligible to vote in Texas for the November 5th election.

Like any deadline, there’s always a final rush, and we VDRs were ready to help with in-person registration at the Williamson County elections office.

The flow of people registering was constant. We had a line in the parking lot for most of the time I was there; no sooner had one seat emptied but another person was there to sit down with a clipboard and pen. The line was still there when I left after three hours, and I imagine people will keep coming until the office closes tonight at 7pm.

I personally helped register:

• a mama with a tiny infant strapped to her chest

• a servicemember wearing full military fatigues

• young people who had just turned 18 and wanted to vote for the first time

• multiple transplants to Texas, including one who just moved here 4 days ago

• a niece and uncle duo who already had a plan to go to the polls together

• people on their lunch breaks

• several folks accompanied by service dogs

• people dropping off signed registrations for their entire households

• many, many people who had moved and needed to update their registrations, and

• quite a few Baby Boomers who were registering to vote for the very first time. (It’s never too late to start voting!)

But the one that has had me weepy since noon?

The newly-naturalized citizen who didn’t realize until today that there was even a deadline to register, because, “Where I am from, in Belarus, we don’t have to register to vote. For 30 years, we have the same President—he is Putin’s friend— and registering doesn’t matter because the elections aren’t real and the votes don’t count.”

I replied emphatically, “Your vote counts here.”

Both of us were immediately overcome with tears, and I’ve been wiping my eyes ever since.

It’s jarring to be confronted with such a stark picture of an alternate reality, one where elections are not free and fair; where leaders are untrustworthy, paranoid, and cruel; where citizens are silenced and intimidated; where “public servants” are instead political appointees loyal to the regime; where people are subject to the whims of a dictator who will give up power only through death or violence.

In bright optimistic America, we’d gladly believe that a scenario like that is just imaginary.

But the line between real and imaginary is growing ever thinner…

For now, you have a choice in how your city, county, state, and country are led, and who leads them.

For now, your vote is secret: no one can force you to vote a certain way, and no one knows how you vote unless you tell them.

For now, your vote is counted, and your voice is still heard.

I want to be more like this new voter who uprooted their entire life for the belief that there was something different and better than existing under an authoritarian regime.

Keep voting, keep working, keep showing up.

Your vote counts here.

For now.

This has implications for every aspect of how I experience my life, and I’m still discovering how a deliberate rejection of perfectionism and hustle culture applies to life in the specific human body in which I dwell.

My plan for this online space is to share what I’m learning as I work out these insights for myself in the hopes that you too will feel a call to examine the scale and pace of your own life. I have in mind a series of posts about what it means to me to embrace my human life (including its limitations) and rein in the tendency to take on too much and move too fast. Come along with me?

Today: Mellow Mornings.

The world is so much right now.

So much.

Each day brings some bit of news that is enough to break your heart… and then the next day starts it all over again.

That’s why I can’t face it— the day, the world— without preparation. I can’t survive or thrive, much less contribute meaningfully in a way that demonstrates love to my neighbors, if I head out into the world while still running on empty from the demands of the day before.

The way I start my day sets the tone for everything, and just as we don’t generally march out in public without first putting on clothes, I’m not well equipped to move into the world until I’ve first covered myself in wisdom, love, and joy.

Here’s how I heard it explained by Dr. Liza Rankow when she was a guest on The Cosmic We podcast, speaking about how to maintain the stamina for activism when the load is heavy:

What is it that nourishes you? … Practice those, fold those into your life on a daily basis. Don’t wait and just do first aid after you’re already burnt out. Although please do first aid if you’re burnt out! But do it as a consistent practice of communion with the Larger Thing, whatever the Larger Thing is for you, and let that animate our work in the world. —Dr. Liza Rankow

Dr. Rankow made clear that she differentiated self-care from soul care. What we think of as self-care is the sort of soothing and pampering that frequently consists of bubble baths and pedicures and take-out sushi eaten while binge-watching funny shows, those activities that are necessary for rest and relaxation and unplugging from the demands of our noisy and hectic modern world.

But soul care is contrasted by being deeply nourishing, restorative, sometimes uncomfortable inner work. Soul care is whatever (re)connects the human soul to the divine. Soul care isn’t one-time nail polish that wears off, but just like good nutrition, it’s small, consistent, nourishing actions over a long time that build resilience, trust, and a deep well of joy that sustains for the long haul.

I know from experience that the things that you build into your life during the “good times” are what holds you together when the storms hit. To put it another way, it’s a smart idea to learn the steps to the dance before the music starts and the curtain goes up. (This is why I love to refer to these nourishing actions as practices: because I do them over and over and over, and no one else can do them for me.)

You do the practices when you’re not stressed so you can remember to use the practices when you are stressed. —Danielle LaPorte

I’ve searched and searched and I can’t find the exact quote, but the gist of another concept that I just recently heard Danielle share was that if she had started her day by getting oriented and connecting with the divine, she didn’t feel the need to second-guess herself for the rest of that day.

This makes intuitive sense to me: if I’ve already rooted myself in a firm foundation, spoken truth over myself, and I’ve asked for supernatural wisdom, love, and joy, then why not actually behave as though I believe I’ve received it all? I can simply walk in confidence and move on with my day, and when something comes up, I can trust that I do indeed have the wisdom, love, and joy required to face it.

On spring and summer mornings, I love to go out early with my little cup of coffee and walk through my garden with my dog Venus. If I can somehow let my “roots and tendrils” reconnect me with the “givens” of life, as Bill Plotkin calls them—not the ideas about life, but the natural world, what is—I experience the most extraordinary grounding, connection, healing, and even revelation. One little hopping bird can do me in! …

Of course, it’s not as simple as just standing in my garden. If I get my email first or start worrying and planning my day, the moment’s over. It’s done because I’m not really present. But we can preserve and protect those sacred moments before we read the news or check our email, before we look at social media or review the day’s agenda. If we can find a way to be present to the “givens,” especially the natural “givens,” I believe we can be happy. —Father Richard Rohr 

I received the above paragraphs as an email from Fr. Rohr, one of my most beloved spiritual teachers, and it was so compelling that I began adding a garden walk to my morning routine the very next day.

Here’s how most of my mornings unfold in this season:

I need more sleep than my husband, so he’s usually been up for at least an hour before he comes back to wake me up. Our dog Buddy’s pretty much willing to cuddle up only when he’s half asleep, so I take advantage of the first few moments of the day to indulge in what we refer to as “family snuggles.”

A long time ago, I started leaving my phone across the room overnight rather than on my nightstand. This means I seldom scroll in bed, whether first thing or last, and I can’t recommend that practice highly enough. When I get up, I put my phone in my pocket (because it’s also my camera and my radio) but I DO NOT look at news, internet, social, or email yet.

I head downstairs to get my “warm drink” brewing. Sometimes it’s Rasa, sometimes it’s dandelion tea, sometimes decaf Earl Grey, and on Sundays it’s a single cup of actual coffee (the one weekly dose of caffeine that I allow myself). Everything related to warm drinks is in a single cabinet right above the hot water kettle so I don’t have to hunt for anything while I’m waking up.

While that brews, I gather a little bucket of birdseed, slide on whichever shoes are by the back door (often my husband’s flipflops), and head outside. I refill three birdfeeders—a scoop of sunflower seeds in one, two scoops of the grocery store mix in each of the other two—and then I wander through the rest of the yard.

I check what’s blooming in the corner of the yard (aka my wildflower meadow), and stroll through the vegetable garden. If I’m lucky enough to have some fresh rosebuds, I pick a few to put in a vase. I say hello to the birds and bunnies and squirrels that are just waiting for me to leave so they can descend upon the feeders.

By the time I get back inside, my warm drink is ready. I pour it into a favorite mug and move over to my reading nook. When we redesigned our living space last year, we intentionally set up quiet reading spaces for each of us, and I love my corner so much.

Here I engage more senses by getting some good smells going, sometimes essential oils in a diffuser, or maybe a candle, but most days I light a stick of palo santo. I swivel my chair to face the window, cue up a ten-minute audio mediation from Susan Piver, and then sit.

When the bell has rung and meditation is over, I’m still in my cozy chair, ready to sip that warm drink. I reach next for wisdom from my bookshelf.

If it’s the first half of the week, I re-read the Scriptures from the past Sunday’s sermon; if it’s Thursday onward, I read the Scripture for the upcoming sermon. Sometimes I follow the readings from my Sacred Ordinary Days planner, or dive in without a plan and open my Bible to whatever I need that day.

I read or sing a hymn, and dip in and out of one or several other books. (At only a page or two a day, it can take me a long while to work through a devotional work!) The titles vary; currently I have a volume of Mary Oliver’s poems and books by Parker Palmer, N.T. Wright, and Pema Chodron in rotation, right next to two Bibles (NRSV and The Message) and my Methodist Hymnal.

When either I’ve run out of time or else found the kernel of wisdom that I want to carry with me for the day, I close the books and get dressed to go outside again. I keep one set of clothes on a hook in the bathroom to wear for morning walks so that I don’t waste time and morning brain energy on deciding what to put on, and I just throw it in the wash every few days when it gets sweaty. (My neighbors who only see me in the mornings probably think I have just the one outfit, ha!)

Buddy’s a better dog and I’m a better human when we both get some movement, so after I blend up a simple spinach and blueberry smoothie, I put on my sun hat and off we go for a walk. I listen to something thoughtful and nourishing, often a podcast from CAC. We wander the neighborhood while Buddy sniffs and I drink my breakfast.

By the time I get back home, I’m thoroughly awake and energized, and I’ve been grounded in all the ways that matter to me: I’ve connected with my partner and pup; greeted the living things outside and oriented myself in a world that’s larger and older than I am and not all about me; I’ve had ten minutes of stillness; I’ve absorbed the wisdom of ancient Scriptures and teachers; I’ve hydrated and fed and moved my body and gotten some sunshine; and then, THEN! I am ready to open myself to the wider world.

Not until I’ve cared for my soul in serious ways am I fit to check my calendar and inbox and get myself oriented to the tasks and world events that await me. By the time I get to my desk and turn on screens for work or study, I’m intentionally prepared to respond effectively, filled and nourished enough to actually have something to contribute that matters.