Finding Warmth on Wintry Days

Plus Some Links to Recommended Reading

I think winter gets a bad rap. Yeah, it’s cold and the weather isn’t conducive to backyard barbecues. But I love winter.

I love the combination of chenille blankets and warm fires and paper-bound books while listening to the rhythms of rainfall. I especially love the way the earth quiets down and the land literally hibernates for a season.

Winter is like an invitation — to slow our pace and quiet our souls.

Admittedly, I’m still new to such wintry days. My native state of California isn’t called the Golden State for no reason. I’m still getting used to the fact I can no longer wear flip-flops 365 days a year. But it’s a tradeoff I’m happy to make.

My kids went back to their college campuses last week, right in the middle of an “arctic blast,” which meant below-freezing weather. I felt compelled to text them: Remember, this is not “California cold.” This is “you-will-die-if-you-stay-outside-too-long kind of cold. So bundle up!”

Aside from the typical motherly worries and admonitions (are they wearing enough layers?), all is fine here. I don’t have to go outside much, so I’m enjoying these frosty days by making a lot of vegetable soup. I’ve also read some good articles lately I’d like to share with you.

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I can’t speak for other generations, but I do believe my generation in particular was raised to believe we could — and should — go out there and change the world! To make it a better place!

It’s a nice idea. But then you turn 30, 40, 50 . . . and you realize you’ve spent most of your adult years just trying to pay the bills and feed your kids and, hopefully, share a little kindness along the way. And in the middle of it all, the world turned digital, and we now have access to pictures and live updates from around the globe 24/7, and that crushing old burden comes barreling back . . . I haven’t done enough!

But what if we were never meant to change the world? What if saving the world was never meant to be our burden? What if we let God be the Savior of the world and we focused, instead, on simply loving our actual next-door neighbors and serving others through our local church? You know, those people right in front of us where we live and work and play?

This is why I appreciated these words by

Hadden Turner

. . .

“Where You Are Is Where You Are”

I believe we were never made to have such global burdens on our shoulders. The world is not ours to save — and we can’t even if we tried with all our might. One in a million of us may make a world changing difference — finding a cure for cancer or discovering something as world-changing as electricity — but such men and women are few and far between. You, dear reader, are unlikely to be one of them and neither am I. The memory of most of us will be erased once the inscription on our tombstone has weathered away. But if that inscription told of a life faithfully lived towards God and man — a ripe life with duties faithfully discharged and accomplished, and a local area all the better for your presence — then all is as it should have been.

You are not responsible for the whole world — far from it. But you are responsible for the local places in front of you: the local people who you relate to, the unique buildings, art, and beauty that you enjoy every day, and the local environments and habitats that surround the place you dwell. Where you are is where you are — and what you are responsible for. This is a burden heavy enough for us. This is a burden that matches our limitations. This is a burden that we can faithfully discharge. And this is a burden that will present us with a lifetime of opportunities for doing good. (Hadden Turner)

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Of course, being present to the people in our local area is always easier said than done. Community is such a lovely idea . . . until people get involved . . . then it gets . . . messy . . . and complicated. Especially if we’re wearing masks and trying really hard to present a certain persona to others.

Oh, how tiring that becomes. Ask me how I know.

But when we remove the masks and confess our needs, our weaknesses, and yes, even our sin, then maybe, just maybe, we can begin to connect in very real and very human ways.

Which is why I appreciated these words by

Scott Boley

. . .

“Secretly Human: Learning to Leave Our Religious Masks at Home”

It’s ironic that in spite of our best efforts to present ourselves as spiritually upright, we’re not really fooling anyone. We may not know—and certainly shouldn’t seek to know—the gory details of that guy’s life or this woman’s business, but neither are we fooled into believing that anyone among us is any holier than the next guy.

It could be that we will begin to transcend our own brokenness only when we look it squarely in the face, then reveal ourselves to other broken Christians—even if, at first, it’s in small ways. Somehow, the Holy Spirit’s power to remake us is intertwined with this earthy, person-to-person vulnerability Jesus himself instigated by dirtying his own hands in the Incarnation. (Scott Boley)

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I ventured out into the cold this past week to meet a couple of sweet friends for lunch. It was so good to catch up on everything from having grown kids to serving in church to dreaming about the future. Yes, even in midlife, we women still have dreams!

Our time together is always a refreshment to my soul. There is no need to wear a mask.

And there is one thing, I have noticed, that we never do when we’re together. We never pull out our phones; we never try to capture our lunch date with a picture. It’s not even a question. We are there, simply, to be present for one another.

This means a lot to me.

Perhaps it’s because, years ago, I was part of a group of writers who once met for tea in Pasadena. The afternoon together was lovely, but near the end, everyone, as if one cue, pulled out their phones and started taking group shots. I obliged and joined the group picture, but thirty minutes later, the photoshoot was still in session. An hour later, the pictures were posted online — complete with all the tags — so everyone else could see that we writers had gathered.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with taking a group photo, but it still felt like the previous two hours of good conversation had been cheapened.

Were we there to enjoy one another’s company? Or were we really there for the group photos, so we could post them online and get the tags?

One of the most succinct pieces I have read about the internet and how it shapes our behavior is in a Foreword by Jefferson Bethke for Sara Hagerty’s book Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World That Loves to be Noticed. In the Foreword, he writes:

The internet is one of those things that’s both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because of the sheer power of its innovation and how it has given access to information and given voice to so many who never had one, but a curse because it’s creating a new humanity, a new way of doing things, rewiring our being.

We are shifting the way we live in order to create better pictures to post and content to create. Many of us no longer go on a hike and then take a picture to remember it. We want to take a picture to post, so we go on a hike to get that picture. It’s driving us. It’s feeding our insatiable desire to be seen. Be affirmed. Be noticed. Be loved. Be liked. (Jefferson Bethke)

It’s true: “We are shifting the way we live in order to create better pictures to post.”

It’s driving us.

More recently, an excellent piece by

Katelyn Beaty

spoke to this reality. In “The Mirage of Christian Influencer Friendships,” she writes:

As soon as one says, “Hey, we should take a selfie . . . send it to me!” . . . I believe that cheapens the otherwise good connection that just happened.

The decision to take personal moments of real connection and spin them into digestible “content” has injected the exchange of goods and services — capitalism — into a type of relationship whose very nature is meant to resist it. (Katelyn Beaty)

And this . . .

I think it’s fine for influencers to take photos of themselves and post them on the Internet. They’re going to keep doing it whether I like it or not, because they participate in a media ecosystem that demands that they turn moments of their life into relatable content, and once you feed the beast you have to keep feeding it.

But at the very least, we social media followers and book readers should remember what we’re getting and seeing—something like influendship. There may be hallmarks of friendship off the screen (again, we can’t know), but as soon as it’s presented on the screen for our consumption, there’s also this other thing in the water that cheapens it: the capitalistic tit-for-tat that’s most akin to business associates, selling us the feeling of friendship in an age starved for real friends. (Katelyn Beaty)

This is what social media is: “a media ecosystem that demands that they turn moments of their life into relatable content” for other people’s consumption.

I’ve been completely off of social media now for over six months, and I haven’t missed it. I’m in the process of writing about this turn, but until then, I’m delighted to see I’m not alone in this transition to a different way to live.

Cal Newport wrote in The New Yorker: “It’s Time to Dismantle the Technopoly.”

And Reagan Rose wrote about this from a Christian perspective at Redeeming Productivity: “I Changed My Mind About Social Media: Why I Decided to Quit.”

On this wintry day, I’m not trying to convince anyone that they should quit social media, but I do want to encourage you to find warmth in other ways. Have a face-to-face conversation with a neighbor. Get together with a couple of friends for lunch. And resist the urge to document online these incarnate connections. Let the genuine fragrance of friendship fill your heart, without the need for a digital thumbs-up.

The quiet contrarian in me wants to do this more and more: live locally and invest personally.

Keep warm, my friends.

Shalom.