Please, We Need to Hear Your Voice; We Need to Listen; Please Speak

You know how you have those moments where you hear or see something, and you remember everything about the moment--the sights, the sounds, the smells--just everything. That's happened to me twice in the last week, and then today they came together. I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

Last week, I was listening to an interview with Glennon Doyle about her new book Untamed. In the book, she writes about her daughter Tish and then also herself, "It is easier to call us broken and dismiss us than to consider we are responding appropriately to a broken world." I was running and had just turned the corner back onto our street. Our neighbor was dragging his trashcan to the edge of his driveway. A black car was driving towards me and slowed down so I could pass. "That's me," I thought, "I don't just overthink or make a mountain out of a molehill. I'm not just too sensitive. I don't just look for pain. Pain is there, and I see it, and I feel it, and it stays with me. And I don't always know what to do with it." Except the last thought isn't true. What I do with it is I write.

I remember as a little girl and a teenager and a young adult and even a "mature" adult being told all those things. I remember being told, "Sometimes you just have to let things go and move on--you've got to get over things." I remember being hushed. I remember thinking there was something wrong with me. And here's another truth, and one I don't like. As a parent, I've done the same thing.

I have at least one child just like that, and I have said the same things to him/her. Sometimes it's because I'm busy or I'm stressed, and I just want the "drama" to stop. But the truth is the "drama" isn't drama--it's authentic living in a broken world. Then I also realize sometimes it's not for any of those reasons but instead because I want to protect my child from realizing how broken the world is, so I act like the Great Wizard of Oz and desperately try to keep him/her from looking behind the curtain.

Yesterday I was listening to Brene Brown's new podcast Unlocking Us. (Highly Recommend) She was interviewing Dr. Marc Brackett, who wrote Permission to Feel. As they began talking, Brown said this about his book, "it's equal part scientific rigor and a big juicy heart." Then she continues talking about writing, specifically her own as a Ph.D., LMSW, "if it's too accessible, we're not that smart." I was digging out daylilies in my backyard, my foot was on the right side of the shovel, I was under the dining room window at the end of the plot, and I froze. I thought to myself, "That's me. I won't even attempt to publish because my writing won't be taken seriously. After all, it's so basic."

Today as I worked in the front yard weeding and mulching those daylilies I'd been digging out and transplanting, the two came together--and may I add not in a comfortable way. I thought about how my dream, my dream that took root when I was a child, was to write a book, and I'm not sure I ever will. I thought about the steps I "take" to get there. Sharon Pearson, both my friend and a woman I highly respect and I can't even believe she thinks I'm smart, has even titled my book "Running with Pearls." I thought about my friend Jerusalem Greer, who I believe is just magic and holds the secrets to deep everyday spirituality and also whom I am sure is my long lost soul sister, and how I pestered her for days asking to see her book proposals and how she sent them and I haven't even opened them. And why is that?

Because my writing is simple. I have earned a Masters in Psychology, a Masters in Theology, and a Masters in Divinity, as well as a Degree in Anglican Studies, but my writing is simple. Sometimes it seems right. My call to ordained ministry came as I heard God say, "you see the holy in the ordinary. Speak that." I forget that or don't think that is enough or maybe just that it doesn't really matter in the bigger world. I am convinced, beyond all objective criteria, that it's because I'm not smart enough or because I don't have anything valuable to say. And that may be true. I often think I should use a thesaurus to make me sounds "smarter," but when I reread it with those words I searched, it doesn't sound like me, so I delete it. There's something safer about blogging and being able to take it down, then to try to write a book. A book is out there with review stars on amazon or with lost money spent on publishing which "proves" you' re/I'm not enough.

I don't know what to do with all these thoughts except to say this. Who gets to decide what "smart" is? Who gets to decide what the world needs to hear? I'm not saying it's my voice; it may not be--that's my own road to travel and discern. But I do believe there are many voices out there we need to hear, and we don't need to wait for you to get it "right" or "intellectual" or "perfect." We just need to hear from you. Please, we need to listen to you.