I had a lot of extra time this week, and I used a good chunk of it reading back through things I'd bookmarked on Facebook. Here are some things that stood out as interesting, funny, inspiring, or valuable.

Why the British Tell Better Children's Stories (The Atlantic): "If British children gathered in the glow of the kitchen hearth to hear stories about magic swords and talking bears, American children sat at their mother’s knee listening to tales larded with moral messages about a world where life was hard, obedience emphasized, and Christian morality valued. Each style has its virtues, but the British approach undoubtedly yields the kinds of stories that appeal to the furthest reaches of children’s imagination."

Grandmas Reuse Plastic Bags to Make Sleeping Mats for the Homeless (kinda want to steal their method and make a huge living room rug tbh)

Five Questions About Russia's Election Hacking (The Atlantic): "Four U.S. senators, including former Republican presidential nominee John McCain, have now called for an inquiry into Russia’s actions to aid Donald Trump. The incoming Trump administration opposes such an inquiry, perhaps for the compelling reason that it knows how embarrassing it might be. The immediate question is whether the Republican majority in the Senate will proceed over the objection of a Republican president. Let’s hope it does."

How to be last: A practical theology for privileged people (Christena Cleveland): "Then he punctuates the story [of the workers in the vineyard] with one of his most theologically challenging statements: 'Thus the last will be first and the first will be last.' And the privileged people who worked a full day are irate. They can’t believe it! They were expecting equality. They were expecting to get paid more than the people who worked less than a full day. What they didn’t know is that Jesus isn't interested in equality; Jesus is interested in equity. Jesus doesn’t want everyone to be treated equally (e.g., treated the same); Jesus wants everyone to be treated equitably (e.g., each person is given what they uniquely need in order to fully participate in the kinship and mutuality of the kin-dom of heaven). In this story, equity meant that the privileged people, who had benefited from their privilege all day, received the same wage as the oppressed people who were not given the opportunity of full-day employment that the privileged people automatically received. It meant that in an equitable world, the first became last and the last became first."

The New Ephemeral Architecture of Burning Man (Tiny House Blog)

Why Time's Trump Cover Is a Subversive Work of Political Art (Forward): "The brilliance of the chair however, is visual rather than historical. It’s a gaudy symbol of wealth and status, but if you look at the top right corner, you can see a rip in the upholstery, signifying Trump’s own cracked image. Behind the bluster, behind the glowing displays of wealth, behind the glittering promises, we have the debt, the tastelessness, the demagoguery, the racism, the lack of government experience or knowledge (all of which we unfortunately know too well already). Once we notice the rip, the splotches on the wood come into focus, the cracks in Trump’s makeup, the thinness of his hair, the stain on the bottom left corner of the seat — the entire illusion of grandeur begins to collapse. The cover is less an image of a man in power than the freeze frame of a leader, and his country, in a state of decay. The ghostly shadow works overtime here — suggesting a splendor that has already passed, if it ever existed at all."

The Saga of My Rape Kit (The New York Times): "There’s a justified impression that the backlog of untested rape kits is, at least in part, a result of indifference on the part of the police and others in authority dismissing rape as unworthy of prosecution. But this part of the backlog, made of pre-Codis kits like mine, was a result of forward-thinking and diligent police and medical personnel who cared so much about rape that they collected and kept evidence that they, at the time without a database to match up to, would not themselves get to take to court."

Lots of stuff from and about Van Jones ... his appearance on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, his interview in Salon, and his profile in Rolling Stone.

17 Badass Women You Probably Didn't Hear About in 2016 (Buzzfeed)

Ann Patchett's Guide for Bookstore Lovers (The New York Times): "Before we opened Parnassus, I made a fact-finding tour of American bookstores. The best advice I got was this: If you want customers, you have to raise them yourself. That means a strong children’s section. If e-books have taken a bite out of the adult market, they’ve done very little damage to children’s books, maybe because even the most tech-savvy parents understand that reading “Goodnight Moon” off your phone doesn’t create the same occasion for bonding."

Men Dump Their Anger Into Women (Medium): "...women are expected to regulate the emotions of men as well as themselves. They have to sharpen their emotional regulation skillz because they’ll be regulating for two even when they’re not pregnant. This has been a thing that’s starting to get noticed in feminist circles; the concept of unpaid emotional labor that women are expected to supply. This takes many forms ... and at its most benign looks like listening, support and empathy. However, as it becomes more noxious, women are expected to read the emotions [of] men and proactively protect them from their own negative emotions."

Glenn Beck's Regrets (The Atlantic): "Among big-time national conservative talk-show hosts, Beck—who is tied with Levin for the third-largest listenership after Limbaugh and Hannity—was a rare exception. He didn’t just oppose Trump. He compared him to Hitler. He warned that Trump was a possible 'extinction-level event' for American democracy and capitalism. In an attempt to defeat Trump, Beck campaigned during the primaries for Ted Cruz. Then, when Cruz endorsed Trump, Beck apologized for having supported him."

32 Movie Categories You Wouldn't Find on Netflix (Buzzfeed) ... my favorite's probably "movies where Ben Affleck is a bad husband"

An idea of how to break the news about Santa to older kids, by recruiting them to the Santa cause (ha, pun).

The Nation revisits what was published in its pages in December 1865 when the 13th Amendment (prohibiting slavery) was ratified. "The framers of the Constitution of the United States did not dream that the compromises with slavery, which they so reluctantly consented to incorporate in that instrument, enclosed the seeds of the wickedest and bloodiest civil war that the world has ever seen. Believing a union of the States indispensable to the national life, and therefore a paramount necessity, they were too easily persuaded that, for the sake of achieving so great a good, they might safely make terms with the supporters of a system which they acknowledged to be inconsistent with republican principles and a blot upon the national character, but which they thought was sure of extinction at no very distant day. But the attempt of a nation to shield with the forms of law an institution in flagrant antagonism with its highest professions, and with the principles of justice and humanity, is alike impious and demoralizing, and, if long persisted in, is sure to undermine the foundations of social order and public security."

The Secret to Love is Just Kindness (The Atlantic): "Throughout the day, partners would make requests for connection, what Gottman calls 'bids.' For example, say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, 'Look at that beautiful bird outside!' He’s not just commenting on the bird here: he’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird ... These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow up had 'turn-toward bids' 33 percent of the time. Only three in ten of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had 'turn-toward bids' 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs."

Not Wanting Kids is Entirely Normal (The Atlantic): "In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a 'safe haven' law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children. Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion."

Saturday Night Live spotlighted that most predictable of nondescript Christmas gifts in The Christmas Candle. Complete with a choir and 80s-tastic hairdos.

Obama Reckons with a Trump Presidency (The New Yorker): "Although Obama and his aides had long been alarmed by Trump’s disturbing rhetoric and loose grasp of policy, they decided that the best path forward was to assume the mask of decorum. It was a matter of amour-propre, but—again—also of tactics. To have any chance to influence Trump, they had to avoid any trace of the contempt that had once been so pronounced. Perhaps the more acute personal sadness for White House staffers was the vision of Obama and Trump sitting side by side in the Oval Office. A President who fought with dignity to rescue the country from economic catastrophe and to press for progressive change—from marriage equality to the alleviation of climate change—was putting on a mask of generous equanimity for a visitor whom he had every good reason to despise, an ethically challenged real-estate brander who had launched his political career by promoting “birtherism,” and then ran a sexist and bigoted campaign to galvanize his base. In the Oval Office, the President was quick to comfort the young members of his staff, but he was, an aide told me, even more concerned about the wounding effect the election would have on the categories of Americans who had been routinely insulted and humiliated by the President-elect. At a social occasion earlier this year, someone asked Michelle Obama how it was possible for her husband to maintain his equipoise amid so much hatred. “You have no idea how bad it is,” she said. His practiced calm is beyond reckoning."

Four notable people wrote about Michelle Obama in "To the First Lady, With Love." The most beautiful sentiments came from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A taste: "She first appeared in the public consciousness, all common sense and mordant humor, at ease in her skin. She had the air of a woman who could balance a checkbook, and who knew a good deal when she saw it, and who would tell off whomever needed telling off. She was tall and sure and stylish. She was reluctant to be first lady, and did not hide her reluctance beneath platitudes. She seemed not so much unique as true. She sharpened her husband’s then-hazy form, made him solid, more than just a dream."

Adichie also shined in this piece in The New Yorker, entitled "Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About": "Now is the time to resist the slightest extension in the boundaries of what is right and just. Now is the time to speak up and to wear as a badge of honor the opprobrium of bigots. Now is the time to confront the weak core at the heart of America’s addiction to optimism; it allows too little room for resilience, and too much for fragility. Hazy visions of 'healing' and 'not becoming the hate we hate' sound dangerously like appeasement. The responsibility to forge unity belongs not to the denigrated but to the denigrators. The premise for empathy has to be equal humanity; it is an injustice to demand that the maligned identify with those who question their humanity."

A Dutch graphic designer has created a font called Dyslexie, specifically made to help dyslexic people read more easily and accurately. (And speaking of dyslexic people and/or people with dyslexia, I was super intrigued by this discussion of identity-first vs. person-first language.)

How Stable Are Democracies? 'Warning Signs Are Flashing Red' (The New York Times): "According to the Mounk-Foa early-warning system, signs of democratic deconsolidation in the United States and many other liberal democracies are now similar to those in Venezuela before its crisis. Across numerous countries, including Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States, the percentage of people who say it is 'essential' to live in a democracy has plummeted, and it is especially low among younger generations."

Donald Trump and the Legacy of Andrew Jackson (The Atlantic): "Jackson, like Trump, won over many white working-class voters, who brushed aside critics who warned that he was unstable and a would-be dictator. He maintained their loyalty even though, like Trump, he was of the elite. Though not born to wealth as Trump was, Jackson made his fortune on the early American frontier. He did not clear out Washington elites so much as bring a new coalition of elites to power: New York politicians and Pennsylvania businessmen allied with Southern slaveholders. Jackson tended to their special interests. He also used political patronage to stuff the government with Jackson loyalists. There is something Jacksonian both in Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington and his early moves to refill the swamp with wealthy friends, loyal supporters, and family members."

The case for normalizing Trump (Vox): "To beat Trump, what his opponents need to do is practice ordinary humdrum politics. Populists in office thrive on a circus-like atmosphere that casts the populist leader as persecuted by media and political elites who are obsessed with his uncouth behavior while he is busy doing the people’s work. To beat Trump, progressives will need to do as much as they can to get American politics out of reality show mode."

The Everyday Bravery series of pins (by Emily McDowell) rewards terrific behaviors and actions with options like "Someone Didn't Like Me and It Was Okay" and "Picked My Battles."

A video featuring Brenda White Bull, the great-great granddaughter of Sitting Bull. Also, this piece in Time proclaims that "Women Are the Backbone of the Standing Rock Movement."

What Everyone Talking About Syria Should Know (Elephant Journal): "The conflict began when the Assad regime assassinated a thousand pro-democracy demonstrators over the course of three months in the spring of 2011. This prompted defectors from the national army who did not want to fire on protesters to form militias in defense of demonstrators and their communities. Since that time roughly half a million people have been killed, the vast bulk of them by the regime. Most of the killing has been done through barrel-bombs—rusty old barrels, filled with shrapnel and chlorine—indiscriminately dropped on civilians by the regime, which has the only air force. The bombings have obliterated massive portions of three of Syria’s four largest cities."

25 Words That Are Their Own Opposites (Mental Floss)

18 Times Tumblr Nailed Fragile Masculinity (Buzzfeed)

Colleges Really Need to Rethink the Career Advice They Deliver (The Atlantic): "Incidentally, graduates with the largest amounts of student debt were more likely than those with less debt to say they found their visits to their career-services offices to be not at all helpful, which, Busteed noted, raises the question of whether the offices are clued into which students have debt, and whether they tailor their advice accordingly. Right now, services are often very siloed. And, Busteed added, students often select a major, then take out loans to pay for it, and then look for a job, when it might make more sense to meet with a career-services officer early, firm up some job goals, and backtrack into a major that makes sense."

We're Missing 90 Percent of the Dakota Access Pipeline Story (Earth Justice): "I saw that this assembly of indigenous tribes and supporters is among the most serene and peaceful groups of people I have been around. They are not unified by indignity. What unifies the thousands of water protectors who are bracing for the incoming winter is devotion and prayer. In fact, elders and tribal leaders told us repeatedly that tribal camps aren’t protests; these are ceremonies being held at a sacred place. And, they told us, they expect the behavior of their brothers and sisters to reflect that."

Why I Left White Nationalism (The New York Times): "Most of Mr. Trump’s supporters did not intend to attack our most vulnerable citizens. But with him in office we have a duty to protect those who are threatened by this administration and to win over those who don’t recognize the impact of their vote. Even those on the furthest extreme of the white nationalist spectrum don’t recognize themselves doing harm — I know that because it was easy for me, too, to deny it."

The Lenny Interview: Zadie Smith (Lenny Letter): "I am resistant to a lot of the Internet, not because I disapprove but because the feelings I personally draw from it seem to me shallow and don't lead me anywhere useful or pleasurable. A lot of the social platforms provoke feelings in me I simply don't enjoy. For a moment I am flattered, falsely puffed up, briefly amused, painfully hurt, or infuriated. I accept it feels different for other people, but I have to gravitate to the things that really interest and excite me while I'm alive."

How to Deal With the Lies of Donald Trump: Guidelines for the Media (The Atlantic): "On a single day during the campaign, Trump claimed that the National Football League had sent him a letter complaining that the presidential-debate schedule conflicted with NFL games (which the NFL immediately denied), and then he said the Koch brothers had begged him to accept their donations (which they also flat-out denied). Most people would hesitate before telling easily disprovable lies like these, much as shoplifters would hesitate if the store owner is looking at them. Most people are fazed if caught in an outright lie. But in these cases and others, Trump never blinked. As part of his indispensable campaign coverage this summer, David Fahrenthold (and Robert O’Harrow) of The Washington Post offered astonishing documentation of Trump being caught in a long string of business-related lies and simply not caring. The news media are not built for someone like this."

Utah lawyers step up to protect Muslim refugees from discrimination, threats (The Salt Lake Tribune): "Since Donald Trump was elected president, Muslim refugees in Utah report increased bullying in schools, harassment at work, menacing by strangers and threats to pull off girls' hijabs, their religious headscarves. So on Tuesday, 50 attorneys announced that they have formed the new Refugee Justice League of Utah. Without fees, it will seek to prevent or remedy harassment and, as a last resort, sue in court — even the president-elect if he pursues proposals to create a registry of Muslims. Utah refugees 'need to know that they have friends who are willing to help them,' said Jim McConkie, a civil-rights attorney and founding member of the league."

Because I Said So

My son is three, and I hereby take back every judgmental thought I've had about parents who say "Because I said so."

He's asking "Why?" so often these days, reflexively and always in response to my requests that he stop doing something.

Why?
Because I survived on grapes and Saltines for the first three months you lived inside of me, and I gave you proteins from my very own body so that you could make yours, and I labored to release you into this world for 27 hours before my abdomen was cut open (leaving a scar that remains to this day), and my belly and navel will never look the same again because your growing limbs stretched them to their limit. Because my body has already done so much for you, I kindly request that you stop hitting my leg in time with the music of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.

Why?
Because my full-time job is giving you food, helping you to the bathroom, reading you stories, building block towers to your detailed specifications, taking you to the park, and dressing you even when a shirt going over your head is the most terrifying thing that's ever happened. Because I devote far more than eight hours a day to your happiness and well-being, it would be great if you could let me eat this turkey sandwich in peace.

Why?
Because I've had an uninterrupted night's sleep exactly zero times since your little sister was born twelve weeks ago, and because your sleep schedule has continued unaltered, I think you really owe it to me to stop crashing your scooter into the wall and watch Finding Nemo quietly while I power nap for the next fifteen minutes.

I try to be supportive of other parents I come across, knowing that we're each fighting a hard and unique battle with hard and unique kids, but I admit that the phrase "Because I said so" always seemed lazy to me, such a substandard way of addressing your child's attempts to understand this confusing world of rules and expectations. It's still not an expression I enjoy, and I'll use it as little as I can manage. But I think I'm understanding more why a parent might whip out that old standby answer. It's basically shorthand for "I have done everything for you and cared for you in a manner that has completely unraveled my world and put it back together again in a beautiful, exhausting shape; can you not just do as I say in this moment and please stop hitting your toy trains together a mere three inches from my face?"

My Question

A good friend of mine is pregnant right now with her first baby, just as I'm pregnant with my second. She's six weeks ahead of me gestation-wise. Yesterday was her (very fancy and photogenic!) baby shower; her sister-in-law made tiny succulent pots for everyone to take home as party favors.

Ever since I've been well enough in this pregnancy to think about what events I might want to plan to celebrate it, I've felt ambivalent about my options. Ambivalent about doing anything at all, actually. With two months until my due date, I think I've settled on just indulging this impulse toward solitude and reclusiveness. It feels weird, kind of inappropriate, but it's what I'm going with. As much as I usually thrive on friendship, sisterhood, bonding experiences, and so forth, my gut's telling me to lay low and withdraw from a lot of that right now. Maybe after my girl is born I'll feel differently, and there will be opportunities then to plan some kind of get-together. Or maybe I won't want to do that stuff even then. We'll see.

Preparing for this birth has been monumentally different from preparing for my first birth three years ago. I was ravenous for information back then, seeking out birth stories and birth videos and different approaches to pain management and all kinds of stuff in that vein. But this time, all my birth books have been gathering dust. It's easy to superficially blame the difference on being busier this time around than I was during my first pregnancy; the fact of that is true, but that's not really it at all. I'm more nervous about labor and birth (and the postpartum upheaval) than I was my first time through it. I haven't known how to acknowledge that fear, or process it, or eliminate it, so I've kind of ignored it and hoped for some outside intervention to help me make sense of it.

Last night, I cracked open my favorite book about birth, Birthing from Within. In the first chapter, expecting mothers are asked to find their question. "For each woman, the most important thing she needs to know will be different. I would encourage a mother to ask herself, 'What is it I need to know to give birth?' Her answer must be found within, not given to her by an expert. Each mother needs to find her personal, heartfelt question."

Continuing: "Knowing your personal question is central to birth preparation. Whatever your question is, leave no stone unturned: ask your question often and look at it from every angle until your conscious mind is exhausted, and your heart is receptive to answers. Don't limit yourself to a superficial question like, 'What should I expect ...?' If someone else can answer your question -- you're not going deep enough."

I pondered on this idea last night. My first idea was the question How am I going to do this??? With multiple question marks, for sure. Not the most precise question out there, but hey, it's honest. And it's urgent -- this question has no chill.

To make it a little more productive, I've rephrased the How am I going to do this??? question to instead be How am I going to feel safe in labor and birth and afterwards? I think that's the heart of my question and, also, my nervousness about the whole prospect of my second birth. The fact is that I'm not feeling safe. Part of that comes from memories of my son's birth, which was going so so well until it wasn't. I think the bigger thing though, honestly, is that I'm giving birth in a hospital this time around, and no part of me wants to be doing that. It's the only thing that will work financially, so I'm doing it, but other than the money aspect, there's not a single pro I can add to the pro/con list. It's just not what I want.

So my question is this: How am I going to feel safe in labor and birth and afterwards? What can I do?

Blog Messy

My first "blog" type thing was the one that came with my MySpace account. I started writing in it during the summer of 2005, right after I'd graduated from high school, musing about my brief first romance (SS+KB, rest in peace) and my job at the family catering company and my expectations for college. And I just wrote these little posts, these ridiculous and embarrassing little posts, with primitive emojis. I couldn't know how cringe-inducing those posts would be someday, but the point was just that I had things on my mind and I had a place to write those things down while simultaneously sharing them with my curated group of MySpace friends. There was something about that combo -- the self-reflection + mild publicity -- that really appealed to me, and for the few years that I stayed with MySpace and wrote my assorted posts, that blog became the most consistent record of my life that I've ever kept.

Concurrent with and then following the MySpace days, I'm sure I've started ten to fifty other blogs. Most of them are completely lost from my memory now; I have no idea what I called them or what I thought I'd use them for. But, you know, that writing impulse was still there. It's always been there for me, in some iteration, and there are rare moments in my life when said impulse wins out over laziness and forgetfulness. Most notably, I had a daily style blog for a while *more cringe, more cringe* and I've contributed pretty faithfully to a group blog for the past two years and change.

This blog -- skish -- is something I think about waaaaaay more than one could surmise from looking at the post frequency. I think about what goals I have with it, how to structure it in the future, what topics to focus on, what vibe I want it to have, how I can find the time to write and pre-write and promote and network (and do I even want to network? me, the all-time introvert?). I get it all worked out in my brain, and then the follow-through is crap. And that gets me to wondering, does a blog (this blog) need to be something polished and branded? Does it need to be that way in order to have merit? Does it need to be that way for me to feel like I'm doing it right?

I don't remotely have the expertise to wax poetic about how blogging has changed over the past however many years. It has, obviously, but other people who are more well-equipped to talk about that change and who witnessed it up close have written a whole lotta stuff about how that transpired and what it means and what it says. My experience of being a blog reader has been really inspiring at times, very aspirational (in a good way). Putting together a solid blog, with a vision and valuable content and beautiful images, is a lot of work, and I benefit from that work as a reader. Don't change, professional/highly-skilled-amateur bloggers. You do you. But is that the approach for me?

I'm not tidy or polished. Just look at my hair on literally any day of the year -- it is messy, and that messiness is an accurate outer reflection of my inner world. Honestly, I like it that way. Somehow, though, I feel like my unkempt way of writing and planning and being in the world isn't quite ... right ... in terms of how blogs operate now. This isn't my random MySpace page anymore, is it? I mean, I spent $10 of good PayPal money for my blog theme, I've can't just spew whatever random thoughts all over it. (Note to future Sara: in case you're note sure, that last sentence was sarcastic, yes.)

My Monday night navel-gazing is making it super clear that I'm being a weirdo about this. Geez louise, lady, you don't need a business plan or a posting schedule -- just write what you feel like and relax. It's allowed. There are no blog police out there waiting to slap you with a citation. Write about the way the baby in your belly makes weird swimming motions that are very unsettling as you try to fall asleep at night. Write about the latest episode of "Girls" and how amazing it was (because it so was). Write about sex, write about the artificial Christmas tree parts you just inherited from your sister-in-law, write about extended family gatherings and how you feel like such a misfit, write about how you have a theft problem in your neighborhood and you imagine a roving band of burglars haunting the streets at night. It's fine. And maybe the blog will morph over time into something more focused, and maybe not, but you'll be writing. You'll be recording your life, and that was the point of all of it.

Lifetime of Favorite Songs: "The Story"

This song was released in 2007, but weirdly enough, I associate it with a time (and a relationship) that came before that. I don't know how that happened. Did some wires get crossed in my head? But there it is -- one of my favorite songs, connected with a period in my life when I never heard it.

"The Story" is fantastic and timeless. Pretty sure I'll be listening to it still in 30 years and singing along just as loud.

"Out of Sorts" by Sarah Bessey

I just read Sarah Bessey's latest book, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith. It's a beautiful work, complex and sincere and able to tap into a wide number of concerns with great honesty. Friends are hearing about this book nonstop from me; I'm recommending it over and over again. Perhaps it's just come into my life at the perfect magic moment -- whatever it is, I kind of can't get over the way this book has spoken to me and given masterful language to all the things my heart is feeling.

Out of Sorts is, as the subtitle suggests, all about the way a person's faith can change over their lives; it's about how tough those changes can be, how earth-shaking and scary they can feel. Sarah's family became entranced and energized by a local charismatic Christian church when she was a child, and she grew up enfolded in the safe, loving worldview that church espoused. Transitioning into her adult life brought questions, and some disillusionment, and intense loss, all of which impacted her faith.

And so this metaphor weaves through the book, a metaphor of sorting through one's possessions -- a house full of them -- and deciding what to keep, what to trash, what to linger over, what to hang onto for now even though you know you will discard it eventually (because this just isn't the right moment to say goodbye). Sarah Bessey compares this sorting process to being "out of sorts," which she defines this way: "a state of being in one's heart or mind or body. Often used to describe one's sense of self at a time when one feels like everything one once knew 'for sure' has to be figured out all over again."

Writes Sarah, "We sort on the threshold of change; it's how we gather the courage to eventually walk through the door and out into the new day's light. Of course there is grief in this process, whether it's from the death of a loved one or the death of an old way of life. Of course there is.

"Whether it's in our relationship with God or with our own families, at some point we find that it is time to sort. It's time to figure out what we need to keep, what we need to toss, and what we need to reclaim. And we need to tell our stories in order to move forward.

"Every ending is also a new beginning."

I love how she expresses this, because it rings so achingly true. And that's why faith transition takes such an awfully long time -- there are piles of boxes and beliefs to sort through, then to reorganize. You can't exactly throw out a whole box at one time (or at least, I can't), not without checking all the contents. And so when your faith isn't tidy anymore, and you have to clean it up, there's a lot of work to do. Painstaking work.

This sorting-things-out process is something I've done with my own faith, for maybe seven or eight years now. Well ... actually, I think some of those years were less sorting-things-out, more insisting-I-could-keep-all-these-items-if-I-could-just-reorganized-them-correctly. I was none too eager to downsize my collections of beliefs or get rid of things that were broken. But anyway, regardless of when I've stayed on task and when I've let my mind wander, I've been out of sorts for a while. And I've been sorting through the remains. My dilemmas have been thoroughly Mormon, which makes them different in some ways from the dilemmas Sarah Bessey describes in her book (she deals with mainstream Christianity). But at the same time, the dilemmas are not so very different, at least not as she approaches them. This book isn't about solving the specific problems or answering the specific questions; it's about lending peace to the process and giving a vote of confidence to the reader, saying, Hey, you can do this. I know it's hard. Give yourself all the time you need, but be brave -- God is with us.

There are a wide variety of resources out there for Mormons encountering some kind of faith crisis or transition; I've read and listened to many of them, and they've helped, absolutely. There's something I really love, though, about seeing this matter handled from a Christian angle that is not specifically (or even tangentially) Mormon. It means I have to stay on my toes. In Out of Sorts, Sarah Bessey is writing about familiar topics in unfamiliar (to me) language, causing me to read more carefully and think through her suggestions instead of shifting into an auto-pilot mode. Even the fact that she doesn't quote the King James Version of the Bible, preferring other translations instead, is just different enough that it keeps me paying attention.

Take this alternative version of James 1:5, a verse familiar to most Mormons as the one that prompted Joseph Smith to ask God which church he should join: "If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking."

Gives a slightly different flavor.

If I may get personal for a moment ("on your own blog, Sara? okay, fine."), I'd like to share one insight that came at me like ... well, not like a ton of bricks, but like a very forceful breeze or scent -- an insight that came as I was flipping through Out of Sorts after I'd finished reading it, checking out the things I'd underlined.

Part of my sorting process, my faith transition, has been the constant question, "Why do I have to do this?" I know oodles and oodles of good people who are not the questioning kind, at least not to the extent that I am, and I've wondered why God has pushed me to pursue this topsy-turvy path laden with doubts and frustration. Why couldn't it just have been simple for me -- straightforward faith, unrelenting in its consistency? I've gotten some answers to this question. None of them have been conclusive, but they've all helped me understand some possibilities, reasons why this path is the one I'm asked to walk.

Reading on page 84-85 of Out of Sorts, I encountered a new answer to this question, one so basic that I'm stunned I haven't thought of it before.

Bessey writes, "Jesus isn't only in your tradition. You get to love Jesus without being an evangelical or a Pentecostal or a Presbyterian or whatever new label you've acquired these days or old label that just doesn't fit anymore.

"Your pet gatekeeper isn't the sole arbitrator of the Christian faith: there is more complexity and beauty and diversity of voices and experiences within followers of the Way than you know. Remember, your view of Christians, your personal experience with Christians, is a rather small sample: there are a lot more of us out here than you might think. A lot of us on the other side of that faith shift -- eschewing labels and fear tactics, boundary markers and tribalist thinking.

"The Church is sorting and casting off, renewing and reestablishing in the postmodern age, and this is a good thing. The old will remain -- it always does -- but something new is being born too. If it is being born in the Church, it is first being born in the hearts, minds, and lives of us, the Body."

"... Our particular tradition doesn't get our loyalty: that fidelity is for our Jesus."

That fidelity is for our Jesus.

It didn't quite occur to me on the first read-through, but flipping back through the book a second time, I realized something when I saw these words. And I wrote it out in soft red pencil at the bottom of pages 84 and 85.

the church was more important to me than Jesus was

Why did I need to sort out my faith? Why have I needed to walk down this path? Because the church (of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) was more important to me than Jesus was. No question about that -- my testimony was of the church and the good things it brought into my life, not of my Savior. I believed in him, yes I did, but that didn't seem to ... matter very much. It was secondary. Jesus was secondary. And I think on that fact now and how not okay it is, and how far I still have to go in coming to know and follow Jesus Christ, and how much I want to go that distance ... and I think, perhaps this is why. If church had continued to be the wonderfully comfortable place of belonging and validation it had been for me when I was younger, I probably wouldn't have been motivated to seek out Jesus more sincerely.

I'll close it out with some more words from Sarah Bessey, and I hope this excerpt and the others I've shared have conveyed some of the warmth and humility with which she writes, because that as much as anything else really makes this a special, necessary book, in my opinion.

"I wanted to follow Jesus: not a way of thinking or a doctrine, not a sermon or a list of rules, not political affiliations and church denominations or a path to a shiny-happy life or anything like that. I wanted to follow Him and love Him, right to the end, wherever He led. It occurred to me on that day that if I got to know Him -- really, truly know Him -- I could perhaps begin to spot counterfeit Jesuses. There are Jesuses out there who are co-opted for every cause and argument, and these false Jesuses bastardize the message and misrepresent a man who none of us really understands -- and we all do the co-opting, for everything from power to money to the smug feeling of being right while everyone else is wrong. We all do it, progressives and conservatives alike. Jesus isn't our mascot and he isn't the magic word.

"I found His words in Luke 6:43-44: 'You don't get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree. The health of the apple tells the health of the tree. You must begin with your own life-giving lives. It's who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds.'

"I read those words -- 'You must begin with your own life-giving lives' -- and suddenly I understood why Mary spilled her most precious perfumes and soaked His feet with her tears, drying them with her hair. No wonder the Bible uses the word 'immediately' to describe how quickly fishermen dropped their nets and livelihoods to follow the man from Galilee. One of the biggest gifts of that season of my life was revisiting the stories I thought I knew and discovering that really, I didn't know them at all.

"The more I read the Gospels, the more I got it: no wonder we love the real Him when we meet Him."

Every So Often: 1st of February

What I Look Like Today:

What I Want to Eat:
You know, I could so go for a bowl or two of really delicious clam chowder. The best I've had was at a restaurant in the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle. It was a pretty spendy place, and the clam chowder I had as an appetizer was so much better than whatever the main dish was. Should've just ordered four servings of the chowder for the same price as the rest of the meal.

What I Want to Watch:
With it being awards season and all, I'm really wishing I could block out a weekend to watch all the movies I planned on seeing in the theaters this year but never got around to (along with some that I'm seeing nominated all over the place). Top of the list would be Suffragette, Spotlight, and Straight Outta Compton (... a surprising amount of S's there ...), and Room. And actually, even though I already saw it, I want to see Mad Max: Fury Road in a theater again.

My Favorite Item of Clothing:
I recently got this purple-gray cable-knit sweater at Nordstrom Rack, and it is so cozy. I wore it three times in the first five days after I got it. And I am more than willing to wear it again tomorrow.

My Favorite Piece of Jewelry:
Really loving my big turquoise ring right now.

The Last Time I Cried:
I was driving home from Target on Saturday and listening to an episode of This American Life, and there was an interview with an advertising/marketing guy who worked on a campaign in Colombia to convince guerrilla fighters to defect from their group and return home. There were a few really touching phases in the campaign, but the one that got my tears goin' featured authentic pictures of some of the guerrillas when they were children, along with messages from their mothers saying, "Before you were a guerrilla, you were my child." And then inviting them to come home, with assurances that they were still loved and wanted. Before you were a guerrilla, you were my child. I mean, that choked me right up, thinking of a parent's love. It never loses sight of the fact that, whatever a child may grow up to be (good or bad), before any of those things, that person is and always was and always will be your child.

What I'm Reading:
Close to finishing Out of Sorts by Sarah Bessey. Everything she writes feels like the warmest blanket, with candlelight and hot chocolate by the mug full.

Mom Life Lately:
Pretty dang good! Soren is at the height of cuteness these days and getting more and more verbal. He invented a new game yesterday, where he sits in a box, asks me to countdown, and then pretends he's blasting off in a rocket ship. When I get tired of counting down, he'll do it, except it goes like this: "Five, four, six, seven, BLASTOFF!"

Latest Fav on Pinterest:
Top 10 Storybook Magical Places on Earth (specifically the picture of Schwarzwald in Germany, although Mount Roraima in Venezuela looks pretty impressive, dude)

Weird Thing I've Been Thinking About:
Did you ever watch The Hills? Do you remember Justin-Bobby? That all happened, and I was 100% there for it. Let it never be said that I am too good for bad TV, because I am most assuredly not.