Author: Natalie Hart

What is saving my life right now

A photo of a woman in the snow looking determined and strong. Photo by Hannah Van Houten.
~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

We are halfway between winter and spring. The West Michigan winter has been cloudier than usual: in December we saw 12% of possible sunshine; January gave us less than that. As Barbara Brown Taylor notes in Leaving Church, we know what’s killing us, but it’s harder to recognize what’s saving us. So today I’m joining with Modern Mrs. Darcy and naming what is saving me right now.

That photo of me.

My daughter took it for a portrait assignment for her photography class. Look at this woman. She looks so determined. And so strong. This woman will keep going and not give up. And this woman is me! I love that she captured the steely side of my core.

The coat I’m wearing belonged to my Oma, my Dutch grandmother, who took 5 children through World War II in the Netherlands (two of whom were born during the Occupation). They had to move suddenly when the Nazis commandeered their home. Her husband was in a Resistance Cell, so he was often gone, working to undermine the occupiers; whether he was out or at home, there was a constant sense that the Nazis could come for him at any time. Because they did. The last winter of the war, the Hunger Winter, she walked for 2 days with her husband and 5 young children, one of whom was an infant, to get to her sister’s country home where there was food — if you count ground fish heads and bones as food. The Nazis didn’t; they’d commandeered all the truly edible stuff from the family’s soup factory. But three families survived that winter on the disgusting scraps the Nazis left them.

I see that legacy in this photo. And I love it. (Also, I love that I was right to suggest my daughter take a photography class. #momwin)

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

When I shared my post last month to Facebook, one of my friends recommended that I read Burnout. I burned through the audiobook in a few days (see what I did there?).

It is already saving my life.

The first tenet of Burnout is that whether or not you are able to change the stressors in you life, you have to complete the stress cycle in order to deal with the stress. The purpose of completing the stress cycle is to tell your body and mind that you are safe, that you have dealt with the adrenaline caused by the stressor, and that you do not need to constantly be in a state of alarm.

There are multiple ways to complete the stress cycle: exercise is the best, conversation with a trusted love one, getting enough sleep, connecting with deeper meaning in your life, doing things with a group that highlight your togetherness, expressing your creativity.

All things I love to do, but all things that I neglect when under stress. When the kids were younger, and not rational, I endeavored to be the soul of patience and not yell — I wasn’t successful, but I tried really, really hard. And I wondered what I could do with all the anger and frustration that I’d pushed down. This book would’ve saved my life back then. Being able to divorce the stress from the stressor, being able to consciously pursue those things as a way to complete that stress cycle, would have been a big help.

It’s a big help to me now.

The second way the Nagorski sisters are saving my life: I realized that it is actively unhealthy and unhelpful for me to constantly hold in my stomach muscles. I’ve been doing it for years. Partially because I thought it was one way to ensure good posture, and partially because I’ve gained weight and I don’t like my tummy. But it also signals to my body and brain that I’m bracing for something. Constantly. Which is a way of being perpetually in an alarm state — unable to complete the stress cycle. It also put constant pressure on my internal organs, and I’d been experiencing some unpleasant urinary symptoms: not being able to hold it in the morning, and frequently feeling like I needed to pee, even when I’d just peed.

Once I let my stomach relax, those unpleasant symptoms went away. Within two days.

And my posture is just as good as it always was. My pants fit differently, but I’m getting used to it.

So there are three things that are saving my life these days.
How about you?

Wherein I am sarcastic to God and God is good to me

An image of the cover of The Giant Slayer by N A Hart with a quote superimposed on top. How long would it take? A few days? Until the new moon? Could Adonai keep him in suspense for a whole season?
~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite moments in The Giant Slayer is when young David, having just been anointed by Samuel, who won’t tell him why, wonders,

How long would it take? A few days? Until the new moon? Could Adonai keep him in suspense for a whole season?

It’s adorable. His disbelief that God might make him wait a whole season.

Of course, it’s not nearly so cute when God is making me wait.

Back in November 2021 I was at a retreat at The Transforming Center. It was a gift to the staff and church leaders from my boss and pastor who was about to retire. And it truly was a gift. After a year and a half of doing ministry during COVID, I needed a retreat. They actually gave us time to listen to what God might be trying to say to us–like, hours, not just a token 10 minutes before a session. 

One of the best things I did there was grieve: grieve what COVID stole from me, from all of us, grieve the upcoming loss of my pastor. I needed a good cry and I got it. The retreat gave me the space and time to get out of management mode so I could recognize what emotions I needed to process, and then begin to process them.

But then I sensed that God was promising me rest–not just rest for that day, but capital-R Rest. My response,

That’s adorable.

Other than those few days, I would get no chance for rest in the near future. In fact, I knew that the near future would be busier than ever. What a hilarious thing for God to promise me.

With the pastor retiring and me on the celebration committee, I’d be going full steam ahead on all the party plans as soon as we got back, and that was on top of my normal 5 part-time jobs. And then once he retired, I’d be on the transition team tasked with searching for and calling a new pastor. And the children were finally coming indoors for ministry so there was extra COVID-planning and -proofing to do. And the middle school youth group was finally going to start up. That was just what I knew. I didn’t anticipate that fewer people would return to church and that even fewer would want to come back to volunteering so finding people to do ministry things would become even more torturous. Or that the worship director and associate worship director would leave the church. That more and more and more responsibility would fall into my hands.

Jim Gaffigan tells a great joke about what it’s like having 5 children: “Imagine you’re drowning. And then someone hands you a baby.” Here’s a church-staff-coming-out-of-COVID version:

Imagine you’re doing everything normal plus extra to try to connect everyone virtually and hold the church together. And then some people come back and are so excited for what you were doing and so glad to be there, but you wind up with more to do and nothing taken away. And the thing is that you love these people. They are your church family. You know they’ve had an exhausting pandemic, too, so you don’t want to burden them or ask too much of them. So you shoulder it yourself.

I began to see that a new job could be part of God’s promised rest. The end of July 2022 I traded one part-time job for a full-time job with benefits. The end of December I left my church, my denomination, and two more of my part-time jobs (the stress of which brought me 10 additional pounds and three vertigo attacks in 6 weeks). I’ll free myself of one more tiny job by the spring, and I’ll keep one that is faith and justice related and only a couple of hours a month.

It took 14 months since God promised me Rest for me to reach the conditions that would make it possible. I am so grateful.

But here’s the thing I’ve realized: I’ve been running on adrenaline, in emergency survival mode, since the three police officers walked up my porch steps to arrest my now-ex-husband for a sex crime. Over 7 years ago. That’s why I managed COVID so well — I was already in a state of emergency, so I could just fold that in.

I know how to escape, chill out, have fun. But capital-R Rest? No idea. I had a tiny taste of it last week on Tuesday evening and I cried.  

How long until I re-learn Rest? How long until I step out of the high-alert pathways? Until I no longer constantly clench my jaw, my stomach, my glutes, my legs? Until my left eyelid stops twitching? My heart stops randomly beating hard?

A few days? A month? A whole season?

That’s adorable. I think it’s going to take a long time.

When change really does set you free

A neon sign reads CHANGE.
~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

A neon sign reads CHANGE.

When God communicates with you, does he use sarcasm? Only me?

Here’s the story. I’d been employed at my church as the children’s minister for 6 years and the office administrator for 3 years. I loved the work and I loved the church. Truly. It was powerful and meaningful work, especially when the pandemic hit. My work was making an actual difference for people.

And taking up a ton of mental and emotional space.

I pretty much stopped writing because I was doing so much of it for work and because my out-of-work time was spent researching ways to keep people connected.

As COVID receded, and our staffing shifted and people did not flock back to church, I took on more responsibilities, not less, and still not full-time status, still no benefits. Even with a health care stipend, it was so expensive and so stressful to get my plans through the marketplace.

In the middle of this, my church’s new interim pastor noted my deep love of God’s Word and my gifts in communicating about God’s Word, and suggested that I consider whether I had a call to be a pastor. He’s not the first one to suggest that. Another friend has brought it up repeatedly, telling me I was more pastoral than a lot of ministers they knew.

I’d always brushed off these suggestions, but I decided to at least mention it to God this time.

The Lord responded.

Oh. Really. You’re going to ask me about this when you already aren’t doing what I have called you to?

When Jesus called Peter, John, and James, who were fishermen, he didn’t use his own carpentry lingo. He didn’t say, “Come build a framework for God’s kingdom with me.” No, he said, “Come with me and we’ll fish for people.”

So for me, God was mildly sarcastic. And it worked.

It was finally the thing that got me to seriously look for other work in hopes that a new job, full time with benefits, would give me the security and mental space I’d need to write again.

And it worked.

I got a full-time corporate gig as an office administrator with all the benefits and I really like it. My creative brain is exploding with ideas. I’m writing new blog posts. I’ve started a new novel. I’m following through on ideas and plans I’ve long put on the way-back burner.

This one simple and huge change has set me free to do what God has called me to do: write. I am so grateful.

Is there change that you need to set you free to do something you really want to do? I hope it happens.

 

 

Oh to be nourished like a tree by a riverside

The wide, even growth rings of a well nourished tree that grew by a river.
~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

 

Oh, the joys of those who … delight in the law of the Lord,
    meditating on it day and night.
They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
    bearing fruit each season. (Psalm 1:1-2)

I love this image of people fed so consistently by the Word of God that they have a healthy spirituality — strong and flexible, able to withstand adversity, resistant to theological diseases and pests, bearing fruit that makes a difference in their relationships and their world.

Bearing fruit

In the past, I’ve focused on the “bearing fruit in each season” part, making posters with Sunday school kids of a tree by a riverbank that is bearing every kind of fruit we could think of. A poster of a well nourished tree by the riverside growing every kind of fruit, drawn by Sunday school kids.

This involved a bit of biblical sleight-of-hand. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Because the singular fruit is many traits, which are all supposed to be growing in and through us, we could illustrate that idea through one tree with many fruits.

Being nourished

But then I saw this tree stump at my parents’ property.

The wide, even growth rings of a well nourished tree that grew by a river.

Now I can’t get it out of my head. Every single growth ring is the same, wide size.

The growth rings of a wee nourished tree that grew by a river are wider than my thumb.

This tree grew where a stream flowed into a river. It was constantly nourished, always receiving what it needed for good growth. So it grew steadily.

My own spiritual development has tended to be more like this tree’s, slow and inconsistent:

The uneven growth rings of a tree that grew in a crowded forest.

This tree grew in a crowded forest, near the top of a long hill. The rings are much closer together, and they vary in width, showing the effect of variations in precipitation and light.

Growth is still growth

Both trees have something in common, though: they grew.

Is it terrible to grow slowly and unevenly like the tree in the forest? No. It was well over 100 years old before it was cut down. It provided beauty and shade, sucked in carbon dioxide and pumped out oxygen, and fed countless birds and insects in its lifetime. Those are good fruits.

Is it better to grow quickly? No. One of my cousins still remembers the year he grew 6″ in a year–the aches and pains kept him up at night. And anyone who pays attention to tech news knows of plenty of companies that grew fast with loads of buzz and venture capital and then tanked just as quickly when consumers didn’t respond.

Does it just sound better to be consistently nourished like a tree that grows by the riverside? Yes. 

The frustrating part is that it’s on me that I’m not that riverside tree. I don’t meditate on the Word day and night. I don’t regularly choose to rest in God’s presence. Oh, I’ve had those seasons of wide-ring growth, and they were good. Well, the actual season was often horrible, but I remember how my spirit felt–strong and flexible, able to withstand adversity, resistant to theological diseases and pests, bearing fruit that made a difference in my relationships and my world.

I’m going to put the riverside tree photo where I can see it every day to remind myself of the difference consistent nourishment makes.

Do whatever you need to do

An image of red ribbons inscribed with prayers in an Art Prize entry
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An image of red ribbons inscribed with prayers in an Art Prize entry

“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.   (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

This reminds me of when my children were in middle school and kept not doing assignments:

Write it in your planner when your teacher tells you to. Open your planner as soon as you get home. Keep it out until you’re finished. Check your homework and your backpack every day. Listen to your teacher. Talk to me about what you need. Ask questions if you don’t understand. Do whatever you need to do to so you actually do your homework!

The passage reeks of desperation.

Which makes sense.

The Israelites are gathered on the East bank of the Jordan River. It’s been 40 years since they escaped from slavery in Egypt — 40 years instead of 40ish days because of their repeated disobedience and fear-based decisions. They are getting ready to finally claim the land that God promised them, but first Moses tells them their history from his and God’s perspective.

It’s not a glowing report.

They quarreled, and complained, and rebelled over and over and over. Yes, they took that first step into the Red Sea and watched it part so they could walk through to freedom, but no encouragement to trust God worked after that. Their fear and anxiety got in their own way again and again.

Moses also reminds them of all the ways that God kept showing up–feeding them, guiding them, empowering their leaders, listening to their complaints, displaying his glory, speaking to them, giving them victories in battle.

When Moses retells the story of the giving of the ten commandments he notes that, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Mount Sinai. The Lord did not make this covenant with our ancestors, but with all of us who are alive today (Deut. 5:2-3).” God is in relationship with them now, them specifically.

And all God asks is that the people trust him, that they love him, and that they live out love and trust. Moses asks that they remember what God has done for and with them and what he has promised to do for and with them, and that they tell themselves and their children those stories regularly — because that remembering and telling will help them trust and obey God.

The stories we tell ourselves are important.

So let’s feel Moses’ desperation for us to live up to our end of the covenant and do whatever we need to do to remember what God has done for and with us, what God has promised to do for and with us. Download an app, download 5 apps, stack a Bible reading habit with a habit you already have, make a mental list, make a physical list, post the list on your wall, write it on a ribbon, stuff it in a jar, keep it in the notes in your phone, talk it out while on a walk, take photos that remind you.

You are God’s beloved, his child, his treasure. You don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love, but remembering and telling your specific stories will help you trust God, love God, and live out that love and trust.

What do you do to help you remember your history with God?

 

 

 

What if you had what you need?

Parents encourage a child to learn to walk like God encouraged us to follow him.
~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

Parents encourage a child to learn to walk like God encouraged us to follow him.

This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you, and it is not beyond your reach. It is not kept in heaven, so distant that you must ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven and bring it down so we can hear it and obey?’ It is not kept beyond the sea, so far away that you must ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to bring it to us so we can hear it and obey?’ No, the message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it. (Deuteronomy 30:11-14, NLT)

Sometimes those of us who want to encourage people towards a deep, vibrant faith complicate matters. Pray all the time! (OK, that one’s on Paul.) Pray this way! Pray the Psalms! Pray this other way! Read your Bible every day! Using bullet journaling! Here’s a great devotional! You have to go through this devotional! Do this spiritual practice! And this one! And this other one! Read this book! This book will change your life! Join a small group! And another one! Talk to people about your faith! Listen to people about their faith! Be quiet with God! Be loud for God! Be a leader at home! At school! At work! At church! Tell everyone you know about Jesus! Tithe to your church! Give to this good cause! And this one! And this one! Work for justice in this area! And this one! And this other one! These Christians are in trouble! And these! Help the poor! And the downtrodden! Don’t even think bad thoughts! No swearing! Be generous! Be grateful all the time!

And that’s without the cultural pressures your brand of Christianity puts on you to look, talk, act, and be a certain way.

Complicated. Exhausting. Confusing.

Which is why I always appreciate it when the Bible itself strips all that away. What God wants

  • isn’t too hard for you.
  • is close at hand.
  • is on your lips already.
  • is in your heart already.

This makes me smile a little, because God recognizes that what God asks of us will be hard at times — but not so hard that we can’t do it.

Imagine a parent with an almost-toddler who is learning to walk: the parent’s wide-open encouraging smile, the “you can do it”s; the child’s drive to learn this new thing, to get to the enticing object, drawn towards those open arms (ready to catch them if they fall). That’s what I see here. God is smiling at us saying, “You can do it. It’s hard, but not too hard. It’s even something you already want to do. I will help you.”

What is the it? The command?

Oh nothing but “loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him” (Deut. 30:20).

I see the middle flowing out of the other two–loving and being committed to the Lord makes us want to obey him, puts the desire to obey him on our lips and in our hearts. Don’t forget: God’s grace covers all our failures of obedience. Many heroes of the faith committed 10 Commandment-level failures to obey, but their commitment to the Lord was firm, their love of the Lord sustained them. And God stayed in relationship (in covenant) with them.

This  passage doesn’t mention the Holy Spirit, but it’s also the Spirit’s job to tell us about the love of God, to put the desire to obey God on our lips and in our hearts. So we have an additional helper.

You have what you need to follow God.

So when you feel the complicating pressure of all those voices that tell you what you should do and how you should be, take a breath and remember:

What God wants

  • isn’t too hard for you.
  • is close at hand.
  • is on your lips already.
  • is in your heart already.

Let’s Read God’s First Book

two children lay out the nature treasures they collected
~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment
two children lay out the nature treasures they collected

It’s no secret that I love books and reading, but this post isn’t about objects with pages. It’s about reading what Barbara Brown Taylor calls, “God’s first book, the book of creation.”

I’ve long referred to creation as God’s original cathedral, as in, “Let’s skip church and worship in the original cathedral today,” when I take a walk instead of attending a service. But I like this First Book language, too.

In a talk I attended in 2020, Brown Taylor reminded us of Job 12:7-10,

“Just ask the animals, and they will teach you. Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you. Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you. Let the fish in the sea speak to you…. For the life of every living thing is in his hand, and the breath of every human being.”

And of Romans 1:20,

“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, we can clearly see his invisible qualities.”

So we can learn about God from what God has made. She quoted Meister Eckhart, “Every creature is of God and full of God.” There are several benefits to connecting to God through what God has made. Brown Taylor called it, “re-enchanting the world for your children”:

  • It can enhance reverence for God.
  • It can help children not fear the world beyond their screens, possibly even not fear the dark as much.
  • It can help them develop love for all God’s creatures.
  • It can show them the unity of creation because so many natural systems are connected and support each other in so many ways.

We don’t need to engage in any formal study or even go outside to do this, although it’s certainly great to do so. Here are some activities:

1. Keep something growing indoors, and pay attention to what’s happening with it: blooming, growing, dying back. What can it teach us about thriving and resting and over- and under-feeding?

2. Notice the animals around you. Count whiskers or spots on a pet. Turn out the lights and use a flashlight to find your pet. Look out a window and consider the birds. Put up a bird feeder, squirrel feeder, bat house, and see what comes. What kind of insects make their way into your home? What do you read there?

3. Read a poem to a tree. The poem can be written by the children, or chosen by them. This one seems silly, but people can be surprisingly moved by it.

4. Tape a moon calendar to the fridge or bulletin board and make sure you notice what phase the moon is in. Make a practice of noticing the moon; praise the child who’s the first one to see the moon every time you go outside.

5. Sit in front of a fire together. She said, “fire is a great fascinator.” Candleflame can also work.

6. Turn over big stones and investigate what is revealed. Bring a plastic bag or a shoe box on walks or to the backyard so kids can gather things that interest them.

7. Teach children to recognize the call of one wild bird, and try to learn it in the wild, as opposed to on an app. Brown Taylor said, “Every bird has its own voice, just like we do.”

8. Keep a Nature Bin to store the treasures you find in creation. My nature bin has items I’ve kept since college, some my parents had collected when they were younger, as well as things my children and I have gathered over the last 20+ years. You don’t even need a bin! Friends of mine pile their collection on their porch steps, where it becomes a great conversation starter.

Nature table as part of Creation Season at Grace Church.
My church set up a nature offering table during Creation Season last year. It contains many items from my nature box, but also offerings that other people brought.

You don’t even have to make the spiritual connection for children. Brown Taylor says: “Trust the Spirit to speak. I trust the Spirit that erected the world to continue to create the world.”

I love that curiosity about the world can lead us to God. Shared curiosity can lead us closer to each other, too. My children are in their 20s, but they still bring me feathers they find in the wild because they know how much I love them. Re-enchant the world with each other while you read God’s first book!

What have you read in God’s first book?
How have you read it together with children?

 

** Barbara Brown Taylor’s talk was part of the Parenting Forward conference in 2020. It is available for $10 here:  https://www.parentingforwardconference.com/2020-sessions **

The ancient art of faith formation

Sanilac petroglyph
Image ~ ~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

This summer I went camping in the The Thumb of Michigan, and yes, I did hold up my hand and point to the spot on my own thumb when telling people about it.

An image of the back of a left hand two arrows pointing to locations on the thumb.

The Thumb was beautiful and, unlike at west-side campgrounds, we could get a great spot only a month before we wanted to head out. I think we’re going to make it an annual thing.

But it also meant that we were only 30 minutes away from a place I’d wanted to visit since I learned about it in 2019: Sanilac Petroglyphs Historic State Park. This park is dedicated to educating visitors about and maintaining the stone carvings that were made by Native American people there between 1,500 and 300 years ago. The carvings are called Ezhibiigaadek Asin, “written on stone,” in the Anishinaabemowin language.So much history is told from such a small location. From how the petroglyphs were discovered: two fires devastated The Thumb in 1871 and 1881 and cleared the brush so people could see this rock again (the 1881 fire burned so hot and moved so fast that the technology didn’t exist that would allow people to outrun it so whole families jumped in their well to try to save themselves). To how Native American tribes used that land both to sustain their lives and to commemorate and  pass along their history and worldview.

The Anishinaabe (original people) used this Marshall sandstone outcropping by the Cass River as an important gathering place, a place to talk about who they were, where they came from, where they were going, and what their values were. An elder would gather the people, take a stick in hand, and deliver a teaching while tracing the figure being spoken of in the sacred rock. With each repetition, the figure was carved deeper into the sandstone.

The above figure is the archer, who shoots knowledge into the future for coming generations. The items around it are offerings of tobacco, copper, and feathers that contemporary Native American people have given in gratitude for these gifts their ancestors made for them.

A stone carving to aid in teaching about the Thunderbird at Sanilac Petroyglyphs State Park.If I remember correctly, this is the thunderbird with wings outstretched, creating thunder with each flap.

This figure has been subject to more erosion than others, so it’s no longer as clear. At the bottom right corner of this photo you see a round hole in the rock–vandalism. At some point, someone dug a figure out of the sandstone and removed it. Which is why there’s now a high locked fence surrounding the site.

There were stories the interpreter couldn’t tell us because we were a group of men and women, and some teachings were only for men and others only for women.

A line of indented circles in the Sanilac petroglyphs that runs perfectly north/south.

This line of circular indents was a mystery until someone used a compass and realized it was a perfect north-south line.

I felt so connected to those long-ago storytellers. For hundreds of Sunday mornings, I have knelt or sat in front of a group of children and talked about how God loves us with a never-ending, always-and-forever love; that God always wants to hear from us; that God is involved with our lives in mundane and amazing ways; that the life of faith is one of both comfort and challenge.
While I tell the stories, I move my hands over sand, manipulating wood and clay and felt figures as I tell a rotating group of 80ish stories. Over and over and over for the last 24 years. Carving them deeper into my own heart and life, while hoping to plant seeds in the children’s hearts and lives.

I can say the beginnings of many stories from memory:

The desert is a strange and wild place. During the day, it is burning hot. But at night it is freezing cold. The wind comes, and as it blows, it shapes and molds. The desert is never the same. So many important things happened in the desert that we have to have a small piece of it in our room.

Once there was a man who said such wonderful things and did such amazing things, that people began to follow him.

This is the season of Advent, the time we are all on the way to Bethlehem. But who will show us the way?

Words, images, repetition.

These have been the way people have done faith formation forever. This trip was a beautiful reminder of that.

What We Save

An old woman with swollen feet puts on a pair of house shoes.
~ Natalie Hart ~ 3 Comments

When my mother was six, in the summer of 1947, her home burned down.

The four-year-old noticed fire licking out of the wood-stove pipe in the kitchen, asking his older sisters what it meant while he slurped cereal from a bowl. Their mother was in the barn, so it was up to my mother and her older sister to get the kids out of the house and then run a mile to the neighbor’s — he didn’t have a phone, either, but he had a car and could drive to a phone.

The fire department came, but the house was a total loss.

Their neighbors followed the fire truck, gathering to commiserate. Once the ruins cooled, the kids took turns dashing into the house to see what they could salvage, tossing the spoils on the grass. My mother was very proud of one thing she managed to save: my grandmother’s ratty house shoes.

Everyone burst into laughter, leaving her mortified and confused.

After all, she’d seen her mother sigh in relief as she removed her barn boots and slid her feet into those slippers. She’d noticed how her mother would have a cup of coffee and sit for a moment after putting them on. They were important. But important enough to be celebrated for surviving the fire? Did they reach that kind of heirloom status?

What counts as an heirloom?

None of what I consider heirlooms from that side of the family came from the pre-1947 house. They’re from the barn or the shop where Grandpa fixed electronics: crocks and tins and horseshoes used for utterly mundane purposes.

The generation that originally owned the stuff is not always a good judge of what subsequent generations will consider precious. When I was in my 20s, I admired my grandma’s red glass vase collection and she handed one to me. She loved that vase and I love it, too; it’s the perfect vessel for a stem of bleeding hearts in the spring. But I also treasure something my grandpa thought of as garbage: two rusty horseshoes from the pre-tractor days. When I asked whether I could take them, he laughed the same “you’re crazy” laugh he gave when I told him how much bags of purslane (a weed that plagued his fields) were selling for in New York City.

I’m a big city girl, but I love my rural roots. The horseshoes, the red vase, my great-grandmother’s crock, and a blue and white egg-collecting tin remind me that, only one generation before me, my mother worked the fields with her 11 siblings and used a two-holer outhouse (with Sears catalogue for wiping) for the first seven years of her life.

They remind me of summer afternoons spent with my grandma and my aunts in the farm kitchen, pitting sour cherries with bobby pins, of tipping squeaky piles of snow peas, of my gentle grandma and her squinty-eyed smile, of my mischievous grandpa and his giant ears and hands.

Who are heirlooms for?

Will my children find those same items as rich? Will they find them as beautiful as I do? If so, I’ll do what my grandparents did, and dole them out while I’m still alive. If not, I’ll be dead when they decide what to keep, and past caring. If my kids decide to pitch the horseshoes when I’m gone, that’s fine.

They don’t need to keep anything for my sake: heirlooms are for the living.

This came home to me at my Oma’s funeral. I wore her 1954 coming-to-Canada suit jacket. When she was alive, she would have loved that I wore it, but as I stood over her body and touched her hand, about to tell her, I stopped. She looked so at peace, beyond the cares of this world, even the pleasant ones. It turns out that I didn’t wear the suit for her; I wore it for me. I loved it.

This can set the living free from the burden of the previous generations’ stuff. You don’t keep the stuff for them, you keep what you keep for yourself, because you find it meaningful or beautiful or useful.

Even with that awareness, I keep thinking about those slippers. My grandma was embarrassed because everyone saw her beat-up house shoes, but maybe she was also secretly glad for their familiar feel when they had to live for a year in the workshop.

In this case, the heirloom isn’t the item: it’s the story.

 

** An earlier version of this story was published in catapult magazine in 2014, http://catapultmagazine.com/heirloom/article/salvaged-goods/index.html

The Beauty of Lent: Art and Bible Pairings

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

For Lent this year I’m doing a new thing: the devotional, Vincent Van Gogh and the Beauty of Lent. I feel so worn down by the state of the world, by constant flux and big changes at my church, by my car being in the shop for over a month after a small fender-bender, that I couldn’t bear to give anything up for Lent. Instead, I’m adding a practice that involves looking at light and color and the gorgeous art of Van Gogh.

One of the most intriguing questions so far is:

If you were to depict the idea that the Holy Spirit moves through both Scripture and the arts, how would you compose the picture? To what page would the Bible be opened? And what work of art would you place beside it?

The Van Gogh painting that week was Still Life with Bible (above). The Van Gogh family Bible is open to Isaiah 53, which talks about salvation coming through a suffering servant. The book near the Bible (Vincent’s own copy of Emile Zola’s Joie de Vivre) is about a woman who was orphaned and undergoes adversity and harm–a modern-day suffering servant. While some see this painting as Van Gogh contrasting the heavy religion of his father with his own faith. Others (including the devotional writers) as Van Gogh pointing out two strains of the same idea: the raising up of a suffering servant.

This activity captured my imagination. Here are a couple of pairings of artwork and the Bible passage I’ve thought of (note, these will not be beautiful, and probably not even visually interesting, I am a word person, not a visual artist).

Thankfulness

I’d pair Colossians 2:6 with Fire Keeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley. The main character, Daunis, is the most striking fictional practitioner of the spiritual discipline of gratitude I’ve ever read. She has a Native American father and a white mother, and while she grapples with her sense of belonging in both communities, she embraces and lives out the Anishinaabe spirituality she has learned. She is grounded by her practices and she overflows with gratitude, even while facing traumatic events.

Colossians 2:7 NLT

Let your roots grow down into [Christ Jesus, your Lord], and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Love

In February, my father turned 80. After his cancer diagnosis last year, right as they were moving and downsizing from their house of 20 years, and the subsequent removal of his bladder, we would’ve done anything he wanted for his birthday — including watching a 2-hour-38 minute-long serious movie. So he finally got us to watch the 2012 film of Les Miserables. As the last gorgeous strains of the music played, he said, “That film sums up my theology.” In the line: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Yes. It is beautiful theology. And the songs are still running through my head, over two weeks later.

I’ve paired it here with 1 John 4:12, 16-17:

No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us…. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. 

Hope

I’m thinking about this pairing, but I don’t have anything solid yet.

Last month, I asked God to strengthen my hope muscle. It had gone flabby due to disuse. He’s done it by throwing article after article, meme after meme, poem after poem, photo after photo at me, all about hope. It’s starting to work.

Your turn. Are there any Bible verses and art expressions you’d pair as expressing the same spirit? Do you have something to share that could strengthen my hope muscle?