It’s my birthday and if you know anything about me at all, you know I stink at all birthdays everywhere. I forget them. The hype surrounding the celebration is daunting and weirdly unattainable-Are we supposed to top last year’s birthday shindig? And I get angsty when I have to ask my kids, So, what are we doing for your birthday this year? knowing daggum well I have my fingers crossed and hope they say, Please no cake. Just give me the money. Please tell me I’m not alone.
I’m getting a screened in porch and a new roof for my birthday because those are things we need and getting things we need is my favorite. And the thing I’m most thrilled about is the sound the screen door will make when it hits the doorframe. Is that sound a thwack? Or a creaky slap? Or the sound love makes when it comes home? What say you?
Anyway, I sat up way past my bedtime last night trying to come up with 46 things about me because Jen Pollock Michel says making lists is writing and I’m trying to write every day.
The random photos of me are just extra. Get ready for them. I couldn’t just choose 5. You’re welcome.
46 Things About Me:
I’ve been wearing black since 1989.
I could eat soup everyday.
I love all animals everywhere except the ones who live in my house.
I wish I’d had 2 more babies.
October is my favorite.
I cannot not show up as my whole self.
Whatever is in me will always come out.
I withdraw to preserve self, particularly when I am faced with scenarios where I believe what is observed about me will be exploited.
If most people love it, I likely will not.
Except for Taylor Swift. I love her.
I’ve lived in Rocky Mount four different times…each time not by my choosing.
I grew up in the 90s “acquire the fire” evangelical explosion of Jesus Freaks and I legitimately caught fire,
Before I burned out somewhere in the mid 2000s.
I am still cleaning up the beautiful ashes but I grin when I have to retrieve the dust pan. Maybe I’m still smoldering?
I felt a “call” to vocational ministry at 16 so I married a youth pastor because I thought that’s how my “call” would work itself out.
It’s taken me 45 years to own my own calling apart from Thad’s.
And it’s taken me 40 years to learn how to swim in various streams of Christianity, but only 6 years to learn how to float in one that embodies the bits of them all.
I’m most honest when I feel most healthily detached.
I freaking love a good Paloma, a spicy margarita, a stiff old fashioned with Basil Hayden.
But I really love sharing a bottle of Cab over a charcuterie board.
The first drink of my life was on my 32nd birthday. It was a mango margarita ordered by my friend Kathleen before I arrived for my birthday dinner.
She was unaware that I didn’t drink, and totally unaware that when I went to the bathroom after the first marg, I was trying to regain my bearings.
So being the good and generous friend she was, splurged and ordered me a 2nd frozen mango margarita as a surprise upon my return to the table. We were practicing the spiritual discipline of celebration and we were winning.
Have I mentioned I’m the sort of people pleaser that drinks and eats what is set before them, always and forever? Because I am her.
I ultimately had to confess to Kathleen that I didn’t drink because I could no longer see her face across the table.
We still laugh about it today. Thank you, Kathleen.
Sharing a meal with friends is my favorite.
And my favorite dinner is medium rare beef tenderloin with horseradish butter, roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon, and loaded mashed potatoes.
But I also love crispy pork rinds and hot queso.
If it’s in my heart it will show up on my face.
I gladly submit to strong leadership that’s full of integrity, but in the absence of good leadership, I will lead.
I come alive in conversations centered on theology, ecclesiology, vulnerability, and embodied spirituality.
I love all kinds of kinds.
I feel the pleasure of God when I write, when I make my house a home, when I prepare a meal.
I rarely read fiction but when I do, it’s nearly always Barbara Kingsolver or Wendell Berry or Kate Morton. Memoir makes my heart sing.
I love people and I love being alone.
Long stays at an Airbnb delight my minimalist soul: homes with only the essentials and the occasional surprise.
Road trips alone are my jam.
I love Thad. He’s my best friend. I love my kids. They are the best of me and Thad walking around in the image of God.
But sometimes I’m able to reach down deep inside of me and know that were I single today, I’d likely be living in an abbey. This thought makes me grin on the inside.
In my second half of life, I hope to be serving alongside Thad as we practice the ministry of presence in service to those burnt out on religion, wounded by the Church, and desperately in need of a tangible embrace from God.
I hope we get to live this out in a thin place of beauty where the presence of God is weighty and palpable.
And I hope I get to stand over a hearth and bake bread and receive the weary into my kitchen with a big grin as I wipe the sweat off my brow with a handkerchief. I hope I smell like yeast and fire and good wine. I hope I look like joy and delight and warmth. And I hope I convey home.
I want to grow old with Thad. I want to have matching rocking chairs. I want to Remember When with him.
I want my grandkids to love me, remember me, have fond memories of time spent at my house.
I want to end well. I want to die with a fork and knife in my hands, eager for the feast to come.
Thanks for indulging my ‘nother trip around the sun naval gazing, friends.
PS: Please send me your favorite soup recipe for my birthday.
PPS: And here’s a special gift for reading all the way to the end Peep a look at this photo of me in 1994(?) after a relative fixed my hair for a Junior Sorority Dance. Bless my bangs. I look like I was on my way to the CMAs.
Going to the CMAs...🤣🤣🤣
Love these!!! Happy birthday!
I need to hear more about that New Orleans Mission Trip. How did you tell him and why did Thad react like that?
Yes to any conversation about spiritual journeys and finding our footing with God!!!
Highly recommend sausage tortellini soup!!