Dear friends,

I miss you. I miss talking to you. Writing to you. Having a moment even to THINK about you and the things we’ve enjoyed discussing here. There’s just no way around it as I type these words.

This pandemic – and all the things that led up to it and all the things that are exposed by it -its all so hard. We are such vulnerable people, are we not?

Recently, I heard a quote from a book that is just the little granule of light and life and wisdom that I want to push forward into the world today. And, I’ll be frank here, every day of my whole entire life.

In An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor says this:

“One night when my whole heart was open to hearing from God and what I was supposed to do with my life.”

God said, ‘anything that pleases you.’ 

‘What?’ I said, resorting to words again. ‘What kind of an answer is that?

‘Do anything that pleases you,’ the voice in my head said again, ‘and belong to Me.’”

Friends, I honestly think this is what I was put on this earth to hear. And then to share.

I told a friend recently, that if I were to die tomorrow, I would want it to be said that Courtney “went after what she wanted.” And I think she knew what I was saying. I think she knows me well enough to know that what I want had surely better be wrapped up in capital “J” Joy or I’m not interested. Joy, in my experience, is a settled and confident delight. Joy is worth fighting for every time. And joy, at least for me, is grounded in the love of a whole-hearted parent or spouse who understands his beloved from the inside out enough to say: “Go do what you feel led to do. Just stay connected to me while you do it.”

There’s a part of me that grows irritated as I consider these things during a worldwide pandemic. I know in my bones that this way of living is what we were created for, and yet so much of the living of it feels like trying to run underwater in these difficult days. Every single thing is difficult. No tiny thing is easy. What gives?

I don’t really have any good answers right now other than an inkling somewhere up in the foggy distance that there are people in the world right now who don’t understand what its like to truly belong, to God or to people. And they don’t understand what its like to belong because its taken a pandemic to realize that they’ve lived among people their entire lives and are suddenly unbearably alone and unknown. Its the kind of alone that can happen in a room full of people. The kind of alone that only God can expose (now, at large, through a pandemic) and that only God can start to fix (through his extraordinary means of grace).

So, while I don’t really have any choice, I do think this makes all this running underwater a potentially valuable strength building exercise for me, and perhaps most importantly, for my community. Maybe we’re just building the strength to hope. Maybe we’re just building the strength to trust this difficult process. And maybe we’re just building the strength and muscle that we’ll need when this crisis finally passes over us and we can start to build our communities back up again. Maybe this time it will be a little more joyful and a little more communal. Maybe this time we’ll know what its like to belong to God and to each other. Maybe this time we truly will be able to do what pleases us with full confidence and great delight because we will belong to the Lord and each other so fully that we won’t have to suspect each other any more. We can just live freely, together, in pursuit of the good things God wants to show us.

Maybe this is all a little naive and its likely good and proper to remain realistic.  But I don’t think I’m aiming for utopia. I understand our human condition a little too well at this point to shoot for that. I think its just that I happen to know what pleases me and what it feels like, if only in moments and brief seasons of my life, to belong to Him. And what compassionate person wouldn’t want that for her neighbors if they could have it too in this difficult and lonely year?

So each morning this fall, I’ll put on my shoes and my suit and wade into the proverbial pool for the workout this season requires. I don’t really get it. I thought we were ready to fly in 2020, I really did. There have been times, and there will be more, when I’ve wanted to pull the plug on this whole endeavor. But God has other plans and I’m willing to stay in the gym if it means we can throw a few more friends into this boat we’re building at the end. I don’t really know what its going to look like when we’re done. I’ll just hold onto the hope that its what we would have wanted if we’d known we could have had it this way in the first place.

Be well,

Courtney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Easter Pilgrim’s Prayer

By: Courtney Beck

 

To the Lord of the life I’ve always wanted:

On our walk to the empty school last week

I passed the oak tree the workers had cut down

the week before. We watched them do it

my kids and I. We had hurried quickly by in

fact, to avoid the noise of the chainsaws and the

cars that distracted us from Springtime pinks and greens

we felt sure would unfold before us, just for us.

 

We hustled to the abandoned school

But the workers were there too, cutting

the grass in perfect lines that would, for a minute,

absorb my daughter’s heart as she sang to the

walls and the bees and her baby brother.

And for that minute we were all so blissfully

unaware of that oak tree up the road,

cut to the root for no apparent reason

but that it’s life was in the way of someone’s progress.

 

Our apartment is too cramped and the school,

we now know, is too empty and so

I’m left wondering how you intend to help us?

The children are clamoring, the chainsaw’s roared to life

and we lie down like dead oak trees with the sap

dripping down the record of our endurance.

We wait in dimmed and depressed concern for that

life we’ve always wanted

but found cut down, cut back and left for dead.

 

It must rise from the earth someway, somehow

like the Springtime, just for us.

And also for these children at this

empty school who would surely sing about the trees

if they came to life before their very eyes.

If they came to life despite us.

If they came to life like a miracle,

just for us.

Greetings All!

I hope everyone is muddling through alright in these crazy times…One of my favorite Christian podcasters is the hilarious Jen Hatmaker, who quotes Barbara Brown Taylor at the end of each of her interviews with the following question: “What’s saving your life right now?”

As I attempt to find a few spare brain cells amidst the chaos that is two children under 4 amidst a pandemic (WHY?!), I wanted to share some resources that have “saved my life” in the past as I’ve dealt with anxiety. These are anxious times and I think its a rare person that doesn’t need some additional support to make it through. Here are some helpful resources!

Mindfulness Resources:

Mindfulness is a trend that I think should stick around for the foreseeable future. These practices help us to stay in the present moment with our thoughts rather than race ahead to an unforeseeable future.

Sarah Bessey’s “Breath” Prayers – prayer can be a mindful experience. I appreciate Sarah Bessey’s take on this.

The Headspace App – This Phone app saved my life a few years ago, when I had a job that I felt I could not handle. Every day at lunch I would do my 10 minutes of mindfulness and it would help me get centered again for the second half of the day. I still just use the free trial version and find it so centering.

Counseling Resource:

One of my mother’s wisest sayings sticks with me to this day: “Don’t be cheap with your mental health.” I think this is one of my top five lessons from my mom and I pass that along to you in the form of a connection to my personal counselor, Janice McWilliams. Janice has offered herself as a resource to my readers in the form of “virtual counseling” if you live in the Maryland area. If you DO NOT live in the Maryland area, you can reach out to her for a one on one virtual “anxiety assessment” OR you can purchase her new course that she has just released TODAY that will help you specifically manage anxiety during this pandemic. Y’all, Janice is the best. Reach out to her if you need a partner or download her course.

Spiritual Resources: 

Sunday Services: The Village Church of East Atlanta (my home church) is doing a virtual Sunday service each week during the pandemic. We “attended” last Sunday morning from the comfort of our home and found it quite edifying. All are welcome this Sunday morning! Just log in here from your couch.

Sermons worth Listening to: There are dozens of pastors out there that will be helpful to you in your journey. I think though that in a time like this, you cannot go wrong with Pastor Tim Keller from New York City. Many of his sermons are posted on his podcast page located here.  I like to listen to sermons when I’m doing chores around the house and I think you will find Keller’s teaching insightful, encouraging and enlightening. Have a listen! It’s like listening to a wise grandfather speak directly to your heart.

Bible Study: I have been studying the book of Isaiah for lent, and I am amazed at how incredibly timely this has been. If you are the “studious” type, I’d highly recommend Ray Ortlund’s study of the book. It can be a bit heady but I have found it quite instructive for this Pandemic!

Book Study: Last year my friend Heather and I studied the book of Jeremiah, thanks to a book entitled “Run with the Horses” by Eugene Peterson. Frankly, any book by Peterson is a gem, but I REALLY enjoyed this one. It was an engaging read that explained the book of Jeremiah well for people who are not theologians. That would be most of us. Highly recommend!

These are the things that are coming to mind this lovely Friday. I hope you find them helpful. So, what’s saving MY life right now? Well, at this very moment, my husband is. He’s attempting to work from home with our two children while I sit in our empty church office and write to you fine people. Truthfully, we are exhausted by the needs of our tiny people right now and we are doing our best to handle this thing well. There’s just no getting around the difficulty though.

Additionally, though, what’s often saved my life is a statement that Janice shared with me eons ago that I come back to again and again: “It takes a 100,000 mindful moments to create a new neural pathway in the brain.”

Folks, our brains and our societies have tread some strange ground in recent decades. We have become more like widget counting robots than the creative humans we were meant to be. I think the pains we are enduring now are opportunities to tread some NEW ground. It’s taken 100,000 tiny acts of faith for me to trust that God knows what he’s doing. Its taken 100,000 breath prayers for me to not panic at every possible assault to a peaceful mind. Its taken 100,000 podcasted sermons for me to form a knowledge base for the way God works in the world and with his people. And its taken 100,000 Sunday services for me to realize that the people of God are my people and the house of God is where I will find the strength to do what the Lord has called me to do.

The actions we take over and over again create pathways for change. What are the things you can be doing with your heart, mind and body, over and over again, to create changes that bring you and the world some joy? Let’s start creating environments of spiritual, mental and physical health, even in our quarantined spaces. 100,000 moments from now, we may turn around and realize that we are different than we were before.

With love,
Courtney

I believe it was Anne Lammott who wrote a story about a friend of hers who rented a cabin to complete some time sensitive work. As I recall, her friend was a single mother to a young son at the time and she believed that by renting this space in the mountains for a few weeks, she could work, while her son (who as I recall was less than 2) slept at nap times and in the evening.

One afternoon during this small family’s time away, Anne’s friend put her child down for a nap in the cabin’s one bedroom and set herself up to complete some work. Unfortunately, as children often do, the child awoke from his nap and went to open the door only to accidentally lock himself in the bedroom from the inside where he had been sleeping.

The son started to turn the knob this way and that such that Anne’s friend, hearing it jingle from her work space in the other room, went to go see what was going on. At two years old, the little boy did not really know how he’d locked himself in. The mother, realizing suddenly what had happened, started, calmly at first, to tell her son that it was ok. She tried explaining to him how to turn the lock on the door knob. This, as you can imagine, was ineffective. Two year olds don’t follow directions. They run on pure emotion and have a limited vocabulary.

The situation unraveled from there. The little boy got more and more panic stricken and started to scream and cry for his mothers help. The mother became frantic herself on behalf of her terrified boy and ran for the phone only to find that she could not get through to anyone for help. Either the lines were down or no one would pick up the phone. The mom went back and forth between the phone and her now screaming son behind the bedroom door, as she tried to yell louder than his screams to assure him that he would be ok just as soon as she could figure out how to get to him.

I do not remember how the mother eventually got access to her child. What I remember from the story is this: in her moment of panic, the only thing this mama could think to do was to put her fingers under the door as an offering of touch for her terrified boy. At some point, the child became aware of his mama’s fingers in the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor and he put his tiny fingers under the door too. In this instant of brief touch, the boy began to finally hear his mama’s voice of reassurance that she would get him out, and the little boy calmed down.

My friends.

This is us.

We do not know how the Lord will get us out of this pandemic and its after effects. We do not know how he will open this door that is closing in on our faces, and making us feel so alone. But, I swear on my mothers literal grave, that his fingers are under the door. His voice is on the other side, and his plan is unfolding on our behalf.

Listen for his voice.

Reach out and feel his touch, even if all you’ve got are the tips of your fingers touching the tips of His.

The point is that He is there, and he WILL help us. We must only learn, in our season of trial, however it unfolds, that he’s the only one we ever actually wanted in the first place.

With so much love,

and a commitment to write and encourage as the Lord will allow in this season,

Courtney

 

The Household of Cosmic Trust

By: Courtney Beck

 

Oh

My

Soul.

 

What if I told you, that you could be free.

What if I told you that the doorways of pain

and the doorways of delight

over whose thresholds you have shimmied

and squeezed these last dozen years

have ushered you, quite capably, to this specific place:

 

your household of cosmic trust.

 

Here you stand naked, its true.

Yet somehow you are clothed, in comprehensible power.

In this place, the forces of despair

and the forces of delight

lie impotent and incapable of anything but a nudge,

in the direction of the One that you now know

you’ve always wanted.

 

Oh

My

Soul.

 

What if I told you that the only thing

that needs doing is to

trust the process of your unmaking,

open the door

and be free.