So, I’m only about halfway done with Lit by Mary Karr, but I just had to take a break from my voracious inhaling of this book to tell you how much (and why) I like it. Karr’s story (which includes just about every kind of trauma you can think of)  is raw, and her voice is rawer still. She’s a blood and guts writer and she’s not afraid to tell the truth in it’s most difficult forms. I find her brand of writing brave. I feel punched in the gut as I’m reading because this kind of truth-telling is challenging and it leaves you breathless and even a little charged.

In a culture of “if it looks good it is good,” getting gritty and grisly is often discomforting, yet the truth is always the thing that sets us free. Always. I feel brazened when I read this book, like I just took a shot of liquid courage, and I might just be able to say things and write about things even more honestly and even more openly.

I facilitated a writing workshop on Wednesday night — basically two and  half hours on all the many ways I have felt stuck as a writer and what has helped at least a little bit — and I was reminded of how writing can help us get to the veiled truth in our lives, how writing into our memories and our stirrings (though we often don’t know how to make sense of them) will uncover a jewel if we are honest and diligent in the process.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Mary Karr is first and foremost a poet, so her language is otherworldly at times, haunting and melodic. She is at once a white trash Texan (self-proclaimed) and a refined artist. You see why her writing works.

This post is about Mary Karr and her soul-satisfying memoir. But I guess it’s also about an insatiable place in me that is hungry for truth and art and courage, a place in me that wants to see people who are telling the truth and surviving. People who are, with a poet’s pen, coaxing us toward health and wholeness in a way that is sly and slant (taken from Emily Dickinson who was recently quoted by my crush Eugene Peterson, “Tell all the truth/But tell it slant”), inviting each of us into process, reflection, and participation.

That is a true and rare gift.

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Earlier this year, I did a video interview with Craig Spinks of www.recycleyourfaith.com. Craig and his wife, Sara, are traveling around the country (they’ve been on the road 7 months!) capturing all kinds of stories of faith. They want to tell the stories that cause people to question easy answers, challenge neat conclusions, and invite discussion. My video, “The Woman at the Mosque,” is featured on the homepage this week. Check it out!

My dear friend Elaine Hamilton also has a video on the site. Hers echoes some of the topics in her amazing book, Church on the Couch, namely how we can experience deeper authenticity in the church. Be sure to watch her interview, “Embracing the Mess,” as well.

I’d love to hear any comments you have on either my video or Elaine’s.

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I spent Friday and Saturday with the most amazing group of women from a church up in Bakersfield. The two-day retreat was themed around Found Art, and we talked about discovering beauty in foreign places, experiencing God in foreign places, and caring for our souls in foreign places.

I once heard Gordon McDonald say, “Never underestimate the amount of blood in the pews.” This weekend was a reminder of the deep pain of our world and of the walking wounded. I talked to so many women who are journeying through unthinkable pain. Divorce. Death. Illness. Financial Ruin. Infidelity. Trauma. The wounds were raw and real.

My hope was that the words of Ecclesiastes brought comfort: “He is making all things beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in our hearts, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Doesn’t that say it all? We have a sense that our lives have an eternal purpose, that the things we’re going through have a larger, spiritual significance, that beauty might somehow materialize, and yet we cannot quite figure out exactly what he’s doing from beginning to end. We must believe despite our unbelief. So hard to do when you’re in the middle of a wilderness exile.

Back at my church on Sunday, our post-college/career pastor, Andy Kelly, was giving the message on the subject of pornography. Ugghhh. No one likes to talk about these things. Especially at church. Messy. Uncomfortable. Inconvenient. Phrases like erotic fantasy and compulsive masturbation don’t mix well with my Starbucks coffee and my comfort zone. In addition, I felt like my mind was numb from the fatigue of the speaking and of really doing my best to stay present with the women at the retreat.

But I was reminded, through the transformational truth that Andy shared (a truth that transcended the subject of pornography), that even as our lives are ensnared by any number of unhealthy behaviors, relationships, ways of thinking, ways of being, woundedness, and brokenness, that God deeply loves us. His invitation is one of intimacy and healing and freedom.

In the words of Peter, where else would we go, Lord?

I’ll close this post with the familiar hymn I read to the women at the retreat. When we are wandering through those foreign places—without bearings, without familiarity—how often we need the reminder that he is our eternal home.

O God, our help in ages past,


Our hope for years to come,


Our shelter from the stormy blast,


And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of Thy throne


Thy saints have dwelt secure;


Sufficient is Thine arm alone,


And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,


Or earth received her frame,


From everlasting Thou art God,


To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in Thy sight


Are like an evening gone;


Short as the watch that ends the night


Before the rising sun.

O God, our help in ages past,


Our hope for years to come,


Be Thou our guard while troubles last,


And our eternal home.

Amen.

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Thought you might like to read a column I wrote recently for a military wesbite, www.wivesoffaith.org, on the subject of loneliness. Enjoy.

“Know and Be Known”

When my husband Steve and I moved to Bahrain, literally days after we were married, I was all of a sudden transported to a world where I knew no one. And because Steve and I had dated seven weeks before getting engaged and then spent the better part of our engagement apart (me in San Diego; Steve in the Middle East), you could safely say that Steve and I didn’t even totally know each other.

During those first few weeks in Bahrain, I spent long hours decompressing from the hectic pace of my western world and embracing the landscape of my new life. I would pull open the heavy green drapes in the master bedroom of our Persian Gulf-facing flat, and I would stare out at the whipping water and just let the peace of it all seep into my soul. At a time in my life when I should have felt the most alone, and I was truly alone, I didn’t feel lonely at all.

One year later, when Steve and I returned back to San Diego, back to my hometown, I was excited to be returning to a place that was familiar and comfortable to me. Immediately, I was blindsided by how much had changed in just one short year. I assumed re-entry into my former job and former relationships and former church would be somewhat seamless, and I was devastated when I realized how much I had changed and how much “home” had changed in my absence. At a time in my life when I should have felt the most surrounded and known, all I felt was utter isolation.

Loneliness is a strange condition, having less to do with the state of our surroundings and more to do with the state of our souls. Thus, confusing and counter-intuitive. Over and over again, I have learned this lesson.

I’ve been a mother now for just over a year. My introduction to motherhood came in a double-dose with the arrival of boy/girl twins. Certain days, the better days, are an adventure. Other days, the lonelier ones, cause me to feel as though I am death spiraling toward an irrecoverable soul oblivion.

Here is one thing that has helped immeasurably:

I meet with a group of eight women every week. Some are married. Some are single. Some with kids. Some without. The common denominator in the group is simply the desire to know and be known. Somehow this shared pursuit binds us together beautifully, mutually supporting and being supported.

Every meeting, we each spend a chunk of time updating the others on the state of our souls. Though rarely comfortable to engage in this level of authenticity, this practice of truth-telling has become essential to my survival. One of our group members reminded me recently that, “when we share our burdens with others, the weight is divided among the hearers and we are left with so much less to carry.”

The most powerful part of the evening—and this never ceases to amaze me—comes directly after each woman shares. The entire group looks at the woman who has just opened up her soul and says in unison, “We see you. We hear you. We love you.”

A sure antidote to the ache of isolation is the awareness that someone sees me, for loneliness breeds whenever I begin to feel misunderstood, taken for granted, overlooked, invisible, or just plain useless.

Each week, my group of women puts words to the message God is forever whispering to me throughout my day. “Leeana, I see you. I hear you. I love you.” They have become his eyes, his ears, and his heart to me.

On the days when I am tempted to run headlong into my own head and begin spinning scenarios of personal invisibility and irrelevance, I send an email to my group. Just the simple act of reaching out allows these women the opportunity to reach in, and the load begins to lighten the minute I press send.

Loneliness has so much more to do with believing the lies of “you’re not worth it,” “you don’t matter,” and “you’re on your own” than it has to do with the number of people on your speed dial. On the days—and they will come—when you’re feeling that the lies may very well overcome the truth, practice the courageous disciplines of opening up, reaching out, and letting in. Small miracles are surely forthcoming.

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Exciting to see the first chapter of Found Art featured on Crosswalk.com today! Watch for the cover image on the scrolling ad on the left side of the homepage!! Click on it to read the entire first chapter, “Uprooting.” Feel free and forward on to others who might want to read an excerpt.

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