In hard times, we often crave our word for this week: comfort.
Comfort: the easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of grief or distress.
But if you are like me, comfort is a word I usually associate with an experience of sickness or grief. Mac and Cheese anyone? Chicken noodle soup? Big fluffy socks and a soft blanket? These things can feel and taste so good. For in a moment of receiving such, we might forget our troubles and soak in the kindness of the person offering us care.
Yet, I've been thinking lately a lot about how comfort can actually be a more transformative experience than a temporary balm.
If we stick close to the definition of the word: the easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of grief or distress, we realize that in offering a comfort is an defiant act of re-writing a story.
For, the experience of comfort for the long haul CAN take what has happened to you and place your life on a completely different path. Not that what has happened to you is ignored or belittled, but through comfort your soul can be restored. Restored souls can move forward.
But what does this look like you might wonder?
I hear all the time from those in distress, simple gestures mean the most. Someone who says, "come ride me." Or who answers the phone when you call (and then again). Or who says, "Come sit with me" at a meeting. Or someone who says "Let's grab dinner-- I want to hear about your week."
For to give and receive comfort, you must stay put, invest in people for the long haul and love those in your circle big.
Let me add this: comfort can't transform us if we don't allow it in regularly.
Remembering, showing up, and staying connected: these are the simple tasks that comfort is built upon-- acts that tell a person they are valued, acts that tell a person they belong, and acts that help a person know they are loved just as they are (not as they wish they were).
This is where the power of comfort begins to change lives. How might you open up your heart to give and receive comfort this week?
XO
Elizabeth
"Tell me about your friends." Such is a question we often ask each other if we're trying to really get to know some one.
In our modern ways of being on the move and the necessity of "friends who become family," you really can get to know a lot about a person by the type of people they keep company with.
To this enter today's word: friendship. Friendship is defined as the state of being attached to a person by affection or esteem.
I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately, maybe because several of my friendships are in flux, but also because of the consumerism of relationships I keep noticing.
By this I mean, people who show affection toward others IF they buy their beauty products or jewelry or sign up for their coaching or join their bootcamp class.
I once hired a coach to help me with a work project. Soon she began calling me her friend. But when I stopped paying for her service, she was no where to be found. Why didn't she just call me her client? I felt disposable.
Here's another example, have you ever heard of Rent a Local Friend? The premise is simple. Need a "friend" to to accompany you to an activity? Rent a person for a small fee. They will be there for you!
I don't want to be cynical and say that paid services are wrong (people have to earn a living) or that payment for time couldn't lead to a mutual human-to human relationship. But in our marketing centric culture, I think you and I have forgotten what it's like to spend time with a person because we like them.
Brene Brown in her book Daring Greatly reminds you that: “Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives."
So, this week, can you think of one way you could show up and serve someone you call a friend just because? Maybe . . .
Whatever it might be, SHOW your care without promising anything in return (or secretly expecting it either). In doing so, you'll lean more deeply into authentic community that begins right where you are!
Glad to be your email friend this Sunday and always-
Elizabeth
Have you lived in one place your whole life or have you moved around a lot or somewhere in between?
Where we physically have spent time has a lot to say about our stories, doesn't it? Because how many times have you begun a conversation with new person in your life that begins with: "Where are you from?"
So enter in today's word: geography.
Geography is a technical term, of course, defined as a science that deals with the description, distribution, and interaction of the diverse physical, biological, and cultural features of the earth's surface. The mere use of the word might conjure a class in school you liked or didn't. But today I want to think of geography in spiritual terms.
How does a particular geography shape your ideas about God?
These days I'm thinking a lot these days about the people I disagree with or who simply have different life experiences than me. Can you think of a few?
And as I think of my list, here is what has helped birthed in me compassion for those whom I simply don't understand: geography.
Exposer to the land and people of the world makes all the difference in our worldview, right?
And it's not just about physical location. It can be the kind of media we take in, the types of books we read, and/or the type of people we invite into our home. Are all your friends "just like you?"
God's beautiful tapestry of work in the world is always more than the little boxes our natural life experiences give us. God's love well extends beyond boarders of states or even our country of origin.
So how might you expand your spiritual geography this week? Here are two suggestions:
1. Consider traveling somewhere that feels outside of your comfort zone (that could be just miles away). Ask yourself: what I can learn from being in this new place?
2. Take inventory on what you are reading/ watching/ listening to. Are these books/ shows written or featuring characters from primarily one race or region of the world? Considering adding a new point of view to your cue.
Let's keep opening our eyes to God's geography. God's world is vast and diverse and full of perspectives we may never have ever considered! And we all have time to keep learning. You may never be able to change someone else's mind, but you can always change yours.
XO
Elizabeth
P.S. If you're looking for a great resource on this topic, might I recommend my friend Patrice Gopo's All the Colors We Will See: Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness and Finding Our Way. It's amazing collection of essays you'll love to read!
A couple of weeks ago I shared with you that my word for 2018 was connection. I wrote about the frustration I've felt about how busyness and schedules and how life seems to keep me from what I most crave: connection.
I told you that I wanted MORE when it came to my friendships and how our home was used to build community.
It was a bold intention, I suppose, and I had no idea how it would all play out. But, as I stand here at the beginning of February, I'm excited. Connection is finding me.
Here's 4 things I'm learning. I'd thought I'd share because maybe it might be of help to you too.
Ask someone to dinner.
So many of us wait on the invitation. We don't take initiative. We forget our home can be used for good. Or that meals can be part of the sacred everyday.
Not everyone has the time and space of life to do this, I know. But, I am. Having a small child means that my evening routines are full of structure and predictability. I cook more than I ever had in my life. Why not include one more? (And no need to make it fancy. Home cooked meals are so rare after all even if it came from a box!)
In the past couple of weeks, our supper table has included friends and colleagues alike. Though it of course means more dishes to clean, I'm always glad the night happened. 
Travel to see people if you need to.
Costs. Work. And schedules mean that we can't always travel. But if you were to ask me one thing that I want to spend my extra income on, it's always travel. I will spend money on travel any day if it takes me to visit someone who builds up my soul.
Two weeks ago I did just that. When Kevin asked me what I wanted for Christmas I said, "a trip to Oklahoma" and with a whisper I also asked, "By myself?" And that's just what I got: a couple of days to be around people who feel like family to me without the distractions of caring for anyone else.
And I was all the better for being HOME. 
Notice those who care about connection like you do.
Isolation is an easy disease to take on (as I was doing). It's so easy to think "you're the only one" when to comes to your longings. But if you open your eyes to conversations and spaces you find yourself in you might just notice new people. Or people who were there all the time who are hoping for what you are too.
In the past two weeks, I've sat across the table from two friends, both of whom I've known for a long time, sharing with me their same frustrations about the "I'm busy" culture. We've nodded our heads together. And we've echoed how much we want more for our how we spend our days with delightful people in them!
So what a great place to start: the people I don't have convince that connection is so important!
Surround yourself with art.
Art can often say what we do not yet have words for yet. Go to any play. Read poetry. Watch a documentary. View an art show and you'll often walk away with breathless awe of what you're feeling.
For as much as I knew "I wanted more connection" I wasn't really sure what it looked like.
But, recently I've found myself watching a lot of the BBC show, Call the Midwife on Netflix. Though I've watched seasons of it before, I'd never finished the series and I'm glad that now I am. Each episode is full of people working together, depending on each other, wading in the deep waters of grief, loss and love without limits. Though it's set in the 1950s and 60s and so much about our culture is different, I can't help but watch it and long for what is present in the show in my life too. This seeing is exactly the gift of art! We see.
What about you? How are you living into your intentions of the New Year? And if connection is something you're hoping for, how is it going?
XOXO
Elizabeth
P.S. Like what you've been reading with me? Want to share with a friend? Here's how.
Do you have a word for 2018?
I'm not sure when the tradition started but I love beginning each new year with a word. It's a spiritual practice to let my intuition take the lead and hover in a particular place.
I can remember one year when my word was "abundance." I was coming out of a long, hard season and abundance was God's invitation to me to accept goodness in my story again.
I can remember one year when my word was "surrender." I'd been struggling for a long time with some very clear ideas of what I wanted my life to look like. And the word of surrender was God's invitation for me to stop all my planning and just be.
But what about this year? What will my word be?
For now, I'm leaning into the word "connection." I think connection will be my word for 2018.
I believe I arrived here because the final months of 2018 have been filled with lots of frustration about the difficulty of creating community.
I've felt frustration with how complicated schedules keep local friends of mine from ever actually seeing each other. I've felt frustration with how following each other on Facebook becomes the only way I "keep in touch" with people I love so much. I've felt frustration with how hard it is to do life with a group of people besides those who actually reside in my house.
And as much as I love doing life with the two awesome people who share my last name, I want more. I want more authentic community.
I want people to show up as big for me and my family. And I want to do the same for them.
I want our home to be more of a gathering point for more laugher and rest for those who need it the most.
I want more friends with whom have regular dates, traditions and "come hell or high water" we will hang out with one another evenings no matter if we have kids at home or not.
And I don't think this feeling I'm noticing is unique to me.
Back in September, I took on a new pastorate. I'm currently at the helm of a Washington, DC church. Such a role gives me a front row seat to people's lives, schedules and values related to community building.
And I have to tell you, what I'm finding all over again (as I did in other congregations) is that it's not just my household that struggles with connection. The temptation to isolate ourselves in our over stimulated age is very real especially in the Washington, DC area where I live.
We travel a lot.
We work a lot.
We have extra commitments that ask a lot of us.
And, in all of this: we're exhausted. Working on deepening our relationships just feels like one more thing. Showing up regularly for community building is something we don't have time for . . .
But as for me, I want to chart a different course. I wan to say to the universe, to God and to any of you reading this blog post right now that I want more connection in my life.
I want to host more weekly dinners around my dinning room table. (Who wants to invite themselves over?)
I want to be more intentional about hanging out with those who want to be intentional with me.
I want to open up my heart to new relationships that are full of soul-ful connection.
I want more.
And I want more for the church where I'm serving too. I want them to know and love each other in deeper ways too. I want them to be community that becomes even more committed to each other in 2018.
What about you?
What's are you hoping for in the year to come? It's ok to long for more!
