Shauna Niequist's Blog, page 3

Words from Friends

One of the things I’m most thankful for this year is friendship, and specifically friendships with other writers. Sometimes you hear that writers can’t be friends with other writers, that we’re competing for readers and too neurotic to support each other well, that we can’t get out of our own heads and fears long enough to help each other. 

I’ve found the exact opposite to be true: I’m so thankful for my friendships with other writers, for long meals sharing stories, for quick emails on hard days, for careful editing and meaningful feedback, for voices that cheer me on along the way. 

And of course, one of the best parts of friendship is introducing your friends to one another. Interweb pals, please meet Margaret Feinberg & Blaine Hogan, two of my favorite writer-friends. They both have great books coming out, and instead of me talking to you about them, I want you share their words with you, so here are a few of my favorite quotes from each of their new books. I totally recommend them both.

Margaret is a fantastic writer and speaker, and she’s been a great example to me. Her new book Wonderstruck is a beautiful reflection on God’s presence. She encourages us to live with a posture of wonder, instead of being too distracted to see the beauty of God all around us. 

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A few of my favorite passages from Wonderstruck:

"I have a hunch that I’m not the only one who has misplaced the marvel of a life lived with God. Faith invites us into an enchanting journey—one marked by mysteries of divine beauty, holy courage, irrepressible hope, unending love. But in my life, any sense of the splendor of God had faded. I knew I needed God to reveal himself once again to awaken me from my sleep, to disturb me from my slumber. And so I prayed for wonder." 

"God is not merely at your fingertips but within your grasp. Live each day like a child digging through an antique treasure chest rifling for the next discovery. Open your arms and your eyes to the God who stands in plain sight and works miracles in your midst. Look for him in your workdays and weekends, in your meeting-filled Mondays and your lazy Saturdays. Search for him in the snowy sunsets and Sabbaths, seasons of Lent and sitting at your table. Pray for—and expect—wonder. For when you search for God, you will discover him.” 

"Breathing life begins with the simplest of actions. See someone. Really see. As you reach out and interact, offer your full attention to whoever is in front of you. Listen to someone. Really listen. Give someone the gift of your presence—your fully present, undivided attention. Pray for someone. Really pray. Though it may feel awkward in the moment, ask if you can offer a prayer, and bless the person with kindness. Give to someone. Really give of yourself. Find an unexpected way to help someone whose needs remain unmet. Radiate the generosity of Christ.” 

Blaine is a close friend and one of the most truly creative people I know. He’s an artist in the truest sense, and his book Untitled is a great one for writers, painters, dancers—all of us who struggle to make things. 

Some of my favorite passages from Untitled: 

“It is the artist’s job to accept that the work will be very, very hard; to understand the importance of deep reflection, and to fight the forces of fear and resistance, all in the name of filling blank pages and creating beauty.” 

“Art seeks to tell the truth in dark places (movie houses, theatres, sanctuaries, museums) and it seems to me that’s what faith in God seeks to do as well – tell the truth in dark places. We cannot hope to do this well unless we commit to a process of inner work and guidance from a higher power. I have found that when I’m brave enough to venture into these arenas; when I’m able to offer my true self; when my full self has been explored. I tell the most truth and I create the best work.”

“There is no magic potion, unfortunately, for upending our system of modern work in the Western world and giving ourselves over to this life. An artist’s job is to see well and to do that you must have slow and steady eyes to see. It takes time to do this. Becoming a great artist is not about might, it is about being. Becoming a great artist is about sitting and paying attention to the world that is passing everyone else by.”

Bread & Wine for Christmas

We tried as hard as we could to have Bread & Wine out by Christmas. We really, really did. But you know, a hard pregnancy, a newborn, a six year old, a full travel schedule--not to mention the addition of 30 recipes—meant that springtime 2013 is the very best we can do. 

But it seems like everyone I run into says, Oh, I wanted to give Bread & Wine to my friend for Christmas, or my sister for Christmas, or my kids’ teachers’ for Christmas.

Really, that means more than you know. Thank you, thank you, thank you for wanting to share the book with the people you love. That’s the greatest compliment you can give to a writer. 

There's no way to have the actual book under the tree for this Christmas, but we’ve made these sweet little bookplates, so this is what you can do:

Pre-order the book at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and then wrap up a personalized bookplate for your friend or your sister or your mom. Slip it into a pretty Christmas card, or tie it to a bottle of wine with ribbon. Give it with a tea towel or a loaf of your favorite bread, and let your friends know that you’ve pre-ordered the book for them, so when the book does ship at the end of March, they can put their signed, personalized bookplate right in the front. 

Here’s how it works: 

Send me a self-addressed stamped business-sized envelope with a note inside that lets me know how many bookplates you’d like, and what names you’d like on each one. I can send up to six in one envelope. I’ll send them right back to you, and you can wrap them up and put them under three. 

The address:

1566 W. Algonquin Road #112

Hoffman Estates, Il 60192

No, that’s not our home address, so don’t send cookies or anything. It’s a PO box that I’ll stop by every couple days, so that I can get you your bookplates in plenty of time for Christmas. 

We also have Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet bookplates, so if you’d like to give someone signed, personalized copies of those, all you have to do is let me know the name you want on the plate, and you can buy the books from your local bookstore—much easier/cheaper/faster than me shipping them to you.

So send me a self-addressed, stamped business-sized envelope, and let me know which book, and what names, and I’ll send them right back to you, up to six in an envelope. Good plan! 

...and, really, if you want one with your own name, that's absolutely fair. Send me an envelope! Merry Christmas to you! :)

Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas. Love & cookies to you today. 

Lullabies & Other Loveliness

Last night was the first snow here in Chicago, and that means it is, once again, that time—conversations have turned to who’s bringing what to the holiday meal, what the kids want for Christmas from their grandparents, who’s hosting which party or celebration. 

It’s Christmas shopping time. I love Christmas shopping. I love gift-giving, I love wrapping—this year we’re going old school prep: navy and kelly green stripes, navy and kelly plaid, navy grosgrain ribbon. And I especially love homemade and handmade gifts, gifts that tell a story, gifts made with love and hands and creativity. 

A few favorite gifts I’ll be giving this season:

Lullabies by Page CXVI

My friend Tifah is a part of a trio called Page CXVI, and they’ve recorded the most lovely album of lullabies, perfect for new parents. I’m always on the hunt for kids’ music that doesn’t make me want to claw my eyes out (I’m looking at you, Backyardigans), and this is just the opposite. 

I’ve been listening to it as I write, even when the kids aren’t home, because the music is lovely and creative and just a touch haunting. I’ve always loved Tifah’s voice, and she sounds better than ever here. 

The album releases today, and the band is giving away one song for download here--just for readers of this blog. Download the song, and then order the album for a gift. And there are both pink and blue covers—how sweet is that? 

Sweet Mercy Design 2013 Calendar 

A reader named Emily sent me one of her 2013 calendars, and it’s just the cutest. The designs are bright and full of life, color-saturated and beautiful. Ours is going up in our kitchen for a little color on long winter days, and I’m thinking they’d make lovely teacher gifts, too.

The Advent Book 

Okay, this isn’t a Christmas gift, but I did want to mention it so that you have time to order it in time for the start of Advent. As you may know, I’m generally terrible at traditions, and that’s mostly okay with me, but I do want to do a better job of cultivating just a few meaningful traditions for our kids, and Advent is one of them. My friend Casey, who’s really, really good at traditions, recommended this book to me, and reading it every night by the tree is my very favorite memory of last year’s Christmas season. 

Mac was a newborn and Henry was five, and just before bedtime, every night we snuggled up by the tree and read. It’s the kind of book where you read the first page and open the first door on the first day, then doors one and two on the second day, and so on, and the text is the Bible story, split up day by day. I loved that by the end of the month, Henry had the Christmas story memorized from our evening reading.

In coming weeks, I’ll post more favorite gifts, but in the meantime, it’s your turn: what are you giving to the people you love this Christmas? 

Do you make/create/design/record/write/bake something that you want to tell us about?  If you’ve got an etsy shop or something you make or design or record, let us know about it.

Do any of you give food gifts? What recipe do you use? How do you package it? Can we order it and taste it, or is it just for family and friends?

Tell us all about it.  I love to give gifts made by hand and with love, so please leave links and recommendations in the comments. Let's make this comments section a handmade/homemade/all-time favorite gift guide, okay? 

Love and Christmas cookies, XO--S

Iron Sharpens Iron, Etcetera

Thanks so much for all your sweet messages about the teaching at Willow this weekend. I loved being a part of the services, and here's the link if you'd like to watch it. We're in a series on Proverbs, and I taught from Proverbs 27:17--As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

In preparation for the teaching, my friend Ryan taught me a little bit about metal working at his motorcycle shop, and what I learned is that metal gets shaped by two things: heat & force. And people, it seems to me, get shaped by two things: trust and truth. Without trust, yelling about the truth is about as effiective as swinging a hammer at an ice cold piece of metal, hoping to transform it.

In other news, my copy-edited manuscript is arriving today (eek!), so the next two weeks will be a really intense push to make all the last changes. Big huge thank you to all the recipe testers--your feedback was so super helpful. 

The week ahead is all book, book, book, and then the weekend's full of adventures: I'm speaking at an event Satuday morning, then hosting a baby shower for my sister-in-law, then taking a super-quick trip to LA to speak at APU's chapel on Monday, Nov 12.

And then once again I will be right here at my desk all next week, red pen in hand. If I'm a little less reachable than usual these two weeks, that's why, because I'm frantically trying to make every single last little change in the manuscript before it gets sent off. 

Thank you to all the bloggers who sent emails about early reading & reviewing of Bread & Wine. If you haven't done that yet, feel free to send an email with your info, and we'll be in touch after Christmas--the release is March 26th, so we'll get early copies out well before that. 

A few other completely unrelated items: have you seen Lindsay Letters new shop? Amazing, right? We'll be doing a giveaway soon to celebrate all her fancy new goods.

And have you seen Smitten Kitchen's new cookbook? It's absolutely gorgeous. I want to make practically every recipe, and the text and photography are beautiful. I want to buy it for everyone on my Christmas list. 

And finally, a quote I've always loved that seems particularly appropriate right now:

"Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day that says, I will try again tomorrow."                                                                                                     --Mary Ann Radmacher

 

(Photo credit: Amanda Thomas) 

 

My Greatest Gift

My greatest gift is procrastination. The busier things are, the more able I am to occupy myself with a far-reaching panoply of totally unnecessary activities. 

Let’s take this week as an example. 

As you know, on Monday I got serious with my calendar. It’s a busy, intense season, and I’ve determined to walk through it with self-care, prayer, therapy, sleep. I’m doing fairly well on this, except for the fact that our boys have been waking up at 5am all week, so unless I go to bed at noon, practically, the days are long. 

What I should be doing this week: reviewing my notes for Mission Church’s gatherings this weekend, writing my message for the Proverbs series at Willow next weekend, and perfecting recipes for the book. Nothing else. Seriously, nothing else. 

What I have been doing: 

1. For the first time ever, utilizing Pinterest for more than just vague dreaming: I used this Pin to get rid of that terrible mildew smell, really one of the worst smells in all the world, in my opinion. The secret, apparently: 1 cup vinegar the first time through, then half a cup of baking soda the second time. I’m in love, Pinterest! You can keep all your things to do with mason jars, ways to French braid, and layouts of outfits no one will ever wear, but I am in love with you because now my towels smell like angel wings times springtime times kisses. 

2. Helping a friend plan a wedding. Asking another friend if said engaged friend can have a wedding on her beautiful farm-land property. Recommending bands (this one!) and caterers and makeup artists (this one, of course!). Instead of, oh, you know, doing any of the things I’m supposed to be doing, I’ve appointed myself wedding planner and am diving head-first into the venue search, etc. 

3. Investing major emotional energy in the dessert menu for an upcoming baby shower for my sister-in-law. The shower is several weeks off, but this morning I absolutely had to make several cake-pop-related inquiries and frosting-related decisions. Obviously.

4. The last straw, really, was when I made a meet-up date with my friend Shelly so that she could bring me a cocktail ring shaped like a fox. You heard me: we’re meeting at the Trader Joe’s in Lake Zurich because I saw the Alice Temperley line at Stella & Dot this season, and it’s definitely a very high priority for me to secure said ring. ASAP. Addicts talk about their moment of being “caught in the act”—when once and for all they realized they were in trouble. Consider the fox ring my red flag. Oh, I’m still going to meet my friend Shelly and I’m still going to wear that ring all season long, but at least now I know what’s happening: I’m hardcore procrastinating to a spectacular degree. 

It would make me feel immensely better to know that you also procrastinate when the pressure’s on. Please tell me what it is that you do when you’re avoiding whatever it is that should be done. Please. :)

On Ylang-Ylang, Being Human, & Practicing Grace

I just got back from speaking at a retreat in Dallas. I was in Houston before that and Santa Barbara before that. Next week I’m speaking at a friend’s church locally, and then the next weekend, I’m speaking at Willow’s weekend services as a part of the Wiser series. The next week I’m hosting a baby shower for my sister-in-law, speaking at a Student Impact/Care Center event, and taking a quick trip to LA to speak at APU’s chapel. And right in the middle of that, I’ll get the Bread & Wine manuscript back for 10 days to make all the last changes that I’ve been waking up in the night thinking about for the last few weeks. I’ve got a handful of recipes that need to get re-worked, too, and a Halloween party to host, and a few other writing projects I’ve been neglecting.

And then about a month from now, our best friends will come to town with their kids for a visit, and we’ll drink champagne and stay up late and have breakfast at noon in our pajamas and talk about how their baby girl and our baby boy will definitely get married someday. And then we’ll leave on vacation for Thanksgiving with my family, a much-anticipated trip to our favorite little island—sunshine, swimming, lobster, rest. I CAN’T WAIT.

But between now and then: kind of bonkers. A busy calendar, but more than that, a lot to carry, mentally. A lot to think through, get right, get written, create and communicate. And I’m going into it a little fried from the last several weeks—quick to tears, waking up in the night, ragged and rough-edged.

So this morning I did what I almost never do: I put the work on hold, and asked myself what I need to live well through this season. What needs to be added to the calendar? What needs to be shifted? What choices will help me? What will only make things harder?

I wrote and wrote. I let myself be inefficient and messy, my thoughts jumbled and my desk a scrawl of assorted to-dos and ideas and recipe notes.  And I made a plan for this next month. I made an appointment with my therapist. I arranged childcare and sent some emails about upcoming events, deadlines, plans.

And then I closed my computer, and I got a massage, complete with candles and ylang-ylang essential oils for relaxation. This is SO not me. I work hard and play hard, but what I’m learning is that I don’t generally rest well at all. I don’t practice self-care almost at all. But my work hard/play hard plan has stopped working as of late, and I need to learn some new practices.

What I’m finding is that my impulse is always toward work, pushing, guilt, rushing. But what really helps—what restores me, what allows me to interact well with my family, what allows me to get good writing done—is almost always the opposite of that. I’m finding that when I go against my instinct to push, and when I practice things like rest, grace, peace, prayer, self-care and slowness, the work gets done just the same. Well, just the same except less crying and less apologizing to my family. I’ll take it.

What I think I need in a season like this:

Work

In these seasons, my first impulse is to put my head down and work, work, work, treating myself like a robot, a bad robot, in fact, for daring to be tired, daring to need anything. I get into this nutty mindset that insists that whatever other things I could be doing—visiting a therapist, sleeping, reading—must be put on hold until the war is over, because I am a solider.

Food

My second impulse is to eat like a truffle pig and drink like it’s my only solace. I push myself like I’m a college football player doing two-a-days, and then after all that pushing, I think that the only way to nurture and nourish myself is with mindless eating, because I can’t possibly be asked to do one more hard thing, like feed myself with health and kindness. I can only blast through the work and then flop down on the couch with cheese and red wine at the end of the day.

Control

Woe to the people who mess up my house in seasons like this, because my third impulse is to control whatever I can, when everything else is swirling. And what I can control, basically, is my countertops. And the people who mess up my house, of course, are the three people I live with, two of whom are little boys whose whole existence, basically, is messing stuff up. That’s how it should be. You’d think that when the pressure’s on, I’d relax about things like hanging up coats and putting away shoes. In some super-awesome twist-of-crazy, however, the more demands on my time and mental space, the more mental space I want to put toward neatness. It’s manic, completely.

Noise

When it’s go-time, I turn up the volume, literally and figuratively. I blast hip-hop in my car, I wipe away tears and take a deep breath and keep pushing. I become ravenous in my appetites—when I do have a free moment, I watch a show on tv while shopping online while flipping through a magazine, building a fortress of noise to keep out the sadness, the fear, the mess.

What I think I need: a big fat to-do list and a big fat club sandwich with sweet potato fries. Also a whistle so that I don’t even have to speak to those who dare leave their shoes in the entryway, and the stereo blasting non-stop, the volume turned up to 11.

What I really need, though, is pretty much the exact opposite:

Self-Care

Instead of working like a soldier or a robot, I’m learning to work like a human. Like a tender, loved human being person who needs rest, who needs downtime, who needs kindness and nurturing along the way. I need lots of breaks, lots of self-care, lots of space. This kind of stuff doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m good at work, and I’m good at fun/play/planning/hosting/keeping busybusybusy, but I’m not great at rest or self-care. But I did get that massage today. Baby steps?

Discipline

Instead of using food and drinks as desperate ways to backfill all the needs I’ve been neglecting, slamming through the days like a sledgehammer, and instead of eating whatever I want whenever I want because it’s simply too hard to impose any more structure in my already structured-to-the-max days, I’m learning that discipline and healthful choices set me free and get me through stressful seasons, instead of making them unbearable. When I feed myself healthy food, when I drink lots of water, when I take the time to eat well, it gives me more energy and more clear-mindedness.

Grace

Instead of control, grace. GraceGraceGrace. Grace for my tired self, grace for my kids, grace for my messy house. Instead of ratcheting up the control and the must-bes and the have-tos and the rules,  I’m learning to let things go—to let things be messy and undone, as long as the big stuff is getting done. I’m learning to focus my energy only on the things that will really help us this season—for example, groceries—instead of the things that I tend to fixate on—for example, shoes in the entryway. Again, baby steps.

Prayer & Therapy

Instead of cranking up the volume and frantically avoiding honesty at all costs, prayer and therapy. What prayer and therapy have in common is that they’re both about honesty, and they’re both about admitting need. I need help sifting through all my feelings and expectations and bruises. I need help and strength and a sense of God’s presence. And they both require action: I will make different choices. I will allow myself to be instructed by God’s spirit and voice and not my own fear and weakness. When the pressure’s on, my instinct is to abandon both prayer and therapy for a freer season down the road. But when do I need the grounding of both things more than in whirling, intense seasons like this one?

So this is what I know, and what’s guiding me through this season:

Instead of punishing myself with work, I’m practicing self-care.

Instead of being reckless about how I treat my body, I’m choosing discipline and health.

Instead of control, I’m dwelling in grace.

Instead of noise, I’m choosing prayer & therapy.

As ever, I learn the hard way. But I do learn, little by little, and that’s all we can ask of ourselves.

Talk to me about this--how have you walked this path in your own life?

Am I the only one who goes bonkers about clean countertops when things get a little stressful?

Am I the only one who thinks nachos solve (short-term) problems?

What ways of living get you through when the stress ratchets up?

What are some of your practices for taking care of yourself in the wildest or most intense seasons?

My Drug & My Defense

Busy is both my drug and my defense. By that I mean that I use busy-ness to make me feel numb and safe, the way you use a drug, and I use busy-ness as a way of explaining all the things I dropped, didn’t do well, couldn’t pull together, as a defense. 

And I’m telling you this because I want to stop. I want to drop the drug and the defense, one from each hand, letting them fall with heavy thunks, and I want to live a new way. 

I know it’s not all or nothing, or all at once. In the same way that most married couples have like the same three fights over and over throughout their life together, I think each person has two or three issues that rear their heads over and over, and that those issues spike especially when the stress level gets a little bit elevated for whatever reason. 

Some people isolate and curl inward, some people dip back into an eating disorder that’s been held mostly at bay for a long time. Some people become angry, wielding rage as power against all the things that scare them. 

This is what I do: I keep myself busy, for a whole constellation of reasons. I do it because I'm addicted to the feeling of being capable, because I hate to be bored, because I hate having to face the silence, because it might force me to feel things I don’t want to feel. 

What if this book doesn’t connect with people at all? What if there are more bad reviews than good?

What if something happens to one of the kids? 

What if I’ve made the wrong choices, and I’m missing something important, something I could have been or should have done? 

If I stay busy I don’t have to feel those things, don’t have to worry about them, don’t have to let them blossom in to full-fledged questions. I don’t have to sit and think about that thing someone said about me recently when they didn’t know I was there, something I can’t get out of my mind. And so I run away from it, and from everything, faster, faster, faster.

And I use my busy-ness as an excuse for why I might not succeed, or accomplish the things I want to, or have the relationships I want to have. 

I mean, I’m juggling a million things here, of course the book’s not perfect. 

Seriously, where am I supposed to find time to work out and become some gorgeous supermodel, when I have like seven thousand things on my plate? 

I probably didn’t get invited because they knew I’d be out of town anyway, right? Right? Right?

The busy-ness is a drug to keep me numb and a defense to keep me safe. And it works. But numb and safe aren’t key words for the life I want to live. I want so much more than numb and safe. And when I pursue numb and safe, what I get is busy, and after that what I get is exhausted, and after that, fragile and weepy and quick to snap and fearful. So much for numb and safe, which aren’t even something to aspire to anyway. 

I think I might not be the only one who keeps herself safe by keeping herself busy. I might not be the only one who wears exhaustion as a badge of honor, a way of showing people how terribly fast I’ve been running. I posted this article earlier this week, Brene Brown’s fantastic words about exhaustion as a status symbol, and I know so many of you connected with those ideas, as I did. 

This is right where I am these days, and maybe it’s right where you are, too.  

Today, I’m dropping the drug and the defense, and I’ll do my best to do the same tomorrow. 

Today, I’m shooting for higher than numb and safe and protected by excuses. I want to be present and whole and have nothing to hide, no excuses to be made, because I did my best, and because that’s enough. 

Today, I want to communicate to my kids, through my words and my actions, that we don’t always have to be hustling, plates don’t always have to be spinning, balls don’t always have to be in the air.

What would it look like in your life to lay down busy, both the drug and the defense?

Update on Recipe Testing (You All Are Awesome!)

Let’s talk for a minute about how awesome you all are. Seriously.

So this is what happened: I turned in my manuscript about a week ago, and since I no longer had this big huge pile of pages to occupy my every thought, I had all this new-found mental space and energy to dream things up and problem-solve and drive my publisher insane with questions and ideas.

One of the things I was nervous about was recipe testing—I really want to know that every recipe in Bread & Wine is delicious and easy to make. So I cooked up this idea to beg & plead for 27 loyal blog readers to help me out and test recipes. There are 27 recipes in the book, by the way—that’s where the number comes from. I ran the idea by Brannon, because I’m terrible with things like spreadsheets and details, and I knew keeping the 27 people and the 27 recipes all straight would require her expertise.

She thought there would be a great response, while I thought we’d be twisting people’s arms, and that it would end up being my mom, my cousin, and my neighbor, really.

And then more than 400 of you asked to test recipes.

Whaaaat?

You’re the coolest people ever. Seriously. Thank you.

So we put our little heads together and decided that it would actually be super-smart to test each recipe four times, and we sent out emails to the first 108 people who sent in emails.

But what to do with the rest of you? Here’s the deal: as a way of saying thank you SO much for being willing to recipe test, we selected five of you at random to receive signed advance copies of Bread & Wine.

The five winners are:

Brett Elizabeth Wilson

Marina Berryman

Shay Paulson

Emily Mathews

Kayti Christian

Winners, you don’t have to do a thing. Brannon will reply to the email you sent us to get your mailing addresses, and when the first printed copies are available, you’ll get a signed one in the mail.

And this means that we don't need any more emails about testing--you all are so sweet and lovely and your willingness has made my week, but we're all set for now.

Again, thanks SO much for being excited about this with me. There will be lots of chances for you to help with the release, and I’ll be posting all sorts of opportunities throughout the fall and winter.

You all are stars. Seriously. Big sparkly twinkly stars that make my job really, really fun. XO

Want Your Name in Bread & Wine? It's Recipe-Testing Time!

Okay, here’s the fun part!

Bread & Wine is so close to being finished—early next week it will go to the copy-editor, and we'll start working on marketing and PR & release plans then, too—all the last little details. Eek!

One big looming bundle of details is the recipes. Obviously, I’ve never included recipes in a book before, and I’m not a cookbook writer, so I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can to make the recipes clear and easy to follow and, most important, delicious.

That’s where you come in. Want to test a recipe for us?

Here’s how it works: send us an email, and Brannon (my dear friend/college roommate/best assistant ever in the universe) will send you instructions, questions, and a recipe. You’ll make the recipe and then answer a few questions—you know like, is it delicious? Was the recipe clear? 

When you send your feedback back to us, we put your name in the actual book as an official recipe tester. Cool, huh?

You absolutely don’t have to be a great cook to test a recipe for us—in fact, the point of putting the recipes in the book is to get non-cooks into the kitchen, using their hands, trying and failing, figuring it out along the way.

So send us an email, and in your email, please include the following:

1. Your name as you'd like it to appear in Bread & Wine.

2. Any dietary restrictions or preferences—do you eat gluten free? Are you a vegetarian? Would you prefer to test a soup or a dessert or a main course?

We’ll make sure to work with your restrictions, and we’ll do our best with your preferences. The early bird definitely gets the worm here--the first emails we receive will have the most options in terms of recipes.

There are about 25 recipes, so we need about 25 testers—thanks SO much for being willing to help us!

We need your feedback by October 15th, so you’d need to cook and get back to us by then in order to be included in the book.

Thanks times one million times infinity for your help on this!

Love & bread & wine--

Shauna

Update: we've got loads and loads of recipe testers--thanks so much for all your emails! We'll send out recipes by the end of the week...

Thanks & love, S

I'm a Lover, Not a Fighter

When I first started blogging, a friend told me that the internet is the wild west, and because it's relatively new and ungoverned, there are no rules. Each person has to make up their own rules, and then stick to them.

I have a few rules, and chief among them is the one:

I’m a lover not a fighter.

I’m surprised how often people ask me to weigh in on this or that small scandal in faith-related happenings or the church world or Christian publishing, when this pastor says that thing about that other pastor, when so and so slams so and so on his blog, when this author writes negatively about that church or other author.

I’m not surprised that these questions are getting asked. In my most negative moments, I think that the internet is a lot like cable news: yelling and drawing lines in the sand, drumming up controversy for the sake of ratings. There are a lot of bloggers who jump on every single slightly controversial aspect of Christian culture and church life.  

The fact that people are asking these questions doesn’t surprise me—but the fact that they’re asking me does surprise me, because I never bite, and unless something unforeseeable and dramatic changes in the future, I never will.   

This is my rule: I’m a lover, not a fighter.

Some people use their online voices and platforms to highlight the differences between us. Some people use their voices to police the highways and byways of world wide web—that’s wrong! That’s bad! That’s not what I think! There are open letters and link ups, shout outs and name drops. 

I don’t have anything against those bloggers. But I’m not going to be one. I’d imagine they believe that’s how lasting change in our communities will get made, or that opening those conversations brings into the light some ways that our community needs to grow. Maybe it does. I don’t know.

What I do know is that as far as the interwebs are concerned, I’m on the lookout for good—things that are beautiful and wise and helpful, things that connect us, books I think you should read, meals I think you could serve to the people you love.

You won’t find me taking shots at this or that public person ever, not because I don’t have strong opinions—I do, and anyone who knows me well knows that there’s no shortage of those strong opinions…but that’s the point: I share those strong opinions in the context of relationship, because I think that’s the healthiest place for them to be. And because I always think to myself, what if that person has a daughter? 

In the last few years, I’ve been hurt by careless and unkind words about me & my books online. But way before all that, I was a pastor’s kid, and I heard people say terrible things about my parents and their friends, people who had given everything they had to do what they believed God was calling them to do. Sometimes reporters were unkind. Sometimes authors and professors were unkind. But the pastors were the worst.

I burned through my willingness to argue the rights and wrongs about how to do church when I was about eleven. I got sick of pastors taking shots at one another publicly when I was about thirteen. These days I will physically get up from a table of pastors or bloggers or anyone at all when the conversation turns to other pastors or people in public life. I had more than enough of that conversation before I could even drive. 

And then the internet came along, and anyone with a laptop can insert themselves into a conversation that isn’t about them, where relationships aren’t present, and pretty soon we’re just all flinging uninformed opinions around the internet, name-calling and drawing lines in sand, hurtling arrows through cyberspace, telling ourselves that this is an important conversation.

But is it a conversation? Or is it a really easy way to air opinions you never have to back up or explain about real people with real lives and feelings and families?

Again, I have no shortage of strong opinions on the topics of the day. But I don’t think that it helps anyone for me to scream them through the bullhorn that is the internet.

Around our table we have all sorts of conversations and disagreements and differences of opinion. But we can hear each other’s voices, and we know one another’s stories. We can create a loving, kind framework to hold all the differing voices.

It’s near impossible to do that online. And so I’ve made it a policy that I don’t.

I read a book that enraged me last month. I hated it, and I would love to blab all about it. But that author is a person. And a daughter. And a friend. So I’ll use my voice to talk about the books that I do love, because there are so many of them.

There are pastors that make me bonkers. Plenty. Also politicians and musicians and writers. But again, I remind myself how it feels as a daughter or a wife or a friend when I've seen name of someone I love attached to someone else's opinion about them on the internet. I think about how my stomach has dropped when I've seen my own name on someone else's blog, someone telling a story that isn't theirs to boost their traffic.

When I’ve regretting saying something on the internet, it’s never been about love. I’ve never regretting loving or encouraging or celebrating something. I have often regretted slamming or dismissing or criticizing something, because when I do that online, it’s outside of relationship, outside of shared understanding, outside of context.

I know what generates loads of blog hits. I know that controversy is currency. But I think it’s worth asking about who you’re taking down, in the hopes that your snark and wit will go viral. I think it's worth asking about what happens over time to your insides when you decide to be a hater, when you decide to be the police of the internet, crusading for something or other.

There are enough haters. There always will be.

And right at the same time, there will always be enough beauty, enough hope, enough good, if we decide to be people who are always on the lookout for it. I want to use my voice to bring light and hope and beauty. I want to search for what’s good, and shout about that.

When I get all wound up--when someone trashes someone I love and I want to get into the fight, when I disagree so vehemently that I want to use all caps to illustrate my point, when someone's political views make me insane, I remember my rule, that I've committed to love, to being a voice for love and goodness.

It's especially hard work during election season, but if we're going to make it through the fall with relationships intact, maybe we should all think about being lovers instead of fighters. 

I'm not telling you what to do, but this is what I've decided: when it comes to the internet, I’m a lover, not a fighter.