Tag Archives: Paul

Righteous riffs, The Girls

A Deliberate Consideration of the Larger Body of Evidence

Our printer’s been broken.

The past couple weeks I’ve been going to Office Max to print out the letters I send (I type ‘em, owing to how horrible my handwriting is).

Couple Sundays ago I didn’t make it before they closed. So the next morning I decided to email my daughter the letter I meant to send.

I had a hunch that her Monday might appreciate a flotation device.

Probably because I knew my Monday would appreciate a flotation device.

“I needed this today,” she wrote back later that night, acknowledging a few of the unexpected life and health plot twists that have been ganging up on her.

But then she wrote this …

“I’ve recently taken solace in the fact that this is a just a week in the season of college. Like all seasons, it is temporary. It is also a privilege. The rainfall of spring is yearned for in August and winter hungers for summer’s heat. There’s a lesson in that I think.

“So, it would seem, it is not All Bad.

“Barring tragedy, a month from now I will be leaving for Ireland, having survived the midterms and late-night rehearsals and daily small annoyances and whatever other pileups on I-76 happen between now and then.

“Our only job is to stay afloat in the interim, holding on to as many small, wonderful things as we can.”

Meet my new favorite writer.

She signed off with, “Loquaciously yours.”

“I needed this today,” I have found myself thinking pretty much every day since.

I keep coming back to the same nine words like a campfire.

“So, it would seem, it is not All Bad.”

Such tender stitching across those nine syllables.

I love the commas so much.

Technically speaking they’re not necessary.

But I also think that’s what makes them essential.

Humble stakes in unsettled ground … to mark a deliberate consideration of the larger body of evidence.

The commas give “So” the space it needs to fulfill its destiny as a stunt double for “Therefore.”

“So, it would seem, it is not All Bad.”

I think I love “it would seem” even more.

How it stops just short of certain, while daring the reader to draw a different conclusion.

And the capitalization of “All Bad”?

It’s so good.

Puts it on a pedestal so the reader appreciates it’s not worthy of so lofty a perch.

In no way does it dispute that ‘it’ is, in fact, bad.

That bad exists.

That there will always (always) be bad.

It just doesn’t allow bad to hog the middle seat arm rest.

For the past couple weeks, those nine words have been sharing morning coffee in my heart with Philippians 4:8, which a friend recently gifted to me, and which I recently scribbled in my horrible handwriting — in all of St. Paul’s Comma glory — on the inside cover of my journal.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable … if there is anything worthy of praise, think about such things.”

Under which I scribbled Em’s loquaciousness.

It’s my experience that the small things do indeed make for the best flotation devices.

Like typed letters meant for the mail but broken-printer emailed on a Monday morning.

Needing only nine syllables to stitch wisdom worthy of stone tablets.

Humble commas that aren’t necessary, but show up for the protest anyway.

Capitalizing things to put them in their place.

Saints who remind us of the job description.

And scribbled journals in our messy handwriting … to help us, in the interim, hold on to as many small, wonderful things as we can.

LY,

Pete and Emma

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Postcards

Thinking of Timothy ….

Ran into a friend at the coffee shop a couple weeks ago. 

At the end of our brief chat, he invited me to a men’s Bible study he leads on Sunday mornings. 

Said they’d be starting Second Timothy first of the month.

Even though it’s been awhile since I stepped foot in church, I said yes. 

My friend is good light.

So, this morning I found myself gathered around a table with seven other guys. 

My friend began by giving some context around Paul’s second letter to his friend Timothy.

Asked if we had any questions before diving us deeper. 

I had one. 

I asked if it was known whether Paul had any specific expectation, when writing to his friend, that Timothy might share the letter? 

Or, did Paul intended his letter ‘only’ for Timothy? 

My friend said he didn’t really know. Asked the rest of the group. 

They weren’t sure, either. 

Wow, I said out loud. 

Suddenly found myself deeply moved. 

By the humble act of a person who knew they didn’t have much time left, writing a letter of encouragement — from prison, no less — to someone he loved dearly.

No expectations of shares or likes.

Pretty remarkable when you think about it, I said aloud. 

Which part, specifically? A voice at the table asked.  

I mean … the fact of us reading a letter from almost two thousand years ago … written halfway across the world from the church basement where we were gathering … that was aimed at encouraging a single person. 

Just, you know, the miracle of that. 

Prompted the person to my right to mention that recently he helped get a car started over at the local college for a student who had broken down. Said that afterwards, she sent him just the most wonderful letter. How it moved him so much that he took a photo of the card to share it with some folks he knew. 

He quoted a couple lines from it that were still on his heart, so that it could be on our hearts, too.

I told him that he made me grateful I asked the question … for the gift of him sharing the story of his letter.

Ten minutes into a Bible study about a book we hadn’t even cracked open yet … and already a sermon on the power of encouraging one another in trying times.

Anemochory. 

That’s what nature calls it. 

The dispersal of seeds by the wind.

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God.” 

That’s what Paul calls it. 

“We can’t change anything, but we can influence everything.”

That’s what the social scientist Robert Cialdini calls it. 

Paul could not change the circumstances of his imprisonment. Of his impending death. 

But he could send a letter encouraging his friend.

Regardless of our circumstances, we have agency over how we respond. 

Of the energy we put into the world. 

Paul’s letter to Timothy encourages us — to remember that encouragement is always an option.

Sitting around a table in a church basement grateful for asking questions, I am reminded that by encouraging one, others might be encouraged, too. 

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