Hello my friends,

It’s me, still here!

I’ve been a bit off the map because I’m in the throws of directing little plays, receiving weekly rejection letters for my poetry, and wedding planning. For a mix of all these reasons (in addition to trying to balance paying attention to current events and not letting them drown me in worry), it’s been extremely difficult for me to manage to write anything lately. I’m practicing listening to the kind voice of the Spirit who says, “you’ll get back to it soon enough, just be present to this unique season,” and not the cruel voice of the Liar who is constantly saying to me, “GET BACK TO YOUR WRITING CHAIR AND WRITE YOU PIECE OF TRASH.” So mean!

I’ll have more to say soon, on living in this cruel and also beautiful world, becoming a married person, and a stepmom too, but for now, I want to share a short meditation I wrote for my church community this Lenten season. It’s about practicing silence and solitude in a time of noise, chaos and greed. My friend and pastor Jessie wrote the introduction, and I wrote the bit about solitude.

Enjoy and let me know what’s speaking to you these days.

introduction

Here’s a thought: You have a hidden life. There are parts of you that exist without us. Some might call this your “interior life,” or your “thought life,” or perhaps simply your “inner self”. But the connecting truth between all of those things is that they are hidden. I can’t access your thoughts and you can’t access mine (thank goodness), but our hidden lives are as true as any other part of us. We blindly pass each other at church and in our places of work, at our schools, in Winco and Costco and on the playground and the road, our inner thoughts tucked away in the deep soil of our hidden lives.

Does this sound familiar?

Consider thinking of “hiddenness” in two ways:

Jesus says, “Everything that is hidden will be shown, and everything that is secret will be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in an inner room will be shouted from the housetops”. (Luke 12:2-3) This is, of course, wildly unsettling to anyone with a sense of their own depravity. God give me grace on the day that all of my secrets and darkness are revealed! Just like Adam and Eve in the garden, my shame whispers at me from the shadows and the trees, away from community and love. This is my life hidden from God, from you.

There is, however, another kind of hidden life. Psalm 32:7 says, “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance”. Psalm 17:8, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” Colossians 3:3 tells us “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Here is our life hidden in God. Like a bird beneath his mother’s wings, so we gather under the protective grace of our Good Father. I am not only unashamed here, I am unafraid. I am safe.

Like roots growing down in the winter so that flowers unfold in the spring, we are spending this Lenten season nourishing our hidden places. In cold dark months the gardens lay fallow, but they do not lie dead. Soil quite literally restructures itself in the dark of winter, gathering energy and vitality in order to bring new life in the spring.

Imagine all of us as scattered seeds, taking root and growing in our hidden places, all over the city, quietly being nourished as winter comes to a close.

So we commit to letting the ground rest. To believe in the unseen work of God. To agree that yes, we have a hidden life. Yes, it forms us even when we aren’t paying attention. And yes, tending to those hidden spaces makes room for God to restructure the soil of our hearts. Remember? From dust we came, and to dust we will return. We are soil and we need a Good Gardener in these hidden winter months of Lent. So we will practice Spiritual Disciplines to rearrange our hidden lives and develop our quiet times alone, to become more like Jesus by doing exactly what Jesus did: Fasting, Prayer, Meditation, Studying, Solitude, and Confession.

solitude

Depending on your personality, the spiritual practice of solitude can elicit quite varied reactions. We might hear solitude and think:

“Thank God, I really need some “me” time, some time away from my spouse or my kids or my job or my (fill in the blank here).”

“Noooooooooooooooooooooo! I hate being alone, that sounds awful!!”

Or perhaps you’re in a particularly lonely season at the moment, and more “alone-ness” sounds like a cruel punishment, because what you’re longing for is a person, or a child, or something to fill up all the silence around you, to help you feel less alone.

Here’s the catch: solitude, often referred to as “silence and solitude,” does not mean “loneliness,” nor does it mean “me time” like watching TV or doing an eye mask. In the same way as the previous disciplines we’ve discussed (fasting, prayer, and meditation), solitude is removing one thing to make space for something to take its place; in this case, it is stepping into quiet, alone spaces with the intent to listen and be filled up with the Father’s presence. In his book, “Celebrations of Discipline,” Richard Foster describes solitude like this: “Jesus calls us from loneliness to solitude… Loneliness is an inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.”

And later: “Solitude is more a state of mind and heart than it is a place. There is a solitude of the heart that can be maintained at all times… if we possess inward solitude we do not fear being alone, for we know we are not alone. Neither do we fear being with others, for they do not control us… whether or alone or among people, we can always carry with us a portable sanctuary of the heart.”

This is heady, but beautiful. Read that quote again really quick.

Silence and solitude are practices that we can carry with us at all times, no matter our surroundings, though having extended times in quiet and silence is vital. It’s actually about trust–trusting that God is enough for us when we are alone, and enough for us when we are with people. We do not have to prove ourselves with words or actions, because we have made a habit of resting in and listening to God intentionally in every moment of our lives, and acting from that place. We fill up in the quiet, and we then carry that “portable sanctuary” everywhere we go.

Jesus’ ministry was fulfilled because all of his actions (discipleship, justice, mission) flowed out of his time of silence and solitude with the Father. If we are going to live a life shaped like Jesus, we must do this too, even if it feels weird or uncomfortable, for our lives overflow out of the state of our heart.

You don’t have to go to the mountains for a week to start practicing solitude, though that would be awesome to do every once in a while. Here are some practical ways we can begin to cultivate solitude and silence into our everyday this week:

Practicing Solitude and Silence this week

1. Leave empty spaces empty; Pay attention to your “little solitudes.”

I often find myself thinking “there is just no way I can add something else into my busy schedule.” Maybe your work schedule is full, or maybe you’re constantly surrounded by kiddos at home. Whatever the conflict, typically we don’t have time every day to sit on a rock by the river and ponder our lives with the Lord. But what we do have is what Richard Foster calls, “little solitudes.”

Perhaps it’s five minutes in the car after drop off, or the moment between waking up and putting your feet on the floor, or taking a shower, or putting gas into your car, or waiting in line at a coffee shop.

I tend to fill up all those silences with, you guessed it, technology. I’ll have an audiobook or Netflix while I get ready, or scroll instagram at any time I have a minute or two. This lent, I’ve been attempting to leave those empty spaces empty, in order to listen to the Lord. Not to zone out, but to give the Lord a place to speak to me where I’m actually paying attention.

What might happen if we, instead, chose to approach those places as small sanctuaries, anticipating and expecting the Fathers’ presence? Work with what you have– forgo music in your morning commute, put down your phone, listen to your audiobook later– and see those “tiny snatches of time” as a place to cultivate “inner quiet, for reorienting our lives like a compass needle… that help us to be genuinely present where we are.”

2. Resist the need to justify your actions; trust God to be your justifier

A way to practice silence is to practice discerning when you actually need to speak. We are a noisy people; we feel the need to justify, to overexplain, to talk in circles to make sure our point is heard, to clarify our intention, to ensure people know our intent in a “frantic attempt to explain and justify our actions.”

This is something I do all the time, and it is something that Jesus never did. He spoke clearly, with intention, and did not speak when words were not needed. Often, even at the frustration of his disciples and the Pharisees, he acted with little to no explanation, because he trusted thatGod would be his justice. This week, let’s experiment with “doing deeds without any words of explanation whatever.” Allow God to be your justifier, and practice trusting him with your reputation and the way you are perceived. Maybe we’ll be surprised by the result, and find ourselves leaning on God in entirely new ways.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles... 
                                                                   ...To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream... 

- Shakespeare's Hamlet 

O, to write something that will be remembered! To craft words that will be murmured like a prayer under the breath. Do you ever think about the fact that Shakespeare just wrote that cherished monologue one day, “to be or not to be?”, spoken for centuries by all sorts of people, for crowds and small audiences and reluctant English classes alike. One morning, those words didn’t exist, and then, the next morning, they did, the play beginning its slow maturation into a paragon of beauty. What a miracle. For a moment, I thought “to suffer the slings and arrows of this world” was a psalm and had to look it up to correct myself; I have been reciting it like one. Fitting for these dull, ravaging days.

In the face of darkness, we can use our own words to create light. All writing is its own little creation event. Maybe this is part of how we are made in God’s image: our words are powerful. They can move, shape, dream, comfort, encourage in the face of terror.

In the face of terror, the beating heart of courage is quiet and meek but still pulsing at the center.

“What would happen if our hearts stopped beating?” I asked my students the other day, as we learned about beats and rhythm and tempo. “What would happen if our hearts stopped beating? Or if they started beating to an unsteady rhythm?” I tried to explain arrhythmia without freaking them out too much. You can’t breathe properly, you need help from a doctor, you feel worried and all out of sync with yourself. I explained what would happen to music if you removed the beat: chaos, dissonance, a shuddering stop. In the same way, the world stops when our collective hearts stop beating— with courage, with passion, with kindness, with justice, with curiosity, with creativity.

Today’s youth long for this act of creation. To keep moving forward and making sense of the world by making new things and making things new. My theater students spent their off-time preparing scenes and writing plays and playing music and singing ballads. Yes, more of that. Less of what is—less of fear, of violence, of numbing, of hunkering down. More of growth and imperfection, and realizing that, under a grey sky of despair, the impetus for a new thing is glowing like a candle within us. We can suffer the slings and arrows of this world because we were made to create, itself an act of courageous defiance.

We can place something beautiful where there was once horror and tragedy. We can resist the temptation to succumb as we put pen to paper, brush to paint, fingers to instrument, as we reach towards— out to the window, down the street, into friends’ homes, and into community.

The everyday is abundant if we can choose it. If we can create new things into it with the resources we are provided. We never have to start from scratch. There is so much to build upon. We are not left here alone.

Some day, something that does not exist now will exist because we made it.

That is the hidden secret beauty of living through a time of turmoil and upset: nothing has to stay exactly as it is, and in the end, it will change. It must. There is always hope. Let us follow God’s example, humans made in God’s image, and call God’s (and our) creation good.

We can’t often fix big things. We can’t start up a heart that’s stopped beating, not on our own, anyway. But we can do small things— we can make a cup of tea, we can look out the window, we can throw a dinner party. We can recite a monologue, paint a picture, write a poem, pen a postcard, call a friend.

When you’re feeling helpless this long winter, look around and consider what small act of courageous defiance is yours. You don’t have to dismantle the systems on your own. It starts with little steps, practicing those things that help us to feel whole again, those uniquely human things that make tiny differences, building blocks of change.

Let’s try it together.

Hello friends! Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

It’s the best time of the year: Christmastide. I always love it, for the cozy lights and decorations and present gifting, and this year my favorite thing is watching my future stepson, who is almost three, shout in glee every time we see Christmas lights.

“CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!!!” he cries from the backseat, each glittering bulb equally beautiful as the last, not discriminating between the expressionless strings on corporate offices and the homes covered from top to bottom in colorful flashing strings of lights. Then, after noticing the lights, he whispers, “wowwwww. How pretty!” in the exact same tone of complete wonder. Nothing is better than watching a child soak up simple lovely things, completely in awe of how the darkness has been lit up with beauty.

I want to approach the last few days before the big Christmas day and the end of the year with that same wonderment as a small child in the backseat, staring up at what must look like massive murals of twinkling stars.

What Christmas-y things do you love doing that stoke your own sense of beauty and wonder? Tell me in the comments.

Leave a comment

For this month’s Replacements, I hope to invite a feeling of delight, surprise, wonder, and joy as you approach Christmas. Here’s a few of my favorite Christmas things I’m especially enjoying this year. If you’re feeling stuck in your Christmas ways and want to try a few new things these last few days, I hope this list serves as a springboard into delight. Enjoy, and I’ll see you in the New Year!

Read more

But as I approach the ripe old age of thirty and cross the threshold into a new decade—the one promised to be the best—I feel somewhat hopeless. Stuck in my ways. Desperately routinal but not in the routine I want.

I know, I know. Thirty is in no way an “old dog.” But as the age has crept closer, I’ve been asking myself the question: what makes a good life? or, if we’re being transparent, what makes a life not a waste?

My biggest fear, outside of being attacked in the darkness, is wasting time, wasting my life. Ironically, this fear can be crippling. So afraid I am of spending time with something that might end up being a waste that I do not do anything at all. Or, I do the safe version, the sideways version, of the thing I wish I was brave enough to do.

Even now, I’m tempted to berate myself: scream that it is too late, that I’ve ruined my life with all this waiting-for-the-right-time with my work, my art, my life. It’s been a slow year for visible “results.” I decided to start auditioning for plays again, and I’ve done the least amount of work I’ve done in years. My acceptance rate with writing has dropped significantly, and seemingly no one wants my manuscript.

As the year comes to a close, I find myself wondering what Meg Ryan writes to her pen-pal-secret-boyfriend Tom Hanks in my favorite movie:

“Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life – well, valuable, but small – and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So goodnight, dear void.”

At 30, I’m wondering: what makes a life worthwhile? My life, too, is small—well, valuable, but small—and sometimes I wonder, is there a right way to make a life? And, am I doing it wrong? What happens when you go off script and you can’t find your way back on?

My best friend Jill and I have been talking about this idea lately. Especially growing up as a girl in Western evangelicalism, not to mention just a person in the world, you’re handed a detailed script for your life at a very young age. A perfect order in which your life is supposed to unfold for maximum happiness and holiness, complete with unspoken but clear cues as to your blocking.

(Before I continue, I want to say that I still am a Christian and I love God and the Bible. I think the Bible is there to help us know the heart and promises of God-With-Us, to hear the good news that we are loved and wanted beyond measure and invited into the work of God’s kingdom in the world, and that from this place of being loved we can obey and respond to God’s commands and calls on our lives, as listed in the Bible and what we hear from God for us. More on this later.)

That being said, this script handed to you by the Culture is loud and must be heard, no matter how hard you try to tune it out. It is as follows:

Go to college, find Godly spouse, date for 1-2 years, get married, establish career or start business, be married for approximately 5 years to enjoy each other before you have babies, start a Roth IRA and several savings accounts, travel the world before you have kids who will slow you down or you get too old to feel comfortable sleeping in a hostel, go on a mission trip, buy a house, start having babies around age 26 or 27, have perhaps a second baby around 29 or 30, and then maybe one more in your early thirties, get dog, go to church, plant garden, do little house projects, post about it, raise babies to be perfect adults, retire, take care of perfect grand babies, change the world (but quietly and not if it makes anyone uncomfortable). Oh yeah, and make sure you’re doing everything God tells you to do (as long as it fits within this pattern, because this is the right pattern), because if you’re doing what God tells you to do, this is what your life will look like, anyway! The (American) dream.

At the start of my third decade, I have only done like three and a half things on this list. I fell off the script after item one, and after that the order has gotten scrambled, and I’m too late on 90% of this timeline. Not to mention that the script makes no room at all for grief (which is a much larger part of life than what you’re told. False advertising!) When you actually talk to people, I think you’ll find out that this is true for many. At least, it’s true for Jill and me and Casey and a good chunk of my closest circle.

This birthday/advent, I’m pondering if this script actually more damaging than we think it is. Does it actually hold us back from that to which God is drawing us, from a life that is truly life, rather than serve as a guide? Whether we’re aware of this or not, how much do we ingest the narrative and allow it to stop us from listening to the true Guide, to make us afraid, or to become stuck because all of a sudden, we’re script-less in an entirely different play?

There’s no season I’d rather turn thirty in then advent. I love getting to have a birthday during a time of waiting and reflection, as I’m extra introspective around my birthday anyway. I love the advent story, I love the quiet, mystical, Holy-Spirit-overshadowing, I love all the things it says about God—about how he values small beginnings, about how personal he is, about how he came to us in a woman’s body, about how he wanted to become near to us, to know us, to become a human to know what being human felt like, in order to understand us and redeem us. About how he turns our lives around to create space for something new to grow.

Isn’t it odd that in the Church, we are so insistent on normative life patterns, when the God of the Bible is constantly rewriting people’s narratives, none of which looked “typical” for the culture at the time? Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Joseph, Ruth, Esther, Gideon, Amos, Hosea… just to name a few.

In the advent story, look what God gives to or asks of the key players:

to Zechariah and Elizabeth, a couple who could never conceive—God gives a baby in their old age (and not just any baby, but a boy who turns out to be the man prophesied to prepare the world for Jesus)

to Mary, a young girl on the margins of the Roman occupation—God asks her to receive the Holy Spirit into her body, carry and birth Jesus, and become Jesus’ mother, a new calling for the rest of her life, and “a sword that will pierce her soul, also”

to Joseph, a by-the-book, kind, upstanding Jewish man who had done all the right things—God asks him to believe Mary at a time when women were not believed about much, to set down his tidy life plan and open himself up not only to ridicule and shame for being with a woman whose son was not his, but also to follow God into a messy, scary, wild, stunning life

to the Shepherds, an overlooked group of night-shift wanderers without permanent housing—God chooses to tell them the good news first of all, asks them to use their voices to tell the most important story that they are not only included in, but central to

Friends, God is always clearing out the old way, shaking up the old, tidy routine to stir up something beautiful and new and redemptive, and we can meditate on that this advent, more than ever. In life with God, in life as a human, there is not just one script. You never know when that script you have in your hand will fail you (and it will fail you, sooner or later). But when it does, we have a God whose business is tossing it and inviting you to follow him instead. A God who, as Rilke says, takes your hand and walks with us silently out of the night, to the limits of your longing, to the country they call life.

In the iconic Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life, a story about George Bailey, a man who has big dreams and realizes none of them, only to discover that (spoiler) his life was truly wonderful because he spent it serving other people instead of himself. And this is true—he saved Bedford Falls from becoming Pottersville, and we all hope that Mr. Potter was brought to devastating justice. But what always kills me about that movie is that George’s dreams really do sound amazing. He was going to go abroad on a cattle boat and see the world and work and learn and study and have adventures. His life in Bedford Falls was a series of one bummer after another, and not only did he have to work with Uncle Billy, he spent his days taking the fall for people who didn’t deserve it. His was a wonderful life, yes, but also a life laced with grief and heavy disappointments and a feeling of being trapped in a small life.

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s possible to be disappointed when your life doesn’t look like the script you had in your hand, and also to love the small, brave life you have in front of you—the one you’re called to, which can be the most beautiful one, if you choose to say yes to it. Both things can be true at once.

My grandpa passed away this last March, and we’re approaching our first Christmas without him. I wrote about his legacy here—he was a truly exceptional person, whose life was, like George’s, small and meaningful. As I learned more about him in his life and in his death, I know his life didn’t turn out the way he expected. There were hundreds of detours, big gaps of potential regrets all throughout it, threatening to cast grey skies all over his life. From my mom’s childhood into my own adulthood, his life rarely looked the way he’d expected it to, and yet, his life was truly vibrant. Joyful. Content. Magic.

Just a few months before he passed away, he stood up at our Thanksgiving table and read from Matthew 6, where Jesus has just finished talking to a huge crowd about how God’s promised to take care of them, to take care of every worry and anxiety, because if he takes care of the birds and flowers so well, how much more will God care for us? Jesus ends by saying, “but seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

“This has gotten me through my life, these last 70 years,” Grandpa said, his voice choked with tears.

I know that was true. It was evident that every time his script changed and fell apart and got all waterlogged in the rain, Grandpa kept seeking the kingdom of God, the beauty and justice of God all around him. He could improvise, could care for people and come alongside them in wildly sacrificial ways and not worry, because he knew that he was taken care of, and he intimately knew the voice that was telling him just that. He discovered, like George did, that true life comes from giving it away.

As Timothy puts it in 1 Timothy 6:

“Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.” (MSG)

During advents and celebrations of birthdays that feel disproportionately significant, I am reminding myself that advent (and entering my thirties) is a season of setting down scripts, of laying aside life plans to make room for the life God is unfolding in front of me. This is good news, for those of us who spent years clutching a script that failed us desperately, that has instead morphed into a sticky, heavy, impossible burden. Those of us wishing for something green and fresh to grow in our hearts.

The same God that spoke to Mary and to Joseph is speaking to us today, to me and maybe to you, too, gently prying our fingers off a life plan that could’ve been but isn’t, tilling the soil and making room for a new thing to sprout in its place. Something ultimately more beautiful, even if it feels difficult in the moment. That more and good things will come in their own time.

The good news of advent is that God is with us—God has interrupted our tidy, rigid lives by moving in next door. So no matter the call, no matter the life, we don’t need to be afraid. We can look around us with hope, because God is in the business of removing burdens and giving us life instead, even if the interruption hurts a bit. God is near in the death of our old lives, and God is near when new life follows, as it surely will. It can’t help itself.

In my thirtieth year and this advent season, I’m praying for hope and surprises in unexpected places. For you, too. For a life that is truly life.

xoxo, Alyssa

P.S. Need a last minute Christmas gift for a loved one? Check out this Poetry Reed Diffuser, complete with a Christmas poem on the package by yours truly. :)

Good morning on the last Saturday of September.

We’ve had a warm and perfect September here in Idaho, and I can’t wait for those temp drops I’m spying in the ten day forecast. Hello, all my jackets… :)

This month went by in a flurry: I’m directing 3 original plays written by children (one big, two small), teaching kindergarteners fall songs and pantomime, and trying to sieve my thoughts in the ever-changing, ever-tragic political landscape (landslide) we live through. (Can sieve be a verb? It can this morning, I’m deciding.)

September Replacements, the monthly series on Bird Songs and Saints where I offer a few quality pieces of art to engage with instead of succumbing to the doom scroll, really snuck up on me! But don’t worry, I have a hefty and sort of different round-up for you nonetheless.

As always, I want to hear what you’re reading / listening to / engaging with these days, too.

Leave a comment

Okay, here we go!

Read more

Something good in my life lately is my boyfriend’s two-and-a-half-year-old son. Precious angel child, these huge blue eyes and thick curly brown hair and highly-kiss-able cheeks that even strangers say they want to eat. (Why are we so weird about wanting to eat babies?)

After picking him up from daycare and in between episodes of Bluey and making noodles, he dropped something and it snapped into two pieces. Even now, I can’t remember what it was. Something small, insignificant to me that meant a lot to him. He ran up to me, distressed, shouting “Uh oh! Broken!”

I laughed—it’s a delight to watch him finds his way into a bigger vocabulary—and knelt to grab the object. I snapped it back together, one quick easy click. “Oh, it’s not broken,” I said, holding it up to him. “See?”

Nanny’s Nutcracker 

Here is what it was not: a little wooden man 
with a gaping mouth, these almost scissors 
bearing no resemblance to their holiday kin; this instrument 
of metal, concealed away in the far corner 
of the cutlery drawer for who knows how many decades. 
Our greedy hands exchanged our mechanical pencils 
for the ancient silver probe, forced to take turns
in the dining table procedures, pretending 
to be doctor and nurse to our incapacitated 
stuffed creatures. Our success won us medals–nobel prizes
 in the eyes of our patients as Nanny prepared pudding 
with bananas and whipped cream or loaves 
of warm french bread from the Win-Co,
our sacrament split, sustenance for 
the endless surgeries and winter days ahead. Rusty pinchers, 
first applied to the black dog, then the bear with the red bow 
then the sacrificial lamb. What I would vow
to my sister then,  in order to clasp that dull, effective clamp 
in my sweaty palms. What I would give now 
to believe in such a wise wishful tool, itself prepared 
to heal whatever wound, one swift crack to mend each ache anew. 

- November, 2024 

I want to be reassured. Do you?

I want a tool that will fix everything, heal whatever wound, these wounds. I want to hear some voice tell me that it’s okay, that everything isn’t broken. That it’s fixable, not ruined, not too far gone, not requiring too much work to come back from.

I want to see God stoop to my level, to look into my eyes and say, “hey. It’s not broken. See?”

But in our world of murder on the news, murder in our movies, murder in our streets, murder in our books, murder in our schools, murder in our podcasts, murder in our tv shows, murder just outside the garden gate, it’s nearly impossible to imagine a different reality.

We’re numbed-out to the sheer volume of distressing events, and after each one, we cross our fingers and hope we aren’t next. Then we brush our teeth and go to work, while someone else’s life explodes.

What can we do? We aren’t meant to hold it.

To be clear, I don’t actually think that this is a new problem. It’s an old problem with different clothes on. In what singer-songwriter Taylor Leonhardt calls “the holy kingdom of the gun,” it’s an age-old deal with the devil, the ironic illusion of security as bargaining chip.

No, I do not want a temporary solution. I want restoration.

I want a land that doesn’t have blood crying up from the ground.

We aren’t meant to hold it, I imagine Eve saying to the Serpent as he wraps himself around her body. We were told it would destroy us.

But just think, he says. Think about the power you’ll feel when you can have everything you want at the touch of your fingertips. You won’t die. You will be like God; you will know everything, at every moment, both evil and good. Imagine the capabilities.

And Eve tries it, and Adam tries it, and we try it.

We gulp down our feed, bite-sized evils one after the other, constant. Global genocides and local disasters and artificial intelligence, flavored with a few jokes and idiocies in between to make it palatable, a poisonous feast curated by people we don’t know and can’t see. We take, and we eat, and our eyes are open but unseeing, and we know both good and evil. And we duck our heads in shame towards the boxes branded with the apple with a bite removed, and consume it because how can we get out of this ruined here, really?

And then, in the cool evening breeze, footsteps in the garden.

Where are you? God says.

Bible scholar and writer Dr. Sandra Richter once said that we all “have the memory of Eden in our hearts.” That we know, deep in our being, what was once the reality, a place where no bad thing ever was. A place where a deep goodness pervades the elements, where we do not fight against them, where they do not fight back.

“That’s why,” she said, “even when we disagree on many things, the collective whole feels a ground-shifting grief when tragedy strikes. For example, we know, even as a child, that murder is bad. We don’t need someone to teach us that. We can feel it.”

What’s nerve-wracking is when it feels like that memory is fading. Like we’ve forgotten how to get back to the garden.

This is why we need someone to show us the way.

If We Ever Get to Heaven, Taylor Leonhardt

I know every generation
Says the world is getting worse
And we shudder in the shadow
Of the valley of the curse
Where the night is growing darker
And the earth is getting warm
And the heart gets harder
In the locust swarm

If we ever get to heaven
Whatcha gonna do?
I think it's too much singing
For a boy like you
There go the ten o' clock sirens
A couple howling wolves
Everybody keeps sighing
There goes the neighborhood

Where the deaths toll is climbing
And the sky is heating up
And the heart gets harder
So it don't get crushed
And if we ever get to heaven
Whatcha gonna say?
Jesus I reckon you slept in that day

How many doves you gonna slaughter?
How many graves we gonna dig?
How many thoughts and prayers will you offer
Before you admit
It was never about the children
When there's wars to be won
And there's ground to be gained
In the name of the holy kingdom of the gun

But if you ever get to heaven
Take a look around the place
God took your AK-47s
And he turned them into spades
And he's been planting some lilies
In the killing fields
While we're all still waiting
For our wounds to heal

If we ever get to heaven

I love Jesus, and I try to keep that to myself sometimes because I know that being a Christian is a mixed bag these days, not always a good look. It calls to mind very different pictures for different people, and trust me, I wrestle with that, too.

I had a whole piece prepared in my mind that I was going to write this month about enemies, and then America blew up again, as America tends to do. I decided no one in America needed another post about enemies, no matter the angle of the piece. Plus, who really wants to read another political commentary? I don’t. Instead, I wanted to think about Eden, about heaven, about good things that persist.

I wanted to think about this precious toddler who I love, about the breeze that feels like autumn, about our mercifully-not-smoky September. About teenagers who are writing another good story in my theater class. About the first grader in my performing arts class who told me she was “in love” with our fall song where we pretend to be falling leaves, spinning and flying. About pockets of stillness and rest in a busy season. About the nature of the God that I know.

I really believe that at the core of our existence, God is the ultimate good. That the good things in my life genuinely come from God. This is why I can’t give it up—because the only person that can ever truly tell me that things aren’t broken, that things will at some point be okay, is God. In the face of deep seeded disagreements and a constant stream of tragedy, I can rest on the fact that God is holding me up. That, as my friend said the other day, “God has gifted you with the Holy Spirit, who is God in you, who is the gift of discernment within your body.”

I cling to that good true thing. I lift my head from the feed trough. I wait. I incline my ear to the pursuing God who is walking in the garden, in the cool evening breeze, to find me and bring me home.

In benediction, here are a few words that have come my way that I want to give to you as you go on your way through these tricky, obstacle-course days:

From fellow Substack writer I’ve recently discovered, Josh Nadeau:

If you want hot off the press commentary, look to the old saints who have lived in patient humility — they’re the only ones wise enough to guide.

OR

listen to the people who wait. Who pray and consider.

God knows how long it takes to respond, but it’s definitely slower than the algorithmic cycle.

From T.S. Eliot:

Do not let me hear of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

From James (Jesus’ brother):

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession. Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

From actor Simu Liu:

From Jesus (Mark 9):

After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?” But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”

Hear this: it’s not broken. Don’t give up. Lean toward each other. Look up.

I love ya,

Alyssa

P.S. I’m doing what’s been a really fun series this year called Replacements for paid subscribers, where I give a list of good art I’ve been interacting with instead of doom scrolling. If you’d like to get on board and have some art in your inbox every month, you can do that for the low low price of $8/month! Plus, you’d support a lil writer, and she’d appreciate that. ;)

Subscribe now

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”

This is a quote from Joan Didion, brilliant writer of The Year of Magical Thinking, among other things. We’ll talk about it more in a minute, but I wanted to start with this quote because it’s been haunting me since I heard it.

In the rainy late-August morning, hidden away behind my runaway vine, I wonder how much of life will continue to change in the instant; and of course, I know that the answer is, all of it. That in one year, five years, ten years, everything will be different. In my small, quotidian life, and also, if the artists and prophets are to be believed, in my city, my country, the world.

That even in our final instant, whenever that unexpected moment will be, we will undergo one last change, from here to somewhere else, or as Didion puts it: “he was talking, and then he wasn’t.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am not asking you to despair about the end of the world, though I do worry about that and try to do my little part to prevent it. But also, maybe things will change for the better. It is possible, and therefore, it is our task to hope and to live like that is already true.

I read this morning about a bombing in Gaza that seems straight out of a dystopia (in fact, nearly the exact thing happens in the Hunger Games.) At the same time, I am sitting on my little balcony as delicious morning rain refreshes our dry Idaho ground. More than one thing is always happening, and how on Earth can we live in a world like this? How can we live when change ravages it mercilessly?

I believe this is the point of art: to bring to life what has gone missing, to illuminate, to walk alongside, to grapple with impossible realities in a way that makes them palatable, and just maybe, beautiful. I think this month’s Replacements do just that.

I’ve come to love making these Replacement lists for you: the last week of the month where I suggest a few pieces of art to engage with instead filling yourself with the daily social media feed. We have to stop eating that garbage.

August’s replacements include a beautiful Demon, devils in our midst, and getting the enemy right, plus, as hinted at before, a memoir on grief.

What are your replacements these days? Let me know in the comments.

Leave a comment

Read more

an introduction

To begin, I want to say that I did not want to write this. I did not want to write at all and have not wanted to write for months. I told my counselor this in our session yesterday morning, and he said “why don’t you write about that? I bet a lot of people could relate,” and I wanted to say “you’re not a writer, you don’t know anything about writing, why am I even talking to you about this, just be quiet Brian,” but as usual it was actually pretty good advice. So instead I said, “I guess.”

Then I got home from work and told my boyfriend what Brian had said, and he said the exact same thing. How annoying! Because of course I knew they were right.

Listen. I had every intention of being stubborn and NOT writing. But their words nagged at me, and against my will no less, I started having ideas flit through my brain. And then I saw a friend’s play last night, which always gets me thinking and feeling creative, and I came straight home and started this essay. So much for being obstinate.

WHENEVER I FEEL RESISTANCE from my writing desk, those pesky lies physically pushing me away from typing substack into the search bar, I try to imagine writers of old, or just in the not-so-distant past, writers like Louisa May Alcott (in the form of Jo March) or Dodie Smith or Mary Oliver or Anne Lamott, their notebooks in hand, furiously writing in the dawn light by the window, or hunched over a stolid candle-lit desk as they write perfect lines and weave perfect stories and deliver perfect poems, not too many words, not too much of any one thing, just right, Goldilocks women. Perhaps a cup of tea, perhaps a vase of flowers, perhaps a delightfully untidy studio, stacks of writing waiting to find their way to the publisher who already loves them. Idyllic they are, perched, almost glowing, like statuesque saints adorning the chapel of my mind, images of their greatness and glimpses of how I imagine them etched into the stained glass.

They don’t glower down at me, only gently invite, as I wake in the morning feeling quite less than the goddesses of my imagination. The shame comes right from my own mind as I seem to watch myself from their towering perspective. I am a bed gremlin, hunching over my phone first thing after pressing snooze six times, checking Instagram, email, news, temperature, air quality, before I’m even out of bed. In the evening, so tired from my thousand jobs and tasks of the day, this gremlin is sucked into Netflix or a quick scroll or falling asleep while I read. Certainly no writing.

And I wish, for the thousandth time, that I lived when they did (outside of the need for modern medicine.) I wish technology would go away; I wonder what I could write if all these distractions were gone. Would I too, wake before the dawn and wander down to Blackwater Pond and write poems that seem to encapsulate the whole of the human existence? Would I tell a story of femininity and love and capture my own castle from an entirely unique perspective, perhaps written from the kitchen sink, or tucked away in some cozy corner? Or would I even then find distractions to plague me (should a real plague not find me first)? Did the world seem noisy to these women when they first began, or was it a quiet place that was ready for them to impress their words into the quiet Pacific morning?

The fact is, I hate the 2020’s as a decade. I regularly find myself wishing I’d come of age in a different one, though I know grief and trouble finds you everywhere. I feel like Owen Wilson’s character in the movie Midnight in Paris, who gets transported back to the 1920’s because he thinks that was the perfect time to be an artist. (If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it. It’s magical.) Personally, I’d go to New York City in the 90’s and join up with Nora Ephron and all the writer girls that dazzled the silver screen.

The thing I hate most about now is the noise. This chaotic world is at a fever pitch, as if with every Instagram scroll, every news break, every press conference briefing, every Substack article, the volume ratchets up a notch, and then another, and then another, until everyone is screaming.

Did you know there are 20 million users on Substack, writing little articles just like this one? Instagram hit 2 billion users this year and 200 billion reels are played daily. Bookstores and libraries across the nation are jam-packed with more books then I’ll ever read, and I fear any book or play or poem I miraculously get published in the future will get swallowed right up. Who am I to presume that I belong there anyway?

Simply, I can’t imagine what I have to write or say or photograph or offer that hasn’t already been written or said or photographed or offered. What does my voice matter in this oversaturated context we wake to each day?

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES on Earth is the Oregon Coast. There you’ll find great swirling caverns of crystal blue water that crash with terrifying force against these incredible cliffs. It echoes up and down the coast, smashing and shifting the literal edge of the continent. As you lie in bed, you can almost hear it still echoing inside your skull. When I think about our content-era of the 2020’s, that’s what I think of: a great, swirling, unintelligible whirlpool bashing into the edges of its container, chaos trying to break free.

This is why writing has felt absolutely impossible to me lately. Because who wants more words in a world where we are bombarded with everything and too much? Who wants this little column, a poem, when there are already ones, better ones, that you could read instead?

In such a swirling, who wants more water?

And so, true to my personality, I wonder, what if I moved away? Fled to some remote and beautiful corner of this dying world? Hid from technology and simply wrote in my journal every morning and typed up the day’s work on a typewriter or a Mac from Y2K? Would I still feel this way?

This, then, begs the question that’s at the heart of what I’ve been circling: why do we even bother with making art? What’s the point?

Is the point to be read? To be heard? To be listened to? Or is the sole point the writing or the acting or the action of creation rather than the final product? (Insert your preferred art form here; the reality is the same.) Even so, we keep making, writing, speaking, sharing. Why?

I know some of you pragmatic types out there are probably strategizing, ready to offer your own opinion or a step-by-step plan for how to reach my target audience through the haze of pop culture. I’ve tried that, and it sucked every last crumb of joy out of me. Because if' I’m writing for the readership, or to glean followers, those objectives don’t actually make for good art.

In the theater, the first thing a beginning actor must do is identify their character’s objective and uncover what tactics they’ll use to get it. My professor, Mark Lewis, once said something that changed everything for me as an actor, that I repeatedly instruct my students as well: “Your objective cannot be to look cute, or to be impressive. That makes for really bad acting.”

I’d spent my whole life up to that point (and, when my guard is down, hence this essay, still spend it) trying to be cute or cool or relevant or impressive or noteworthy or interesting or good. (See last Substack here.)

But those are bad objectives for living a life, as an artist or no, because they depend on other people’s perceptions, which of course we cannot control. While I can’t guarantee authors and poets like Louise Glück or Mary Oliver or Jane Austen didn’t struggle with this sometimes, based on their body of work I can guarantee that they weren’t writing to appear a certain way. Austen’s books were even published anonymously (largely in part to her being a woman in a male-dominated world, but still.) The point was the story, not the recognition or the fame. The point was and still is the truth, the perspective, the light.

Would their work still matter even if no one ever read it? Of course!! we want to cry out. But really think about it. If our answer is yes, why?

FAME IS FICKLE AND SHORT LIVED; if audiences determine “success,” something might be successful one day, and not the next. The masses change their collective mind more often than the girls change their clothes in that Katy Perry song. As the prophet Isaiah writes, “the grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the Lord. And so it is with people.”

I spend about half my life in the theater, making plays that are quite literally here today and gone tomorrow. Productions can’t be put into a museum. My art is ephemeral, and I wonder if writing, though it lives semi-permanently in one place or another, is somewhat ephemeral too. Written down and then waiting to be discovered like buried treasure, like a spirit waiting to be noticed, like a dusty book on the shelf curiously cracked open.

We are trained in this noisy world for instant gratification. For immediate likes and views and shares and comments and scandal and TWEETS IN ALL CAPS !!! and retaliation and inane humor to stomach the poison in the feed that we willingly swallow again and again. I fear (I rejoice) that art-making doesn’t work like that. It is an entity all to itself. It is slow, it is often hidden, it takes time to make, time to engage with, time to mature.

I’ve seen and heard and read a lot of great art this summer, from friends (playwrights, actors, writers) and authors I’ve been meaning to read and some I’ve never read before. And it’s made me ask: what if good, real art—art-making in this current age—is not another drop of water in the ocean but is a precious stone that filters its way down through the whirling sea and lodges itself in the cracks of the rock, there and shimmering. There for those who choose to distinguish between fool’s gold and real gold. For those who, on a Monday night, resist the temptation to lay in bed and watch Netflix and get their butt up to listen to selected readings by a very talented friend, finding themselves greatly encouraged and lightened afterward (True story.)

And maybe it won’t be instant. Maybe the art will take a long time to find its place, to find the souls who will hold it as its meant to be held. It matters, simply because it was made.

Keeping the truth (art) locked up inside does nothing but take up space and drive us wild. It’s Something—it’s alive and begging to be released.

There are better objectives for making art in a world gone mad, and I’m wondering if we (me) need to stop wishing for pastime idyllic imagined conditions—a New York City apartment, a window seat, a meadow, a writing desk free of distraction. Rather perhaps we need to pivot to objectives that fit—to use another theater term—the given circumstances: where we find ourselves now, what is happening just before the scene begins. There is nothing to do but embrace what we’re given, and make choices based on that.

Yes, it’s loud and it may take awhile for the words to land.

Yes, it’s oversaturated but maybe these words, these stories, are for just one or two specific people, and that makes it worth it. If we’re making art for the fame, I fear we will never be satiated because we’ll always be chasing some next star. Besides, you never know what will happen.

Yes, it’s scary and terrible and robots seem way too smart, but now more than ever it is important to glitter on the walls of the cavern as truth in a milieu of fool’s gold. The people who need it will find it. It may be naïve, but I believe that at my core. I have to believe it.

At breaking points such as these, artists (prophets) have a unique role to play:

to tell the truth about the world

to bring light

to bring hope

to make sense of

to bring humor

to offer a new perspective

to express something otherwise inexpressible

to offer empathy

to tell a story (and usually more than one) (which is, the truth dressed in a different outfit)

to help others (and yourself) find the way

to illuminate

to bring breath to something dying

to rescusitate

to dare

to love (the world, other people, the grass, the sky, yourself)

to believe again

And that, my friends, that is the point.

Eyes up. Look for the glimmer.

-Alyssa

If you’re an artist, why do you do it? What keeps you going when things get loud? I’d love to know. Let’s encourage each other!

Leave a comment

p.s. On the other side of this coin is this article from Inkwell this week. I wrote today’s article as a writer working through what keeps me from making art, something I believe is a calling for me, and hopefully to encourage you to keep pressing into your calling even when it feels unreasonable. However, as is written in the Inkwell article by Sherry Ning, not everything necessarily needs to be made public. “A space cannot be sacred if it is designed for exhibition.” Whaddya think? Let me know in the comments.

Leave a comment

July has been a WHIRLWIND, y’all. So the truth is, I have no essay post for you for this month because whoaaa buddy, the summer wind blew in, and I’ve been savoring the warm moments the best I know how.

The evenings are long and warm, the neighborhood bunnies are eating my plants, and everything is growing, green, and soft. The summer smoke season is mercifully late this year (knock on wood!), and I’m making changes in my professional life that I’ve been wanting to make for a long time, which feels terrifying and beautiful. I’m reading poems, singing Broadway with elementary students, camping in my favorite mountains, and reading a ton (what’s new, there?) All to say: no July essay because July is a month for living outdoors and taking a break from your laptop, in my opinion.

That being said, because there’s no July essay (fear not, cooking up something for August!), and because summer time is especially the time to ditch the screens, this months’ Replacements is going out to everyone.

Here at Bird Songs and Saints, the end of the month marks the time for swapping out doom scrolling for engagement with beauty, art, and contemplation. Let’s be where our feet are, yeah?

Okay, let’s get into it!

MIND

Chew on these Henri Nouwen quotes

(You may remember this Replacement recommendation from April- this Henri Nouwen collection is a stunner and a great way to either begin or end your day in this wild world we live in.)

“Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken… As busy, active, relevant (people), we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer… Those who can sit with their fellow (person), not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life into a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears of grief, and to let a sign of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.” - The Way of the Heart; Out of Solitude

“I don’t really know if our civilization will survive the century. Considering the growing threat of nuclear holocaust there certainly is a reason to wonder. But important for me is not if our civilization will survive or not, but if we can continue to live with hope, and I really think we can because our Lord has given us his promise that he will stay with us at all times. He is the God of the living. He has overcome evil and death and his love is stronger than any form of death or destruction. That is why I feel we should continually avoid the temptation of despair and deepen our awareness that God is present in the midst of all the chaos that surrounds us and that the presence allows us to live joyfully and peacefully in a world so filled with sorrow and conflict.” - Love, Henri

Read this Naomi Shihab Nye poem

Amir and Anna 
It's unbelievable, this cycle of violence, and how neither party realizes they're both losing. --Dr. Cairo Arafat, West Bank 

Amir can't sleep. 
He dives under his bed. 
Anna is afraid of everything. 
Parked cars, moving buses. 
Anna is afraid of toast. 
Their names begin with "A,"
contain the same number of letters. 
They live one mile apart. 
No one has given them
what they deserve. 
Around both their houses, 
all the Arab and Jewish houses,
red poppies sleep beneath 
dirt and stones. 
What do they know? 
In March green spokes
with fluttering heads
rise and rise on every side. 

This poem is particularly poignant and horrible because it was written 15 years ago, but reads as if it could have been written today. And still, and still. Lord, have mercy. May we not forget that all war is a war against children. Read the whole collection here.

HEART

The Women, Kristin Hannah

In my opinion, her best book yet. It’s yet another good reminder that war is bad, in case we forgot, but also a captivating story that attacks heavy issues from a fresh perspective. I’d recommend the audiobook— Julia Whelan is such a phenomenal reader.

SOUL

This stunner of an album by JOSEPH (Bye & Bye)

Casey and I got to see them live and wow, were they wonderful. Especially love the tracks Bye and Bye, and Eyes to the Sky.

BODY

Have yourself a dance party!

I’ve been dancing with my musical theater students all week (and choreographing dances in my bedroom alone all month for this class), and it cannot be overstated how good this is for the soul. If you’re a musical theater lover, I’ve been having fun with What is This Feeling and A Cover is Not the Book.

If you’re like, “musical theater, ew,” choose your own song. May this, one of my favorite tweets, be inspiration to you:

Let’s get weird and take dance breaks! Taking a dance break is something in our power (and vulnerable—so it’s good for you!), so let’s embrace it.

And if you say: I don’t know how to dance! Do it by yourself! No one has to see! It’s just for you, and you won’t regret it.

What are your Replacements these days? I’d love to hear. Drop it in the comments!

Leave a comment

P.S. Do you live in Boise? If so, I’ll be reading more poems THIS THURSDAY, July 31st, at Common Ground Coffee and Market at 6pm. Plus, it’s an open mic night, so you could bring your writing too! Hope to see you there. :)

P.P.S. If you live in Boise: I'm teaching some freelance acting classes this fall for kids ages 6-18, and I'd love to see your kiddos there. I'm hoping this is the start to a larger enterprise (more info to come soon!) to help provide high-quality, affordable arts education to all kids in the Boise area. If you know a kiddo who would like to take a class, register here: https://www.alyssastadtlander.com/classes

OR if you're interested in learning more about what I'm up to/would like to donate or provide scholarships, message me here!

It is officially summer now—a good bit of news in the constant maelstrom of unrest and bad headlines.

If you’re like me, you relish the late nights and the long golden hour, the slow mornings, the ample time to sit and read on the porch while the sun goes down, the afternoons by the river after work to soak my feet and let the water nourish my spirit.

If you’re like my friend Jessie, you hate the summer (I cannot understand this) and you wish you had some way to structure these wandering three months of heat and lack of regular routine. (I guess? I seriously don’t relate.)

Either way, this months’ Replacement email is for you, to enhance your days or to cheer them up.

For this months’ Bird Songs and Saints Replacements—where we discover and engage with new art/writing/activities to recenter our mind, heart, and soul instead of mindless doom scrolling—we have a summer reading guide (!!!)

I’m thrilled to make this for you. Ever since I was little, summers = reading. One summer, I read 17 different retellings of classic fairy tale stories (basically fantasy for 6th grade girls) (and yes, somehow there are at least 17 books in that genre). Another summer, I read the entirety of the Harry Potter series for the first time. The pattern really hasn’t changed much. Below are books that seem like summer to me, a few new reads that I’ve fallen in love with recently, and a few that are regular friends each year when the weather turns warm.

What books are your summer go-to’s? What are your replacements this summer?

Leave a comment

Okay, let’s get into it!

Read more

and then he said, “what is it that you need?” 

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. ― Howard Thurman

There is no shame. You need 
space to be-
come alive again, of course 
of course you do. No, there is no shame 
in knowing what you need, 
and asking for it. Yes, there is 
only abundance: a hand 

on your hand, on your knee, 
on your cheek. There is only 
the front door, still 
unlocked. Only the world 
insistent on opening. Only the light
insistent on touching. 

I turned twenty-nine-and-a-half last week, and the looming 30 is staring me down. In the turn of the season, the long days pull my expectations, my secret dreams out of the pockets where I’ve hidden them. I hold them between my fingers, rolling them back and forth before letting them drop, like Jo dropping her letter to Laurie in the water in Little Women.

Letting go of expectations — of what it was you imagined you were supposed to have by whatever-the-now-is-for-you is difficult, impossible even. Discarded, deadheaded dreams, deaths, diagnoses, disappointments are left mingled among the miracles and unexpected surprises along the mystery path that has become your life—is your life.

My life is quiet. It is a balcony with a vine, it is a man who loves me and his little boy, it is a close-knit family grappling with great loss, it is a long plateau of just managing, it is laundry, it is frozen Trader Joe’s meals, it is Classroom B at Boise Contemporary Theater and kids who I love so much it makes my heart ache. It is chewable vitamins, tea, pulling weeds, deconstructing the work of the local hyperactive spiders and my own invisible barriers I imagine into existence. It is a little community of people who love Jesus and are trying to walk in His way. It is a blank doc with a curser waiting for the next word, the next letter to be left in it’s wake. It is forgetting to bring in the trash, leaving dishes in the sink, only occasionally cleaning the bathroom. It is practicing both contentment and courage.

It is.

What a disappointment, no, what a gift that life turns out how it will, despite our best efforts. Things have a way of moving forward whether or not we choose them. No matter our engineering, our meticulous fantasies, our ridiculous five year plans, our dreams, our lives, Ever-Marching-Time has its way with us. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, whether that’s a hurricane or an answer to prayer in the middle of a drought.

As my third decade draws near, I am realizing that I have been let down by the lie that promises that effort and goodness equals unconditional happiness, like 1+1=2. It’s as if I woke up one day and discovered that only occasionally 2 is the right answer. No matter what I put into the machine, sometimes Life gives you miracles and other times it gives you a steaming pile of … well.

I’ve committed to a relatively screen-free summer, and as I should have expected, all sorts of feelings have cropped up from where they were being smothered by endless Gilmore Girls and New Girl and other random girls on Instagram.

What am I doing? I found myself asking outside the theater the other day, as the reality of my cautious everyday stared me in the face. I can’t keep doing this. This almost-living, this drowning out the still small voice inside of me because I am afraid.

That sneaky little question born of comparison and societal expectation—what am I doing— weaves itself again through my brain. I feel plateaued, spinning my wheels in deep mud while everyone else zooms past with their careers and houses and savings accounts and husbands and babies, seemingly unaffected by the events of the 2020’s.

How many times have I written this same thing? How many times must I remember to listen to the voice that says true things, that reminds me instead of trying to make my life, to construct it, to shove it where other people are telling me it needs to be, I need to just listen to what it is? How many times will I need to reset, re-ground in the holy truth that (thank God) each life is its own story, unique in its troubles and its joys?

I’ve spent the last five years waiting to go, waiting to all of a sudden become a grown up who could follow what seems like unreachable dreams, waiting for all the problems in the world, in my world, to go away. I’ve been waiting for the contents of this mixed-bag-life to sort themselves neatly into two groups of joy and sorrow, so I can just have all the joy happen at once and become the person I’d like to become when things are perfectly happy, in preparation for the next wave of sadness (in approximately 10 years or so, please).

But of course, tragedy is always knocking at the door, and life does not appear interested in sorting itself out. The truth is, I can’t wait a minute longer to live my life. I can’t keep up this holding pattern while I wait for everything to calm down because I fear it never will.

It’s like I’ve been saving the best parts of me for when everything is better, for the perfect golden ticket invitation that finds its way to my mailbox, with step by step instructions on how to get my ideal life. Saving my life, my verve for when everything makes sense. But as 30 nears, I fear that is an ever moving target, a shiny mirage in the desert, an undrinkable, fabricated stream.

I think of Jesus’ words now: Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it (!!) I wonder if when Jesus says save there, He not only means save in the way we often hear it (like save your life from death) but also save in the sense of saving up money, saving up possessions. I’ve not found my life yet, and I wonder if that’s because I’ve saved my life, stored it up in barns where, as Jesus says yet again, moths and rust destroy. I don’t want to wake up one day, and see that I’ve buried my life in the dirt because I was afraid to spend it, afraid to take the risk on the investment, afraid to lose it.

Whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Scott Erikson writes that all adventures begin with surrender— surrender to the call, to the leap, to the glory that holds—that must hold. To give our lives and our frantic need for control to the only person who can actually handle holding onto them.

This is difficult work, because to actually trust that Jesus can take care of us like we want to be taken care of, we have to know that our Maker is good, and we have to hang out with our Maker to know that. We have to know God to actually trust God.

Personally, this is a challenge for me at the moment—I am angry and sad at the state of the world and the way I feel let down in my particular prayers, and I’ve been avoiding God like the plague (which is also why I haven’t written in awhile.) But this, saving my life from Jesus and for me, isn’t working. A listless malaise has come upon me and I am miserable. God, I want to find my life.

And I fear I know what I must do now before I make any sudden moves, as I am oft tempted to do— listen.

Listen to my life, as Buechner says, See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

Listen to my Maker on the Hilltop, who says all sorts of kind, true things about me even when I don’t believe them. Who has made me so specifically and promises that I won’t even dash my foot against a stone.

Listen to the quiet poetry of the summer and allow myself to be spoken to. To hear what my Maker says about who He is, about who I am, and about who He’s made me to be. To hear the Voice tell me the truth.

And then, mercifully, obey it.

Talk soon,
Alyssa

Hello, sweet reader.

How are your seasonal allergies treating you?

Here in Boise, seasonal depression is out and the pollen is in, and in full swing, which is a welcome trade I’m always willing to make, despite constant sniffling. The trees are exploding with white, and green, and that rich fuchsia of which I’m always baffled is a naturally occurring color. It’s April! It’s colorful! It’s almost-warm! It’s springtime, again, impossibly, finally. Thank God.

Here at Bird Songs and Saints, the end of the month marks the time for another month of Replacements, where we’re making another welcome trade: swapping out doom scrolling for engagement with beauty, art, and contemplation. I gave up Instagram for Lent, so this months’ replacements are actually that (not just what I wished I would have consumed instead of 20 minutes of 10-second-useless-video-content before bed.)

I’ve been looking forward to sharing these with you, storing them up over the last month and a half in anticipation. Let’s go!

Read more

Last month, Death came calling for my family, again.

As if on schedule, for the third spring in a row, He visited the same little house in the suburbs of Boise. The house where I spent countless hours over the last twenty five years, having tea parties and sleepovers and writing classes, eating innumerable meals and birthday cakes and apple pies, fruitlessly being taught to sew. The house where all of my cousins and I learned to read. The house where my grandparents lived for the last twenty five years of their marriage. The house where, two years ago, my great-grandmother was taken up. The house where, one year ago, my great-grandpa was struck down by a blood clot to his brain. He died in the hospital, but his spirit left in the house.

This year, Death wasn’t as dramatic, just subtly cruel. A few weeks ago, my grandpa, the sweetest, kindest, happiest man you’ve ever met slowly faded away until there was nothing left of him here at all.

As I write this, I’m listening to a song that is quoting Jesus:

What would it profit a man
If he gains the whole world and forfеits his soul?
What would it profit a man
At all?
What would it profit a man
If he dies with a barn full of silver and gold?
What would it profit a man
At all?

My grandfather did not die with a barn full of silver and gold. He did not die with even a small sliver of the whole world. But he had a soul overflowing with kingdom-goodness, and that profited him more than we can imagine. He held his family there, lifted us up, cheered us on in the loudest voice. He was a presence to be reckoned with, and we will feel his absence every day. He was full of life, full of a deep and stubborn joy that nothing could steal away. We will remember him as a man of light, a man of integrity, a man of humility and grace.

What do you do when death comes again? It feels as if the wide world should stop, because our world has. Though of course, it won’t. There are still things to be done, kids to be raised, kitchens to be tidied, posts to be written. It is in these times, when you feel like you need to hunker down and hide for awhile, that the words of other people carry us along, give us hope, a tangible stronghold from Jesus to rest upon.

In lieu of my own post today, April’s post is a stunning poem by my dear cousin Emma (and our family’s resident chaplain, I like to say) that has spoken to me throughout this Lenten season of quiet, consistent death, of praying for the seed to break open, of waiting for resurrection.

I recommend listening to this song while you read it.

this strange blessing

From the dust you have come,
To the dust you shall return. 

I reject this strange blessing,
This tangible reminder of how
Short our lives really are.
I don’t want to remember!
I don’t want my body to be marked
With this sign of mortality
To walk around admitting to my frailty.

And this isn’t only from an overinflated 
Sense of pride about my ability to survive
But rather a desire to bury my head in the sand
To shove the jar of ash back towards my pastor 
To swat her hand away as she reaches for my face,
Like a petulant toddler being given 
Her least favorite food for dinner,
To turn and run out the back of the sanctuary 
And into the arms of a culture that is quick to lie,
Quick to scream “you are immortal! Take this drug,
Use this serum, eat this superfood, and 
You will live forever.” 

From the dust you have come,
To the dust you shall return. 

I reject this strange blessing, 
This cross of ashes that reminds me of my grandpa
Watching sickness take over his body
Observing how quick we are to fade
With my own tear-filled eyes.
Take this blessing back! 

I don’t want to be face-to-face, 
Ash-smudged thumb to forehead 
With the reality that Death is real,
That although he has been defeated in the end,
He still lurks behind each corner, 
Threatening us and the ones we love. 
“The end” has not been reached yet
And though Paul can loudly proclaim
“O Death, where is your sting?” 
I want to scream that it is right here! 
The sting of these ashes and of cancer
And car accidents and miscarriages
And war and genocide and systemic injustice -
It is right here, right now. 

From the dust you have come,
To the dust you shall return. 

Did You reject this blessing? 
You, Incarnate One, who stepped down
To walk amid dust and dirt and ash. 
Did You cry out in anger and dismay
When You saw Death reaching for Your friends?
Were You tempted to resent the frail and weak 
And always-near-death body You had been given?

You did cry out in despair - we remember. 
“Father, why have you forsaken me?” You cried 
As Your body, made somehow of the very same dust
As mine, and yet also the divine, 
Breathed its last in pain and torment. 
You know what it is like to watch Death 
Steal family, friends, and even Your own body
Out from under You. 
You have felt Death’s cruel sting as much as we have,
You have watched cruelty and violence and sickness
Reduce Your beloved ones back into dust.
And then to the dust You Yourself did return. 

From the dust you have come,
To the dust you shall return.

You did not reject this blessing - 
You are the One who transformed it!
Death tried to conquer You but instead
You conquered him, by rising once again from the dust
To transform this mark of death from 
Curse of pain and grief into 
Blessing of the promised hope, 
That although we feel that we are dust 
And we mourn and cry out from the pain
We know that we will not remain as dust forever
For you have conquered even this! 
From the dust we have come, 
To the dust we shall return, 
And to life everlasting we will one day go. 
O Death, your sting will not last forever. 
O Death, you have no victory. 
To the dust our Savior came, 
And so to life everlasting we will go. 

Amen, and amen.

-Alyssa

It’s time for another segment of Replacements. How are you doing with the doom scrolling?

I gave it up for Lent, and so this month I actually have a few things to offer your way. For me personally, it’s been a month (year) of turmoil and tragedy. This month’s replacements are where I am finding encouragement, accompaniment, and hope. Some are typical Alyssa (poems, etc.), some are surprises (rap??), some found me just at the right moment (Buechner!)

What doom-scroll replacements are carrying you through these almost-spring days? Let’s resist together!

Leave a comment

Read more

I’m beginning to despair
and can see only two choices:
either go crazy or turn holy.

- Adelia Prado, “Serenade”

It seems as if this world that we love has gone crazy—like we’ve lost the very few marbles we started out with, like it’s every person for themselves. There is a fog that has settled down on us, pierced with sirens and air horns that are enough to push anyone towards the first choice in the poem above. Some voices are very, very loud, and because it’s easier to listen just a little, the loud voices are the only ones we hear. Thus, in the face of impending despair, it’s easy, too, to make this claim, that the world's gone crazy. That all hope of order, of peace, is too faint to fathom.

But what would we find if we slow down our pace, dig deeper into our local patch of Earth instead of the screaming metal box in our pocket? It is tempting to join the panic, to scream, to silence, to dynamite, to rot. And yet, two things are true at the same time. As the poet suggests, the narrative of despair holds beneath it two rivers, two paths to cut through a thick wood.

Yes, it is easy to lose one’s mind, because holding on to it is unbearable sometimes, simply too heavy and painful. Easier, and necessary sometimes, to let it go and experience a shadow of relief. Especially now, I feel on the precipice between the two rivers myself.

Oh friend, what of the quiet, holy voices? (Not necessarily the ones coming out of churches.) Instead, the melodies of the natural world, who has never once despaired; who, even in tragedy, earthquake, flood, wildfire, does not give it up. No, she insists on resurrection, whispers “again,” allows the decomposition (eventually, in those long, patient cases) to turn fruitful.

She is not in a hurry; perhaps that is why she can lament without despair.

Holy ground, this whole groaning planet—self-sustaining (or is it rather that someone sustains, some slow, intentional invisible lover of beauty?) and assured that once again, rivers will run in the wasteland, thick new growth will flare up from the burnt skeletons of the forest, wounds will weep at our violent, greedy hands and then set to the unpredictable work of renewal. She will not give up hope because I think she knows that there will always be those who are honest and good, that a wonderful future awaits those who love peace (Psalm 37).

Perhaps the holy voices are still singing, but just now, their singing sounds like a groan, a sigh, a lullaby.

Share

Last night, I sat in a dark room full of family in the middle of our own tragedy—another lethal sickness—listening to the evening news blare of war, murder, oppression, and kidnapping, stench of death in the air.

This morning I write in a brightly colored room where the late-winter sun pours through the cold glass and the brave little birds are singing just outside. Mystery, that this bright spot does not negate the recent darkness, nor does this darkness overcome the light.

Beginning, end, beginning, end: we get so used to the whole, long, drab, predictable middle that when the end comes, we fear. We cannot fathom any sort of bright new beginning, although she is coming, she must be coming. Watch how the sun rises despite everything.

In our crazed fog, we stare down despair, that little creature who is nipping our ankles. He has fallen in step with us, tottering around the house while we brush our teeth, do the dishes, drive to work. Wailing if we shut the door and leave him outside, thus making him impossible to ignore. Insisting on snuggling up to us in bed so that we wake with his sticky sweat all over us.

Malicious? No. But persistent, terror-ed, in need of that holy reassuring truth murmured in low tones to lull it back to sleep.

Holiness is an odd concept for us to understand. It wreaks of nuns with switches, or cold pulpits telling us we do not measure up. Lies, all, for holiness is not akin to condemnation.

Instead, I like the simple definition of “set apart.” Unmovable. Steady. Feeling deeply and acting thoughtfully without succumbing to the great, numbing fears and lies that hiss in the air. Knowing and holding what is true in the face of unfathomable terror, or persuasion, or the clenched American fist: pleasure, ease, freedom, power, greed.

What a gift that God gives us a mirror to holiness in our natural world; resilient, rejoicing, resurrecting. Never hoarding, accepting the rise and fall of the tides. Some of those around us are working this out in their own bodies and hearts, making intentional space for the One who Holds Time to heal, to purify, to transform, insisting growth spring from the wound by simply being proximate and present, listening without fretting.

There are holy voices all around us: to mimic, imitate, and rehearse to the little beast. The ones who are steady, honest, courageous, kind, settled—in the midst of their own lament.

Jesus once said, “pay attention to how you hear” (Luke 8). As we face down another rising of the tides of bigotry, hatred, greed, pleasure, lies, panic, and fear, let us pay attention not only to what we hear but to how we hear. Do we hear with our hearts open, with breath, slowing our pace to hear where the hope is quietly fighting? Do we hear with our eyes open? Do we hear while clinging to the hope, the way moss clings to the trees along the ocean?

Let us pay attention to those set-apart voices in our lives, even the small, still voices in the middle of the night. Even the tiniest reminders that life will not chew us up if we do not let it. Even the ones that do not speak in human tongues.

I’ll end today with the final words of the poem with which I began:

Let us turn holy. Let us go crazy with holiness.

-alyssa

Leave a comment

Remember last month, when I said, “let’s all get off social media together and meditate on good, slow art instead?”

Well, full transparency— I didn’t do that.

I succumbed to the doom scroll and the pit of despair. I haven’t read a poem all month, I don’t really like the novel I’m reading, and I got locked out of my family’s Netflix account so I’ve replaced Gilmore Girls with Reality TV, SNL reruns, and, you guessed it, Instagram reels. I also am in the middle of fruitless job searching at the moment, which is another added burden to the already heavy pile that I am constantly tempted to shoulder through these treacherous days. I haven’t written a single creative word, and this was supposed to come out this morning, but here we are, almost Sunday morning and I’m only now (at 11:42 pm!) sending it out.

Today I said: I feel like I am a car stuck in the snow, spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere, but too exhausted to get out and push.

And still, grace abounds. Rare February sunlight still pours in through the window shield, so at least I am not cold inside my stuck little car. I laughed today, and more than once. I was surprised at how moved I was by a silly action movie my boyfriend wanted to watch (Free Guy! So sweet! Who knew!)

Read more

It’s been a messy few weeks. In America, we’re whiplashed by drastic policy and leadership change, half of us celebrating and half of us mourning with what seems like no in-between. This is an insane atmosphere to navigate, with common ground no where in sight.

On one of my doom scrolls last week, I saw a post that made me sick. It said: is “what would Jesus do” dead?

I don’t have it quoted directly, but it went on to say something along the lines of, “it seems like the church people I see, the people who have Bible verses in their bios, are doing the opposite of what I’ve heard about Jesus doing. Can we just say ‘what would a kind and empathetic person do?’”

What an absolute tragedy. Before we go any further, I want to apologize to any of you who have received that message from a Church that is supposed to be caring for you. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves, and I am deeply sorry for the misdeeds enacted in the name of Jesus.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about that question. Is “what would Jesus do” dead? I don’t think so. What that question tells me is that we need to stop bemoaning the state of things and look at Jesus, especially if you call yourself his follower.

If you’re with me here, let’s pause for a minute and ask ourselves this: how can we actually be like Jesus now? What does it look like to be visible Jesus in the world?

love your enemies

You have heard the law that says ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For God gives God’s sunlight to both the evil and the good, and God sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind to only your friends, how are you different from anyone else?

This instruction from Jesus is included in what’s called the Sermon on the Mount, the first hefty chunk of actual teaching we hear from him.

Nearly immediately, the way of Jesus looks so different (completely opposite!) from what we hear and do in our country. We’ve taken a hard shift towards border walls: of our country, of our own hearts and souls. Of course, there are exceptions and circumstances that require firm boundaries towards those who have harmed us (situations of abuse, etc.) but in general, I wonder if our refusal to even acknowledge or humanize our so-called enemies has done us more harm than good. We villainize, we call them names, we turn our backs, we roll our eyes, we wish them harm, we force them out, we harass them behind their back and to their face, we cross to the other side of the street.

What would it look like to love our enemy when they are bruised and bloody and battered? To inconvenience ourself on behalf of those who hate us? What would that do for our collective consciousness? What would soften in our collective heart? What tables would we see turn over of their own accord?

Another part of loving is being honest and speaking truth even when its uncomfortable. I’m not talking about Facebook ranting and posting hateful comments. Social media is not conversation, and avoidance does not equal love. I’m talking about keeping the gate open. We don’t have to invite everyone into the house, but I think we do have to allow for (in person) conversation with people you disagree with. What would it be like to speak important truth when the time comes, out of a heart filled with dignity, love, and respect, even when you feel like the people you’re talking to don’t deserve it? The truth is, none of us do, and all of us do.

And speaking of not deserving things…

forgiveness

Then Peter came to him and asked, ‘Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?’

‘No, not seven times,’ Jesus replied, ‘but seventy times seven!’

Radical forgiveness is everywhere in Jesus’ story. Even when he is dying at the hands of the religious elite with whom he has clashed since day one, he utters the words, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

This is perhaps the hardest for me to write. I don’t feel like my political enemies (including the ones in the seats of power) deserve my forgiveness. But unfortunately Jesus’ answer to Peter isn’t, “however many times you feel like.”

Jesus’ reply has been translated several different ways, but the heart of it is the same: constantly. Jesus lived under the Romans, a highly oppressive regime that had their thumb pressed down hard on Jesus’ people. And yet, Jesus said to forgive, whether or not an apology or turning was experienced.

As a side note: 70x7 is 490. That’s about twice a week for the whole of the Trump presidency.

What would it look like to forgive actively, not just in theory?

it’s less about changing others’ minds and more about changing our own behavior

Do not judge others and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you judge others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own eye?

That being said, there is much work to be done, now more than ever, on behalf of the oppressed, the marginalized, the lonely, the foreigner.

Social media is the silent killer of this age (and not just those Gen-Z-ers). We have come to believe that each current event requires a public reaction from us. So, we post, but we don’t act. We post, and hope others know that because we believe this, we’re good people. We post, and we judge the people that don’t seem afraid enough, on-our-side enough, anxious-enough.

The truth is, even while we’re critical of the blatant hatred and disregard in, say, the White House for example, so many of us like to call out their bad behavior without doing anything in our own lives proactively against it. Hypocritically, we spend most of our days only thinking about what’s going to be best for us and the people who are like us in our day-to-day.

Of course, some of you are absolutely the exception. I have several people I admire, who I know personally and whose work I read, in mind right now. Your calling is to be advocates for those in need through your words, and we need your brave voices.

However, in general (me included!) it’s a time for us to take a good hard look at ourselves, before we criticize anyone else’s actions. If we are going to make it through this political moment in our country as the Church specifically, we must worry less about our public reaction (no matter our opinion) and instead focus on action over words. This is always what Jesus was doing. He didn’t come to consolidate power to rule the empire. He came “not to be served, but to serve.”

Have we donated to organizations? Have we volunteered our time? Have we called our representatives? Have we attended gatherings? Have we fasted? Have we prayed? Have we sacrificed?

Have we spent an ounce of our precious time and energy towards other people instead of just making a post that stokes our own angry fire, that no one is going to read the way we want them to? At this point, people who disagree with you don’t care at all about your argument. They’ve heard it, and they think what they think.

If we are going to be like Jesus, our objective has to flip from changing people’s minds to changing our behavior to reflect the words coming out of our mouths. Our objective has to become “am I living my life like Jesus says to live?”

Are your actions matching your words? Or are you just posting?

the vehicle matters

Jesus replied with a story…

Here’s the catch: if we cut something out, we have to replace it with something else. The truth is that the Way of Jesus does call for us to be advocates for those who need it in this noisy world, absolutely. But what would happen if we stopped posting statements and instead asked questions? What might happen if we told stories? I love theater and storytelling because good theater doesn’t preach. It stirs, it asks, it tells a story that makes you consider things you wouldn’t have previously.

Jesus was an expert at this. All his most important teachings are stories, not sermons. He asked 100x more questions than he answered (literally- over 300 as compared to 3, respectively). He looked people in the eyes, people he disagreed with (and for good reason), and asked them probing questions. He wove together narratives that told more truth than any persuasive argument.

If we are going to affect change, this could also be an amazing place to start.

get local

Then the king will turn to those on his left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty and you didn’t give me a drink. I was a stranger and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison and you didn’t visit me.’

Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and not help you?’

And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.

Now is not the time to be immobile. Politics aside, the choices being made by this administration have real effects every day on the most vulnerable in our community, those that Jesus’ brother James refers to when he says, “pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”

There is not much we can do to affect policy change on a national or global scale, no matter how loud we shout. We can vote, and we can gather. Those are incredible freedoms, but the rest is not in our power, unless we’re in law or politics, which is definitely not the majority of us.

What is in our power is our own actions. We must start small, we must root down into our homes and our cities and our communities and fight for justice where we can. What local organizations are already doing the work you find important? Who is feeding the hungry? Housing those who have no bed? Who is caring for the environment?Attend their meetings. Donate. Volunteer. Which people around you are struggling? Invite them over for dinner. Listen to their story.

Pray for eyes that look like Jesus', that we, too, might be moved with compassion for the crowds in our own town and step in closer. That we might pray for them, feed them, clothe them, invite them in.

And when we see people right in front of us who need help, even people we don’t like, quit judging them and actually help.

love your neighbor

The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, ‘And, who is my neighbor?’

The point of this whole post can be boiled down into one sentence: love your neighbor as yourself. We can be technical, try to squirm our way out of the question and justify our (in)actions like the man talking to Jesus. We can say, “well, what is love, really?”

But I think Jesus answers us the same way he answered that man thousands of years ago: by telling a story.

We need to sit down with our Bibles, crack those puppies open to Luke 10:25-37, and read the story of the Good Samaritan, what the Jewish people would have considered an oxymoron.

Friends, we must hear Jesus say, “that man that you hate on the other side of the road IS YOUR NEIGHBOR. And you need to give him your money, and bind up his wounds, and THAT is the greatest commandment. I don’t care about all the other stuff you’ve done, how many times you’ve gone to church or sang worship songs or listened to a nice, comfy little sermon. I don’t care how many of the right kinds of posts you’ve shared to your Instagram story or podcast episodes you’ve listened to. Have you loved your neighbor as yourself? Your neighbor, your enemy. Have you loved them?”

And if the answer is no, we should probably close our mouths and get to work.

Because our neighbor is everyone. Everyone.

Because, when we are living like Jesus, no one is our enemy.

Keep on, dear ones. I love you,

Alyssa

P.S. If you’re in Boise like me, I attended a gathering last night that supports refugees and other immigrants who are experiencing drastic cuts in funding available to them. If you’d like to be updated on how you can take action, reply here and I’ll get your name on the email list!

P.P.S. I wrote a poem based on the Good Samaritan a year and a half ago, and it’s been convicting me lately. Funny how your own words will do that. Click the button below if you want to read it:

read it here :)

P.P.P.S. I’m making a collection of pictures I find that look like Jesus to me, for the sake of hope. If you see something, will you send it to me? I’ll share them once we get a good collection going.

Verses referenced:

Matthew 5:43-47

Matthew 18:21-22

Matthew 7:1-3

Matthew 20:28

Luke 10:25-37

James 1:27

Matthew 9:36-38

Matthew 25:41-46

What a strange, surreal month it’s been. The United States, it seems, always has a knack for starting a year with a bang—though, for once, I’d love it to be a good one. With the devastating fires in California, social media bans and reinstatements, major governmental shifts, and consequential shocks to many people’s daily lives in our country, it appears as if, only a mere 25 days in, the tumult of 2025 has only just begun.

Since 2016, it’s been a struggle for me to figure out how to engage with the news/media/current events without spiraling into worry/doomscrolling/panic/pointless social media posting that results in no change whatsoever, other than my soul feeling much worse than I was before I opened up my phone.

Now of course, I am not saying that the proper course of action is to go live in a commune far away from the chaos of what is America. I’m a big proponent of being an active participant in our cities and communities, from schools, to churches, to getting coffee at the same few local places to invest in our neighborhood.

So what do we do? How do we do this well?

Over the last eight years, I think the key rests in this fact: it is not so much what we consume (necessarily, of course there are major exceptions), but how we consume it. Do we spend our days watching 30-second videos of people (on all sides) giving us their best-educated-guess-opinion-diatribe-on-the-days-event-to-establish-some-semblance-of-control-over-their-own-lives, after our senses are lulled to sleep by people making us sort-of-chuckle under our breath, after our brains are numbed out and more susceptible to fear mongering, dizzying narrative spins, and almost-truths?

I’ve tried to quit social media more than once (per week). It’s hard. But as my counselor once said to me, “It never works to just stop doing something. You have to replace it with something else.”

Some of you might be thinking, “I don’t struggle with social media. It doesn’t stress me out at all, and I’m great at managing my time.” (I don’t believe you, but okay). To that, I would say to you: whether or not it stresses you out, constant bite-sized consumption is holistically, all around, terrible for you.

Humans are not meant to consume the amount that we do, at the rate at which we do. Full stop.

But we can’t just quit it. We have to replace it with something better.

What would happen if we all dropped our phones, stopped watching reels that shorten our attention span and divide our collective intelligence by half, and plopped down to read a book, or a poem, or a play? Or wrote in our journal instead of on the internet? (I know, I know, I see the irony here). What would happen if we stopped consuming the garbage we’re allowing the algorithm and those behind it to feed us, and decided to engage with thoughtful, smart, well-made, intentional art at least once a day?

What would happen if we did this together? What would change in our lives? How would we view those around us? What would the ripple effect be? How would we view ourselves? What would happen if we simply said no?

Here at Bird Songs and Saints, in this year of our Lord 2025, that’s what I’d like to do (together). At least once per day, pick up a piece of art (poem, film, novel, well-researched book, etc.) instead of our little pet screens, and gave our attention to that? Once per month, for paid subscribers, I’ll be offering 3-5 recommendations of (what I believe is) excellent art with which to engage, encourage, motivate, delight and sooth your brain, heart, and soul.

And I have some good news: the anniversary sale is still on through the end of January so you can subscribe to get these recommendations and musings for 20-25% off the regular price, plus a bunch of other great benefits (only $60/year, which is a mere $5/month!)

Subscribe now

If this sounds amazing to you, but you don’t want to pay for a subscription, that’s also fine! Carry on your merry way and consider creating a practice like this for yourself. I’ll still be seeing you once a month and am so glad you’ve chosen to be here, and of course, let me know how it goes.

Leave a comment

So, without further ado, here are your very first January recommendations:

Read more

Being a writer is such a funky business.

I’ll be honest—somedays, I think what a giant waste of time all this is. I spend hours alone in my room jotting down oft-jumbled thoughts, and for what? For whom? Only to squeeze my art into tiny windows of time between what feels like an endless stream of part time jobs, and find out that even less people have read the post than they did last month?

Those are the cynical days. Lucky for me (thank God) not every day is a cynical one. Other days (recently), I have been thinking what a tremendous gift it is that I was made an artist, and have the great fortune to live in a society and community that encourages me to lean more heavily into that unbelievable reality. I am grateful for the different way my brain and heart live in this wailing world, and have something of worth and depth, sometimes despite my best efforts, to offer it.

What a gift it is that I have parents who delighted in the storytelling part of me, the poet part of me and cheered me on as the inclinations to pursue the arts became apparent at an early age. What a gift it is that I have a partner who encourages me to press on in the face of rejection, to be brave, to continue putting myself out there— wherever there is, this terrifying and beautiful world. Who believes that the world is better with my words and my voice floating around in it.

What a gift it is that there are over 400 of you all who read this journal. The readership has doubled in the last year, a completely bonkers fact that I wouldn’t have believed a year ago. This support has, even on those days where I want to quit because it’s too cold or I’m too tired or I wish everything would move faster, faster, faster, propelled me on to take another little step.

The amazing thing about Substack as a platform is that it allows me to send this work out to you for free! I love being able to share my work generously, and will always prioritize that. As a person who cannot afford to pay to subscribe to any other Substacks at the moment, I value accessible art that makes our individual lives more palatable, brighter, lighter, and dare I say it, even enjoyable. ;)

However, the thing about artists is, all this making takes time. Time we can’t spend making money for ourselves, not to amass a great fortune but simply to pay rent and buy those increasingly more expensive groceries. If you’ve enjoyed reading my work this last year, I’d love it if you considered upgrading your subscription to a paid subscription! And now would be a great time to do that because…

to thank you all for your tremendous support and readership, I’m holding a Substack Anniversary Sale!

For the month of January only, the prices and perks of the paid subscriptions will be as follows!

If you choose to become a standard paid member, you’ll:

• upgrade at $60/year or $6/month (over 20% off the regular price!)

• receive 2 posts a month, one post for everyone, and one monthly letter with recommendations for books, poems, movies, music, and/or art

• receive an exclusive downloadable print with a not-yet-published poem and a beautiful bookmark

If you choose to become a Founding Member of this Substack:

• upgrade at $150/year (25% off the regular price!) or have the option to pay-what-you-want ($60+)

• receive everything above, plus get a signed bundle of the books, journals, and anthologies I was published in in 2024 (see here!) I only have FOUR bundles available so if you’re on the fence, take advantage now!

• Current founding members, I’ll send your way the pubs you haven’t received yet by the end of the month!
  
  Click the subscribe button below to upgrade! And remember, these prices only last until the end of January!
  

  Subscribe now

  Thank you in advance for all who choose to upgrade their memberships. It means so much to me. You make it possible for me to stay here, to keep using my time to write.

I’m so excited to see what Year Two holds for us here on Substack. What would you like to read more of? What resonates with you? Let me know in the comments.

Leave a comment

Happy new year, dear friends!

-Alyssa

Hello my dear paid subscribers!

It’s been a whole year together here on Substack, and I am so grateful to have you in the Bird Songs and Saints community. Before the month is out (literally here at the very last minute), I wanted to just tell you thank you for making this year possible. Thank you for your support and your readership in 2024.

In 2025, I …

Read more