Here in Connecticut, it is still summer. I know there are parts of the country where kids have been back in school for weeks, but our kids are sleeping in and going to the beach and bemoaning our family screen-time rules and enjoying the local carnival and the slower pace of everything. It is all about to come to an end, but I am so grateful for these days.
As a result of the delights of summer, I have read and watched and listened to fewer things than usual, but I still want to share a few of my current favorites here. As always, I would also love to hear what you’re appreciating, so please share in response!
1. My favorite get-to-know-you question of the summer.
This question came from the Hope Heals Conversation Cards:
If you had to give a 30-minute presentation on a topic that was not related to your profession, what would it be?
(I said I would choose life hacks. Another person in the group said cereal. Another said an analysis of America’s Top Model. You get the idea…)
2. The Hospitality of Need.
I loved Kevan Chandler’s exploration of how we can see needs as an opportunity for relationships and hospitality rather than sources of shame and burdens to others. In his words:
“Whether I’m traveling or at home, because of my disability, pretty much anything I do is going to require more of me and others…There’s a temptation to assume this is a bad thing, but maybe it’s a grace, as Jesus saw it.
Being so acquainted with the need, I have often struggled, wondering if I am, more than anything else, a burden. … Then I read about how Jesus asked a Samaritan woman for a drink of water, how a sinful woman washed his dusty feet, how his disciples gave him something to eat after his resurrection. …[Jesus] saw the need as a door to be opened into fellowship, healing, and wholeness.”
3. Toward a Gift Economy.
This essay is a wonderful pairing with the previous one. Simon Oliver writes about how we as a society have moved from having a market economy to being a market society. I appreciated thinking about our relationships in terms of gifts (not transactions), and I want to use this essay as a launchpad for considering what we can do to shift our mindset toward one another.
4. What Tweens Get from Sephora and What They Get from Us.
I’d like to write more about Jia Tolentino’s essay about tween girls and really expensive skin-care products and the role that middle-aged women (i.e. their moms, like me) play in it. One of the gifts of having a child with Down syndrome has been the challenge to receive one another as we are, receive our bodies and minds and faces and aging, rather than resisting it or trying to improve it or change it. This essay got me thinking about how, when we receive ourselves—and our wrinkles and gray hair and aging bodies—as we are, we can offer that same gift to our kids.
5. For the Glory.
One of you recommended this biography of Eric Liddell. Thank you! I’m so glad to learn more about this man and the way he pursued both the joy of running and his calling as a missionary in China.
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