Death, birds, envy, faith, and how boring ideology is
Nadia Bolz-Weber selects her top Substack reads
This week’s digest was curated by Lutheran pastor and author , who writes The Corners on Substack. Nadia is the author of three bestselling memoirs and the creator and host of the podcast The Confessional, produced in conjunction with The Moth. Some of her most popular posts have been “If you can’t take in anymore, there’s a reason,” “Rainn Wilson and me—some thoughts on death,” and “Never forgiving yourself (isn’t a virtue).” If you enjoy Nadia’s edition today, be sure to subscribe to her Substack.
I started
in December 2019, mainly because I had been on 90 airplanes that year and was exhausted and wondering if there was a way to make my living as a writer without spending so much time in a metal tube with strangers while other people made more money off my intellectual property than I did.My friend Sarah Bessey suggested Substack (God bless her forever and ever, amen), and I’ve been writing The Corners: Grace for the fuck-ups, prayers for the impious, and a space for spiritual misfits ever since. I assumed maybe a few dozen people, primarily middle-aged lesbians in seminary, would want to subscribe to my newsletter. But my list has grown to over 125,000 people—that’s a lot of misfits, and more than a few middle-aged lesbians in seminary. I’m so very grateful for every single one.
It is an honor to be trusted with words and ideas, especially theological ones. I try to never take it for granted, and I do everything I can to keep the shred of integrity that allows me to be a trustworthy voice in this space.
I love it here at Substack. I even love reading the comments. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but the readers of The Corners are consistently a thoughtful bunch of folks. I read every comment, and it is a joy to do so. And I love that other writers here support each other. I’m honored to continue that support by sharing a few of the pieces I admire most.
PHILOSOPHY
I always prefer the aviary section of any zoo. You can have the pachyderms and zebras; give me weird birds any day. It’s always felt like this world is theirs and we just get to live here—for a while.
I would not hesitate to say that Chloe Hope’s Death & Birds is one of the best things I have discovered on Substack. She weaves her experience as a death doula and her experience as a volunteer at a bird sanctuary together to create such honest, beautiful expressions of hope and beauty. I even love how she invites her readers to share her posts:
Recommend Death & Birds to your readers
They’re both coming for you! (Just kidding, birds aren’t coming for you).
The winged, the enlightened, and the dead
—
in
We are typically invited into new stages of life. Only after many refusals are we dragged. There seems to be so little resistance, in nature—it’s almost as though we’ve come to believe that we are separate to it, perhaps in the hope that we might somehow escape our ultimate destiny.
This year, I will become older than my mother was when she died. I’ve noticed that a rather entitled part of me had felt as though I were owed life, up to now, but the years that lie ahead are so clearly gifts. I hope that I am able to meet them, unarmored and grateful, while she soars, like a swift, in the inevitable.
FAITH & SPIRITUALITY
It is astounding to me that Simran Jeet Singh could grow up to be such a gentle, thoughtful man, without the sort of bitterness and shoulder chips a turbaned boy growing up in Texas might be forgiven for carrying into adulthood. What I love about Simran’s posts is how generous he is with offering us seemingly endless insights from his Sikh faith, when for much of his life he was ostracized for it. His new podcast, Wisdom and Practice, promises to be a powerhouse. He’ll be reflecting here on his upcoming conversations with the likes of Krista Tippett, Rabbi Sharon Brous, and Miroslov Volf.
Imagining a world beyond racism
—
in
If we are truly interested in transforming ourselves and transforming our shared narrative, we have to challenge ourselves to see divinity in all people, even when difficult, and even when they do not see ours. An incremental approach has been most effective for me, and even then it can be hard sometimes with certain people whose ideas or behaviors I find abhorrent. In those cases, I try to remind myself what I teach my kids: “People are not bad or evil. Their behaviors might be, but people are ultimately good.” Separating the person from the behavior helps me to still see people as deserving of my dignity and protects me from falling into a supremacist mindset.
Bhagat Namdev lays out the promise of this approach in his composition as well. He writes, “In the one and many, the divine is pervading. Wherever I look, that’s all I see.”
LITERATURE
In a world of groupthinkers, Sherman Alexie is singular and so smart that I would read anything he writes (and do not miss his Notes here on Substack… they are next-level). I am desperate for opinion pieces like this one that are not just ideological junk food.
Oh, and remember the film Smoke Signals? Yeah, he wrote that.
No, I’m probably not going to read your Covid novel
—
So, yes, I repeat: I am pro-vaccination. Fully so. But I’m also fully suspicious of fiction that is nakedly pro- or anti-vaccination. You want to show me you’re a great writer? How about a Covid novel where the left and right are wise and foolish in equal and idiosyncratic measures?
If you want your Covid novel (or any novel) to be true, then you’re gonna need to have passionate arguments with yourself.
FAITH & SPIRITUALITY
I’m a sucker for anyone who will be honest about something that you’re supposed to not admit to. Along comes this essay from Kirsten Powers about her envy of another writer, and it filled me with appreciation (which felt nice) and recognition (which felt less nice).
How I tamed my envy of almost everyone, but especially Elizabeth Gilbert
—Kirsten Powers in Changing the Channel
“I struggle with envy,” I finally confided to my befuddled husband after snapping at him for forgetting my injunction against Instagram news. He would remind me of my own successes, my extensive network of friends, and the fact that we had a pretty nice life.
None of it mattered.
Reason cannot contend with envy.
HEALTH & WELLNESS
I’m a notoriously bad meditator. This is due in part to my squirrel brain that insists on thinking approximately four things at a time, basically all the time. That is to say, it is partly due to being someone who could really benefit from meditation. Another factor to my low-level aversion is that, in all honesty, I just don’t like, or more accurately, don’t trust most meditation teachers; I’ve never understood why they so often speak in that passive-aggressive half-whisper, just because at some point in time we all agreed that this is what ‘spiritual’ sounds like. It seems like an affectation, and my brain immediately assumes they are part monster. But Jeff Warren I trusted immediately. He’s so honest and matter-of-fact in his meditations. I especially loved this one.
When everything is f*#ked
—Jeff Warren in Home Base
First, I move my physical body to a new space. Another room, an empty church, somewhere in nature. A different setting for a different set. I make it a pilgrimage. I complain the whole time I’m going, because I think it’s bogus and it won’t do anything.
Once I arrive, I sit and ask for help. I don’t know who I’m asking: life, God, leprechauns? I don’t care. The point is to get humble. To get on my knees, and know my own powerlessness. To make space for life to find me.
I put my hands on my chest or my belly and I breathe out. I feel the contact with my hands. I try to let that small intimacy settle my nervous system a bit.
I say “I’m sorry for what you’re going through.” I say “I love you.”
CULTURE
I have no idea who “Some Guy” is. Not a clue. But this quite lengthy piece of writing about his mystical (but be assured, not annoyingly religious) near-death experience is one of the most beautiful things I have read this year. It’s worth your time to read the whole thing.
Anti-majestic cosmic horseshit
—Some Guy in Extelligence
No, I don’t know if Jesus was the son of God or if Mohammed is his prophet. No opinions in particular about Buddhism other than that the West seems to fetishize it a bit. I don’t know if some religion has it more right than some other religion, and God didn’t also secretly tell me that I should get to have sex with everyone else’s wife or start a cult. I also don’t think I’m particularly special or chosen or anything like that.
I think things like this happen relatively more often than you would think, like coming across a bear roaming around a downtown area somewhere in Alaska. It happens. It’s discordant with other things that normally happen, but you’ve seen news reports about it. It still surprises you even though you know that there are reports that bears sometimes do this. It just happens. Sometimes you walk downtown to go to your favorite coffee shop and a bear is wandering around. Sometimes people see God.
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Came for Chloe, stayed for near-death experience and was rewarded with chocolate from a 26-year-old gift certificate. Wow. What a fabulous collection - thanks!
Nadia, thank you so very much for your generous inclusion of Death & Birds, and your kind words. Also very happy to have been introduced to Some Guy! Thank you, thank you (from one hopeful cynic to another)