Are you saying I'm not holding things together?

A screw and a button

I stuck my hand in the pocket of my coat the other day and found a screw, and a button.

*****

In early May, Tim and I traveled to Colorado Springs for the C.S. Lewis Writer’s Conference, held at the mythical but true Glen Eyrie Castle. We were both a little apprehensive about him joining me—me, because I didn’t want him to be bored or feel like it was a wasted trip; him, because he didn’t want to “be in my way” as I met with writer friends.

Both of us were proven delightfully wrong. It was a wonderful trip for us and we made connections with great people, and with each other.

Each introduction at the conference led to the inevitable questions about what we wrote. “I’m not a writer, I’m just tagging along,” Tim would say, and I would add his credentials.

He is a talented oral storyteller. He once taught the whole book of Esther without notes, from memory, as an engaging story of danger and faithfulness. He is a historian, biographer, teacher, and comedian who always nails the punch line.

Tim could tell you the details of our four days in Colorado in chronological order and great detail, making you laugh, making you cry, making you slap the table in revelation, but I will give you a woefully shortened version of it that is still too long. 

*****

A screw and a button.

Both hold things together. 

The screw I’m sure came from one of Tim’s jobs, and I probably found it in the dryer when moving laundry, on my way out the door to run errands. I probably dropped a load of crisply dried work clothes to die a wrinkled death in the clean laundry basket, saw the errant screw rolling around in the bottom of the dryer, and stuck it in my coat pocket—which is pointless because he buys screws by the bucket load. Solo screws can go in the trash. 

But I saved one and stuck it in my pocket.

The button came from the coat I was wearing. It had been dangling for months and every time I wore the coat I would wrap the thread around the back of the button, hoping that would keep it tight, hoping I would remember to sew it on properly when I returned home. Once it finally fell off, I must’ve stuck it in my pocket to repair later. 

*****

I often undercut God’s goodness. 

*****

Several times in the last few years I have complained about the lack of “writerly things” happening in my part of the world. All the good stuff happens far away, I hyperbolize. There are no writers or writing events near me.

I heard this same lament from a few other folks who had traveled by plane and rental car to spend a weekend in Colorado Springs for the conference. We want this kind of life, this encouragement and community, to be in close proximity. 

The internet is great, but we want our writerly friends to be in real life with us, available for coffee on a Tuesday in May when we’ve just spent three hours writing crap words into a dream project that feels like it’s falling apart. 

We want real life folks who understand the work we do and who will help hold us together. 

One of the jokes between Tim and I was that, indeed, my “internet friends” were real life people, and they were just as kind and good as they appeared via Zoom, Voxer, email, and private Facebook groups. Not a serial killer among them. The conference was an opportunity to meet good people I’ve been blessed to write alongside of for years as part of The Cultivating Project, and to reunite with friends I’ve met in person before.

But scattered among people I already knew were a few new acquaintances from my home state, living in towns I could drive to in a few hours.

Lo and behold, I am not an island in the great PNW, not alone, not the only one. At a relatively small and niche gathering of writers, I found other Oregonians. 

*****

A screw and a button.

Both keep things from falling apart.

When I pulled them out of my pocket on my way into Walmart, preparing to load my cart with 30 dozen eggs for the deli and hoping the price had dropped from the previous week, I laughed. 

Everything felt a bit unraveled, and that morning I had listed 46 hours' worth of things to get done before bedtime. We felt extremely blessed to be able to take this trip to Colorado and everything was well taken care of while we were gone, but we both returned home and immediately jumped into a game of catch up, which you know you can never win. 

Lost time doesn’t come back. It only helps us reprioritize. 

I laughed when I pulled the screw and the button from my coat pocket because I thought God had given me a word picture for my life. 

Are You saying I’m not holding things together very well—that things are falling apart?

*****

“Theology should not be separated from relationship.”

My real life friend Amy Malskeit said that in her break-out session titled Writing With God: How the Psalms Invite Us to be More Fully Human. 

Tim and I sat on a brocade sofa in the back of the Queen’s Parlor, watching, listening, and praying for Amy as she poured all her energy into a room full of poets. Neither of us consider ourselves poets, but that’s the thing about poetry well-done: it draws everything in. 

The night before, we’d driven to Chipotle with Amy in her little turquoise Mini Cooper—top down, Tim crammed in the back like the gentleman he is. We spent time and tears together, sharing a bit of our real lives with no screens in-between, and we talked about a theology that was not held together with relationship. That was the part with tears and colorful words.

We talked about a theology that could not fall apart because it was bound up in our relationship to Christ and to people. That was also the part with tears.

On our way back to the castle for the opening session, I drove Amy’s car so she could finish eating her dinner in the passenger seat. Try the accelerator! This is a sports car! she encouraged, after knowing me in person for only a few hours. There was no point in driving a sports car if I didn’t feel at least some of its power, she reasoned. ¹

“The poem is not finished until it is engaged by a reader,” she said in her session the next day.

Theology and relationship: one thing, dependent on engagement with another. 

“Beauty will strike a chord with the strings that are present.”

My real life friend Amy Baik Lee said that in her session: Writing to Immortals. “Offer what you have,” she was saying. Offer yourself, your prayers, your life. Be aware of the daily routines that shape your outlook, knowing that what you pour out will come from what you store in.

Live in an awareness of the goodness of God and do not disconnect yourself from those around you.²

The strings that are present: fasteners pulled from our pockets, missing pieces from something falling apart, theology that holds together in relationship.

“Have friends that will call you to your best self.”

We could have listened to Sally Clarkson talk about her life for hours. How surprising—that an author whom I’ve always paired with motherhood would speak to both Tim and me so much. She was delightful and wise and funny.

Wholeheartedness was of course the binding thread of her message, but also: What would You dream for me, God? She holds such a benevolent view of God, and takes risks with the same faith as Jonathan.³

Friends: those who hold the present-me to the best version of myself. 

God: One who dreams for me.

A screw, and a button. 

I am uncharitable towards God’s goodness. I think He is far away and too busy for me, too important for my little concerns. I lose awareness.

Once while folding laundry (could my life be any smaller) I think maybe God spoke to me: Why do you think my plans for your life are for you to be miserable? 

Why do a screw and a button have to mean you cannot hold your crap together?

“He is before all things,

and by Him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:17

What if the screw and the button, the writing friends and the oral storyteller all holding me to the best version of myself, the theology joined with relationship (“real” or internet), the beauty striking chords with what is present (rather than echoing what is missing)—what if all of those are the gifts of a God who dreams good things for me?

What if He’s just giving me new ways to see how He’s holding all things together?

1. It was very Wind in the Willows, but the only casualty was a cupful of water that landed in Amy’s lap.

2. Paraphrased from Amy Lee

3. 1 Samuel 14:6 “Perhaps the LORD will help us.”