Lyndsey Medford

justice + joy

prayer

a mop and a prayer

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Dear Lyndsey…
[Re: that post on slow]

How do you house-clean slow? I’d like to do that but can’t picture what it looks like!

Dear Friend,

First—I’m sitting here in awe of your sense of spiritual adventure. I don’t know many people who would like the idea of cleaning slow, let alone who would bother to ask for tips. I wonder if you’ve tried it yet; I wonder what you’ve discovered. Here’s what cleaning and some old books have taught me:

When you clean slow, you clean like a monk. Both Buddhist and Christian monks and nuns do manual labor in order to keep their community fields and homes, but also in order to inspire humility. Ora et Labora—work and prayer—was one of the oldest monastic mottoes, describing the daily activities of the monks under St. Benedict’s rule of life.

Benedict knew hard work makes us better, somehow, perhaps especially when we work on our own spaces for the good of our communities. And ever since he split his brothers’ days between work and prayer, generations of monastics have whispered that the ultimate goal might be to bring them back together. Work in the presence of God; the body praying; God in the chapel, God in the garden miracle, God in the dusty cracks between floorboards.

Slow cleaning is a meditation—a thing done for its own sake. It takes the time that it takes, to scrub the grime out of the bathroom crannies and out of the week and out of the soul. Sometimes in the calm chapel of repetitive motion, our bodies are able to sync with our minds or coax along our lagging hearts. There is healing in setting our space to rights. There is hope in finding the stubborn humility to do it again and again.

When you clean slow, you clean like an artist. You take in every window pane, expecting to be surprised. You watch the soap bubbles pop and you imagine where they went. See, some artists chase “inspiration,” but the best know that is only a name for the ability to look and see anew. The best artist cleans to rediscover the crack in the tile, the one that somehow perfects the regular, gleaming pattern of the whole. The best artist knows the answer to her project’s impasse lies somewhere between her own moving muscles and the layers of grime on the windowsill, just waiting to be uncovered by patience, faithfulness, care—those underappreciated virtues best cultivated by repetition.

Cleaning slow is cleaning like a lover. Like it’s the last place you’ll ever live, like you can’t imagine a better home, like this very kitchen and its crooked cabinet and the worn-off numbers on the stove dial are gifts to you personally from God. It’s coaxing the beauty out of tired and fresh things alike, not by willing them to be better but by seeing their goodness under the dust. When your cleaning is a lover’s sacrifice,you end up weary, coated in dirt—but exulting in the beauty of your place, satisfied in your family’s enjoyment of it.

Yes, it takes patience to put all the dishes away, to fold all the towels and socks. But when you care for the things that serve you, they shine for you. In a world of all new, all better, all more disposable, caring for something old is a radical act of contentment.

I, for one, am always cleaning fast. I tend to half-do the jobs in between church work, writing trips and houseguests—but when I let cleaning take its time, I am taught simplicity. I remember that I don’t want a bigger house and I remember the dignity of the other manual laborers whose work supports my life. Somewhere along the way of being lost in thought, I find gratitude for my body, my messy dirty family, my clothes and carpets. I pray for party guests and houseguests; for corners and crannies and the past and the future; for all the muck of this world that’s not so easy to put in order. I pray for every little thing to be made clean, uncovered, made more truly itself; for the grace of simple beauty revealed over and over again; I watch my wood floors give and give to us, and I pray that my own little self will take pride like them, pride only in being myself, in service. I pray that all will be made truer, be made new by the simple, unremarkable, patient, unfailing love of the one who returns to labor with us and for us, who is faithful to make us clean.

ora et labora, in love and in joy,

Lyndsey

Dear friend: How Much is Enough?

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Dear Lyndsey,

How much is enough?

How much money is enough?
How much charitable work is enough?

How much family time is enough?

How many working hours is enough?

How much relaxation is enough?

And on…

It’s broad, I know.

Dear friend,

The short answer is: probably less than you think.

That’s not a popular message in my corner of the world. I am surrounded by various cults of productivity, self-improvement, biohacking, and hustle. I encounter hundreds of advertisements every day, all designed to convince me I need more stuff. And magazines and mommy wars claim that an optimized life includes a sparkling home with a subway-tile backsplash, two children with good grades who play sports and instruments, regular promotions, six-pack abs, and a pretend-naughty-but-actually-perfectly-respectable amount of wine.

These days I constantly ask the question you’re asking, and it’s always because I’m pursuing a worthy goal: a balanced life. I think that if I planned out my days, resources, and priorities correctly, I’d be able to give and do as much as possible while also leaving enough space to simply enjoy my life. At the outset, it feels like an easy matter of calculation. You’ll have it all together if you make enough money to pay for healthcare and go out to eat twice a month; only say “yes” to the volunteer commitments that actually sound fun; and do some creative accounting to move “attend your nephew’s soccer game” from the onerous family commitment bin to recreation.

I think your question reveals that you know it doesn’t actually work that way. No matter how many commitments and adjustments you make, things never go the way you planned them and you always wish you could have (or give) just a little more. You’re still behind at work and eating cereal for dinner. Still finite.

The thing is, a balanced life—a life where you are able to have enough and give enough—isn’t a tangram puzzle of master schedules and productivity hacks. It’s a life that fully embraces finitude.

There was a time when an overzealous reading of books like Radical and Crazy Love made me think that God regularly calls everyone to perform superhuman feats of faith just because He can. Of course, I can never do enough to solve world hunger or fix my friend’s PTSD. Of course, I would say to you—but for a long time, I refused to really believe it. I fell into the same trap as a lot of nonprofit organizations: I saw how much needed to be done, and I thought that was some kind of summons to try to do it all. And in the process, I demanded more of myself than I ever would have expected of anyone else. That’s where pride came in: I thought I was special, strong, or spiritual enough to take on whatever work, overwelm, and abuse the world threw at me without needing a break. I listened to the productivity experts, the volunteer pleas, the charity commercials, the guilt sermons from resentful and jaded “servants,” and tried to best all of their demands. In the end, I became special in the sense that I was especially exhausted and unable to be of use to anyone.

There may be a time or two in most of our lives when our calling really is too big for us, and only God can get us through; but just because those can be times of great spiritual growth doesn’t mean we’re supposed to go around seeking out crises and crusades and grinding material poverty. And if God wants you to become Mother Teresa, God’s not going to hide it from you—God’s going to speak to you audibly like She did to her. For me, embracing finitude means I’ve had to learn to be content with just the little tiny piece that I can do. Far more than when I drag around too many burdens with a somber look on my face, I help the world when I do my small part with excellence, gladness, and faith that God will complete the work.

Here’s another way to put it: embracing a life of less teaches us to believe in true abundance. When we pare down our budgets, we find ourselves enjoying simple pleasures and creative pursuits—and delighting that much more in the indulgences we do have. When I stopped volunteering so much, I had more time to learn from other people and therefore improve the work I did—and I became overwhelmed with gratitude for all the good work others were doing in the world. When I obsess less about the number of hours I need for work and play, and instead focus on doing them both with wholeheartedness, I find I am better able to hear my body, spirit, or family say enough.

Enough is the amount that leaves some margin in your life: money for an impromptu dinner party or gift; time for a neighbor’s crisis or for just daydreaming. Margin is peace of mind. Margin is grace for yourself and others.

Enough is different for everyone. Just because Instagram Ingrid has a six-figure job and a Paleo meal on the table every night doesn’t mean you have to live up to her standards. God is wildly creative; God may have Instagram Ingrid right where she needs to be. But even if your enough turns out to be objectively less than hers doesn’t mean you are less than her.

In Luke 10, Jesus says that one thing is enough: to spend time with him and hear his voice. Everything else can be held loosely; nothing else adds to who we are. It is enough to be a child of God. It is enough to ask Spirit for help, and then do our best. It is enough not to take ourselves so seriously. It is enough to be content.

When in doubt, dear friend, don’t ask whether you should give, do, or have more; ask whether the thing you’re adding helps you be more present and more yourself with the work, the people, the time you’ve been given. Don’t be afraid to be small. Don’t be afraid to believe there is abundance beyond you.

Hoping that is enough,
Lyndsey

How to fail at social media

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Yesterday I had an idea, and I wrote a blog post. It took me many hours. When I finished it, I thought, this is weird and cheesy. But this morning, I gave it some edits and decided I needed to get on with my life. I took a calculated risk. I published it.

Two hours later, no one had liked it and A PERSON HAD UNFOLLOWED ME on Facebook. I am not exaggerating. A PERSON. HAD. UNFOLLOWED ME.

I continue to not-exaggerate when I tell you that I considered quitting everything. I could go back to dashing things off every few months when the spirit seizes me. I prayed a sad prayer about whether I should give up my professional-writing dreams and just be content brightening one person’s day, every once in a while, like I used to do.

And God was like, uh, no. Get a grip.

So I did some chores so I could think.

Had I ruined my blog by publishing a weird, cheesy post? Of course not. I’m damn proud of my blog. And someone, somewhere will like my little story. But it felt like I had failed in some really important way. Maybe I’m a little too used to people telling me how great my writing is. Maybe in a year of transition, of identity shift, I’ve staked a little too much on all those compliments. Maybe this is a tiny, tiny dose of that humility I, you know, prayed for earlier this week.

But even if I had actually failed, even if everyone stopped pity-following me, even if I never publish a book—wouldn’t that sort of be the definition of “calculated risk?” You might fail. Actually, if you practice a craft, you will fail. That is part of the whole thing. If you want to never fail, Being A Creative should be last on your list.

Here is another thing. I am an unfollower. It’s my phone and I only let a few things on it and I unfollow people every day. So if my thoughtless click caused this reaction in someone else? I would be super annoyed. DON’T PUT THAT ON ME, I would think. Your happiness, neurotic stranger, is 100% not my responsibility.

I’ve been thinking every day for the past few weeks about what it means to serve as a writer, as someone who has to try to make a living by trying to become a public speaker. What can I give? How can I help? But today it hit me that as long as I’m fixated on likes, hearts, and thumbs-ups, I’ll always be taking more than I give. I’ll always be operating out of fear. I’ll always be trying to reflect some audience back at itself instead of offering something unique—and maybe even giving someone else permission to be weird and cheesy.

It’s a weird way to relate to ourselves: by broadcasting things. It used to scare me to death; our devices and apps weren’t designed to make us better people. But I’m finally seeing hope. We don’t have to do what the devices and apps tell us: check them constantly, obsess over our stats, build our lives around our feeds. We just have to be good people, which has honestly never been easy. Or safe. Or un-cheesy.

But it’s worth it.

Likes and ♥♥♥,

Lyndsey