June

On summer, productivity, the news, and unmet expectations ...

Hi Readers,

I want to begin this note to you (like any good Lutheran?) with a confession.

Last fall (September 2024), I started a new schedule over here on Substack. I’d realized my posting schedule wasn’t sustainable as new jobs and writing assignments laid additional claims to my time. This was all good news: I’d started a new pastoral call as Pastor of Visitation and Public Theology over at Lake Nokomis Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, and I’d also started (on contract) as a contributing columnist at the Minnesota Star Tribune.

I had a plan (we all know about best laid plans) … and part of that plan included moving from a weekly posting schedule (apart from Sunday Stretch and News with Nuance for paid subscribers) to once-monthly general posts free for all. If you look back in the archives of this newsletter, I used to write weekly posts every single Tuesday.

My plan was to use the third Wednesday of the month as a writing day. Typically, I do pastoral care visits on Wednesday afternoons, but on the third Tuesday of the month, I lead a worship service with my LNL colleagues at a senior living apartment cooperative near our church.

Of course, in the midst of promoting and sharing about Disciples of White Jesus, I tend to forget that I’ve reserved that third Wednesday for writing these posts. For example, last Wednesday, I scheduled four meetings for Wednesday afternoon! That, in addition to summer kid schedules, spouse work travel, and other family responsibilities. Needless to say, I didn’t end up writing last Wednesday (though earlier in the week, I did write a newspaper column that was published that day).

I don’t write all this to suggest it’s anything unique to me. I suspect that all of you reading this can relate to similar shifts and changes of everyday life, which sometimes seems like a constant lesson in recalibration and adjustment - especially when you’re a) parenting children/caregiving for loved ones and b) working or serving in a field that prioritizes relational connections.

Remember that lesson about priorities? The one where they use an illustration of a large jar filled with rocks, pebbles, and sand? The rocks represent what’s most important to you - and and the lesson is that you have to put those in first, prioritize those things - and then the rest will fill in. Try it the opposite way, and it doesn’t all fit.

I think some of us learned that lesson too well, without learning the other important lesson. Eventually, if you keep adding things - no matter how well you prioritize - that darn jar is going to overflow and make yet another mess that you will need to clean up in your nonexistent free time.

Most of you who know me know there are few things I detest more than people who are constantly bragging about how “busy” they are. In an age of ever-rising poverty, homelessness, war, and sickness - busyness is a privilege. Last year at this time we were just a few days removed from my younger son’s brief hospitalization for pneumonia. So I can’t help but be glad this year: that instead I’m walking up with him to a local high school for summer camp with a friend.

The last few days here in Minneapolis, weather-wise, have been pure gift. Highs in the low 80s, a light breeze. I’m writing at this moment to you from our back deck, staring at the flourishing plants and trees, watching various birds alight on swaying branches. It’s hard to want for more, at this very singular moment. Thank God.

(I’ve never seen a poem as lovely as a tree, indeed)

Where’s the confession in all this blathering, you might be wondering …

(What are confessions - prayers - laments - if not an initial onset of blathering?)

My confession I think is that I wanted these monthly essays to be more profound than this. I look back at the above links from May 2023 and June 2023-24, as well as these other pieces I formerly wrote on Tuesdays:

(Full disclosure: There was another post that I am choosing not to re-share here because in reading it now I don’t love it, so always good to note progress along with chance, amiright?)

I had hoped to continue sharing some poetry, or thoughts on current events. Even as I share the beauty of this Minneapolis afternoon outdoors, I do so in the aftermath of terrifying political violence that occurred here just a week and a half ago, and I also do so knowing that just 12 miles from my backyard, an 11-year-old boy was killed yesterday at a North Minneapolis park.

As bombs continue to rain down in the Middle East and Ukraine; as America’s ruling party continues to spend most of its political will dividing between “real” Americans and “real” Christians and those whom it has the right to hate, mistreat, and imprison - how can I possibly give voice to all the lament and need in the world today? How can I possibly listen enough to hear God’s voice and then somehow share some kind of Spirit-filled insight here with you all? How can I honor those who have died, here in Minnesota and around the world? How can I speak to the cries of bereaved mothers and fathers and children and lovers?

Sometimes it feels like the cup of the world is just overflowing with injustice, and even though I so often turn to the power of words to enact empathy and justice, words seem like too much or never enough. Those who we need to hear are silenced, and instead we are subjected to the screeches of the liars and grifters.

As I think anew about these once-monthly posts to you, maybe I want you to see them as a small and maybe-trite but hopeful offering: some kind of incense-anointed but flawed, treasure in clay jar story that honors love and beauty wherever we can find them.

Maybe these won’t be newspaper-worthy essays or profound poems. Maybe I’ll never really figure out a way to align my schedule to write them the Wednesday ahead, as I’d once so naively plotted. But what I hope they will be (can be?) are love letters of a sort, an intimate communication in honor of this special community of readers and writers that has sustained me and nurtured me over these past almost-three years of change, upheaval, and blessings beyond imagination. That’s my hope and my prayer. For this June 2025 and beyond.

What I’m Reading …

I’d love to also make this a regular feature of our monthly time together - an opportunity to share inspiration. I’m not always great at all the practices of writing craft, but I always have been and remain a voracious reader. I’m attempting to balance my outsized news consumption with book reading, so I thought I’d share some books (and audiobooks) that have been inspiring me this month:

What are you reading? Look out for an exclusive excerpt coming to

I'm Listening

subscribers next week from

Jo Piazza

’s new book Everyone is Lying to You!

Is that a great title for a book on tradwives/influencers - or what?

I hope you enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes/opportunity to share together this June.

Coming Up

I’ll be in St. Louis at the Cooperative Baptists Fellowship National Assembly this week, and I’m giving the keynote address to the Baptist Women in Ministry luncheon. Can’t wait to see some of you there!

Also wanted to let readers know about this upcoming webinar with me through the Equal Justice USA Evangelical Network, next Wednesday, July 2, from 1-2 p.m. CT. Sign up here to join us.

Thanks for reading!

Angela

PS:

A Few Notes:

First, a huge THANK YOU to all subscribers. I get a little email notification every time someone signs up, and every time I get one, I feel joyful and honored that you want to spend part of your day with this community. I mean it when I say: “I’m listening,” to you as well, and please don’t hesitate to share with me your thoughts + ideas for what you’d like to read in this space.

To PAID SUBSCRIBERS: I am humbled and honored that you’ve chosen to spend part of your limited budget on this newsletter. To borrow words from another newsletter I love, you are directly funding freelance journalism with your subscription, and I have to thank you more than ever for your continued support. Our world’s media and journalism is in a state of crisis, with fewer and fewer billionaires in control of global news outlets, and journalists being either laid off or threatened with violence for their work every single day; with fewer and fewer newsroom positions paying a living wage. I pledge to you to steward your paid subscription faithfully + use it to support honest, hard-working, and LOCAL journalism. One of my goals in this first year is to open this newsletter to other journalists, and pay them a fair wage for their work.

THANK YOU for your support. If you’re not a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one.

On free vs. paid-subscriber posts only: My plan right now is that the Friday + Sunday posts, focusing on news + spirituality, in that order, are available for subscribers only (I am going to continue sharing a sample, with a line where the paywall cuts off for our paid subscriber community). My plan is that the Tuesday blog-style posts will always be free, to enable as much access as possible, while creating a smaller and more intimate experience for paid subscribers, who are also able to comment and share in community in fuller ways.

Free Trial: Substack always offers a free week-long trial subscription to this newsletter, so you can get a taste of the Friday + Sunday posts and see if you’d like to subscribe!

If a paid subscription is a hardship for you, but you’d like access to the Friday + Sunday posts: PLEASE do not hesitate to reach out. I will be happy to provide a complimentary subscription for you.