If all your prayers were answered...

Hi friend, 

Happy New Year!

A pastor friend recently said something so sweet to me that it made me cry. I announced a passion project of mine, inspired by my own journey and a deep desire to be of service: Mamas In Waiting, a weekend retreat in May 2024 for Black women on an unexpectedly challenging journey to motherhood. (Check it out and please do share it with anyone you know that may need it). 

In the announcement on Instagram, I shared a little bit of my story and why it means so much to me. Underneath the post, amidst some lovely comments congratulating me on the launch, was this gem:

Chile, I lost it.                            

Why did it make me smile so hard? Why did I find it so life-affirming?

It was the lesson. 

If you know anything about me, you know how much my origin story as "Tom and Debbie's daughter", a pastor's daughter, means to me. And maybe you also know that during my L.A. years, while I was off galavanting in politics, media, tech and everything else, my grandmother would always ask me: "When are you going to start preaching and be a minister?".

Well, while I'm not ordained (yet?), that random comment was a reminder that when you pursue purpose in everything you do and say "Yes" to a calling on your life, even if the path doesn't look like what anyone might have predicted, who you are and who God designed you to be will always shine through. Trust that. 

So if you are reading this, thanks for being a part of my little “church”.

Over the past few years as my life has expanded, I've struggled with how to use this space. It is full of people who have come from many different places. Some from my old podcast The Call. Some from my work as as a narrative strategist. Some are creators I supported at Snapchat. Some have seen me keynote at conferences or their place of work. Some from my activism. Some from my work as communications faculty at a seminary for over 10 years. And some, I’m just privileged enough to call friends and family in real life. It’s quite the mix in our little E Letter crew. 

And so common sense says that I should use an email list to promote my work, right?!. But I almost never do. In fact, I bet the majority of you have no idea how I spend my time. To be honest, I’m okay with that. (Turns out, my team is not though. :) I've committed to sharing periodic work updates here from now on but if you ONLY want to know about my consulting, appearances and opportunities for us to work together you can sign up for my quarterly Work Note here. I promise you: I really do stay booked and busy doing things that you might find interesting!)

To me you are not just “people on a list”. We are called to each other. I write here to share hard earned wisdom, encouragement and inspiration to remind you that there is another way to work and live that doesn’t require you to lose your soul.

So in that spirit, I ask you a question that stopped me in my tracks when I read it this week:

If every one of your prayers was answered today, would anyone’s life be dramatically different other than your own?

Whew.

First, what a reminder of how showing up authentically and pursuing the calling on your life, when surrendered to God, serves a purpose much bigger than yourself. The Culture will tell you that you doing you for you and being all about you is the greatest evidence of enlightenment; that focusing only on yourself is how we achieve greatness and freedom and peace. It is not. That, like most other things The Culture says, is a lie. In fact, a closed, self-centered, self-involved life cuts you off from not only love but God, who often shows up in the needs of others that you were meant to fill. I really don’t advise it.

Secondly, that question is a check to always encourage and uplift one another, even as we are doing our best to hold the pieces of our own dreams and lives together. It's not easy but it's the only way that any of us survive as relational beings, let alone thrive, in this crazy world. 

I believe it so much that I’ve cleared a section of my bedroom wall for YOU. For real. 

On the wall next to my Peloton (we actually call it Omari's Peloton because at 18 months, he's more committed to trying to climb up on it every day than I am...), I'm putting up a bunch of sticky notes with my desires, requests and prayers for the year. I want yours up there too. What are your wishes and hopes? What is something that you are chasing after or desperately needing to let go of? What is something that I can pray about for you? If you're down to share, just reply to me directly on this email and it's going right up on the wall!

In the meantime, I'm wishing you a January that gives you everything you need to launch an abundant year. And yes, I'm praying that you prosper...even as your soul also prospers.  

After all, this is church, right? ;)

Love you deep,

On seasons (A birthday message)

Hi friend, 

It has been such a long time and so much has changed since we last spoke. Including me! I just celebrated yet another turn around the sun this past week and couldn’t be more grateful.

Do you ever look back and realize - Wow, life hasn’t just been happening at random but it turns out, that was a season, one designed just as thoughtfully and deliberately for me as God designed winter, summer, spring and fall? And every second of every day of every week of every month of every year has been a part of my becoming? 

We have an acute awareness of those seasons in nature because we plan our lives by them. Back to school, summer vacation, holiday activities, wardrobe refreshes. We look forward to the changing weather and understand that the leaves turn colors before they fall from the trees. That the pounding heat of summer gives way to the cool breeze of autumn to ease us gently into the bitter cold of winter (Climate change has disrupted all of those things, of course, but that’s our fault, not by design…). These things we come to expect and celebrate. 

But when it comes to our lives, we greet each moment as entirely disconnected from the one before it, disoriented and confused by changing circumstances, even as they begin to follow clear patterns: seedtime and harvest, bare and fruitful, stillness and movement.

How much easier would our lives be if we learned to discern those patterns in real time and recognize each one meant to grow us and set us up well for the next?

What would happen if we saw times of calm as preparation and refreshing not punishment? What would happen if we weren’t always running away from small things to chase the big? Or quiet times to chase the loud? 

Today, I am emerging from one of the most beautiful hidden (to most) seasons of my life with much to share. And no, I don’t just mean my perfect baby boy. In the weeks to come, I’ll be talking more about seasons, work, life and some exciting new projects (including a retreat!) but today, I’ll start by simply encouraging you to embrace whatever season you are in. In fact, embrace your life. Exactly as it IS, without constantly longing for and chasing another.

We spend so much time on desire and self-improvement and reaching for the different and the next that we miss the preciousness of the current season. Every breath, every tear, every imperfection, every smile, every moment is a gift. And the gifts can teach. 

During my transition into motherhood (a story that I’m definitely going to tell you more about soon), I found a tiny old book in  a used bookstore with a title that jumped out at me: Domestic Monastery. As someone who has long romanticized the life of a monk but never really prioritized domesticity, I wanted to better understand how this role and time in my life could compare to the fast paced, constantly traveling, publicly productive life that I had always lived. Beyond the joy of basking in a prayer answered (which Baby Omari is), what was I meant to learn in the beauty and mundanity of my family-building season?

In that book, written by Ronald Rolheiser, I found these words: 

"Stay in your cell. Your cell will teach you everything you need to know. Stay inside your commitments, be faithful, your place of work is a seminary, your work is a sacrament, your family is a monastery, your home is a sanctuary. Stay inside them, don’t betray them, learn what they are teaching you without constantly looking for life elsewhere and without constantly believing that God is elsewhere.” 

In this context, a cell is the small room in the monastery where monks sleep and pray. And the words spoke to me so clearly:

Your life and work, your vocation, your assignment, is sacred. Whether or not everyone sees it. Whether or not it gets posted on social media. Whether or not it gets recognized or celebrated by others in every season, it is holy. It is grand. And, for the time being, it is enough. 

Sure, sometimes that work is an epic accomplishment or creative endeavor. But sometimes that work is simply recovering from whatever heartbreak or trauma you have endured. Or being a parent and focusing on your home life. Or not giving up. Or showing up every day at a 9-5 that you don’t love but have been called to (or feel stuck in). Take a clear-eyed look at what is right now in this very moment of your life, with all of its complexity. And listen. 

The relationships, resources and reality that is your current life is your teacher.

Wherever you are. Whatever your commitments may be at the moment, whether they be big or small, public or private, exciting or mundane…there is something there for you.

Squeeze every last drop of feeling and wisdom out of it. Not just for the sake of having a beautiful story to tell on the other side. But because God—the God that you think will be found in your success or your wealth or your business or your “better”—is actually right there! And odds are, so are the lessons that will unlock the next chapter of your destiny. 

Love,

Take your time.

Hi friend,

Everywhere I turned this week there were messages about time.

I celebrated 20 years since the day my high school sweetheart turned lifetime bae first said “we go together” in a Ruby Tuesday’s over chicken wings (boneless for me).

We took a quick trip to Charleston and on the drive, reminisced about how many lives we’ve lived since we were wide-eyed teenagers in a hurry to grow up. We thought about how many of our dreams came to pass, how many things we thought we wanted that we are grateful to have been saved from, and how many blessings we could have never foreseen that blew our minds. How time has been kind to us and our love.

While in South Carolina, we visited Angel Tree, a sprawling 400+ year old oak tree that is so named because it is said that the voices of our enslaved ancestors can still be heard there, angels whispering to us through the branches. Those branches. Gnarled and beautiful, covered in moss, stretching far out into the sky.

As we walked up, a father was walking with his young daughter in the opposite direction away from the tree. He said to her as they passed us “We’re walking on the roots now. They are under us.” “All the way back here?” the little girl asked. “Yeah. It’s been growing for hundreds of years. The roots are deep AND wide. Nothing can knock down this tree.”

We ate bbq that that had been smoked overnight for 10 hours, never unattended. The pitmaster and his sons standby every night, changing the coals, turning the meat, stoking the flames in a tradition passed on from his father and his grandfather. Any less time than that, he said, the meat isn’t done right. It ain’t real bbq.

Every time someone asked us at our hotel how long we’d been together they replied with shock and disbelief “There’s no way y’all are old enough for that. You don’t look a day over [insert # in the late 20s].” The compliment about our youthful appearance made me smile at first. Then it would be followed by a little pang inside as I remember that while still young in the grand scheme of life, I am indeed "old enough for that" . I remember that there are so many things I long for but hav yet to experience or do.

As I wrote about in You Deserve the Truth, I have always wrestled with the clock and the feeling that life is short, having watched my superman of a father die suddenly at 42, with so much more left to give.

I have a friend who is very into numerology. He said to me one day “My numerologist told me that I probably won’t be a public success until after 40 anyway so I’m pretty relaxed”. I laughed as I always do when he talks about his numerologist. But I also thought, what freedom it is to believe that your desired outcome will take time and will happen much later than the world says it should. It's so special to believe

On our drive back from Charleston, we talked about how relocating to the south had forced us to move slower, no longer rushing through the days, anxious for lines to move, cars to move, words to move, life to move. How for the first time, I am appreciating the timing of my life. How I can look back and see that every little thing has happened by divine design. The longer I live, the deeper and wider my roots are. I cannot be moved.

So many of the cliches that sound like fortune cookie promises at first, sound like wisdom the more you experience. That “mother wit” that our mothers and grandmothers used to say with a knowing look. Statements like “the best things in life take time” . As I look at my relationships, my character, my career, my community and just about everything else that makes up this thing we call life, I now know that phrase to be true. Everything that I have endeavored to do has been bettered by time. And the best things are sweeter still.

I brought some of the bbq home and heated it up for lunch the next day. It was juicier than it was the day before.

Give me that.

I want a slow cooker life; A life simmered, full of flavor, steeped in goodness and whatever effort it takes for as long as it takes to be real. My work and my soul will be better for it.

This week, even as the world whips around you, remember that taking your time is your birthright. The dominant culture wants to control your pace and have you live a poorly seasoned, anxious life of quick wins and “optimized” moments. But what would it look like if instead of trying to master time you simply honored it?

Sit in it, be present, and know that with every passing second, your roots are growing deeper in the place that you have been planted. I promise you, it is okay to slow down. Chew your food. Wait your turn. Treat your vision for your future as a promise, not a race.

You’ll get there my friend. Just take your time.


Love,

---

I. Quote: Give me a slow cooked life.
II. Question: In what areas of your work and life is your obsession with speed clouding your vision?

III. Something Extra: From "De Nyew Testament", a text written in the language of the low country Gullah Geechee people: Me deah fren, memba dat one day een God eye same like one tousan yeah, an one tousan yeah same like one day. (But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is a thousand years to God and a thousand years as one day.)

On doubt and practice

I. Quote: Practice is medicine for the doubting mind and fragile heart.
II. Question: What can you do this week to push back against your unbelief?
III. Something Extra: In honor of Luther Vandross' birthday last week, one of my favorite clips of a moment between him and Whitney Houston at the 1:10 mark. The lesson? Remember what you got.

Friend, 

Last week, as people celebrated Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict in the streets, I sat unmoved at my laptop. I liked a few tweets, texted my sister and then went back to work as if nothing had happened. I had no desire to cheer or opine about what it might mean because, frankly, I felt no joy. I was in a pragmatic and cynical mood, wondering "Is celebrating a murder conviction really the goal here? People are dying. Is this the best it gets? What is the point of all of this?" 

I’m a natural born optimist and a student of social change. But despite my deep belief that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, doubt had crept in and wouldn’t let go.

As I reflected on the feeling, I realized that this type of doubt, the kind that challenged a fundamental belief of mine, was familiar. I’d had it before. Often, in fact. And not just about social issues. I’d felt that feeling at various times in my life about my work, my calling, even myself. And I’d heard it from others who in their most vulnerable, honest moments dared to tell the truth: 

An entrepreneur friend doubting that the venture that they’d poured their heart and soul into was worth it. A brilliant artist wondering if their work holds any value and if they should even call themselves an artist. An elder activist friend wondering if she’d had any impact at all in her 20 years of campaigning. An excellent mother whose heart was nearly breaking, wondering if she's really any good. 

In our secret places, we sometimes doubt the beliefs, identities and truths that we hold most dear. 

These are feelings that we're ashamed to admit because we want to appear confident at all times and in all things. We want to be seen as people who know who we are and what we should be doing and how the world should be. We want to be the perfect ambassadors for truth. 

But in my moment of cynicism, I was reminded of this exchange from Scripture that my mother used to read often in our church when I was a child. In it Christ says to a man: “All things are possible if you believe.” And the man replies back "I believe. Help my unbelief." 

I believe. Help my unbelief. 

It's one of my favorite stories because you can literally hear the internal fight within him: I believe! I really do. But also...I’m doubting. I’m afraid. I”m skeptical. Help me! 

How many times have you felt like that? Holding on to your belief by a thread? Sometimes even too afraid to say the words “I am”, “I know” or “I hope” because you’re sure that if you open your mouth to speak, all of the doubt in your mind and fear in your heart will come tumbling out instead? 

First of all, know this: Doubt is not the enemy of our belief. It is a companion. It is the natural side effect of being alive, aware and in your right mind. So congratulations! You’re not weak or hypocritical. You are just alive in a culture that is constantly reflecting negative, limiting messages back to us about who we are and what is possible. Who wouldn't see what we see every day and question their higher ideals and vision?

Living a life of meaning and doing our work sometimes requires a level of delusion that flies in the face of facts, feelings, and conventional wisdom.

Doubts about ourselves creep in because of comparison, gatekeepers, odds or setbacks. And doubts about our righteous ideals creep in when the world reminds us that not enough people share them—and the people who don’t seem to have all the power. 

There is no shame in admitting that sometimes a voice inside of you whispers “No. You can’t have that. You aren’t that. That won’t work. This will never change.”  Because no matter how much faith you have, no faith is perfect. We just need some help to gird us up in those imperfect moments. 

One way that I help myself overcome those doubts is to "act as if". I take action and do the very thing that reaffirms that my belief is already true. I do that thing again and again until it becomes my practice. 

I don't mean practice as in "to prepare for a performance'. I mean practice as in doing something over and over again habitually, as ritual".

When I doubt that I am a writer, I write. When I doubt that the world can be better, I give and serve in a way that shows me real people with real needs being met. I get out of my head and do the thing that I am questioning most.  

You are because you do, despite what the world (or your own doubt) says. In that way, practice is both identity forming and reality manifesting.  Not because of some hocus pocus metaphysical magic but because 

So when your belief is shaky, commit to a practice and stand on it. 

I know that there is an uncomfortable vulnerability in doing something in the exact moment when you don't fully believe it. Is it foolish to keep working towards this goal when you’re questioning whether or not it’s achievable? Or to keep creating and making things when you don't know if it will ever lead anywhere? Is it delusional to keep hoping and fighting if you’re not 100% sure that you will see a just world in your lifetime? 

Answer those questions with the work. Acting as if in those moments strengthens you, lifts you up and makes you better. It doesn’t KILL the doubt but it limits its power over you. As we mature, unbelief becomes a quiet, backseat passenger as our practice drives us to where we need to go. 

This week, I encourage you to commit to a joyful practice in the area where nagging discouragement, cynicism, hopelessness or insecurity has its grip on you.  

Don't be ashamed of that place or back away from it. Do the thing that strengthen your resolve and turn away from all that threatens in.

I know you still believe. Sometimes, you just need a little help. 

Love, 

On being countercultural

I. Quote: Being countercultural is the only way to win in a society that has set you up to lose.
II. Question: Where can you be brave enough to do something different from the crowd for the sake of your vision or soul?
III. Something Extra: Listen to Victory Boyd’s Against the Wind

Friend, 

In the past few months, I’ve left the big city on the west coast for a small town in the south. I took time away from social media during a season when everyone was more glued to their screens than ever. And now, I’m writing free content in a moment when most of my peers are running to platforms to monetize their work. Each of these decisions was met with questions and skepticism from well meaning people who didn’t understand why I would do something against the norm.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that bucking trends and living based on discernment, values and truth is my norm. I've developed not just a personal ethic around being countercultural in my work, but a strong belief that it is the only way for all of us who want to live a life worthy of our calling. 
 

To be countercultural is to have a set of attitudes and behaviors that run counter to those of the dominant culture.  And I am convinced that being countercultural is how we win in spirit, mind, and body in a society that was not designed for our success.
 

Most of the dominant narratives around who you are, how you should behave and how the world works were carefully constructed by forces that don't know or care about you in order to maintain status quo power structures. Those paradigms lead the majority of us towards death - sometimes physical, sometimes professional or financial, but they almost always lead to the death of our destiny. 
 

We talk BIG talk about disrupting the world's harmful patterns around race, gender and class, but most of us can’t even resist prevailing wisdom enough to take some apps off of our phones or walk away from a place that is hurting us. (Sidebar: Social movements full of people who obey the culture and long for acceptance from it will never actually change it.)  
 

So free yourself! Being countercultural isn’t about having a fly sense of style or being a contrarian rebel. It’s about staring down the conventional–the popular–and daring to act based on your own knowing. 

For some, that's easy. They are born with an independent streak and take pride in being different. Those people walk around with an effortless cool that makes the rest of us stop and stare. But for others, it's hard. Fear has shouted down your knowing. And it has promised a reward if you follow the rules and the crowd. Well, fear has lied. Here's the truth: 
 

All that awaits you on the path of conformity is mediocrity, fierce injustice and a smallness of self. You deserve better. And you are capable of more. 
 

This week, I give you permission to be countercultural. In big or small ways. Be your unique self. Honor that Voice. Go the other way. Say no where everyone says yes. Try something new when everyone is stuck in the old and hold onto the anchor of the ancient and true where everyone is breathlessly chasing what's next. 
 

If there is something inside urging you to resist a norm that doesn’t align with who you are (or who you want to be) don’t ignore it. Listen to it and press against the wind.

It may feel foolish or scary, but your life is far too precious to leave it to the wind. 

Love,