In her recent piece for The Well Blog, Tish Harrison Warren writes about her transition from the radical Christianity of her youth to the less exciting, dish-washing, diaper-changing monotony of life as a settled-down mom. Warren grew up in a fairly wealthy Texas community (and all that that entails). She was “the girl wearing WWJD bracelets and praying with her friends before theater rehearsal.” After college, Warren writes that she “[hung] out with homeless teenagers” and attended, barefoot, a church that was actually called “Scum of the Earth.” Warren confesses that now, some ten years later, she still finds “mediocrity dull” and she still “fret[s] about settling,” but she has come to realize that quotidian monotony often requires a more revolutionary heart than the excitement of a more outwardly radical lifestyle.
Now, I’m a thirty-something with two kids living a more or less ordinary life. And what I’m slowly realizing is that, for me, being in the house all day with a baby and a two-year-old is a lot more scary and a lot harder than being in a war-torn African village. What I need courage for is the ordinary, the daily every-dayness of life. Caring for a homeless kid is a lot more thrilling to me than listening well to the people in my home. Giving away clothes and seeking out edgy Christian communities requires less of me than being kind to my husband on an average Wednesday morning or calling my mother back when I don’t feel like it.
We had gone to a top college where people achieved big things. They wrote books and started non-profits. We were told again and again that we’d be world-changers. We were part of a young, Christian movement that encouraged us to live bold, meaningful lives of discipleship, which baptized this world-changing impetus as the way to really follow after Jesus. We were challenged to impact and serve the world in radical ways, but we never learned how to be an average person living an average life in a beautiful way.
But I’ve come to the point where I’m not sure anymore just what God counts as radical. And I suspect that for me, getting up and doing the dishes when I’m short on sleep and patience
is far more costly and necessitates more of a revolution in my heart than some of the more outwardly risky ways I’ve lived in the past. And so this is what I need now: the courage to face an ordinary day — an afternoon with a colicky baby where I’m probably going to snap at my two-year old and get annoyed with my noisy neighbor — without despair, the bravery it takes to believe that a small life is still a meaningful life, and the grace to know that even when I’ve done nothing that is powerful or bold or even interesting that the Lord notices me and is fond of me and that that is enough.
But I’m starting to learn that, whether in Mongolia or Tennessee, the kind of “giving my life away” that counts starts with how I get up on a gray Tuesday morning. It never sells books. It won’t be remembered. But it’s what makes a life. And who knows? Maybe, at the end of days, a hurried prayer for an enemy, a passing kindness to a neighbor, or budget planning on a boring Thursday will be the revolution stories of God making all things new.
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7 responses to “Living Radically at Home: Tish Harrison Warren on the Challenges of Settling Down”
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This excellent post reminds me of old essay entitled “spiritual capitalism” in Will Campbell’s Katallagate. It was about somebody coming down from being an extremely “missional/transformationist” hero, back to “normal”….
Even though merit is not a biblical word, I do agree with folks who talk about Christ’s merits. Our salvation by grace was obtained by Christ’s work, and that work was His death on the cross.
Our salvation is not only by grace but also by justice. Romans 4:4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift by as his due. The salvation of the elect (with all its blessings) is due to Christ because of His death. It is not grace by God the Trinity to give Christ the salvation of His people.
This does not mean we can say without qualification that the elect are “entitled” to salvation. Salvation is by grace to the elect. But this salvation is by justice, not only to the Son, but also to the nature of God. We need to avoid a nominalism in which God is only sovereign and not to be measured by justice, as to His character or actions. God is both just and justifier of the ungodly.
I cannot tell you how perfectly timed this was in my life, nor how meaningful and encouraging these brief words were to me this morning. I would love to see more along these lines. There is a trend among Christian women and mommy-bloggers these days to be “more…” when I’m still struggling with letting it be “enough,” whatever it is God beings to me… wherever it is I am placed. Is suburbia enough? Life as a mother, wife, daughter, friend, and neighbor IS “uncomfortable…” but we are being told it’s not enough, and it’s no place from which to seek satisfaction or comfort. It is all said with sincerity and passion… which obscures the burden of legalism within the words themselves. A burden that makes me sigh in my spirit, and often prevents REST.
There are lots of voices out there saying the same things. I really appreciate this writer’s honesty.
Thanks so much for this, it’s a good beginning to a much needed conversation.
Great post and so beautifully written.
“Giving away clothes and seeking out edgy Christian communities requires less of me than being kind to my husband on an average Wednesday morning or calling my mother back when I don’t feel like it.”
Wow, that is so counter-intuitive to my modern evangelical/social justice sensibilities……yet so dang true!
I love this post! I often think of the Walker Percy quote “How indeed is one to live in this peculiar time and history and on ordinary Wednesday afternoons?” when my own life seems scarier at 2 p.m. than 2 a.m. when faced with the abyss of ordinariness.
And lat night I was just saying to my husband, “I feel in life, I could’ve done more.” Translation: I could be making more money, with a more prestigious career, and doing something more with two degrees behind my name. And today, what am I doing at home? Practicing counting by 5s with my 5 year-old, listening to Schoolhouse Rock, and wondering why my 2 year-old won’t nap. I hope I can teach my own children that the “something more” with my life is the gift of myself, my energies, my time to say to my children: You are worth for more to me than myself. Thank God that he redeems our vocations.
beautiful
Just remember that the most radically Christian thing you can do is be an honestly loving mother and wife since that is the life that you are living. The hardest job on the planet when done well is being a mother and wife because it is 24/7/365. Ephesians 2:10