I heard one of the best writing tips of my life this week listening to an old episode of On Being. Naiomi Shihab Nye suggests to try writing just three sentences a day.

That’s it. Three sentences. What happened today, what you see out the window, what you’re worried about. Whatever.

I just imagine if I had three sentences for every day of the last year. Or for every day of a child’s babyhood. That would be an amazing record, but not overwhelming to write or to read.

The thought of keeping a running journal has been overwhelming to me for a long time, but three sentences I can do. It’s never too late to start, right? I’m on day three, and so far, so good. Here are the three from yesterday:

It’s raining so gently that even on the porch I can barely hear it.

The yard-long beans are starting to climb.

“We’re not going to make much noise,” they said. And proceeded to giggle.

Technically four, I know, but the third one didn’t make sense without the fourth. It feels like writing poetry, without the pressure to make it into “something.” Much easier than writing a good closing sentence for a blog post. 🙂

I just loved this thread from Summer Kinard recently, about how what our world needs right now are “sea-level” saints. She says it much better than I ever could, but the idea is that as great as “up on the mountain” saints are, they’re not the ones physically in the trenches with our broken world.

We are.

So while the mountain saint is praying for all she’s worth, and enriching the world in that way, those of us down here on the flat land are close enough to reach out and touch people who are hurting. We are close enough be the physical presence of God to those who come into our paths, and maybe especially those who are so tired spiritually that all they can see right now is the physical.

I really appreciated Summer’s note that sea-level saints have to “find peace without silence.” Because in our house, for example, there is rarely silence, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have peace. (Do I crave the silence? Yes, I do. All the more reason I depend on God for my peace.)

Also, the lack of silence doesn’t mean we can’t be saints.

“Coming down from the mountain” is one of those images our team used often back in the days when we led retreats. The assumption was that we were sort of just down here mucking along until we could go back up, trying to hold on to the high of spending a weekend focused completely on our spirituality. The question was always, “How can we keep the mountain-ness with us after the retreat?”

I’m grateful to Summer for expressing so beautifully that the mountain isn’t the goal – Jesus is the goal, and he is not found only on the mountain tops. He is here, with us, walking the shore, talking to the fishermen…and the cashier at the grocery store, the elderly neighbor, and the guy in the line at the post office.

He is wherever someone is in need; he is everywhere that we reach out to that person in his name.

Now that Lent is over and the Easter season is in full swing, I thought it would be a good time (!) to share two Lenten reflection books that I really enjoyed this year. Probably I should save this post for right around the beginning of February next year…but there is little chance I’ll remember at that point.

The first is No Unlikely Saints by Cameron Bellm. For each week of Lent, this book considers a different (mostly modern) saint or blessed who speaks to our current moment. I learned a lot about some holy people I knew as well as some I hadn’t met before from the reflections, and the prayer suggestions were really challenging and beautiful. I’m considering using it again next year because I know I still have plenty of growing left to do in many of the areas it addresses.

Second, my older girls and I read Letters for Pilgrimage by Sarah Lenora Gingrich and A. N. Tallent. This one is directed at Orthodox Christian young ladies, but as a Roman Catholic adult I still found the reflections helpful. (I also learned what Clean Monday is, and felt slightly guilty at how easy Roman Catholic Lent is compared to Orthodox Lent!) Again, beautiful, hopeful, challenging, and encouraging writing from women “who have survived the wilderness of life,” as their publisher puts it.

I especially love that both of these books are written by what Julian of Norwich calls our “even Christians” – women just like the rest of us, just living our lives and trying our best to follow Jesus. That means their words are both challenging and possible – exactly what my Lent needed this year.