I turned off the news over Memorial Day weekend. Instead of continuing my daily practice of listening to Heather Cox Richardson, reading a few pieces of long form journalism on Apple News+, and hitting the highlight reel on Substack, I read two books, puttered in the yard, and watched playoff hockey. It was exactly what my heart and head needed.
But boy: reentry was tough.
I would sincerely love nothing more than to disconnect my phone, turn off the internet at our house, and plug my ears (metaphorically speaking) to the bad news the world keeps pumping out. It would be so much simpler to disengage. But the dissonance between pretending everything is fine when ICE agents continue to detain US citizens, the House passed Trump’s “deficit-swelling,” tax-cuts-for-the-rich Big, Beautiful Bill, and kids are still being killed in Gaza is jarring to say the least.
How can I read a cutesy romance book and drink iced coffee on my patio when the world is on fire?
Recently, I had two very different but eerily similar conversations. One was online, one in person. Both originated from a place of care and concern. The first began something like this:
“I was grateful when you posted about the inherent worth and human dignity of immigrants and refugees on your social media platforms. That was brave, and I was glad to see you use your voice. But lately, you’ve been posting about gardening and books—things that don’t really matter. I feel like you’ve abdicated your role and are pretending everything is fine when it’s clearly not. What happened?”
And the second went like this:
“I used to love following you online. It was such a kind, safe space that felt like a refuge from all the drama and noise of social media. But I’m going to have to stop following you if you keep posting about political things. Many of your readers don’t align with your politics, and when you say controversial things, it makes us feel unwelcome.”
Both conversations stung. But I don’t want to be defensive, I want to be curious. So I tried to lean in and listen, and this is what I heard:
We don’t want to be uncomfortable. Ever.
Myself included.
Confronting injustice is always messy and painful; we (and others) will get hurt as broken systems are challenged and hopefully destroyed. The slow arc toward justice is guaranteed to be a long, agonizing process that often feels hopeless—maybe even doomed. And we will be asked to sacrifice, learn from our mistakes (there will be many), and keep the faith even when we feel utterly bereft. Some people won’t want to embark on this journey at all, and will choose to pretend that they are either ignorant or unaffected. We can’t bully those people into caring, nor can we hope to win them over by eviscerating them online, in person, or behind their backs. I believe our best posture is that of humble kindness, as “sheep in the midst of wolves… shrewd as serpents and harmless as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)
And confronting injustice will always require rest. We can’t draw from an empty well or engage at high levels of intensity without pausing to breathe. Sometimes that will feel like stepping away before our hearts and bodies breakdown. Beth Moore once said that God will ask us to rest, he’ll tell us to rest, and if we still refuse to listen, he will make us rest—usually in the form of something that we would rather not endure (an injury, illness, or setback that requires us to slow down). And often, while we are taking a moment of respite, we will battle our inner critic who is telling us we’re not doing enough, we’re weak, or we just need to press on, no matter the consequences.
In my recent conversations, one person didn’t want to deal with the messy, painful side of confronting injustice, and the other didn’t want me to rest. But I feel called to both. To living in that gray space between, accepting that nothing is ever really black or white when you examine it closely.
Yes, nuance is hard, but it doesn’t have to be: two things can be true most of the time. (All the time?) And binary thinking silos us in ways that can be catastrophic. (See: our current state of affairs.)
We can live at the intersection of BOTH/AND. It’s often an uncomfortable place to be, but at its messy, complicated heart, it’s HONEST.
I both believe that the immigration system in the US needs to be reformed and that every person regardless of immigration status should be treated with dignity and respect.
I both love my Jewish neighbors and my Palestinian neighbors, and believe they all deserve to live free from fear of persecution.
I both believe we should cut waste, fraud, and abuse in government entities and that it can and should be done carefully, slowly, and with great wisdom and discernment while respecting the work of faithful government servants.
I both think that there are many ways that the United States could work to be a healthier nation and that gutting medical research and restricting access to vaccines and/or life-saving medical procedures is not the way to do it.
I both love my country and believe that Christian nationalism is evil and wrong.
and…
I will both speak out against injustice and rest by taking comfort in the little, day-to-day pleasures.
My son snapped this photo of me when he was five. It’s blurry and I’m a hot mess, but I love it. He caught me at an unvarnished, rumpled moment when I was in the thick of being a mom to four littles. The laundry, the landline pressed to my ear, the topknot and Coke-bottle thick glasses. It’s perfect in a both/and way. I both loved that season of my life and found it incredibly difficult and draining. I both strived to be a good mom and sometimes resented the thankless drudgery of it. I both felt tired almost constantly and took great, exuberant joy in my children. It was a nuanced time to say the very least.
I hope you’ll join me in this gray space. Embrace the mess: the sticky, still-working-it-all-out nature of living and learning and trying to be open hearted. We’ll get it wrong, and then we’ll try again, holding it all loosely as we go.
Thanks for reading. xoxo - Nicole
I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, a roundup of world-class journalists who call Iowa home. I invite you to check out the group and become a paying member of one or more of our pages.
Right now I feel that speaking out is a sometimes dangerous and heart breaking...the backlash from those aligning with this administration can be huge. Staying silent, for me, is beyond heart breaking. Staying silent feels like watching a building burn to the ground, knowing that someone might be inside. I can't, just like you can't. I don't think that anyone should be asked to. Thank you for continuing to put words to these crazy days!!
At the Iowa Writers' Collaborative meetup in Keosauqua in April, I said out loud what I often feel about the small-town-slice-of-life pieces I write for my own IWC column, "Reporting from Quiltropolis," that my topics are frivolous compared to what journalists like Robert Leonard, Rekha Basu, and Dave Busiek have to say about the state of our state and our nation. "No," Bob Leonard said, "we need those stories too, in order to stay grounded, to balance the rest." No matter what you write about, Nicole, whether it's gardening or injustice, I want (and need) to read you.