The Wonder Report: May 7, 2021

The Art of Gathering

May 7, 2021

Happy Friday!

I don’t know about you, but now that my husband and I are both fully vaccinated against COVID-19, we’ve started gathering with people again. It’s been remarkable to be in the physical presence of people we know and love, but it’s also been … well, it’s been challenging. Emerging from pandemic isolation into a wide variety of social situations has highlighted the need for a little patience with ourselves in this next season.

The first time I met in person with the members of a nonprofit board I serve on was also the first time I ate inside a restaurant in months. A table for ten that normally would have felt large and roomy now made me claustrophobic. I kept scooting my chair one way then the other to allow space between me and the women next to me. We met for a board meeting, but as we made our way through the agenda we were also ordering food and eventually eating. I grew tense and distracted as the waitress came and went, some members asking for ketchup or a refill while the president carried on through the meeting. And then there was the uneven leg that made the table rock back and forth with every bite I took. By the time the meeting was over, I couldn’t wait to get back home.

The next time I was out with a friend, not only was there another uneven table leg at the restaurant, this time left the restaurant with a deep sense of regret. I’d talked too much, shared too personally, not listened well enough when she was talking. I vowed to myself that next time I’d be more guarded, ask more questions, talk less, but when we were invited to have dinner at another couple’s house, I left feeling the exact same way.

In the last few weeks, we’ve also been to a birthday party where I stayed off in the corner until everyone went outside, a small workshop where I was the only one wearing a mask, and a small gathering at our house where I completely forgot to bring the folding chairs up from the basement. Everyone just sort of stood around uncomfortably until I realized what had happened.

And it’s not like I’d rather continue meeting virtually. For the last few months, I thought it was the spotty Internet connection and the overcomplicated apps that were making those online gatherings awkward. Now that I’m back to getting together in-person and still struggling, I see that the problem is me.

What will it take to emerge from a pandemic and find myself happily engaging in gatherings of all sizes and types again? And what about hosting people at our home? How long will it take before I’m comfortable hugging people at the door and actually remembering to offer them a seat and a drink? And is admitting that we’re socially awkward now (it’s not just me—or you—I promise) really the first step in solving the problem?

As I was thinking about this new pandemic challenge, I remembered a book in my stack, one that I was actually planning to read in the late fall, when gathering takes on all the obligation and expectation of the holidays. But I decided now would be the perfect time to read The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker, because while we’re all trying to figure out what being together again looks like, we might as well do it with a little more intention.

I’ve actually read The Art of Gathering before. It’s a book for people who bring people together for all kinds of reasons: meetings, parties, funerals, conferences, etc.. I highly recommend it, though I’ll admit I haven’t used the principles as well as I could have. Because as Parker acknowledges right up front: “we tend to keep gathering in the same tired ways.” I could show you pictures of our boys’ birthday parties from the past few years, and if they hadn’t grown up and changed over the years, I wouldn’t be able to tell one party from the next.

We also seem to focus on the mechanics of gathering—the how—more than the purpose, or the why. We spend lots of time on food, decorations, AV equipment, and invitations “because we believe those are the only details we can control,” Parker writes. Her approach is different, though. This book isn’t a typical guide to gathering. There’s not a single recipe or invitation template. Parker’s “lens on gathering places people and what happens between them at the center of every coming together.”

Whenever she’s hired by a person or group to help with event planning, she always starts with purpose: Decide why you’re really gathering, she advises. And I like the way she’s clear about categories not being purposes. Celebrating a birthday or throwing a baby shower aren’t purposes; they are categories. Instead, she invites us to go deeper, to figure out the purpose of this birthday celebration or this baby shower. “Why is this gathering different from all my other gatherings? Why is it different from other people’s gatherings of the same general type? What is this that other gatherings aren’t?”

Once you know your purpose, that drives every decision about the gathering: venue, time, refreshments, guest list, agenda, etc.

“The purpose of your gathering is more than an inspiring concept. It is a tool, a filter that helps you determine all the details, grand and trivial.”

So many events are organized without this driving purpose, or at least not an obvious one. That may be why a lot of the parties, meetings, and workshops we go to are just fine but not great. Just because the event itself isn’t set up with a clear purpose, participants can create one for themselves.

A few years ago, I attended a writing conference that, to be fair, probably was organized with a clear, specific purpose in mind. The biannual Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College is a stellar event, and I go just about every time it’s offered. There was one year, though, that I went with my own purpose. Regardless of what sessions were offered or which keynote speakers had been invited, my goal was to build meaningful relationships with other authors I knew casually whose work was similar to mine. Once I had that purpose in mind, it changed the way I participated in the conference throughout the weekend. If I had a chance to talk with a writer after a session, I happily missed the next one to continue the conversation. If a writer I knew told me she was attending a particular session, I simply went along with no regard for what I had planned.

Attending a gathering with a specific purpose in mind brought it to life in ways I would have missed if I’d simply stuck to the agenda and followed the purpose the organizers had intended.

Of course, my approach worked at a large event where a planning committee’s purpose could never be specific enough to meet the needs of all participants. At a smaller gathering, like a dinner party or funeral, if it’s clear the organizer has a specific purpose in mind, then the most generous thing I can do as a guest is to abandon my own purposes and follow theirs.

My interest in Parker’s book goes beyond gathering well on this side of an isolated and lonely year, I also love Parker’s book because of the way it invites us, as Christians, to rethink gathering. The kingdom of God is nothing if not a gathering of God’s children, invited with a purpose that drives everything we do. And that purpose is love.

Despite the awkwardness of this season, despite our ambivalence about resuming with all the busyness of in-person events and meetings and dinners, we can feel our way forward with love. Jesus said it’s simple; all the Law and the prophets are summed up with just these two commands: Love God and love people. Whatever else we may hope to accomplish, when we gather people with the goal of loving God and loving people, we can figure out the rest along the way.

It was a big week in the Craig house: our youngest son Jacob signed papers to begin the enlistment process with the U.S. Marine Corps. To celebrate, we hosted a small gathering at our house.

Wonder Challenge

What’s the purpose of your next gathering?

“Having a purpose simply means knowing why you’re gathering and doing your participants the honor of being convened for a reason,” Priya Parker writes. One way she suggests getting to the real purpose of a gathering is to take whatever initial reason you can think of and then “keep asking why until you hit a belief or value.”

Here’s the challenge: Whether you are hosting a gathering or simply attending one, ask yourself why. What is the purpose of the event? This is certainly easier if you’re the one planning it, but it can even be helpful as an attendee. Once you know the purpose, let it drive your decisions and/or engagement with others during the event.

This and That

Here are a few articles, essays, and more to give you hope, to make you think, to grow your faith, and as always, to help root you in love.

1. The Great Green Picnic Table by Leslie Bustard for The Cultivating Project. This beautiful essay taps into the tension that Priya Parker addresses early in The Art of Gathering: The details of the event seem so important but really it’s about giving people a chance to connect in a meaningful way.

From the essay: “Gathering family and friends around a table—and many times around my generic green, heavy-duty plastic one-piece picnic table—has been one of the most heart-satisfying ways to show how much I want people to be known and to be loved. It has been a small way to image Jesus in my everyday life. As Andi Ashworth in Real Love for Real Life: The Art and Work of Caregiving shares, ‘Christ has welcomed us into his presence and his kingdom, and we are to imitate him as we welcome others.’”

2. The Other Side of Languishing Is Flourishing. Here’s How to Get There. by Dani Blum for The New York Times. Two weeks ago I shared an article by organization psychologist Adam Grant about languishing. I saw lots of people talking about it online because it seemed to capture our collective late-pandemic zeitgeist. Though Grant offered some suggestions for addressing languishing in our lives, I was delighted to see Blum name the opposite experience—flourishing—and give us a vision for how to achieve it in our own lives.

From the essay: “With vaccination rates on the rise, hope is in the air. But after a year of trauma, isolation and grief, how long will it take before life finally — finally — feels good?

“Post-pandemic, the answer to that question may be in your own hands. A growing body of research shows that there are simple steps you can take to recharge your emotional batteries and spark a sense of fulfillment, purpose and happiness. The psychology community calls this lofty combination of physical, mental and emotional fitness “flourishing.” It is the exact opposite of languishing, that sense of stagnation Adam Grant wrote about recently for The Times.”

3. Cicadas Have an Existential Problem by Ed Yong for The Atlantic. Brood X, is coming, and there’s no better person to break down the details of these 17-year Cicadas coming this summer than the Atlantic’s science writer Ed Yong. Yong has masterfully covered the pandemic over the last year, and I always learn so much from everything he writes. In fact, he may be the only writer I know who can make the world of insects feel remarkably familiar.

From the essay: “Cicadas might seem like creatures with concerns quite different from our own. But like us, they have come to rely on an interconnected network of parts that becomes more unwieldy and fragile with time, and that they can barely control. After a year of straining supply chains, globally coursing misinformation, and the layered disasters of pandemic pathogens and a changing climate, the cicadas’ plight might feel eerily familiar. In a few weeks, Brood X cicadas will emerge into a world not unlike the ones inside them.”

Visually Speaking

In this section, I'll highlight visual and performing artists and talk about how their work inspires mine. I'd love to hear about artists you love and whose work you admire.

For the month of May, I’d like to introduce you to the work of Amy Grimes, an artist who calls herself a story painter. I was first introduced to Amy’s work through The Cultivating Project, a beautiful online journal all its own. Since then, I’ve been following Amy’s work on Instagram and got her permission to share some of that work with you.

I chose this week’s painting for obvious reasons: It’s called Wonder.

WONDER 24X30 Acrylic on Gallery Canvas SOLD Have you ever felt small and insignificant? It’s an unpleasant sensation. For me, it comes when I compare myself to other people who are more successful or beautiful or impressive than I. But have you ever felt that magical sort of smallness that comes from standing at the base of an enormous blue-green mountain? Or staring up into the branches of an ancient, mossy tree? That is a different kind of feeling. It’s the kind that whispers, “You’re small and special. You’re a tiny treasured part of a vast and beautiful plan.” — WONDER, 24X30 Acrylic on Gallery Canvas

Here’s what Amy writes about this painting: “Have you ever felt small and insignificant? It’s an unpleasant sensation. For me, it comes when I compare myself to other people who are more successful or beautiful or impressive than I. But have you ever felt that magical sort of smallness that comes from standing at the base of an enormous blue-green mountain? Or staring up into the branches of an ancient, mossy tree? That is a different kind of feeling. It’s the kind that whispers, ‘You’re small and special. You’re a tiny treasured part of a vast and beautiful plan.’”

I’ll be giving away a print of this painting at the end of the month, so be sure to watch for more details to come.

VISIT AMY ONLINE

Writer’s Notebook

One of my greatest joys is to encourage writers as they hone their craft, develop their voice, and live a meaningful writing life. Here are some tips, insights, prompts, and more to help you as you write.

I recently purchased Scrivener, a word-processing program and outliner designed for authors, after several writers I know recommended it. A few weeks after I started using it (and loving it), another friend told me how Scrivener doesn’t really work for her. And I could imagine in a different season of my life, or for a different project, it wouldn’t work so well for me either.

That’s the thing about writing tools: sometimes they work for us and sometimes they don’t. But the more tools we know about, and the more we know about each of the tools available, the more we can choose the right tool for the right job. It really does make a difference. (Just ask me about my kitchen zester: how would you even zest a lemon without it?)

In the spirit of knowing what tools are available and what they can do, I wanted to recommend an article from The Write Life called 10 Google Docs Hacks That Make Writing More Seamless by Carson Kohler. I use Google Docs for a lot of my writing work—and have for years—for many of the reasons she outlines here. But I still learned a few new hacks that will help me immensely.

And yes, even though I’m now using Scrivener for one large project, I will continue to use Google Docs for most of the rest of my work, largely because of some of the features Kohler highlights in the article.

What are some of your favorite writing tools? I’d love to hear about what works for you.

Well, you’ve come to the end of another Wonder Report! Thanks again for sharing this time with me. If you’d like to send me a note or ask a question, you can hit reply and end up in my inbox. Or you can also leave a comment on this newsletter, which will live in the archive over on Substack. It’s one of my favorite features of this platform.

The Wonder Report