COVID-19 doesn't have to steal our thankfulness

For nearly a week, Anchorage has operated on something close to a shelter-in-place order, crushing the fragile social networks I’ve had only a few months to start here. I would never choose this level of isolation, but phone calls with loved ones have reminded me how much the discipline of gratitude can help in times like this.

At least until my community’s shutdown ends, then, I’m going to try a practice of more regular blogging — focused on what I’m thankful for. For now, I’ll leave the comments open, in case any of these posts prompt you to list some of your own thanks.

In praise of lists

During my 17 months on the road to research singleness, I sent regular updates to a few dozen people who’d committed to pray for my travels. But things sometimes got so crazy that my schedule forced a humbling retreat from any aspiration to eloquence.

I never got quite to the minimalism of Anne Lamott’s “Help, thanks, wow.” But lists provided a basic structure that let me share good news and challenges more randomly. And as any editor knows, the “listicle” offers a great catch-all approach to content, whether you’re feeling lazy, desperate or both.

But maybe lists can also take us deeper. Though English readers can’t easily discern the Hebrew acrostic involved, the longest of the Bible’s 150 psalms — 119 — works off a list structure.

Similarly, John Smed and the folks at Prayer Current have taught me much about using the Lord’s prayer to deepen my intercession for others. How much more I find to say to and ask God when I walk through the seven postures they’ve identified:

1. Sonship/daughtership (our intimate relationship with God, through Jesus’ work)

2. Worship

3. Evangelism/city renewal/God’s kingdom to come

4. Mercy and justice

5. Generosity and contentment

6. Unity and reconciliation

7. Guidance and advance

Of course, more words don’t automatically translate to depth. As some writer famously said, “I wrote you a long letter because I didn’t have time for a short one.” The author of Proverbs even says, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restraints his lips is prudent” (10:19).

336 reasons for thanks

Perhaps the goodness or badness of length depends in part on our focus. When I use Jesus’ prayer “grid” to discuss a situation with God, it drives me back to His perspective. Through those seven postures, I’m reminded that God desires wholeness far more comprehensively than I do. And just as the 10 commandments in Exodus 20 show, a life characterized by right treatment of others — generosity, contentment and forgiveness — starts with remembering who God is and how we relate to Him.

As part of remembering God’s goodness during my travels, I periodically wrote down a list of ways He’d shown up on my trip. By seven months in, I’d already found 336 things to think Him for — and that list undoubtedly missed a lot.

With massive shutdowns, widespread infection and great financial uncertainty, sometimes it seems all the virus can do is rob us. But every loss also creates opportunity.

Christian belief rests on a central paradox with which we should never entirely comfortable: the very worst thing (the death of God’s long-promised savior) also brought the very best thing — the way to end for once and for all the curse mankind’s sin ushered into the world, and through which we’ve suffered great pain and death ever since.

The Bible doesn’t tie that up with a neat bow. But trying to hold both things together clearly transformed the lives of the first disciples.

Though none of us would have ever chosen this virus and all it may cost us, I want to be open to however God wants to change me through this. (For more on being open during trials, see Tim Keller’s recent devotional on Psalm 11.)

Part of openness seems to require that I hold the pain and loss together with the ongoing gifts of God’s kindness. The former is all too easy to see — and often overwhelming. But since it’s so hard to hold, much less acknowledge or even recognize that any good at all exists right now, I’m going to try listing some thanks each day as a practice of remembrance. May it bless whoever reads this.

Friday, March 27 - Sourdough, coffee and sunlight

1. Drinkable coffee - For several months, I’ve been trying to banish the intestinal worms I picked up at on one or more stops throughout my trip. I’ve done medicine, herbs and bone-broth fasts, but am also trying to avoid foods that help worms thrive (primarily things with sugar).

For the past several weeks, I’ve had almost no sugar or dairy in my coffee — a hard change for this longtime sweet-and-white drinker. But thankfully, it’s turned out that adding coconut oil and cocoa powder adds both some health benefits and a pretty drinkable flavor.

2. Sourdough starter to feed - As some readers know, I carted (and possibly sometimes smuggled) a jar of sourdough through all but one of the 41 countries visited on my travels. Despite its long sojourns in the bowels of airline cargo holds and sometimes going far longer than 12 hours between feedings, my starter survived.

I’m grateful to have this connection with my trip and the San Francisco Bay Area where I lived beforehand. It also keeps me in very tasty homemade bread.

3. Safe, low-chlorine water to drink and cook with - Throughout my travels, I relied on a rechargeable UV light to clean the water I drank. In the United States, one needs such treatment less commonly, but that cleaner water often comes with a significant downside: trace chlorine. In California, we had enough that my housemates noticed skin irritation until they installed a chlorine filter in their shower. The chlorine also thwarted fermentation like my sourdough starter and another housemate’s ginger bug (it can kill the healthy bacteria that forms). Here in Alaska, I don’t have any such filter, but thankfully my sourdough starter has thrived on the local tap water.

Using a housemate’s French press to pour from while the measuring cup goes through the dishwasher (another thing for which to be hugely thankful!).

4. A warm spot for bread rising - The first time I came here, the only warm place I could find to put my sourdough starter was in the bowels of the dryer! Since moving back, though, I’ve learned that the downstairs bathroom stays plenty warm with the door shut. As a result, my starter expands enough in the recommended four to six hours that I can bake loaves raised solely by the starter — no commercial yeast added.

I'm told sourdough has a long tradition in Alaska, but that doesn't make a warm rising spot easy to find. #globalsinglenessproject #sourdoughstarter #sourdough #sourdoughworldtrip #sourdoughbread

11 Likes, 0 Comments - Anna (@danzfool) on Instagram: "I'm told sourdough has a long tradition in Alaska, but that doesn't make a warm rising spot easy to..."

5. Southern-exposure warmth in my bedroom - Anchorage still has lots of snow and ice on the ground, despite a recent stretch of days with temperatures several degrees above freezing. Much of the house stays cold enough that I need multiple layers to stay warm. But as it happens, my bedroom gets great — and growing — daytime sunlight, thanks to its southern exposure. I’m grateful to have such a pleasant, comfortable space for so much of my writing, reading and sewing.

Much more than sunlight to be thankful for. My down pillow (in the red case) survived the biting-mite hell of 2015-2016 — one of the only bed-related things I could retain. The sleeping bag escaped the suitcase loss that happened in Brazil, May 2019, and the Bible at lower left was a cousin’s gift after my previous pocket Bible got stolen at knife-point in Brazil, May 2019 (along with other objects).

The ironing board was a $1 ReStore find, after the employee marked it down four whole dollars when I noted its lack of a cover! The new cover I sewed draws on another thrift-store providence: a curtain I found on sale for $2 and managed to make this and four different tote bags from. God’s kindness also extends to the curtain, which I found for something between $2 and $4, also at the thrift store.

Even the water bottle survived getting forgotten in a German yarn shop during an earlier trip, and mercifully wasn’t in my “purse” the day of the hold-up. I normally carried it with me everywhere, but just happened to have taken it out for cleaning the night of the robbery.