Between You and Me: Fifth Anniversary Edition!!!

Back from Paris, Maine, and Newport! Resting as a practice and a prayer

After appearing beneath every essay for four years, BETWEEN YOU AND ME is now a special offering for paid subscribers. It is full of behind-the-scenes updates and fun recommendations like I’d share over coffee with a friend. Thank you so much for being here!

Every July, we celebrate the birthday of WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE, which launched on July 24, 2019. This year brings a big milestone: We have been here for five years now!

For half a decade, wow, I can’t believe that, this little column has centered big parts of life like spirituality, relationships, grief, justice, pleasure, and connection. Together we have asked, and continue to ask, how to find meaning as we move through each day. We have explored ways to make sense of the lives we are living, even amidst personal struggle, a pandemic, and political turmoil. We continually look for truth and beauty in the world around us, and that is no small thing.

The first three years of this publication were marked by weekly essays, and eventually, I reduced the publishing schedule to accommodate my reading-and-writing-heavy program at Yale, so I currently offer one public essay and one behind-the-scenes letter per month.

Thank you so much for opening these emails and spending the past year, two years, or five with me in this space. It means everything to me to meet you in each sentence, find each other inside an essay, or receive emails and comments about how you are experiencing these ideas.

If you would like to celebrate with me, please enjoy a special birthday offer for 20 percent off paid subscriptions!

I have so much to share in the year ahead, my third and final year at Yale. I am thinking about love, repair, and connection, as always, and I am curious to see how those themes will unfold with work I will be doing in restorative practice and spiritual care. I am also wondering how we might bring our values and commitments to life communally in this election year. As much as possible, I am also thinking towards a book!

I would love to share all of that with you and more:

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After five years of writing here, there are so many pieces in the archives that, depending on where you find yourself, might be worth revisiting. Along with monthly behind-the-scenes updates, a paid subscription also grants access to the entire archive, so you can take a look at essays about the mystery that shapes us, experiencing grief, glimpsing eternity, redefining god and how you encounter the idea of god, and diffusing despair. And here are two all-time reader favorites about living with grief and the underrated but critical way to find the answers you need.

Thank you so much for being here with me! And now…

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What I’ve Been Doing & What’s Going On

July was thrilling. I went to Paris, and Maine, and Rhode Island! I was inspired in Paris and rejuvenated in Maine. Instead of checking off career and academic boxes this summer, I decided to choose rest and recalibration in a really intentional way, which is such a privilege. As I said last month, last year was…