Rick Pierce (00:00)
Welcome friends to the Heart Strong Way. I'm Rick Pearson. I'm so glad to be together. Today is our December version of our monthly feature called Art + Heart, where we feature the art of poetry and writing as a means of understanding our hearts. I had a great time doing this month's podcast as we talked about the difficulty of a complicated Advent season. I'm joined again by my Art + Heart co-hosts, Sandee Finley and Jenna Brack.
But a special guest for this episode is my wife Laura. So with that, let's get started.
Rick Pierce (00:35)
It's good to see you guys. I love these times when we get to gather. And this one is special because it's Advent season. And think most homes in the U.S. and beyond are kind of
Sandee Finley (00:39)
Thank
Rick Pierce (00:48)
up to that point of having trees up and we're doing school programs and concerts and Christmas events and all the joy and stress of shopping. And my 18 year old son especially is fond of the warmth of Christmas and he loves the feel of it. And I do too, our living room in the evenings is a place of great peace with the tall Christmas tree and the warm lights and the smells of what I call little smoke machines, which are really just the diffusers.
Laura Pierce (00:56)
and the best shopping.
Rick Pierce (01:15)
in our home that our wife has done such a great job with and my wife, not our wife, but and there are truly so many just wonderful, wonderful parts of this Christmas season. I just love it so much.
Sandee Finley (01:27)
Yeah, know, Rick, when we were talking about doing this particular episode, was thinking we were talking about traditions and one tradition that our family has started doing about 14 years ago, which has brought great, great joy to our family is one that actually my daughter Phoebe, came up with. So when we started having kids, my family of origin,
We celebrated Christmas big, there really weren't any traditions. We didn't do the same thing. My mom didn't really let us decorate the tree because she decorated it certain way. So when I had kids, I'm a person of excess. So we have like way too many traditions. So we've been doing pajamas and ornaments like a lot of families do on Christmas Eve.
food that we have that's particular. But probably the thing that's become one of the most meaningful things is the one that my daughter Phoebe came up with it was 2011. We were at my parents' house
celebrating Christmas and it would be our last Christmas at that house And my younger brother and his family, we had just lost my older brother. So it's really special for us all to be together. And Phoebe happened to notice where my parents living room, there was a Bruce Springsteen CD under my parents coffee table, Phoebe saw that and started doodling.
So in her mind, so she's like 15, I think, she just puts together the creative way her mind works. Huh, what if we combined Bruce Springsteen and the Sphinx? And she came up with Sphinx-Teen, which is Bruce Springsteen, Sphinx-Teen. And she actually did some things where she put a picture of his actual head on a body and.
Rick Pierce (02:50)
Sphinx steen
Sandee Finley (03:01)
know, joke that this was gonna, she was gonna be famous, that he was gonna find out, it was gonna be like, an album cover or something. But sometime in the year or two that followed, she had this idea that it would be like one of the first gifts of Christmas. So she took that original picture that was in this journal, and it's a very funny photo, and she created Sphinxstein merchandise.
So now every year she draws a name on December 1st and sends it out to the family like, know what today is. And then on Christmas Eve, after we've done, my kind of tame traditions,
Laura Pierce (03:28)
Thanks
Sandee Finley (03:39)
she starts playing Born in the USA and then walks around and everyone is on pins and needles waiting to see if they are Sphinxteen that year.
it was just, it was very, very
ours.
Rick Pierce (03:50)
Great. I love that so much. The Sphinxsteen ... I think I'll always be remembering that. And this is so great how as a parent work so hard to try to get everything covered and right. And let's do all the things and the traditions and such. And here you have one that just sort of, shoots up from the child in your family, right? And becomes something that has staying power. And that's great. What a great story.
Sandee Finley (03:54)
you
Yes.
Yeah.
Rick Pierce (04:14)
Well, here we are starting out and it's nice for listeners to know a little bit who they're engaging with. So I'll do some introductions Sandee's an artist and published author, a long time educator of all sorts and a wife and mother of five. Jenna Brack is an artist, a published writer, a writing coach, wife and mother. And you can find more about Jenna at jennabrack.com.
I am Rick Pierce, a seasoned counselor, leadership coach and founder of Heartstrong. And today we are joined by my wife, Laura. Laura is a profoundly gifted mother of six and is one of the kindest human beings. And I thought she would be one of the best people to engage with our topic today. And in today's podcast, we're going to be exploring the
Well, the difficult side of the Advent season or any season. When we're in the midst of experiences that bring us sadness, grief, pain, insecurity. There's so many, and I've been engaging hearts this week and there's a heaviness even of engaging where people are at who are just in places of real suffering, real struggle, so much unknown,
I have a couple seeking separation during the holidays and those who have lost or in the process of losing a loved one spouses with military spouses overseas Those struggling with anxiety and the crippling nature of ongoing depression so I thought we'd want to do a podcast to talk about and honor the reality of
an Advent season that is also filled with sort of unknowns and the grit of unsureness, which is quite the reality for Mary and Joseph, of course. as some of you know, Laura and I, we've been in for a bit over a year now in a very difficult season with our youngest daughter, Lottie Joy, who is 13 years old. And she has Down syndrome.
And boy, starting a little over a year ago, Lottie just started to show signs of regression. She had been fully functional in school, with her peers. And she had been doing her work going out on the playground and playing and doing all the things that a 12-year-old little girl would do.
And then last fall, within the course of about two to three weeks, she had lost most all of her ability to walk, to talk. She lost her ability to sort of go through doorways and down curbs and across streets. then, before long, and Laura, can expand on this story, of course, but
Before long, she had become fully catatonic and just sort of inside of herself. And really it's been a profoundly long, long, difficult road of trying to get her help and living in this space. so Laura, I'd love for you to share something of your personal experience of a
of a season of life, where you don't have answers and there's a lot of unknowns. I wonder if you'd share a little bit about what it's like for you these days.
Laura Pierce (07:28)
I'm really honored to be with you and to honor the space of the reality that we're in. like you said, so many people are in the instinct to shine it up or stuff it down is really strong. And sometimes just the space to speak the truth of how hard things are can be really healing. We don't have the benefit of hindsight yet.
which means we are currently in a state of exhaustion and anxiety. And one of the consistent traits of that for me has been confusion, contradiction. So it's hard to speak about. I have found a lot of comfort from people who've been willing to speak in the midst of suffering, not just with it in the...
rear view mirror. And so that gives me courage to share our story right now.
I would say we're really limping into Christmas season. There's no twirling happening for us this year.
We are, as you said, marking a year of pretty unrelenting grief as we just really bear the loss of the Lottie that just brought us so much joy and connection and the burden of needing to transition without any expectation of that to full-time caretaking.
while grieving has kind of been a double whammy. Like with Lottie's condition, she needs full-time care, 24-hour full-time care
Rick Pierce (09:05)
Say a little bit more about that Laura.
Laura Pierce (09:15)
with her just eating, drinking, using the restroom, getting dressed, moving. We have to carry her a lot of the time. We support her to walk and are excited when she can take some steps on her own. But it's really been an experience of isolation in the requirement to stay in our little bubble to kind of help her try to stay regulated. we don't leave the house very often.
Rick Pierce (09:36)
you
Laura Pierce (09:40)
We find that any kind of sensory stimulation of even people she knows and is familiar with to really be dysregulating for her. So our world has just gotten really, really tiny.
Rick Pierce (09:53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Laura Pierce (09:57)
in a way that is hard to keep our bearings, I would say it's hard to find ourself in space and understand with any sort of confidence where the ground is. and it has been prolonged. I think the element of recognizing the year marker, the anniversary of this has given us sense of
Rick Pierce (10:07)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm.
Laura Pierce (10:22)
of weight to the length of this state of survival mode that kind of does block out the things that I love most about Christmas. The ideal simple peace is really hard to find and things like joy feel really elusive and holy smokes talk about complicated hope.
Rick Pierce (10:35)
and
Hmm.
Laura Pierce (10:47)
What do we hope for? What does our future look like? What does Lottie's future look like? Very complicated. Yeah.
Rick Pierce (10:48)
Mm. Well.
complicated hope. Well, yeah, now that's really descriptive. And certainly you and I are in this together. And it's such a, something I deeply resonate with boy that complicated hope. wanting to have hope, When will this pass? Is this what's this going to look like down the road?
tell me a little bit more about what you think when you say complicated hope.
Laura Pierce (11:16)
consider the really pure simplistic view of hope, which seems rooted in circumstances that are manageable, if not pleasant and comfortable. And when those circumstances involve so much suffering, the frenetic energy around
Rick Pierce (11:29)
Hmm.
Laura Pierce (11:40)
stopping that, managing that can be really consuming I find my attention fixated on just making the suffering stop. So for me, the complexity of hope is surrendering to the reality of that ongoing suffering. And before it's resolved, while it's ongoing, still having a sense of God with us,
Rick Pierce (11:56)
Hmm.
Hmm. Well, Say that again. accepting life as it really is. Say it again. That was so wonderful.
Laura Pierce (12:12)
I think the temptation to jump out of the reality of the pain is really strong. And so for me, the surrender to our reality opens me up in a way to receive joy and beauty amidst our suffering that feels like a really robust hope, not rooted in the circumstances changing. That's really counterintuitive for me.
Rick Pierce (12:17)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, surrendering to life as it is to reality, to the suffering, surrendering to the suffering. Well, that's really profound to me, as of course, you and I talk about this all the time. But even as you say it, it kind of strikes me again. And I kind of go, yeah, that's right. Surrender to suffering.
Laura Pierce (12:40)
but it has been really strong.
Yeah, I have an example from this morning. One of the deepest griefs for me is that Lottie doesn't know us a lot of the time. And just the loss of that ability to connect with her and comfort her in her pain is really acute grief for me as her mom and
on the monitor saw that she was awake this morning. And so I went in to her in her bed. She's talking to someone that I can't see. And she notices me in the room and she says, who are you? Why are you here? I'm Lottie And the like searing cut of that, my baby.
there, not knowing me and my desire to push that away and just be overcome by that pain and to hold open, to expand open my heart, to feel that pain and move forward towards her and bend down to her in the bed. And then she puts both of her hands up on my cheeks and...
The love, the purity of the vulnerability of the love in that moment takes the walls of joy, which I have said need to feel a certain way. And they've broken open this room where pain is so acute, and yet there's love and beauty and joy here.
Rick Pierce (14:42)
Well, I think about the expanding of the walls or the definition of hope or joy. And you said it so, beautifully and that you won't be able to receive that particular joy.
Laura Pierce (14:37)
And that has changed me. That has turned me to a different person, I would say.
Rick Pierce (14:54)
until you have capacity for that kind of joy. And by nature, we demand what kind of joy we're going to allow for our count as valuable or count as worthy and what kind of hope we're going to see as actually hope. then when all that gets sort of annihilated, you know, and sort of the walls come down of our version of what is hope.
That's why even we start about the idea of, the warmth of Christmas and the lights and sounds and smells and how nice it would be just to go back into simplicity again. And it's there still and it's a good simplicity. It's a good thing, the sights and smells and loves and all that of Christmas. And yet now there's this different experience, now there's profound suffering and grief and tragedy and trauma and it doesn't go away and you don't know how long it's going to be here.
assumptions will be here forever and all of that and sort of come and say, what does hope look like? What does joy look like? And thank you for giving that picture of a moment of what extreme cutting pain looks like of the loss of your daughter and who she had always been and who you want her to be in the dreams and all the longings.
And then also in the very next breath, I think God gives that moment of also, okay, here's your joy right now. Here's what she looks like, you know? And I think that's just lovely. Just lovely.
Jenna Brack (16:18)
Yeah, thank you, Laura. Even in your words, you're expanding my understanding of what it means to have that complicated hope or that complicated joy in the midst of suffering. And I think your words are that it's broken you open. And so this, you know, I know we're about to talk about expansion here, but that these very categories that you've held onto of what hope or joy looks like are being just stretched to the breaking point.
I see that in your story and thank you for your willingness and your courage to bring us into that. It's helpful for me in my own just small places of grief to sit with you and for you to invite us into that really vulnerable space of grief that you're walking through.
Sandee Finley (17:04)
Yeah, I agree. And was helpful for me even, I can think about ways that I've constructed my idea of what safety should look like, and that those things sometimes need to kind of blown up But I haven't really thought about my constructs of joy and hope and then being like that, those are the things that kind of.
keep us from being present and experiencing the fullness of our lives. It was really, really helpful for me to think about that and to see that. So thank you so much.
Rick Pierce (17:38)
I'm struck when you say that your instinct is to sort of want to push away, know, push away. I, last night putting Lottie to bed, I was laying on the floor next to her as we do every night and just kind of watching her. And those are times for me to really
soak her in as she finally falls asleep and the efforts of the day have passed and as it is for perhaps all parents and children, but I was just soaking her in and the thought just came to me about how much I protest the difficulty of caring for her. You know, of carrying her 95 pound body up and down the stairs and to the bathroom and
I always on guard for when the dysregulated moment is going to come and what it's going to look like And I had that moment of just, I think God just speaking into me in the moment and saying, being, not hating the suffering. I tend to hate the suffering. I don't hate my Lottie Joy, I hate the suffering. And my normal disposition throughout the day,
is kind of one that is opposed to the suffering. I don't like what's happening and I wish it was different and I can get in a rut where I constantly wish it was different. And so you inviting me again and maybe last night God invited me into a space of if you're constantly just wishing it was different, you cannot receive the beauty of this child.
who's sitting right in front of you and sleeping right in front of you. I love what you've brought to us today about the letting go and the surrendering into suffering.
Jenna Brack (19:20)
Yeah, Laura, thanks so much for your generosity. It really serves us in our own places of difficulty. Thank you also, Rick. you're both walking through a really tremendously difficult season and we are with you in that. As I've been starting this Advent season, I have been reading a book.
Rick Pierce (19:37)
Thank
Jenna Brack (19:43)
by an author, name is Stephanie Duncan Smith. And I'll just hold this up here for those who are following along by watching the title of the book is called, Even After Everything, the Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway. And I think what a season that Rick and Laura, you are in of taking on great risk and loving right through it. And in this book, Stephanie Smith is talking about
Rick Pierce (19:53)
Good
Jenna Brack (20:09)
pregnancy and pregnancy loss that she experienced. And she was experiencing these losses and joys in the context of the pandemic when there was this overwhelming loss that we were all walking through collectively together. And so I'm still in the middle of reading the book, but she's walking through her sense of loss next to the liturgical year. So placing the seasons of the church calendar.
Rick Pierce (20:11)
Mm-hmm.
Jenna Brack (20:34)
alongside her personal story that she was walking out. And early in the book, she writes about Advent. And she was in a season of taking on some risk, stepping into a pregnancy journey. And I just found her categories really helpful because she talked about Advent as in part a season of expansion. And she talks about expansion as opposed to
Rick Pierce (20:47)
Mm.
Jenna Brack (21:00)
just simple happiness or the light and bright, the ice skating and the twinkle lights, the things that are just feeling flimsy when you're in a season of suffering. So she talks about expansion as an enlargement of our interior selves. And that's exactly what you were just saying, Laura, like this, even this framework for hope is being expanded through this terrible pain and suffering. And she also,
Rick Pierce (21:14)
Mm.
Jenna Brack (21:26)
contrasts expansion with the idea of ascension. So often we want to grow by like climbing the ladder or improving, but expansion is something different, right? It's this broadening, reaching out, connecting with others, perhaps taking risk and talks about how Advent is a story of that. When Mary steps into this accepting, being the mother of Jesus, she has to stretch and
Rick Pierce (21:48)
Mm.
Jenna Brack (21:52)
walk through something that's very uncomfortable, but that expands the story. So we wanted to just think a little bit about this beautiful concept that Stephanie Smith has given us here about this idea of expansion. And Rick, I think I'll let you
Rick Pierce (22:04)
Yeah.
Jenna Brack (22:06)
just a short quote from the book here.
Rick Pierce (22:06)
Yeah, great, great, great. Yeah. Expansion is the great ask upon our innermost muscles to stretch beyond the borders of the self toward others, making wide the way for deep connection, for contact with something that is other than ourselves. Whether the body stretches to make room for new life or the heart to encompass greater connection and empathy,
Expansion is the active choice for growth, and as such, it is rarely comfortable. It works and wearies deep muscle. It pushes us to the edge, imposing scars that mark such a stretch. It is the nature of expansion to create tension to stretch, and so it is no wonder that we often resist it. And yet, expansion is the way of growth. It is the way
of Advent. Wow. I'm just really tickled at what you've both have brought to us with Stephanie's writing and expansion and the gifts that Laura and I, we've been given of just the stories that we can bring to the table of wanting to resist and push away
the expansion. And let me just say, and then we'll maybe get some thoughts about that reading of Stephanie's on expansion. I have to come along and sort of give myself permission to hate expansion. And I want to be able to free that for anybody who's listening to say suffering sucks.
So with that great backdrop, we say, now, how do we go through times of suffering, times of loss, times of grief, times of unknown, and you're always in a time of unknown. You may not recognize it, but we're always in this expansion kind of time. So what comes up for you guys as you hear that, as we read through that?
Jenna Brack (24:02)
I'm just thinking about the discomfort and I love how Smith uses this metaphor of pregnancy and the stretching and the way it just affects our very bodies. But just this connection that she makes about how uncomfortable these times can be. I mean, it can be exciting in one way to be expanding. It's what we want. We want to grow. But it's also difficult. Like growth, real growth is actually
quite painful and requires a lot of us. And so I can just resonate with that feeling of discomfort when something is growing or expanding. I appreciate her bringing our attention to that.
Sandee Finley (24:41)
think for me as someone who tends to be a really great reframer of all things sad and hurtful and God has really been unwinding that for me because that is my go-to is to gloss over the hard and to really actually fold up like to get kind of in the midst of hard things or conflict
And so when I hear that word expansion, I think about through the last couple of years, that what it has meant to begin to like unfold myself and be able to embrace both.
joy and extreme loss. And I think just before, I just felt like I had to protect myself and protect my people by getting smaller rather than, opening up my heart in ways that was excruciating. But,
necessary and beautiful. And even this week, in this first week of Advent, we've had a dear friend with a cancer diagnosis the same day that they're seeing their baby's sonogram picture. And then a couple of days ago, found out that a dear friend of ours passed away
for children three to 13 and the expanse of new life coming in and life being lost and life being compromised and God giving us the strength, the fortitude to continue to open up,
Rick Pierce (25:58)
Thanks.
Sandee Finley (26:11)
be able to see it all and to be there for people and this week has just been a picture of that for me.
Rick Pierce (26:16)
Yeah. Yeah. So we've been really talking a lot about the, nature of suffering to expand us. And it naturally does expand us because there's lack of control and inability to use all of our tools and witty ways, to find a hope and a joy that is palatable to us. and then
we've kind of talked about the surrendering to the expansion and not the fighting of the suffering of the pain and surrendering into it.
What's something of the joy that you have found Laura in that letting go time.
Laura Pierce (26:54)
I think where I'm coming to and I really appreciate what you guys have shared is integration. The word integration is really grounding for me in the really gracious patient practice of allowing reality and idealism to coexist.
I think the picture of what we think life, what I think life should be when it comes into contradiction with reality is the source of my suffering. And when I can picture my heart as a room and when I can allow the chairs to be next to each other of both the picture, the good picture, the
the true picture of what we're made for. So not to become cynical or resent peace or like you say, the simplicity of a child. I have so many happy memories of Christmas Eve, risers at the front of the church, craning our necks to see our little girls in their Christmas dresses, chubby hands holding the advent with the little paper thing on it like.
The simplicity of all that is so beautifully reflective of what we're made for. But then when I'm confronted with a suffering that seems to just smack that in the face. So I should be feeling peace, but I'm feeling this chaotic, anxious. I have so much trouble.
integrating both of those two things, not trying to control either one to jump over to the edge of like, happy, happy. I think even in our Christian faith, we can really try to use scripture or just really dismiss pain and try to live in this really false, narrow, shallow version of what we're made for that
the integration then of holding those ideal pictures, but allowing the reality of the suffering to just come and right alongside coexist that that's expansion to me that.
combination, the resilience for the contradiction is where all of a sudden joy is a surprise. I have this poem, if I could, a few lines from Mary Oliver. Could I read it about joy? I think in a season of survival mode, we can just try and like slap on a couple like, no, there was something happy, but like my reality is horrible. And
Rick Pierce (29:17)
Mm.
Laura Pierce (29:39)
So much of the integration is a posture of openness to joy even here. And these words of Mary Oliver, I wonder if you'll resonate with them. It's from her poem, Don't Hesitate. I think it's pretty popular, but she says, if you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. It could be anything, but very likely.
Rick Pierce (29:59)
you
Laura Pierce (30:03)
You notice it in the instant when love begins. Whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. And I think in the integration of our reality with the beautiful idealism we're made for, if we can stay open to joy, it's not just a crumb.
It's expansive.
Jenna Brack (30:33)
Laura, wow. Just that idea of allowing idealism and suffering to coexist is so powerful. And I'm just with you and wondering in just a moment, in difficult moments, how are you engaging with that? Are there any practices that you have found that have allowed you to let those two things coexist?
Rick Pierce (30:34)
Yeah.
Laura Pierce (30:59)
You know, for me, Jenna, one of the things has been trying really hard to come into my body, a sense of embodiment. So to notice, like we've talked about, I think suffering can feel like diminishment, small, closed. It can feel bitter. And so recognizing that in my body,
and having a posture more than like a demand for an external experience, an internal posture of openness and receptivity of patience with myself to recognize and really allow myself suffering - I feel weak and I feel like I shouldn't be and I feel like what's wrong and
to breathe into that suffering and just let it be invites the joy in. that has become a real practice for me of trying to pay attention and attend to my body. It is shocking how little skill I had in that, how my instinct to move and fix and understand and stay in my brain and...
Rick Pierce (32:09)
Mm.
Laura Pierce (32:10)
have the right answer. And again, that my context for that was Christianity a lot. And that can be confusing because the truths of God's word and to kind of try to cling on to that as an answer to make my suffering go away is very different for me than respecting, honoring, acknowledging my reality.
Rick Pierce (32:18)
Mm.
Laura Pierce (32:34)
but then choosing to stay open and soft and receptive to the peace and the joy and the beauty even there.
Rick Pierce (32:44)
Mm-hmm.
Jenna Brack (32:46)
Yeah, thank you. mean, just this like the breath that you're taking in your body and learning to expand in those ways I love that you brought poetry in also, because I always think of poetry as a very expansive sort of experience. there's something about a poem that opens us up.
And so I love that you brought those words in from Mary Oliver about how joy is there for the taking. And I just, I'm learning so much from you, even in this conversation about how you are engaging a really painful season. So thank you for how you're teaching us through what's been hard won wisdom. I know.
Rick Pierce (33:18)
and then I'd like to say.
I love what you're saying. You know, I can just stay busy. stay active. I can stay in my knowing space. my doing space and your learning to slow down and let your body be a guide to slowing down and maybe taking breath and focusing on your breath for a while. Just, I often will coach.
clients into a space where it's just slow down, sit down, slow down, close your eyes and just close your eyes even just for about a minute or two and then perhaps even taking about 15 good deep breaths might just slow you down that you could hear something that's happening inside of you or at your soul level and so that's a great invitation into being able to see or understand and
As well, What I was hearing from you is something of you don't see the joy experience until you're slowed down enough and accessible to joy. And so there's plenty of joy experiences. And so my question was almost like, how do you find joy in the midst of the difficult? Tell me, tell me what's the formula? And I think I'm hearing you say things like, you you don't exactly know what the joy is.
but you'll be available to experience that joy when you're accessible, when you're slowed down. And I would take us back to the deep joy of being cared for, of being connected, of being loved, of being seen and being known So.
Jenna, I wonder if you have something else you want to share with us.
Jenna Brack (34:53)
Sure, yeah, so this week as I've been thinking about this idea of expansion, it has met me alongside another Advent prompt that a writer friend sent me. We agreed to offer each other a few Advent prompts during the season and so in my inbox earlier this week, this really thoughtful prompt landed and it came with an image. It's a drawing by Vincent van Gogh from 1885.
called the potato planter. And Van Gogh did a series of these images of potato farmers, potato eaters, potato planters. There's a whole collection of them. And this particular drawing, it's just been so sticky for me. And so as I've even held this idea about expansion and the nature of true expansion alongside advent and hope and what is true hope.
Sandee Finley (35:50)
Thanks
Jenna Brack (35:50)
I've been also thinking about this image. And so just to describe it briefly here for our listeners, in the picture, there is a woman planting a seed potato in the ground and she's bending all the way forward. You can't see her face. Next to her is a basket of other seed potatoes. It's mostly a sketch. So there's lots of motion happening in the picture, no color.
But I just have been really taken by this potato planter. I just, this is very much in process as I'm bringing it into our space today, but I just wrote a couple of paragraphs of thinking about this potato planter alongside the Advent or Christmas story. So if it's all right, I'll just read just a couple of short paragraphs here. I don't even know, this might be, perhaps I was trying for a prose poem, but
Rick Pierce (36:28)
Hmm.
Great. we love your paragraphs. Great.
Jenna Brack (36:44)
It's really just some messy thoughts here. So this is inspired by the potato planter. The potato planter folds herself over, bending to the ground from the waist, extending one hand to the dirt. Faceless to the viewer, she plants another seed potato so that more potatoes can grow and feed others, perhaps even her. Her labor demands her whole body, holding and offering.
Sandee Finley (36:53)
you
Jenna Brack (37:11)
raising and lowering, standing and bending low. Likewise, Mary, when the angel stands before her, also folds herself into a posture of acceptance, yields to her labor, welcomes the seed of God. He fills the hungry with good things, she sings the song of a planter who knows that growth expansion begins in the soil of humility.
So yeah, I've just been thinking about that idea that these new beginnings often start with the humble beginnings. And I don't like that. That's also an uncomfortable idea for me because I beginnings, the advent of something to be shiny and new. And sometimes there is excitement and they do come with that. But I think what has struck me about this potato planter is
how ordinary her work is and also how bent over she is, really connected to the earth and the ground as she's planting this seed. And then thinking about Mary as also sort of bending into a posture of receiving her path that she was stepping into.
Sandee Finley (38:30)
The phrase that really sticks out to me is when Mary is folding herself into, what was that line again, Jenna?
Jenna Brack (38:40)
folds herself into a posture of acceptance.
Sandee Finley (38:43)
the beauty of that when we're talking about expansion and the folding, the humility that enables the expansion, it was beautiful.
Laura Pierce (38:51)
I love that. What a beautiful thought. Could we just not circle around that for a long time? I totally resonate with the word humility. I think that's one of the inherent gifts that suffering brings is an awareness of our need and our dependence. And as long as we stay ignorant to that, and are content with
Rick Pierce (38:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Laura Pierce (39:13)
the things we can manage and control and understand in our finiteness. We are very diminished. The expansion does require the humility that surrenders the resources that we look to to be sufficient, which they just aren't. But we don't realize it as long as they work just enough.
Rick Pierce (39:32)
Hmm. Hmm.
Hmm.
Laura Pierce (39:40)
And it is the pain of those resources being insufficient. It's so uncomfortable. It's so humbling to show up with empty hands. And then isn't that the exact posture to receive empty hands?
Rick Pierce (39:46)
Hmm
Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. And it occurs to me that oftentimes that humility that is so required to receive is forced upon us. Like we're kind of pushed into vulnerability. We're pushed into loss. It's not something I don't know that I would ever choose. and then there's something that we come to understand as a gift.
you know, of the forced humility because we recognize there's a sense of something there that I couldn't get otherwise. There's a depth of understanding, a depth of awareness. There's a depth of being held and comforted and seen and known and understood that I would never have known unless God expanded me, And then there's a welcoming
I don't know. I'm struggling still to welcome the humility, if I'm really honest, you know, to welcome and to see it as a gift and a sense of joy in it. But it's certainly more than what it was a year ago. Well, there's a part that really is saying I do welcome the humble place of not knowing anything about tomorrow other than I'm
I'm seen, I'm loved, I'm held, I'm okay,
Jenna Brack (41:10)
Sandee, I'm curious what you, what might be sparking for you. What's coming up for you as we think about this idea of expansion?
Sandee Finley (41:23)
When I first read the excerpt, I had a lot of things going through my mind and I went to the page several times. Nothing really, I couldn't come up with something that was really capturing my feelings. I think I got stuck because I kept thinking, I kept having the image of the Grinch and his heart growing three times its size, you know?
Rick Pierce (41:44)
Yeah.
Sandee Finley (41:45)
so I just kept thinking about the Grinch and that just, you know, I think I kind of got stuck there creatively.
honestly, there's a part of me that's thinking of Lottie touching Laura. I mean, that image is still so strong. I think that image is still really clear for me. So it resonated again.
Rick Pierce (42:10)
Thank you, Sandee. I adore your heart and I adore when you bring a picture of the Grinch and his heart growing three sizes. To me, I think that is just marvelous
Sandee Finley (42:20)
Thank
Rick Pierce (42:24)
I think our whole discussion today, you know, of living in the experience of being very, very human, even as in Advent, God becomes human and takes on all of, the...
complications and uncomfortabilities and reality of being human. I'm just really grateful and struck by our conversation
of being human, of being in a place of suffering, of being in a place of loss, of being in all of the complications of life and what it looks like for us to not move into a place of control or avoidance or denial or anger or hate as much as to be able to settle in and accept and receive and live in a kind and mature relationship with suffering.
and with grief and so to be able to open up to the receiving process, to the receiving of joy. I think this has been a very rich conversation. I wonder if you would indulge me to close our time. I wasn't going to, but to close our time with a poem of my own from a non poet. But I think it speaks to something of where we're at. And perhaps we'll close with this.
In the still of the night, sleepless with fright, my body forsakes me as if in the light. What do I do when I don't like my life? When things I foresaw are now nothing at all? When dreams feel abandoned and the real cold as steel? What do I do in the still of the night? Stop. Hear the quiet. Listen to the silence.
Surrender to the smallness. Breathe. Breathe deep. Remember the lies of how it ought be, the promises that you will be free, the dreams of no pain and no need of relief, for all is of ease and I, the blessed chief. I smile at myself and hear the deep way. Come back to my soul like a cool autumn day. What do I do in this still of the night?
I become like a child, craving to be held in the arms of a story so deep and so true. And I receive one more time the kiss on my heart from the lips of True Love though my tears don't depart. But something has moved, and my sight feels less skewed, like the sweet light of day that has now made its way through the still of the night.
Thank you guys. A pleasure as always to be with you.
Sandee Finley (45:16)
Thank you, Rick.
Rick Pierce (45:20)
Well, what a rich conversation we had today with my friends, Jenna and Sandee, and my thanks to my wife Laura for bringing her wisdom and vulnerability to us. I hope you're encouraged and challenged by what we shared today, and I hope you're getting a feel for what we call The HeartStrong Way It's not a way of denial or minimizing or staying busy, nor is it a way of control or...
performance or good behaviors, not that there's not value in good behaviors, but there's simply not enough to hold the full weight of our needs. And it's times of suffering, especially that don't allow us to have the performance and the control or denial just simply is not an option. But rather, HeartStrong's a way of living in the reality of life as it is and experiencing the truth of love and the beauty of presence to be radically satisfying.
I do hope this Advent season you'll see God, the God who came to us just as we are. Thank you for listening to The Heart Strong Way. Like, subscribe, share forward as you wish. My thanks again to my co-hosts of today's episode, Sandee Finley and Jenna Brack. Thanks for enduring the chaos of creating with this guy. My thanks again to my wife Laura for bringing your heart to us. Thanks also to my dear friend, Jay Fowler for our podcast music.
Until we meet again on the Heart Strong Way, be loved and love well.
