“Wanna trade?” The mustached man selling flowers tipped the bouquet of gorgeous blooms in our direction where we stood by our display of farm fresh vegetables at the end of our first market day in Black Forest, Colorado.
We had started off slowly, not having figured out the ideal way to display our beautiful vegetables, and only having a few options to choose from in the earliness of what had been a very rainy season. But we were being inducted into the culture of community among the vendors in our little corner of the market, and it both surprised and delighted me.
“At least it’s supposed to wait to rain until after the market ends,” I said to our next door neighbor Sean at Blooming Blooms.
“You say that now, Grace,” his barrel chest letting out a booming laugh beneath his tye-dye shirt. We were green as anything. And yet—still somehow, impossibly welcomed.
Sean and Missy had greeted us bright and early that morning before the market even opened and complimented us on our (rather sad looking by comparison) tomato starts. They had over two dozen unique varieties of tomato plants along with peppers, squash, and even edible flowers—but instead of getting sucked into competition, they encouraged us in our meager selection. Then the kind man selling fruit bushes at Fruitful Endeavors smiled and waved as he set up his booth a few stalls down. Cleo, who sells teas made from herbs she grows and gathers herself, sent her daughter down to buy a bunch of radishes and was infinitely patient when our card reader temporarily stopped working. And now here was Matt, the seller of Ellen’s Flowers coming and asking if we’d like a bouquet in exchange for some of our veggies that didn’t sell that first day.
It was a whole new world.
Later, when Sean proved to be right and we found ourselves packing up in a torrential downpour, I couldn’t shake the humbled feeling of being upheld by a community we’d only just joined. Matt helped us take down our brand new tent that day, and made sure we were packed up sufficiently before he drove the last of his flowers home.
Choosing community over competition doesn’t just happen—but the fruit of it is nearly immediate. Like five years ago when I saw the post of another writer on a facebook page and chose to share my list of comps for what were *very similar* book proposal topics (at the time), instead of getting sucked into the comparison game. From that one moment of decision, to encourage and uplift a fellow writer instead of allowing myself to feel threatened by her, has come years of encouragement and collaboration. Now she has the book contract, and though I do not, I can rejoice in her successes because I have been allowed to be apart of it. [Give Sarah Westfall a follow if you haven’t yet—her writing on belonging at her Substack Human Together is a gift to us all.]
These choices don’t come easy. My friend K.J. Ramsey writes often about how the lies of scarcity will permeate the soil of our hearts so easily if we allow them to. It’s hard to believe in a loud world of constantly divided attention that there is room enough for our own voices to be heard—for our own gifts to be seen and valued.
But there is room. As long as I focus on that which is mine to do.
I’ll never forget how Emily P. Freeman spoke on her podcast, and in her writing about the lifeguards at the indoor water park, and how they paced back and forth never looking away from their eight foot section of pool.
They took their jobs seriously; they had to! They didn’t look left or right, or worry that the life guards on the other side of the pool were protecting people that *they* should be protecting: no. They just kept their eyes on their own section. They focused on what was theirs to do. And everyone was kept safe as a result.
Another artists who really drilled home this lesson was Forest Blakk. When I first heard him sing, he was opening for Johnny Swim and NEEDTOBREATHE at Red Rocks Amphitheater. It’s hard to be the opener for a popular band—or any band for that matter. But Forest came out on stage with such an incredible honest vulnerability that I am still shaken to my core when I think about it.
Before a certain song he was about to sing, he mentioned that this song was for his cousin who had died of cancer: to honor her life and the sort of person she was. He said, she was the sort of person that while she was dying, she kept asking if he was okay. And before he sang, he asked those of us who had had a loved one affected by cancer to raise a hand—suddenly, the crowd of strangers became a crowd of fellow sufferers. My hand was not the only one in the air, not by a long shot. And he spoke saying, “See? Look what you have in common.” And the air was electric as we all glanced around with tears in our eyes, for the common suffering, and for the grace that helped us get up every day with all the hard that surrounded us.
In that moment, Forest created something—a moment that was unique to that audience and that particular moment in time. And I realized an important lesson as a writer: if Forest had abdicated the responsibility to be vulnerable and to show up as all of himself in front of that specific audience—we would have been the poorer for it. If he had said to himself, “Well XYZ artist already does something like that, so I had better leave it to them,” then we would have missed out on a moment of connection and healing. He showed up as himself, and everyone in that audience was blessed as a result. Comparison and competition had no place in that equation.
Ever since that night I’ve been trying to do that here in this online space, and in my life wherever I go. And I’m trying to figure out how to encourage others to do the same. So many folks around me will say, “well I can’t write like you do, you’re so talented,” and to that I just want to say, “that doesn’t matter! We all have a gift to share with the world, what is your gift?” And I really want to know. And I really want to help you find out for yourself if you don’t know it yet. The House of Rest is a place where you can breathe long enough to hopefully begin to see the shape of what gives you life, and how you want to spend your working time and energy.
Frederick Buechner is famous for saying;
“Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.”
And it couldn’t be more true. Our joy comes through being fruitful participants in what God is doing in and through us—in becoming daily more wholly ourselves.
The body of Christ unfortunately doesn’t get this right often however. In a group of people that is supposed to be marked by inclusiveness and equality we are still so often mired in the mud of hierarchy. We elevate certain personalities, gifting, and life seasons and put others down. We let pride take the wheel and elevate ourselves and those like us above other beautiful souls whom God has called Beloved. We demand conformity when we should be celebrating diversity. And not only in personalities and gifts: but in sufferings.
That night that the concert, Forest gave us his suffering. And we in the audience looking around at the tear streaked faces of others who had loved ones with cancer, gave our sufferings to each other. There was a unity in that moment that could not be toppled by nearly any other differing opinion I held from the people standing next to me. And as an artist, Forest’s vulnerability was an encouragement for my own.
Though it was probably not written originally by him, JFK was famous for saying, “A rising tide raises all the boats.” This statement sums up so well my experience with those helping and encouraging us at the market, in my writing life, and in my other experiences with artists in various spheres. Collaboration and community have the potential to make a more beautiful world for us all. And leaning in to the generosity of this mindset allow another person’s art to inspire me instead of causing me to shrink back in shame. It is not all mine to do. And that’s a good thing.
It's so funny that you mention the lifeguards. I've just been reading "Simply Tuesday" and so much of it is ringing true. It's also fascinating to read it as a time stamp - I think that gives me encouragement. To think that someone whose career I really respect was battling through many of the same struggles with being "small" several years ago...