Hannah Anderson
10 min read ⭑
“Most of the time, solving a puzzle is a solitary endeavor for me, and I like to think that it represents all the ways we’re trying to piece together our own lives and existences. There is meaning, there is a guiding image, and there is a final, clear end. But most of us are in the middle of working that out.”
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
My favorite meals happen on my back patio. We built it several years ago, hoping that it would become a place of rest and refuge. My husband laid red brick in herringbone while I searched for furniture and tables that would accommodate morning coffee and late dinners. We raised a pergola and planted the grape vines that now shade us. We tended gardens, filled flower pots, and strung lights to brighten the long nights. Over time, moss has grown up between the cracks in the brick while birds visit the feeders that stand nearby.
Recently, we invited some folks over to get to know each other better. Summer was quickly fading to fall, and the air was crisp in a way that was invigorating but not unpleasant. We had two, maybe three, more weekends on the patio. Feeling seasonal, I wanted to serve a venison roast that my husband had harvested, but wild game is an acquired taste, and I wasn’t sure how our guests would respond. I dithered about it for days and, in the end, finally decided to serve it with roast garden vegetables, jams we’d preserved that summer, and homemade apple pie.
Turns out that my worrying was pointless. Our guests were as gracious as we ourselves hoped to be, and our time on the patio stretched far into the night. I guess maybe what I was trying to say all along was, “This is us. I don’t know what you like, but you’re welcome here.”
Sigmund; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
For Christmas one year, my husband got me a collapsible puzzle table, and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more seen. It has a cherry finish, felt green lining like that of a pool table, and two wings for holding pieces. When I have two days in a row, I’ll pull it out, get myself a drink and box of special cookies, and settle in.
The first thing I’ll do is dump all the pieces out of the box and turn them facing up. Then I’ll sort them by edge and color variations, making up to 10 different piles. I usually start assembling the outline of the puzzle, but if a particular area or image catches my attention, I’ll start there. It is slow, deliberative work, but I find that it helps my mind relax and focus. When I’m in “puzzle mode,” my family knows that I’ll be lost for a few days but also that I’ll come out of it more at peace.
I prefer puzzles of artwork or places I’ve visited—things that have a particular connection to my likes and interests—and generally don’t tackle ones with fewer than 1,000 pieces. Most of the time, solving a puzzle is a solitary endeavor for me and I like to think that it represents all the ways we’re trying to piece together our own lives and existences. There is meaning, there is a guiding image, and there is a final, clear end. But most of us are in the middle of working that out.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
To be honest, I struggle with working too much and not knowing how to rest. If you hear me talking about limits a lot, it’s precisely because I don’t know how to embrace my own. But this has always been the way with me. Even as a little girl, adults regularly complained that I couldn’t sit still—that I wiggled and squirmed all the time. As an adult, I found that staying busy helped me cope with stress and anxiety ... until it didn’t.
For me, work is a safe place. It’s an acceptable way to channel my nervous energy, and unfortunately, it’s often rewarded by others. In our society, you don’t get gold stars for resting well, but you sure get them for pushing past your limits and working hard. Working also helps me know that I’m of use to people, that there’s a purpose and meaning to my life. (Again, I realize that everything I’m saying goes against what I’ve written, but maybe now you know why I write what I write. I write to remind myself of the things I’m tempted to ignore.)
But my proclivity toward work also explains why God’s grace captivates me. This love, this care, this mercy is just freely given? What an irresponsible thing to do! Who does that? I mean who just gives out all this goodness and doesn’t ask anything in return—doesn’t even ask us to be worthy of it? Only God apparently.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
My writing over the last few years has taken a somewhat unexpected turn—well, unexpected to me anyway. I imagine other people saw it coming a mile away. I’ve become focused on the natural world and what it reveals to us about truth, beauty, and goodness. There’s this conversation happening all around us that we’ve essentially tuned out. So I wonder what we’d learn if we stopped long enough to listen. What would happen to our souls if we stopped feeling like we were “in charge” of nature and realized that we were part of it?
So I just released a book called Heaven and Nature Sing that’s a collection of devotional essays for Advent. In it, I’m asking the question, “What if Jesus came to save—not just us—but the entire cosmos? How would that change our understanding of what Christmas is all about?” I explore these questions by picking up natural elements of the Nativity story and rotating them like jewels in the sunlight, turning them this way and that. My hope is that it might offer readers a respite in the busyness of the season and that, if nothing else, they’d remember that we’re part of something bigger than any of us understand.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
I’ll be honest here: I don’t come from a background that knows exactly what to do with the Holy Spirit and the work the Spirit does. That doesn’t mean the Spirit wasn’t active and working—just that we didn’t always have words to name that work. But recently, someone described the work of the Spirit as enlivening and bringing about the New Creation in and through us. And suddenly, a whole lot of things made sense.
I’ve always resisted the idea of “creatives”—that some of us are artistic and then there’s everyone else. I resisted this even as a person whose work sits decidedly within a creative field! But the reason I couldn’t quite understand what people meant when they used the word “creative” is that I didn’t experience my work as anything special. It didn’t feel unusual or mysterious to me. It felt, quite frankly, natural.
And my work felt natural to me because I was lucky enough to be working in a space in which the Spirit was gifting and carrying me along in it. This is what, I think, it means to flourish. It’s not that you don’t face challenges or that work isn’t hard but that you have a deep connectedness to your work because you’re operating in partnership with the Spirit. God is bringing both you and your work alive in the New Creation. And as this happens, the Spirit’s work in your life overflows into goodness, grace, and life for those around you.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So spill it, which spiritual practice is workin’ best for you right now?
I feel like the story of my life is showing up late to the party. And usually, it’s my own party. There have been these moments in my life that everyone else could see coming but that still surprised me. This happened to me again recently when I started prayer journaling.
Hear me out. Just because someone is a writer, just because she finds remarkable freedom in the written word, just because she journals regularly, and just because she can’t tap into certain emotions unless she writes them out doesn’t mean that she’s going to suddenly discover God’s nearness when she starts prayer journaling. Wait, who am I kidding? Of course, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
For most of my life, I’ve verbalized my prayers, and while this has been a source of comfort, I can’t say I’ve experienced God’s presence or been so honest with myself as when I’m writing out my prayers. Prayer journaling can take many different forms, but the one that has been most helpful to me is simply writing out my thoughts and feelings toward God. In many ways, it feels similar to what’s happening in the Psalms, and for me at least, the process allows me to experience greater honesty with God. I find myself raging one minute and blessing the next. Again, the psalms are very important here because they model a similar back-and-forth and that gives me a sense of permission to pray the same way.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources—lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are some resources that have impacted you?
I tend to read older books—not because of chronological snobbery but because of my aforementioned inability to keep up with things. I feel like I’m always finding out about writers and resources well after other folks have already discovered them. But maybe there’s someone else out there like me, so let me share two writers that have influenced my thinking.
The first is the 20th-century British writer, Dorothy L. Sayers. I value her work not only for its content but also because old D.L. was nobody’s fool. She wrote at a time when women still had to fight for credibility and placement in academic spaces, and this forced her to be sharp and insightful in ways her male peers may not have had to be. I also love that she wrote across genres: essays, translations, plays, and mystery novels. All of it was fair game.
I’ve also really benefited from Annie Dillard’s work and have a deep affinity for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I live about 10-15 minutes from Tinker Creek, so I read the book with a bit of insider knowledge. If you visit me, I’ll take you there, but I have to warn you that you might be disappointed. Tinker Creek is actually a pretty unremarkable place. But for me, this is Dillard’s genius. She knows how to make the mundane transcendent. She knows how to pay attention to the glory that the rest of us miss.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season—and tell us what it’s done for you.
Ironically, the thing that’s keeping me afloat right now is the same thing that’s making my life more complicated. This fall, I went back to school to get my Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity. Being in the classroom after 20 years has brought exactly the kinds of challenges that you might imagine, but it’s also been incredibly life giving in ways that I didn’t even know how to anticipate.
The program at Duke has the option to specialize in a particular certificate, and I’m pursuing a certification in theology and the arts. This means that I get to read all kinds of wonderful thinkers and writers like Jeremy Begbie, David Taylor, and Mako Fujimura and begin the process of considering what it means for my own work. It’s been a gift beyond what I could have asked for.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
As I mentioned, I recently returned to school, and I feel like this step has expanded my horizons and scope of dreaming beyond anything else to this point. I’ve always been one to think ahead, but it’s usually been planning the next project or thinking about how to organize my work. I don’t know if I’ve ever been invited to dream in the way that I am now.
So I guess I’m currently dreaming about ... dreaming. I’m thinking a lot about how I limited my goals and work to what was manageable rather than hearing what God might be inviting me into. I don’t think the future will look much different from what I’m already doing in my work—not in its essence, at least. But I feel space to think in larger categories about my writing and who it’s currently reaching. Even still, I trust that this will all play out the same way everything in my life has—not without a lot of fits and starts and bumps along the way but entirely under God’s gracious hand.
Around 30% of leaders have what researchers call a “fatal flaw.” In other words, they not only can’t see their flaw but they also suffer extremely negative effects as a result of it.
Recognizing our own weaknesses and personal limits can be hard. But if we’re willing to put aside our pride and allow the Holy Spirit to shine his eye-opening—albeit sometimes uncomfortable—light in our hearts, maybe we could clearly see the next step he’s calling us to take. And the next. And the next.
As the apostle Paul said, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. … Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12, 13b-14, NIV).
Hannah Anderson is an author and Bible teacher who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of
Virginia with her husband, Nathan, and their three children. Her books include Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit and her recent release, Heaven and Nature Sing: 25 Advent Reflections to Bring Joy to the World. You can find more of her writing at sometimesalight.com or follow her on Twitter @sometimesalight or Instagram @hannah_._anderson.
