In 2006, my frustration with the Church had reached fever pitch. I was having a hard time relating to it like many in my generation. Then I stumbled across Sarah Cunningham's book, Dear Church: Letters to a Disillutioned Generation. In 14 letters written to the Church, Sarah vented her frustrations and mine. She also gave me hope.
Today--nearly four years later--Sarah has released her second book, a memoir entitled Picking Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life's Weeds. It is well-written as expected and unlike some memoirs, the stories do more than entertain; they encourage and instruct. I recently caught up with Sarah to ask her about God, the book, and her search for Eden.
Q:
I fell in love with your first book, "Dear Church: Letter from a Disillutioned Generation." It was raw, uncomfortable, hopeful. Dear church is starkly and noticeably different than this book. What changed for you as a writer between the two books that prompted the shift?
A:
Ha. Its funny to hear someone say they fell in love with Dear Church, since you're right, that book was born out of such angst. I get that though. I read too and sometimes hearing someone else describe their own dark stages is what speaks to our real lives the most.
By the second half of Dear Church, though, my life and writing was already beginning to reflect a shift. The book talked about how I didn't want to dwell on disillusionment, but to move beyond it and to invite others to do the same. Picking Dandelions picks up well beyond disillusionment, with some quirky and more humorous moments that were an equally important part of my journey to hold onto faith.
Q: Picking Dandelions is a memoir, yet there is still a theme woven through the collection of stories. Can you describe the thematic glue that holds it all together?
A:
The stories in Picking Dandelions were pulled from my life story--my kind-of quirky childhood growing up across the street from a cemetery, my experience leading relief efforts at Ground Zero after 911, that sort of thing. But even though the stories could stand alone, there is a subtle theme that shows up in almost all of them and that is that humans can't afford the luxury of unchanged living.
I think that particularly applies to people of faith. If we're following Jesus--I mean really tracking along after him through the places he went and things he did--it would change us in an ongoing way.
Q:
You write, "I think the longing for Eden is one of the oldest and most normal yearnings humans experience." You even claim God planted this yearning in us. Can you describe what "the longing for Eden" is?
A:
Its that innate sense of hope in us that believes, in the tough times, that things are meant to be better and brighter; the part of us that sits back after a long day experiencing love and goodness with family or friends and recognizes 'this is how it is supposed to be'.
Theologically, of course, if you delved into that, you'd find some writers in the Bible seemed to believe man was born with a sense that there was a God and that this God was pulling them in a certain direction.
Q: "Change" is such a popular word these days, and it is one of the punchlines of Picking Dandelions. What is the change you speak about in this book and why do you think it is...ahem...change we can believe in?
A:
In this case, I'm talking about faith that doesn't sit on a shelf back in the 1980s or 1990s like memorabilia from the year we acquired it. A lot of us can point to one conversion point, or one experience--a church service, a summer camp, a book, some sort of hardship, something--that shifted the way we thought about God. And after that event or series of events, we considered ourselves different. Changed.
But then we talk about faith just like that. ChangED. Past tense. Its done and over with. And I have come to think we should redeem the concept, take change off the shelf and bring it into the present day. That faith works best in the present and future tense, when we're changING.
I'm not talking about change just in a self-help sense, but change in a deep-rooted way. Change that emerges when we begin to search out and apply God's truths in our lives; change that begins to shape a new way of life and a new way of thinking that help us start to recapture part of Eden...part of God's intended life for humans.
Q: I love last lines, and I found your last line especially meaningful: "Picking weeds is a beautiful thing." Can you share with my readers what you mean?
A: Definitely. Throughout life, you experience dysfunction both in yourself and in the world around you. And as you grow, if you wise up, you start to weed out the skewed, flawed things that work their way into your life. When you do that, it takes you back to a place of freshness, back to a place of space. With the drama set aside, there is room in your life to experience the fullness Jesus said he came to bring. You make more good choices, you eliminate some of the habits or secrets that complicated your life, and suddenly you experience so much more of Eden in your life. You're amazed that life can be this good.
Purchase Dear Church: Letters from a Disilutioned Generation
Purchase Picking Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life's Weeds
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