Hello again Readers,
I hope this Spring finds you well. I did not anticipate a second extended break, but I am excited to be back and to share in the upcoming weeks some historical Floridians who changed the state forever, a filmed interview with a fascinating local journalist, and a guest essay from an author I respect. On a less serious note, I have found some very funny American art about our very serious American struggles, and I think you will get a kick out of it.
As a secondary announcement: You should know I didn’t start writing about the State (Florida or government in general), I actually first started writing about the Church and American Christianity. More specifically, I once wrote about the ideas and arguments, and beliefs that are so captivating and also come together to create a state of government. I wrote about how they happen to be tangled up in the business of faith. Who owes who what, why we are here, and what we are about are all questions we think about when we discuss the State. But they are the same questions the Church and faith are all attempting to answer as well. What we believe, we create and codify. In America, there is a particular history of the Church and state, one that in so many ways we continue to grapple with in ways we have yet to fully understand. Now, because there is such thing as a separation of Church and state, those essays will appear in another Substack publication soon. Not because they don’t intersect, but it will just be easier to find specific pieces concerning the Florida Supreme Court/segregation/alligator laws or mega-church ethics and women preaching depending on what you are looking for. They will be alternating with the more history-oriented ones too.
If I was to describe it VERY generously, at its best, it would be as if the writing styles of John Locke and Anne Lamott had a baby, and this publication is her much weaker, second cousin. Maybe when I am 59 or 98 I will be somewhat closer to writing as well as those two. I am rightful, regularly humbled by Grammarly and my editor. The iPhone has destroyed my already questionable spelling abilities. We suffer no illusions of grandeur here. I have so overwhelmed my editor that this didn’t get through to her, so forgive me for any issues with this update.
Finally, I will not be telling you how to make your kid come back to church or if it is the fog machine/Instagram/ Kim Kardashian’s fault for all the deconstructing going on. I will be writing as a happy and sometimes prickly Christian who against her own original intentions is somehow still a Christian. I love being Christian. I do not always love what we do and we have some big, scary questions to ask ourselves. Please let me know if I am not giving a lot of grace. It has been passed out to me in spades, so it is only fair. Some sacred cows will inevitably be killed (All my cows. Yours are probably safe).
I do realize that writing from one’s personal experience involves walking some precarious line between unhelpfully vomiting forth a self-aggrandizing diary of thoughts no one asked for or exploring big, hairy, universal themes we all grapple with through bite-sized, human voices. As a kid, one of the safest places in the world to me was the little huddle of kids telling each other stories. I think we are all in some way, trying to make sense of what we’ve been handed in our lives. And sometimes, certain questions or conversations or experiences are really hard to first voice in church, your women’s small group, or into the air if you aren’t currently attending church. Something magical happens when invisible things are made just a little bit more visible, or when we can articulate a question or issue that could make our practice and lives that much clearer and more integrous. I have been so grateful for all the people in my life who have done that for me. Thanks again for your time, I will do my best to make it worthwhile, and I hope you all have a good evening.
-Alex