iii. Sentiments
Elizabeth Moore
Friends, it’s been a week of high highs and low lows.
On one hand, Audrey and I signed with a literary agent to represent our future book—!!—a collection of liturgies created during the height of the pandemic that address different cultural, spiritual, and quotidian anxieties while redirecting our hearts, minds, and language toward truth. Somehow the fragile days of turning desperate prayers into poems one year ago has led to this week of surreal phone calls and big decisions. After meeting with three agents in four days, praying, asking follow up questions, and exploring each agents’ areas of expertise, Audrey and I are delighted with our choice of representation. After signing our contracts on Friday, we clinked cocktail glasses and ate heaping spoonfuls of tiramisu at Caffe Dante, considering how our younger selves would be absolutely losing their shit right now. Having an agent feels both otherworldly and absurdly normal, but as the gravity of this milestone sinks in, I am overwhelmed with gratitude and wonder.
On the other hand, celebration feels entirely out of place. It’s difficult to care about something temporary when generations of grief and heartbreak are coming to the surface. Seeing my Asian American and Pacific Islander co-workers, fellow writers, and church pals in pain has weighed so heavily this week. I feel flattened by suffering, and am in no rush to move out from under it just yet. These friends have shared their stories, their rage, their sadness, and their helplessness while I’ve timidly responded with words of support and lament that feel embarrassingly inadequate. This week, I’ve been sickened, yet again, by the reality of white supremacy, and have struggled to know what to do about it. I’ve said too much and not enough. I’ve gotten the names of the victims of the Atlanta shooting wrong. I’ve wondered how I can engage—imperfectly but earnestly—in the fight against racism, and am figuring out some ways to do just that. Mostly, I’m thinking of my friends, whose names I wish I could list here, who have expressed so much hurt this week. This newsletter is dedicated to them—to seeing their hurt and sharing their grief.
Overall, this week has been a bitter blend, like sipping from a martini glass of vinegar with a sugary rim. I’ve tasted the sweetness of drawing near to friends in pain, of taking the next step in a writing career, and of going for a walk with my dear neighbor and her eight-month-old baby girl. But I’ve also tasted the acridity of Friday night when I said something racist and didn’t realize it until it was out of my mouth, or Wednesday night when I ignored a trans woman on the subway and neglected to treat her with dignity.
“Pay attention to what breaks your heart,” says the unattributed Pinterest quote. And that’s the only way I know how to navigate the events of this week—paying attention to pain and not ignoring it, holding space for other people’s suffering and adopting it as my own. There are indeed things to celebrate and things to lament this week. May we honor what is good in the world while looking with eyes wide open at all that is not.
Artistic Offering
A Liturgy for the Lawless
O LORD, we are wanderers in a wilderness of our own making,
utterly lost but believing we are free.
Thirsting for independence and autonomy,
we are perilously exposed like a city without walls.
Once long ago, You led us out of slavery and through the desert,
instituting statutes and precepts for our protection,
establishing the right and true way to live.
But we have disregarded Your commands and despised their good purpose,
thinking only of how we may gratify ourselves.
We have forsaken instruction and abandoned justice,
all for the sake of our own pleasure.
With corrupt hearts, evil from youth,
we find ourselves surrounded by disrepair and disorder,
desperately in need of a covenant we cannot keep.
O God who sees in secret,
we were made to follow Your authority,
to surrender, to trust, and to declare:
“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.”
May we never forget, O God, that Your law
exists to preserve peace into the Promised Land.
Give us hearts that long for Your direction,
for You know the way to salvation and resurrection.
Give us ears that await Your instruction,
for Your rules ensure our community’s protection.
Turn our eyes from worthless things,
turn our feet from reckless living,
turn our hands from idle nothings,
and fill us with reverence for Your law.
May we serve one another for Christ’s glory,
for in Him we see the fulfillment of the law.
May we seek to meet each others’ needs,
for in generosity we find true riches.
May we flourish with the fruit of obedience,
for to willingly submit is the strongest thing we can do.
You have called us to live uprightly, O Lord,
which is to say, you have called us to Love.
WHAT I’M READING
On the subway and before bed:
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
Still listening on audio:
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
On my computer and Kindle:
A bunch of unpublishing manuscripts because it’s one of those weeks
THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK
featuring whimsey and dumpster fires
Balloon Kings decorated our entire block with balloon tunnels and garlands to celebrate their reopening and to remind the neighborhood to support small businesses.
A literal trash can caught fire on my street. After seeing and smelling the smoke, families with small children gathered to view the spectacle, licking ice cream cones and holding red balloons, while the NYFD put it out.
A banana chip floated in my $20 Negroni. It looked weird and tasted weirder. The chip, I mean, the cocktail was fantastic.
A COVID test from a van was efficient and painless. Thank you LabQ.
A walk in Central Park with a friend and her eight-month old baby was sunny and glorious.
Spontaneously running into three different friends whilst walking about the Upper West Side on Saturday was magical.
Rush hour traffic is back.