Fish, loaves, and laundry.
- Alysia Miller
- Jun 11
- 6 min read
June 2026 Issue No. 17
HONEST LIFE | SLOW GROWTH | DEEPLY ROOTED
Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish. Vie de Jesus Mafa (Life of Jesus) was an initiative from the 1970s to help teach the gospel in Northern Cameroon. This is from a series of 63 images depicting the life and teaching of Jesus, viewed by the artist as if they had taken place in a village in Cameroon.
WELCOME
Welcome to Invitations. My deep hope is that this monthly newsletter will serve as an invitation to consider ideas, practices, and images that will enrich your life. I hope you’ll find fresh perspectives on living a honest, spiritual life, deepening connections between God and others, and permission to grow slowly.
“God spoke today in flowers, and I, who was waiting on words, almost missed the conversation.”
Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
To practice.
Adapted from The Book of Belonging, by Mariko Clark
The Hebrew word for Spirit is ruakh (ROO-akh) and the Greek word is pneuma (NOOM-ah). Both of these words can also mean "wind" or "breath." Why do you think Biblical authors chose these words?
-Wind is invisible.
-Breath keeps us alive, it is a sign of life.
-Wind is around us.
-Breath is in us.
-For some, wind is frightening. For others, wind is peaceful.
-We don't often think about our breathing.
Spend some time outside. Notice your breath and notice the wind. How do your observations help you understand God's Spirit?
A few things to take in.
I didn't intend to share two pieces from the same author, but Shawn left me no choice. Here are a couple of pieces from Shawn Smucker, author, poet, owner of an independent bookstore in Lancaster, PA. These are from his Substack, The Courage to Live it. He reminds me that efficiency is fine, but what do we miss when we by-pass the creative and human moments and interactions that quietly and subtly shape us?
Please Use AI and An Ode to Jeff Bezos and Free Verse Poems (Or, Too Easy)
And here's one with a good reminder, from Darren Rowse: "Sometimes you're distracted from God, you're distracted toward him." I, too, like one commenter wrote, have "a complicated relationship with the word productive." So often I need to know that my experience (or lack thereof) of God is not indicative of God's activity. Instead of worrying about what is not happening, I am encouraged to rest in what is there.
Community is one of those words that probably has as many definitions as there are people to define it. But what happens when, after we find ourselves in a church community, the sparkle dulls and our expectations are not being met? Parker Palmer writes that it is through this disillusionment where we are being invited to depend on God.
Psalm 23 -- probably the most famous psalm out there, well known even in the broader culture. But the hosts of the BEMA podcast take us through this popular psalm in a new way. Full disclosure: I will be chewing on this episode for a while; it may have turned the psalm on its head for me, broadening the meaning and taking it deeper, and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.
Words to consider.
"People ask me: why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do? The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. —M. F. K. Fisher"
“Reverence requires a certain pace. It requires a willingness to take detours, even side trips, which are not part of the original plan.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
"I know a couple who treasure friends who are what they call "lingerable." They are the sort of people you want to linger with at the table after a meal or in chairs outside by the pool, to let things flow, to let the relationship emerge. It's a great talent--to be someone others consider lingerable." ―David Brooks, How to Know a Person
Fresh air, warm sunshine, and laundry.
I was driving through a small town in southwestern Colorado and saw clothes on an old clothesline, shirts and sheets blowing in the breeze. It took me back to a memory I had forgotten to remember; something that seemed insignificant at the time, a layer of life that was too normal to contemplate.
I remembered my family's clothes hanging on our clothesline. It was often a chore that had to get done. I'd lug the basket out in my bare feet on the bumpy ground--who's got time for sandals. The washcloths were the easiest to hang, but you had to reach so often, up and down, up and down, into the ice cream bucket to pull so many clothespins because the cloths were so small. Especially compared to the sheets. One sheet filled up half the clothesline. Sheets in the laundry meant that there wasn’t that much to hang (yes!). It made the job quicker, but the sheet was so heavy when it was wet, and I had to fling it up over the line, and it was awkward. I had to use at least three clothes pins to keep the sheet off the dandelions and grass and ground. But the sheets would make the best play forts as it hung, much to my mother's chagrin, I am sure.
Towels were my favorite to hang. Not too big, not too small. Large enough to take up some space, and rectangular, therefore easy to hang. The task went fast. The towels came in all sorts of colors; we were unfamiliar with the idea of matching sets. As I was hanging them, I couldn’t help but to anticipate what they would become--air dried. Not soft and fluffy, like the machine dried, but crusty and crinkly, but they softened some with use and smelled of fresh air and warm sunshine. There was probably a hint of the dairy down the road in there somewhere, but I don’t remember that smell being overwhelming. It could be because “fresh air and warm sunshine” included the dairy. That’s just what it was, the secret, often unnamed ingredient that hid in the mix.
On the line there would also be our colorful second-hand shorts and socks and shirts and jeans (the heaviest of all) and, of course, our underwear hanging in the breeze--our entire wardrobe on display for the few neighbors in our country town to see. I doubt they actually took notice as much as I thought they did.
And yet there was a satisfaction that came with hanging clothes to dry on the clothesline. Using the electric dryer was predictable and efficient. Wet clothes go in, dry clothes come out. A dependable formula to getting clothes dry to be sure. But when we'd hang the clothes outside, we’d let the sun and wind do the work. Like the sun did the work of making the sun tea as it sat on an old wire spool table on our back deck, the sun would warm the clothes as they hung. And the wind would dry--whipping sometimes, barely moving the laundry other times. If we’d hang in the morning, the laundry would usually be dry by the evening, if it didn’t turn out to be too humid that day. Sometimes we’d have to quick get the clothes off the line before the rain came in. Sometimes we’d have to let the rain rewash the clothes and then try again the next day.
What do we gain when efficiency is not the goal? The chore of hanging laundry to dry shows me a picture of effort, and then of release and rest. It became a dance between the sun, wind, and the clothesline. Each element dependent upon the other, less like a formula but more like paint colors mixing together to create different shades.
I am quite certain that this was not on my ten-year-old mind as I was completing my chores. But I am glad a clothesline somewhere in southwestern Colorado gave me an opportunity to remember afresh what it was to hang clothes out to dry.
Little Wasps on the Fringes
From Jeremy Hummel, In All Things
Curiosity leads to wonder. "To share knowledge is to invite others into wonder and appreciation for creation's diversity of structure and function that so often goes unseen. What do we miss when we fail to notice and attend to the depth and detail of the created world?"
https://www.dordt.edu/in-all-things/little-wasps-on-the-fringes
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