That time we heard our story as American Christians in Edinburgh’s long light

Wild sounds of birds in the night. Vegetables and animals.

By the sound of it, the 1880 Victorian tenement we’re staying in could be coming undone outside, a wreck in morning. Everybody’s silent now, in beds in row houses listening to the pause and breath of a small bird, then the bellowing of a loon so guttural it’s unnerving. All night, from 10 pm through near dawn we’ve followed along with the rattle and bray of a single, strange bird-king on its own, then together with a small band of other laughing birds that come out instead of sleep at night.

Living the Americano dream, Filament Coffee, Edinburgh, June 2018

The kids went down easily in a small bunk room and we stayed up in the living room, listening to a podcast our friend sent from Seattle. We recorded it for our church to play in community groups, telling our story about being Christians in a difficult place.

We’re farther north than Seattle here. Writing from our Seattle neighborhood in January, it feels like our house is glued to the most upper left corner of the world; I forget about all of British Columbia and Alaska. It’s just us and 4 pm sundown. Then in the summer, when the tip of Mount Rainier as seen from the double decker I-5 bridge glows pink until after 10 pm, Seattle takes on the heart and mind of rest.

But in Edinburgh, in late June, there was a thread of blue in the sky until past midnight. We sat up in it, listening to the first cut of this podcast. I cringed hearing my voice, got over it, and settled in. We heard our story of the 15 years since moving from Indiana to Seattle, which, post-edits, makes us sound a lot more insightful and well-spoken than we are. Here’s what I heard:

We’re Christians trying to abide that lost our way, living a new version of the suburban dream we longed to escape as kids. The $6 ice vegan cream cone is our visualization of Seattle’s middle class American dream.

Before Seattle, my husband Drew and I lived in a strong and alive Christian community in a small Indiana town, but we craved an aesthetic, people who valued music and food and culture. This was before cell phones and social media, when you had to set a time to meet someone, read a paper map, hunt through bins at the thrift store to find a vintage t-shirt. Back when there wasn’t reach to someone, somewhere like you.

We moved to Seattle, found all those aesthetics, and started careers. But at the same time we witnessed friends become less entangled with church and more interested in an independent spirituality, in some cases identifying as spiritual but not religious. In a short time, it became inexplicably difficult to talk about God with many of our friends.

Where we listened, some light in the sky until midnight.

We had dreams of recreating Indiana community in Seattle, but for a long time this city felt too big for us. We were steadfast to our church throughout — in spite of its own brokenness and times of rebuilding — and became convicted about reconciling our faith with our public life. The broken church, with its spiritual practices and ancient traditions, went from off-putting to life-giving. The connection, for me, was through Contemplative Christianity.

Our friend Dan who produced the podcast episode does a good job of distilling Drew and my’s experience in Seattle:

Ours is a story about unrealized expectations and what gets put in place of them. It’s about migration from familiar to unfamiliar, from warm and tight knit to cool and distant. And it’s also a story about rediscovery.

Through this season, we’re becoming more convinced that God has prepared us to speak to Christians who want to reconcile faith with the rest of life in a culture that presses back. We found our way through a focus on community, spiritual disciplines, and orthodoxy, maybe just barely. You can hear our story below.

LISTEN: Drew and Sara, Living in Christian Community (Grace Seattle)