The substance of small things I’ve seen

Almost 16 years ago my family and I arrived in Seattle. I can’t really describe the wonder we felt, following I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass and then seeing the city on the other side of Lake Washington, only to see more water and more mountains beyond that. We were driving to a coveted tenure-track position for me, in the wake of a historic election that saw Barack Obama become president. It felt like the world was opening up to something new. Hope felt like a tangible thing. It hung in the air with the president’s words and the exuberance of rallies and shared looks in hallways.

Sixteen years later, packing to again move into a new phase of life, I cannot quite imagine what became of that world, of the ways so many would respond to hope and change. There was a time when, in my youthful exuberance turned bitter disappointment, I had some deep misgivings about the church, about theology, about the world. Hope felt like folly, a bad joke.

I kept working, kept teaching, kept putting one foot in front of the other—sometimes because I believed in what I was doing, sometimes simply because we had to eat. My inclination, whether in my teaching or in my assessment of the world, was usually to dwell on the negatives: the critique of my teaching, the negative evaluation, the one student who fell asleep in class—even when they were vastly outnumbered by the positives. There would be moments when the doubt would become paralysis, when all I could do was take solace with those who shared my criticisms and complaints.