Dear Reader,

Yes, you.

I’ve been thinking about you. It’s been aching; the cognitive dissonance.

-A 250th anniversary of something many have been brainwashed for a long time to think was pure celebration, nationalism, and love of country…

…yet joining together as we watch it fall apart from the ideals that were always aspirational…

-Bring all your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free… yet borders and walls and get out now; and excessive reactions to those who step in as helpers…

-A country claiming to be Christian but dismantling the systems that attend the clarion call of the Gospel to care for those who are forced into poverty without a way to access basic human needs like home, food, family, love, healthcare, belonging…

It leaves me looking around at these little apocalypses wondering for change, grasping for hope, and stretching towards possibility. These multiple realities are one of the reasons why I started this column; with love letters and honeybees and sprinkles of hope and meaning making.

Honey for the Apocalypse is a response to the pain we carry and the connection we seek. This world sure can toss a sting, swelling and itching into the discomfort of how humans can collectively fail each other. Yet, when we gather together, hum and sing and work tiny revolutions of collective care, we make sweet, sweet honey.

Honey for the Apocalypse… and it’s always an apocalypse somewhere, for someone.

It’s so easy to feel alone in this world. And, dear reader, you are not alone. There are so many of us seeking our roles, doing our best, and stretching just a bit further. I’m so glad to be in this work with you.

I’m in this work beside you because I believe that there is a role for us all, and that Christianity is ONE OF the methodologies of hope and persistence through turmoil. Not the only one, but certainly one that we are uniquely equipped to use, together. For me, it is the meaning-making in the long work ahead, and it’s a tool that connects me to those that have come before.

So using all the tools of meaning-making I have available to me, I’ll be here praying, tending to the honeybees, writing love letters, and building communities.

And, I need help! I want to invite you to help shape the places in our lives that need some love. Truly, I invite you to write in. Whether anonymously or with a name only you’ll know, I’m the only one who sees the letters; I always pray on them, and I respond publicly to most with love and grace and the patterns of the honeybees.

…about anything that matters to you: the doubt you haven’t said out loud, the grief you’re still carrying, the question you don’t know who else to ask, the relational challenge in family or circumstance…

…for weekly love letters and a touch of Honey for the Apocalypse.

I want to note that the letters I’m responding to are submitted by real people. And the responses are my own, with pictures I’ve taken of (mostly) my hives. This project is a slow launch, and an imperfect one. You see, one of the goals that I’ve held for myself this year is that I’ll just do The Thing, whatever it is; and fail in public, and own it.

Tending honeybees certainly comes with the stings. While I can wear protective equipment, they are still responding with instinct and guardianship of their hive. Stepping out to try and do This Thing weekly… I know there will be stings. And, for me... I’d rather attend to the places of pain while tentatively putting something out there than sit back safely.

What I have to offer is my words, and clarity of my work in this ongoing movement of co-creating a new world. I have honey, dear reader, and I want to share it. Not for personal gain, but for the joy of amplification of hope in a world echoing despair.

Will you join me?

Hope, even still. 💗🍯🐝

PS: Write In Here, and see you soon.