I guess I should do a year in review thing.
Good morning, friends!
In the past couple days, if you are anything like me, you have found yourself opening “most popular posts this year” newsletters and maybe rolling your eyes because every publication seems to be doing this, but then you still end up clicking on articles and stories you’ve missed and grateful you did so.
So in case you’re not burn out on these, here’s my:
Stuff you may have missed in The Corners this year that other readers seem to have liked
1. This essay on being ok with wanting to have faith
On longing and the Asbury Revival.
As I write this, I have a YouTube livestream open and playing in the background, listening to the singing in the chapel at Asbury University in Kentucky - where a regular chapel service that started 12 days ago has not yet ended. From everything I have seen, the “revival” is a quiet one - it’s mostly just singing led by college students - on simple ac…
May we all continue to pay attention to how we might already be changing. May we not just impersonate old versions of ourselves. May we be open to gently walking away from hills on which we have planted flags, but carry with us a compassion for the person we were when we needed to put it there.
2. This Easter sermon from inside a men’s prison.
Resurrection is Messy
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. - John 20
… if you think the only sign of God bringing new life is the absence of pain or failure and therefore you haven’t experienced it, you might be wrong.
That’s the point.
Our scars and our sorrow will always be part of our story but they will never be the conclusion of our story. Which means that even when you feel trapped in your pain, trapped in your past, trapped in your own story like it is itself a tomb, know this — that there is no stone that God cannot roll away.
3. This essay on forgiving ourselves
Never Forgiving Yourself (isn't a virtue)
This afternoon, I found a basket of random stuff I hadn’t looked through for a couple years: expired movie passes, filters for the water dispenser, a couple postcards I think are beautiful, seven chapsticks and exactly 89 cents. Also discovered were five slips of paper in different people’s handwriting saying the following:
May your forgive yourself for what you had to do to survive.
May you forgive yourself for the things you did when you just didn’t yet have the wisdom to do better.
May you forgive yourselves for the times you were a volunteer but you felt like a victim.
May you forgive yourself for giving pieces of your heart away to things and people and institutions that could never love you back.
May you forgive yourself for the jealousy you feel when you see others on social media look amazing and do amazing stuff and have amazing sex lives and have amazing times with their amazing friends. I know some of those people – I promise, it’s mostly bullshit anyway.
4. This “Q & O” for subscribers about death (and the AMAZING comments that follow)
Rainn Wilson and me - some thoughts on death
Rainn On Saturday night I had the pleasure of having a long conversation with Rainn Wilson, which happened to be on-stage at a conference in Nantucket. In case you don’t know, yes, the guy who played Dwight on The Office is a man of faith (Baha’i) and has written a book (
1. Most comments:
This Q&O where members answered my question, is there a belief you’ve held in the past that you have started to question, if so…why?
HONORABLE MENTION (the post I liked more than you did):
This essay on sin and artificial intelligence:
My Robot, My Self
A few weeks ago, when I found out that my books are among the many thousands that have been fed into an large language model for the purpose of teaching artificial intelligence, I didn’t know how that was supposed to make me feel; Should I be honored they made the cut, or horrified that my intellectual property is being made into some sort of
I get that talking about this shadow side we all share is not terribly inspirational – it does not fill us with a warm feeling of optimism. And there is a lot out there that colludes in keeping us from the truth - an absolute cadre of power of positive thinking, Purpose Driven drivel brokers cashing in on our reluctance to admit we as humans have an inescapable propensity to fuck things up.
What I am saying is that if we are not looking at the whole reality of being human, the good the bad and the embarrassing, then we simply will not have the wisdom to know how to make use of, hem in, or regulate AI.
Mostly I just want to say thank you for being a part of this little corner of the internet. I am far happier owning this little space for my writing, and doing so on my own terms than I was being on the book publishing carnival ride for so many years. But it only works because there are folks like yourself who trust me in your in-box. Thank you.
Gratefully,
Nadia
p.s. Would love to know what you’ve read on Substack this year that has really stayed with you!
I just subscribed to The Corners not too long ago so I appreciate your list! Especially the post about the after-life. My mom died unexpectedly in July and I've been missing her terribly this Christmas. I noticed the post date was October 10 - I turned 62 that day and it was my first ever birthday without her. She was a life-long Southern Baptist and her faith was very important to her, including her church "small group". She understood and respected that my spirituality was much different than hers. Now that she's gone I'm sorry we didn't have more conversations about it. Your post and the comments gave me some resources and another way to think about the wonderful things she left behind - including her example of deep unpretentious faith.
There have been so many posts that spoke to me, I really can’t pick out just one. I enjoy The Corners so much, and have given several subscriptions as gifts. Maybe the best ones are the ones that helped me understand that “NO” is a complete sentence and affirmed that I do not have to be “all things to all people.” It’s important, at age 84, to continue to do what I can.