In Praise of Extroverts

"Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. [...] Let him who is not in community beware of being alone."  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer includes this warning in his challenging little book Life Together. His admonition has come to mind several times this week, as my Facebook newsfeed and Pinterest boards seem to be full of article praising introverts. Posts such as this, this, and this abound. As an off-the-chart introvert (INFJ, according to the Meyers-Brigg Type Index), I suppose I ought to be glad that the general public is receiving sound advice about our care and keeping.

Really, though, I'm kind of sick of all this hype about introverts.  We have our virtues, no doubt, but I think that even these virtues shine best when sharpened against the very real strength of extroverts.

Many of my dearest friends are extroverts, and while we don't always understand one another, we have learned to give thanks for one another. And so, in honor of my father, my Lindsay, my Emily, and so many other dear outward-going friends, I offer a few thoughts in praise of extroverts.

Extroverts enliven community

Left to my own introverted devices, I would only communicate to people through handwritten letters. I might venture face to face conversations if we could meet in the privacy of my own living room, and if we stopped talking every fifteen minutes so I could take a nap to recharge.  Yes, yes, I exaggerate -- but only slightly. I spent most of my adolescence in more-or-less voluntary solitude, ignoring Bonhoeffer's warning. I had no real community, and so my solitude sank into selfishness.

In college, however, I met people who loved people in ways that baffled me. These men and women took pains to connect and gather people together. During these years, I never lost my love of a quiet meal with a good book, but I did discover the new joy of a full table and long, loud, laughing supper.  I still spent hours studying on my own, but I came to appreciate the nights when my friends kidnapped me from the library for an impromptu group road trip. Without my more extroverted friends, my understanding of community and, more importantly, of the Church, would have remained incomplete during those formative college years.

Extroverts model generosity

Even if we seem open and talkative, introverts often reveal our secondary personality traits as our "public" side, while only manifesting primary qualities among trusted friends. For example, my deepest, most powerful response to an idea, person or situation is always emotional, not analytical or rational. However, my public and professional life emphasizes my analytic, thinking side: I have a PhD, I teach critical analysis of literature, etc. I do have a strong rational capacity; it simply isn't my primary response to the world. Only a select few--those I deem worthy--see the parts of me I value the most.

Extroverts, on the other hand, often humble me with their radical openness. They display their hearts and minds to nearly anyone. This can make life with extroverts messy, but at their best, extroverts have taught me how beautiful it can be to meet any human as a potential friend, brother, sister.

Extroverts spread the word

One of my own worst habits as an introvert is projecting my introversion onto others. "I don't want to bother them...." I tell myself, justifying my reticence about mentioning a new book, a concert, even the Gospel. Because I often simply wish to be left alone, even when someone is offering me something brilliant or vital, I  give up too easily when I have a message others need to hear.

My favorite extroverts seem untroubled by these inhibitions. "Come one, come all!" they will cry. "The more the merrier!" Because extroverts garner energy from people, they thrive on the busy street or in the bustling room, and the genuinely want as many people as possible to come, see, taste, and enjoy with them.

Extroverts allow introverts to be introverts

I spend much of my time pretending to be an extrovert, especially in my professional life. Furthermore, as a single person without a nearby "best friend" or family, I have to put myself forward in order to build relationships. These are rewarding efforts, but when I am in the company of a true extrovert, I find myself thanking God for a chance to rest.

Both of my parents are extroverts, and when I am home for Christmas, I savor being able to sit in the living room and simply listen. Visitors might call, and my mother and father will keep them talking, allowing me to sit, smile, and knit. Even introverts love being in a circle of beloved friends, but this introvert certainly appreciates not being the one responsible for keeping the conversation going.

My dear, dear extroverts: you bewilder and exasperate me, but my solitude would have little value without your challenging, God-gathering witness. It may seem like everyone's celebrating introverts these days, but at least one among your quiet kindred wants you to know how much she loves you.

A few of my favorite extroverts....

Grant us, Lord, a grocery store

As a child, one of my favorite games was "pioneers." Inspired by the Little House books, I spent hours pretending that I had packed my wagon, left loved ones behind, and ventured into the wilderness. This was an apt game for an American child, for as soon I was eighteen, I began to measure success in the number of miles I had travelled from home. I had plenty of good stories to help me wander, plenty of epics and novels and allegories to tell me that moving is best, exile is ideal.

I don't want to dismiss the years in which "home" was a complicated, and at times nearly hopeless, concept for me. Part of living the Way of Christ is knowing that we are "sojourners and exiles" in this world (1 Peter 2:11). At the same time, when God's people were living in exile in Babylon, the Word of the Lord came through the prophet Jeremiah, saying "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:28).

As I wrote yesterday, I am living, for the first time in memory, without the feeling that I will soon be moving on. Perhaps (not certainly, but perhaps) this will be home for the rest of my life on earth. As I try to understand what that means, the words of Jeremiah provide some hopeful clues. "Carry on," the prophet tells me. "Wager that you will have time for your seeds to sprout. Know your neighbors. Pray for the prosperity of this place."

Today, praying for the prosperity of this place means praying for a grocery store. When I imagine a prosperous community, I imagine a self-sufficient place, where people have access to the goods and services they need, and where they directly contribute to the welfare of one another by using those goods and services. One reason I moved to this community was its potential for that kind of self-sufficiency. The city is laid out in a way that makes walking and cycling easy, and from my house, I can reach a school, two churches, and three gas stations by walking for about 5 minutes. Walk a little longer--or bike--and I can easily reach a post office, general store, bank, and pharmacy.

By unidentified (unidentified) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

At the same time, there are many vacant buildings in Chickasaw that point to a time when more businesses could thrive in a small town. The hardware store is still in business, but most of their wares are dusty and faded, as though the inventory hasn't moved for years. Many more are simply empty. I pray for these buildings each time I walk, ride, or drive by. I want little local businesses, affordable and intimate, to thrive here. I want a proper grocery store, with a good selection of produce and all the basic dry goods.  I am praying that some entrepreneur will move into town and set up shop. I keep trying to think of un or under-employed friends who might be up to the challenge. For my own purposes, having a grocery store would mean I could do nearly all my shopping within Chickasaw itself.

At the same time, when I ask God for a grocery store, I am doing more than praying for a more convenient errand route. I am begging food for the roots I am trying to put down here. I am praying for a place where I can see my neighbors, know their children, ask about their lives. In other words, when I pray for a grocery store, I am praying for God's kingdom to come in Chickasaw as it is in heaven.

I've never had much patience for middle ground: either I am painting my dreams with universal strokes, abiding in enormous ideals, or I am nesting in small spaces, building little altars in the grass outside my door. Trying to pray for a national economy or a multi-national peace plan overwhelms me, frustrates me with particulars and logistics and obstacles. Only among the stars or down with the grass-roots do my hands feel free to pray and build. And so today I pray:

Grant us, Lord, a grocery store.

One year in Alabama

Rain is pouring off my roof, drops matching the swift rhythm of the ceiling fan here on the porch. Summer--the last summer of my twenties--ends soon, and having lived my entire life on an academic calendar, the end of summer always feels like the end of the year. That's an especially apt feeling now, as the end of summer also marks the end of my first year in Alabama.

One year. 1/6 of the time I lived in Texas. 1/4 of the time I was at college. 1/30 of my life thus far. I've used my blog to chronicle much of what has happened in the last year: the victorious graduation that preceded it, the bittersweet departure from Texas, the rich hospitality of my colleagues and students, the quest to buy a house, the magnificent trip to Italy.

My first year in Alabama has been a festival year, a year of bounty, a year in which everything has felt so new. This is the year for which I have planned, waited, and prayed for so long.

As this year ends, my first feeling is gratitude to the God who has made me say,

"The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance" (Psalm 16:6) 

And welling up with the gratitude comes wonder. Specifically, wonder at the idea of stability, rootedness, being-here-ness.  For the first time in my life, I'm not directing my work and energy to some future place, and while I rest in this thought, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. From kindergarten onward I was looking forward to college; in college I was deeply content but could never forget that I would have to move on one day; and in grad school I worked, lived, and loved with the knowledge that I did not come to Texas to stay. I do not mean to say that I would never leave Mobile, but I have no desire to leave, and I may never have reason to leave.

What does that mean? How do I do this well? How do I pray for the years to come? These are the questions I am asking myself on a rainy Alabama afternoon, as thunder and church bells ring out together, one year later.

Italy: Santa Margherita de' Cerchi

By the time we found this tiny church, we had already seen many of Florence's grandest sights: Michaelangel's David;  the masterpieces of the Uffizi Gallery; the soaring Duomo; and beautiful Santa Croce, housing the graves of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Dante. Like so many things in Italy, these glorious works towered over us physically and historically, demanding our attention, even reverence.

Santa Margherita, on the other hand, nearly eluded us. We were threading through a narrow alley, looking for a museum about Dante, when a tablet with some English writing caught my eye.

Without the sign, the doors to the church would have looked like any number of doors leading into courtyards, little shops, or up to flats and galleries.  Once I realized what I was seeing, however, I understood that this was a place I would have been very sorry to miss.

Tradition says that in this church, Dante Alighieri saw Beatrice Portinari for the first time. Some historians apparently contest this claim, but the church, which goes back at least to the year 1032, was undisputedly the parish church of Beatrice's family, and she is buried here.

If you haven't read Dante's Divine Comedy, in which Beatrice inspires Dante's journey toward heavenly revelation, my little blog entry isn't going to do much toward convincing you why stumbling into this church was such a humbling serendipity.

But maybe, maybe I can put it like this: so much of what I saw in Italy was magnificent, built by men of genius for the glory of God. Those buildings moved me to worship, and I hope that the stones of Santa Croce, St. Peter's, and the Duomo stand for centuries to come. And yet, in the Divine Comedy, Dante takes his readers higher than the tallest dome, and his visionary words about justice, mercy, and beatitude have rung longer and farther than the loudest church-bells in Florence. And Beatrice, who captured Dante's heart when she was barely nine years old, and who died when she was only twenty-four, is buried in a little parish church, tucked away on one of Florence's narrowest streets.

The memory of this church has served me well since I returned to the states to my little life: my house with its daily chores and company; my work, meaningful but hardly grand; my beloved little streets and neighborhood. Finding Santa Margherita reminded me that sometimes, the best stories take root in such small and hidden places.

How many places like this have I missed in my tours and travels? How many do I miss as I go about my daily work?

If I keep my eyes open, how many other doors in shadowed walls will lead to a benediction?

Gustave Doré's illustration to Dante's Inferno. Plate VII: Canto II: "Beatrice am I, who do bid thee go" (Longfellow's translation). This image is in the public domain. 

My hypothetical husband, the spy

This week, I'm visiting my hometown in Indiana. My mother and I just had the following conversation, and it was too good to keep to myself: 


Mama: You've had enough big life events in the last year. Let's not get married this year.

Me: Married? But I'm not even.....

Mama: Oh, I know, I know. But these things happen.

Me: Even if I were to fall in love and decide to marry someone, I wouldn't want to be engaged this year.

Mama: But you always said you wanted a Christmas wedding....

Me: Good grief, Mama, I've been unmarried for twenty-nine years already; I think I could manage to wait until the next Christmas.

Mama: But there might be a war.

Me: A war? So, you want me to move up the date of my hypothetical wedding because of a hypothetical war?

Mama [nodding]: He might be a spy. [pause] You know, I had a friend in college who had to get married in a hurry because her husband was going to jail. [pause] Don't marry someone who's going to jail.

Me: I won't. Unless it's for defending civil rights, or something like that.

Mama: Right. Don't marry someone going to jail unless he's going for a just cause.

Me: Okay, Mama. I promise.

(From the  State Library of Queensland. No known copyright restrictions)

I rest in hope

In the Basilica of Santa Croce, I stood before the graves of Michelangelo, Dante, Galileo, Ghiberti, and Machiavelli. I saw Giotto's 14th-century frescoes of the life of St. Francis, and I even saw a bit of robe said to have been worn by that merry Jongleur de Dieu. These monuments struck me like the tocsins of cathedral bells, but in all of beautiful Santa Croce, it was the conjugation of verbs that moved me most.

Most of the foreign languages I have studied --Latin, biblical Greek, Old English--are "dead," and so I am not used to encountering a language I know outside of a book. But in Italy, the walls whispered to me. Words, incised in marble or hammered into gold, surprised me at every turn. I find Ecce ancilla domini over that doorway, and something shakes the dust off my high-school Latin, tumbling me into a beloved chapter from Luke's Gospel. Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.

In Santa Croce, the tombs were speaking. Rich panels of marble paved the floor of the nave and transept, memorializing a body and soul at rest. Mostly they told me that so-and-so was buried here, many spoke of resting in peace. The ornate graves sang of the mighty artists and thinkers who had done so much to the glory of God. Of all these voices of the dead, one quickened me more than all the others.

 vixi in deo · quiesco in spe · resurgam utinam in caritate æterna

With much of the Latin I saw in Italy, I struggled to hear clearly, to gather words into the ordered hope of a sentence, but this inscription seemed to cry out in the quiet of the church: I lived in God; I rest in hope; I will rise again in love everlasting.* I lived, I rest, I will rise. Settled, carved in stone, yet moving through past, present, and future with the rhythm of a living breath.

Common hope in a foreign land. Cradle-truths from a half-forgotten tongue. Baptist girls are not accustomed to treading on tombs -- most of our churches don't even have their own graveyards. When I entered Santa Croce, I looked at the monuments of the Greats and thought, I am here to revere the work they have done. But no. The dead said, we are resting here in hope. Walk on us, climb over us, read, recite, and pace over our words, polish them to transparency until the grace blinds you in its shining. Come join us in the floor of the church. Listen to the faithful sing and step over you. Rest here, and rise in love everlasting.






* Before publishing this entry, I checked with some scholar-friends whose Latin skills are sharper than mine. They suggested a few other  translations, including the lovely possibility that the final clause should be, "would that I might rise to everlasting love." However, others argued that my (simpler) translation is actually more likely, since the tomb is medieval. I am choosing to include the text as it came to me in the moment, but I make no claims that it is a perfect translation.  

Italy: The Bells of the Duomo

For most of my life, I have encountered Grand and Historical Works of Art in one of two ways: through museums or in books. While seeing a painting in person is far more vivid than studying its replica in a book, both settings can create an artificial context for a work. Perhaps the gallery imposes a certain perimeter of white space around the painting, or the textbook offers an explanatory gloss under the picture of a famous statue. Often, these new contexts help a visitor make sense of a work. Furthermore,  gallery collections and mechanical reproduction allow far more people to experience important works than would otherwise have access to them.

Museums and books also tend to organize works of art into sensible narratives. Perhaps I study the doors of the Baptistery of St. John in a chapter on "The Birth of the Renaissance," or I see Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" not in the Medici country villa where it originally hung, but in a gallery room full of other Botticelli paintings. I can look at the work, place it in the story, and move on. Or I can choose not to study it at all. I can close the book, turn away from the gallery.

The most moving works of art I saw in Florence, however, upset my typical experiences with art, context, and choice. On our first day in Florence, my friends and I had an excellent guide who took us on a walk through the city. Our plan was to see the famous works of the Uffiizi and Accademia galleries the next day. The day was low and cloudy, threatening rain. Towards the end of our walk, we were strolling down a busy Florentine street, savoring cones of gelato and talking about something utterly unrelated to the Renaissance or to art history.

We turned a corner, and suddenly a mountain of pink and green marble soared up in front of us. Or so it seemed. As it happened, we had taken a back street to the Duomo, Florence's mighty basilica, with a dome that shapes the city's skyline, if you look from a distance.

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

The breadth and height of the Duomo, approached from such a near angle, crushed any sense of consoling distance. This was no gallery piece, no flattened photograph in a hand-held book. It was a standing, as it had stood for hundreds of years, bearing witness to God's glory, human genius, Florentine wealth, political history, Catholic theology, and more. Our guide was saying something about the marble, local quarries, Brunelleschi, but I heard little, for as we stood at the foot of the bell tower , bells began to ring. These were not like the sweet Methodist bells of my neighborhood, but powerful, unrelenting tones.

The bell tower

Hearing those bells was the only time in Italy I cried. I think it is because they eradicated any lingering distance between me and the object I had come to contemplate. They knocked down the white walls of my mind's gallery, ringing me into a living city, with a vast, beautiful, complicated church at its center.

The marble of the Duomo

The weight, the nearness of the massive church almost offended me. How dare it surprise me like this? How dare it stand there, presuming upon my reverence? Reeling from this offense, I was shocked to realize how much of my appreciation for beauty depends upon my own ability to choose. What picture shall I hang on my wall? Which room in the museum shall I visit? Which picture will I study from the book? The Duomo gave me no such choice. Either I could encounter it on its own terms, or I must leave the city and all it stood for.

And how did I respond? I wept when the bells rang, for it sounded as though they were calling all the world to prayer. And the next day, after a morning in tourist-thronged galleries, we returned to the Duomo and attended mass. Though I am not Catholic, I have attend various masses with friends, and my knowledge of Latin helped me follow along, dimly, with the prayers, scriptures, and songs. Like so many medieval Christians, I worshipped and prayed without understanding, in my own tongue, exactly what was happening. Nevertheless, attending mass in the Duomo helped reconcile me to the astounding beauty of the place. No longer was the Duomo a  Grand and Historical Work of Art I was trying to "appreciate," but a church in which I worshipped. In a humble, stumbling way, I went from being a spectator to a participant.

For the rest of our time in Florence, I always waited for and heard the bells of the Duomo with joy.