It’s all just so much.

I rest and cancel plans and skip some of the writing I need and want to do

because it’s all just so much.

But I need to honor my writing and creative practice. If I don’t write or make some sort of art I’ll be depleted on top of everything else.

I also need to honor my mind, body, and soul

so I keep putting myself in the way of good books and movies and TV shows and music and paintings and photographs (and trees, trees are art too)

because I need breaks from the hard, the broken, the tragic, the violent, the devastating things of this world

And I need to keep talking about all of this—my art and your art and his art and their art

here and with clients and during co-writing sessions and in my DMs and texts and emails and real life conversations face to face where I can see you and you can see me

because all of this talking about our art helps me hope for hope

and know I’m not alone

that we are in this together.

So please tell me about your art or someone else’s art. What is helping you inhabit this world right now?

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Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers®, Spiritual Direction for Belonging™, and Parenting with Art™. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. She’s currently writing her next book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2024.