quick note if you’re new: the dwell journals is part of a weekly series offering less-polished, in-process reflections on the communal life. Typically, the dwell journals is part of a paid subscription to Human Together, but I opened up today’s post as a way for you to take a peek (and because…well…it’s been a while). I’m glad you’re here.
I never seem to bake at the appropriate time. It is almost always a sudden urge rather than a well-thought-out plan. The truth is I am not much of a baker at all. I seem to lack the precision and appreciation for the chemistry that baking requires. I’m more of an eyeball-it, toss-it-in-a-pan-and-add-a-little-butter type of home chef, because more often than not, I default to “Yeah, that’s close enough.” As a result, my baking tends to fall flat.
But sometimes, I bake. I bake when part of me is anxious and unsteady, when I sense the need to do something calming and rhythmic with my hands. I bake when I long for goodness that does not feel thin and wispy but substantial. I bake when I need a little sweetness right here.
Last night, about an hour before our youngest boys would go to bed, I decided to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I knew they would finish about the time I should (in theory) be ushering our eight- and nine-year-old upstairs, and because cookies are best in those first few minutes out of the oven, I would have a hard time not letting them sample one or two. But I made the cookies anyway, because lately I have had a hard time knowing how to hold the weightiness of the world.
Caring even a little can be crushing. When headlines about earthquakes and people being treated like “aliens” or “monsters” and about violence erupting in homes, in churches, and in the streets come one after the other, I become like an oversaturated sponge—waterlogged and spilling over onto the ground.
As a friend recently told me, “It’s all too much. . .” And I felt that. Sad and soggy, I felt that deep. To counteract the too-much-ness, I am often tempted to escape or to voluntary blindness. I think, “Wouldn’t it be nice to go hide in a hole?” or “Can I please go back to sleep?”
But even the ability to have a little space from the hard things is a luxury. “To be human is to suffer” I recently heard psychiatrist Dr. Curt Thompson say.1 Hard things have a tendency to follow us or to drop out of nowhere onto the ground. We humans also have a history of trying to run away. But being truly human involves holding the larger hurts and engaging in our common needs. Even if I am not the part of the collective body that is blistered or bleeding, I do not remain unaffected when brother, sister, neighbor is hurting. Our communal nature is designed to sense that pain in one another, so that when you are cut, I bleed.2
Feeling is essential, and yet, it can all be too much. When the wounds are wide and deep, sensing the ache can be both a burden and a gift. And so instead of trying to hide or to run, I bake.
I bake pumpkin chocolate chip cookies when I should be cleaning or getting kids ready for bed because this is how I stay in my body and in the body. By measuring and mixing, smelling the sweet blend of pumpkin, cinnamon, sugar, and butter, I give my fingers something to do and my brain a little rest. I slip the cookie sheet into the oven, feeling the warmth on my face, and I wait the 10-12 minutes in anticipation of goodness (assuming…fingers crossed…I measured everything right…). I bake to remember the steadiness of a kingdom that is already unfolding in our midst, to say in equal parts faith, hope, and a dash of defiance, “I don’t have to wait until all is well, but I can celebrate every little hint of the Kingdom that is at hand” (Henri Nouwen).3
I bake to remember that I can feel the weight of what I do not understand; I can see without becoming consumed. I can lament and advocate and do my small part within the body while still savoring sweetness wherever I can find it, to place it on my tongue knowing that even amid bitterness we can “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8 CSB). I bake to participate in that goodness and remind myself of the steady, unshakeable love of God. I bake so that even when so much around me seems hard, I fight to remain soft.4
Such goodness is rarely timely. But I am learning to receive it and to recreate it when I can. I am learning that communal flourishing requires a response to both suffering and celebration, which can be such an awkward and clunky kind of dance. But I cannot be part of a body without acknowledging the rupture and participating in the repair. And sometimes, repair looks like baking pumpkin cookies so I can be tender. Sometimes repair looks like listening to a friend. Sometimes repair looks like reading the news when I’d rather be watching New Girl, and sometimes repair looks like silence when I cannot discern a single good thing to do or to say.
Last night, as I pulled the first sheet of cookies out of the oven, all wrongs were not made right. Yet for a moment, the younger boys stopped rollerskating around the kitchen island and the teens came out of hiding and we all put a little of that pumpkin-y, chocolate-y goodness in our mouths, and we smiled. Our “Mmmmmms” emerged in an involuntary chorus, and for a moment, I breathed it in. I let my brain, my body, all that remains unfinished within and around me, be still. I let my soul celebrate these “little hints of the Kingdom,” because while often small, these bits of goodness are never flimsy. They are substantial. They are how the soul stays fed.
And so I bake, reminding myself that we too can participate in such goodness. We too can create, rather than be consumed. We too can feel the weight of what is too-much while also being part of a larger body, steady and sustained and holding on to goodness from the inside out.
Together with you,
PS: if you’re interested in getting the dwell journals from here on out, I invite you to try the 30-day trial and get a fuller taste of what to expect. Feel free to ask any questions, and if money is tight, it doesn’t have to be a barrier. Just email me at sarah@sarahewestfall.com with the subject line “sponsorship" and I’ll upgrade your subscription, no questions asked.
during a lecture on suffering, given at The Apprentice Gathering (September 27, 2025)
A reference to the apostle Paul’s metaphor of the body in 1 Corinthians 12
Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming (New York: Doubleday, 1992).
Author and therapist Aundi Kolber has a lot of good things to say about this
I love this, and now I want a 🍪
“I let my brain, my body, all that remains unfinished within and around me, be still. I let my soul celebrate these “little hints of the Kingdom,” because while often small, these bits of goodness are never flimsy. They are substantial. They are how the soul stays fed.” ~such a sweet reminder, my new friend. With you.