How to Walk *out* of a Room

Some rails and trails for you

I first met Emily P. Freeman across the table at a gathering of women over a dozen years ago. I felt awkward and shy there, unsure and more self-conscious than curious. It seemed all the women there walked into the room with an air of confidence I didn’t share. Over a dozen of years later, though, after coming to know so many of those women better now, I know that most of them were just as unsure and uncertain and perhaps shy as I was. Many of them felt just as out-of-place.

All I know, though, is that sitting with Emily was like coming home to myself. Her gentle, quiet, tender voice and ability to simply listen without her eyes darting to all the other impressive voices and faces in the room—it calmed me. I left there knowing that was not the room for me, but I was glad and grateful to have met someone like Emily.

If you’re online at all these days, you’ve seen chatter about Emily’s newest book, releasing today, called How to Walk into a Room. More than any book this year, I have been looking forward to Emily’s. I think this is her best book yet and it is the book I think we will all need in 2024.

Earlier this year, when Emily was reading The Understory for me, she sent me a message saying, “This book will be a wonderful companion to How to Walk into a Room,” and I can’t help but agree.¹ Emily gives us the rails and trails to ride and walk upon, while I give us the more sensed experience of what it feels like to grieve as we walk in or out of spaces.

I knew I wanted to host a conversation with Emily here on Sayable and she was up for it. We’re both the wordy sorts and she gave me permission to edit it down, but I know you, my readers, love the nitty-gritty nuance and detail, so I haven’t changed a word. I focused on the first half of the book (more about how to walk out of a room than into it), so you’ll have to get the book to read how to walk into a room ;)

You give the reader the illustration or structure of a house of rooms to carry with them throughout the book. We talk often here on Sayable about renovating faith instead of deconstructing it, a term I first learned in one of Brian Zahnd’s books (which you also mention). Why do you think this is such a helpful illustration for so many of us? 

I think in pictures and find it's easier to talk about potentially difficult subjects when we all have a common and agreed upon framework from which to draw. In my last book, The Next Right Thing (2019), I have a chapter called "Walk into a Room" so for many years I've been carrying this idea of what we bring with us when we walk into rooms. Over time the idea extended in my mind to not only include the physical rooms we enter (classroom, workroom, sanctuary) but also the metaphorical ones (ideologies, relationships, experiences).

I don't mind the word "deconstruction" but it's also not one I use or fully identify with. Language matters and it's important to me personally to have words and imagery that accurately conveys what my own experience feels like. For some I think their process does feel like deconstructing and I'm in full support of their use of the word. I'm not afraid of that and I'm certain God isn't either. I'm also certain there are people who will read my story and who have observed what I've shared from a distance and say what I've done is deconstructing and I'm okay with that, too. But I'm just saying that's not what it feels like to me. 

Being a growing person means we are always learning and unlearning in all areas of our lives, including our faith. I would say that's what spiritual formation is. In order to be formed into Christlikeness, there is also a deforming process that happens along the way. Sometimes that even includes our ideas and assumptions of what it means to be like Christ!

I obviously can't speak for everyone, but for me the idea of imagining our lives, experiences, communities, and vocations as a house is a helpful one because we know there are many rooms and various things that go on within them. We know that a room isn't just one thing (all lovely or all terrible) and I think many of have perhaps tried to leave what we may have considered tired ideas about God and our faith behind but now we are peeking our head in the rooms of our early faith and we're relieved to discover there are some things that remain. We're walking back in and putting some beloved parts into our bags. But we're also finding courage and clarity to leave some other things behind.

I remember you sharing this line from your friend a while back and writing it down to remember later: “Tiny red flags rarely shrink; they only grow.” I think church-people can want us to be effortlessly optimistic about everything, to the point where we ignore those tiny red flags in favor of covering a multitude of sins or being long-suffering or patient. Can you say more about this and the ways you’ve learned to listen to the tiny red flags?

It was over a decade ago when I asked a friend for her advice about a particular invitation I had received. I shared with her some of my concerns and hesitations about it and that's when she said that line I've never forgotten: Tiny red flags rarely shrink, they only grow. I have found that statement to be true. I'm guilty of talking myself out of my own hesitations and outsourcing my confidence, ignoring red flags I sense, particularly if I'm the only one in the room who sees or senses them.

But I've come to agree with poet and theologian Padraig O'Tuama who posits: "We might know more than we know know." When I notice tiny red flags in various rooms of my life, I'm not so quick to dismiss them now, and that's mainly because I've tried to reason with, explain away, or ignore tiny red flags for years in various situations and they have never, not once, grown smaller or gone away.

There's one more thing I'll say about this and that is that not every hesitation is a red flag. There was a red flag trend a few years ago on social media where people posted things they considered to be turn offs or pet peeves about a person followed by multiple red flag emoji. They were mostly funny and often true, but it's important to remember in our actual life that just because something gives us pause doesn't mean it's a red flag. 

I've been guilty of stopping too soon, giving up too quickly, or leaving too early because I think I sense a red flag and so I want to shut the whole thing down. A more discerning practice than ignoring red flags or leaving a room at the first sign of trouble is to assume our initial hesitations are yellow flags first. This buys us time to ask some more questions.

When first considering leaving a room, you encourage us to ask the question: “Do I want to stay in this room?” Later, you write: “Choosing to leave a room may feel like a betrayal, a shame, an option you do not have…But so many of the stay-at-any-cost standards we may hold ourselves to come from an ingrained belief that if we leave, quit, or change our mind, then that says something about our character.” In addition to being eternal optimists, there is also an ingrained belief in many Christians that being people of faith means being loyal to institutions or organizations, even if we don’t want to be loyal any longer or we've grown uncomfortable with their stance or reputation. How have you learned to express your desires without shaming yourself for them? 

Oh Lore. This is a whole life's work, isn't it? 

We all have pretty strong narratives attached to staying and leaving, influenced by our family of origin, cultural identity, social location, and also our faith tradition. These narratives are always speaking but we're not always aware of their bias, we just think they're true. Cultivating a friendship with myself has been one of the most transformative practices when it comes to resisting the shame narrative. By that I mean honoring my own voice, desires, hesitations, and conclusions. Not honoring my voice above others or to the exclusion of them, but honoring my voice too; making space for myself the way I would make space for a friend who I love. When I walk into a room as my own friend, I'm more aware of the friendship of Jesus, too. And that friendship is so much more compelling than an institution or an organization. 

You have a chapter called Practice Changing Your Mind. You include this quote from America’s Government Teacher Sharon McMahon “Anyone who changes their mind based on new and better information is criticized and denounced. So it disincentivizes people from using critical thought when in reality the ethical thing is to change your mind based on new and better information.” How do we practice changing our minds when we get new information without alienating those who do not want to hear or engage the same new information?

For years I've complained about the academic requirements that many degrees place upon students to enroll in a public speaking class for graduation. That's great, sure, fine. But who will teach us to listen? Where is Public Listening 101? How can we possibly learn to receive all of the words that everyone is publicly speaking? We're all public speakers now. But where are the listeners? 

Listening is both art and science and while I think some of us are more naturally inclined to listen thoughtfully to the ideas, dreams, fears, and imagination of others, I think we all have a human and collective responsibility to learn the skill of listening for the sake of the common good. 

So while I don't think we can guarantee that others won't feel alienated when we begin to question things or change our minds, I do think learning to have a listening posture is vital if we want our best chance at connection in the midst of disagreement. Listening to you does not require that I agree with you. 

I loved your thoughts about leaving well and giving ourselves "the best chance at closure, at healing, and at eliminating the things that are within our sphere of control that could cause more harm than is necessary.” I’ve often tried to leave in a way that gives others the best chance at closure, but not myself and I’ve paid for it dearly. What happens if the way we choose to leave gives us the best chance at healing but is perceived to cause more harm than is necessary to those who choose to stay?

I don't think we can completely eliminate being misunderstood but perhaps we can lighten it a little. If we're truly trying to honor our own experience without dishonoring the experience of others, that's the most we can do sometimes. We do our best with what we know at the time. We listen to the movement of God in the form of our own bodies, our longings, our tears, our joys, the words of the few closest to us, borrowed prayers, shared liturgy, and wisdom from our own well-worn paths. And then we work to make the move to leave while we're still sad but before we're angry; we work to be as gracious as we can as often as we can and to be gentle with ourselves when grace seems far away. We honor others by believing their experience even if it's different from ours. And we refuse to shame ourselves for having a different one. For me it often comes down to a simple practice of relentless kindness: for myself and for others, too.

Emily’s book releases today and I hope you’ll nab your copy as soon as you’re able!

If this was your first read here, I’d love to have you join our Sayable community. It’s a wonderful space to work through complex ideas and issues with grace:

Have you preordered my latest book? The Understory: An Invitation to Rootedness and Resilience from the Forest Floor?

Also available A Curious Faith: The Questions God Asks, We Ask, and Wish Someone Would Ask Us

Handle With Care: How Jesus Redeems the Power of Touch in Life and Ministry

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1. This morning I noticed on Amazon that on The Understory’s page, it recommends How to Walk in a Room as purchased frequently with The Understory, and well, that just made me happy.