Mentioned in this episode:

• 8 Habits of Love by Ed Bacon

• “The future is dark. Is this the darkness of the tomb – or the womb?” Valerie Kaur quote, read more here

• Pando, the Utah quaking aspen forest and largest known organism on Earth

• One More Thing Before I Go by John Cobb- Ed talks in depth here about the essay and Pando

• New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

• The Prayer of Unknowing by Thomas Merton

• Abraham Joshua Heschel, on the difference between creed and faith: “there are many creeds, but only one faith.” From The Insecurity of Freedom

• “. . . deep down in every man, woman and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.” Alcoholics Anonymous, “We Agnostics” (p. 55)

Updates from Maggie

Thank you dearly to all subscribers! With a huge shout out to paid subscribers- You are the reason this show exists, and I do not take that lightly.

Health allowing, I’ll be posting exclusive episodes and extras for paid subscribers in the coming weeks.

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And if you want more… come find us on Out of the Boxeys, a podcast with Nick and I on all of the ways we live out of the box in life, love, and the lessons we learn along the way.

Nick and I are also in the quarterfinals of America's Favorite Couple contest! (This round ENDS TONIGHT Thursday 8/27/2026 at 10pm EST) It’s a close race, we’d be so grateful for your vote! https://americasfavcouple.org/2026/nick-and-maggie-boxey

And of course, always remember the 3 things. I love you and I’m so glad your’e here!

Love,

Maggie

About Maggie: Maggie Boxey is an author, podcaster, TEDx speaker, and advocate for progress based in rural South Georgia, where she lives with her husband, parents, kids, dogs, cats, and chickens. She’s the author of The 3 Things: A Practical Path to Collective Recovery, and hosts The 3 Things Podcast and co-hosts Out of the Boxeys with her husband, Nick, both part of the OOTB Podcast Network. They also run a pop-up bookstore (OOTB Books & Media). Maggie lives with the disabling effects of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (also known as ME or MEcfs). For more information on ME please visit MEaction.net and watch Maggie’s TEDx “I am One of The Millions Missing” . Maggie (USN) and her husband Nick (USMC) are both retired/disabled veterans with 34 years of service between them.

Grab Maggie’s book, The 3 Things, here

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Ed and the episode’s themes
02:00 Ed discusses the eight habits of love and his favorite, stillness
04:55 Oneness of all creation and the symbolism of Pando
15:08 The divine in all and the interconnected universe
22:10 Ed’s story of meeting Martin Luther King Jr.
35:00 The nature of God, love, and the divine energy
38:52 Why does God allow suffering? The non-omnipotent God
50:06 Living truthfully and the renewal of the mind
54:47 Final reflections and Ed’s three things for life

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Links & mentions

Huge shout-out to c/o 96, to all who were at the reunion, those who weren’t able to make it and those who were there in spirit, love y’all dearly!!

• Maggie & Nick are in the Quarter Finals for America’s Favorite Couple, vote daily here: https://americasfavcouple.org/2026/nick-and-maggie-boxey

• Society Garden (reunion venue, Macon GA)

https://thesocietygarden.com/

• (Special Thanks to Tracy for helping us figure out the wheelchair situation!)

• I Thought It was Just Me — Brené Brown Correction on this title: (Maggie said “I thought I was the only one)

• Everything Is Tuberculosis — John Green

• Anam Cara — John O’Donohue

• Beautiful Creatures — Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

• Umbrella Academy (trade paperbacks): [link]

• Hymn of the Universe — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

• I am one of the Millions Missing TEDx Talk

Follow along

• Out of the Boxeys on Instagram

• Maggie on Instagram

• All the links: https://linktr.ee/maggieboxey

Always remember The 3 Things:

You are part of a family,

Be true to yourself,

And Glorify God* in all that you do. *or Good, Love, Higher Power, Nature ( insert your conception of a higher power)

And keep asking questions, and keep living outside of the box! And we’ll see y’all next time!!

Chapters

• 00:00 — Introduction and overview of the reunion experience

• 02:00 — Maggie’s background and connection to her high school

• 04:02 — Memories of middle school and high school years

• 05:33 — The reunion: emotions and reconnections

• 08:07 — Accessibility challenges and solutions at the event

• 09:57 — The significance of community and shared history

• 15:05 — Reflections on personal growth and authenticity

• 20:14 — The role of community support and belonging

• 25:07 — The impact of vulnerability and being true to oneself

• 30:02 — Closing thoughts and lessons learned

Resting.

She would stay in her housecoat, reclining in her chair, sometimes listening to old Southern Gospel tapes or CDs. Sometimes she would tell herself, “Come on Rosie, time to get up,” and those around her would smile knowing that she would not, in fact, be getting up anytime soon. She was so good at resting that we’ve dubbed those days as “Rosie Days.”

On top of that, Rosie had a group of friends who had been together for years. They would meet up and throw parties and meet for fellowship. And they called themselves the “Do-Nothing Club” because a lot of times they met to do, well, nothing.

Oh, to have Do-Nothing Clubs where we get together and play and rest? I think Rosie Days and Do-Nothing Clubs should be adopted by everyone because we could all use a good recliner.

I am a nap person. I have always been a nap person. For many years I tried to ignore that I was a nap person because those around me were not nap persons and it’s hard to stop everything and go lay down when those around you don’t need naps or they don’t honor sleep and rest as a necessary part of life. I think some of us are wired for more sleep than others. My husband stays up late and wakes up early. He rarely needs a nap. I can go to bed early, wake up late, and still need a mid-day rest. For many years, I shamed myself for wanting rest. Thank God my sponsor Michele is also a nap person and gave me permission early in my recovery to rest…

…On the seventh day, he rested. Most major religions have a sabbath day or a holy day reserved for worship, rest, and reflection. This isn’t a novel self-care trend; the ancient religious texts stress the importance of rest. We must have time to clear our channels and to rest our over-cluttered minds. It’s good for us, for everyone. Rest is our divine right. And when we rest, we allow others to feel like it’s okay to rest. Rest for the sake of resting, rather than to get back out there and produce. Being of better service is a result, sure, but just as it is with play, doing nothing for no other reason but to rest is glorious.

© 2024 Maggie Boxey. All rights reserved. Excerpted from The 3 Things: A Practical Path to Collective Recovery (Rise Books, 2024).

Get your copy of The 3 Things: A Practical Path to Collective Recovery here!

Listen to The 3 Things Podcast here.

Find all of my info, socials, and links here: linktr.ee/maggieboxey

Follow Rise Literary here:

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Content note: This episode contains references to postpartum depression and suicide. Please take care of yourself as you listen.

About This Episode

Jamie Lou , scrappy storyteller, developmental editor, ghostwriter, filmmaker, and choir mom, sits down with Maggie for a wide-ranging conversation about the courage it takes to tell your story, the revolutionary power of whimsy in hard times, and what it means to be of service in a world that needs it badly. They talk creative process, vulnerability, matriarchy, loving on the margins, and why being scary, not scared, might be the most important thing you can do right now. Jamie’s three things will stay with you.

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Find Jamie Lou

• Instagram: instagram.com/jamieloustoryteller

• TikTok: @jamieloustoryteller

• Rebel Story Factory: instagram.com/rebelstoryfactory

• Website: jamieloustoryteller.com

• Lady Lazarus Short Film

Books Mentioned in This Episode

• No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz

• The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler

• Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody

• The 3 Things: A Practical Path to Collective Recovery by Maggie Boxey

  Links are for Out of the Boxeys Books and our indie pop-up affliliate link on bookshop.org. Thank you for shopping indie!

Support the Show

• Get the book from the link above or ask you local indie bookstore or library to carry it!

• Support on Substack — Free and paid subscriptions available at substack.maggieboxey.com. Paid subscribers keep the show going and get early episodes and exclusive extras.

• Vote for Nick and Maggie — Group finals are open for America’s Favorite Couple! Vote daily while we’re still in it: https://americasfavcouple.org/2026/nick-and-maggie-boxey

• Out of the Boxeys — More Maggie and Nick together, wherever you listen

• Merch https://www.etsy.com/shop/OutoftheBoxeys

Connect with Maggie

Subscribe here and follow on Instagram!

Subscribe now

Chapters

00:00 Pink lights, glitter freckles, and why whimsy is a revolutionary act 02:07 Brave by Sara Bareilles and the courage it takes to show up 03:33 What it felt like to hand my manuscript to an editor for the first time 05:08 Jamie’s origin story — Colorado to Phoenix to always heading west 07:05 Scrappy storyteller, ghostwriter, filmmaker, and all the things in between 08:08 All the things in the fire at once — and loving it 09:02 Lady Lazarus, Sylvia Plath, and writing about postpartum depression 10:07 Survival, resilience, and the stories that won’t let us go 11:02 Beat sheets, story structure, and advice for first-time fiction writers 13:36 How to outline when your brain needs to see it on a wall 14:24 Note cards, wall space, and making the mess visible 16:31 Pulling tarot for your story — signs, symbols, and creative trust 17:15 Synchronicities, signals, and learning to listen while you create 18:44 Music, cultural symbols, and the emotional architecture of a story 20:01 The day after vulnerability — the grief that comes after you publish 21:14 Community, service, and why we don’t heal in isolation 22:09 Sitting with the tender parts after you’ve put yourself out there 23:25 Love, rage, activism, and finding your purpose in what breaks your heart 27:08 The alchemy of collaboration — what happens when two storytellers make something together 28:15 Community, truth, and spirituality — the three things in Jamie’s own words 29:41 Finding your people in the ordinary places 32:41 Rebellion as empowerment — using your voice when it scares you 33:50 What a matriarchal society actually means — and why it’s not what you think 35:34 Feeling out of place your whole life and finally finding where you belong 36:22 Isolation, connection, and reaching across the distance 38:26 Social media, vulnerability, and knowing when to protect yourself 40:36 Brain fog, emotional exhaustion, and the grace of good enough 41:16 The stories that heal us when we share them out loud 43:42 Integrity, values, and what it costs to live true 44:38 Honoring your higher power in the everyday, not just the sacred moments 46:12 No Bad Parts, inner parts work, and learning self-compassion in therapy 48:04 Therapy angels, visualizations, and the tools that help us come home to ourselves 50:21 The thread that connects us all — spiritual interconnection in plain language 52:34 Living authentically as its own form of spiritual practice 54:00 Collective love and why community is always the answer 55:57 Getting quiet enough to hear your own core self 58:51 Creative synergy — what happens in the room when it’s really working 01:00:43 What keeps us up at night — and what gives us hope anyway 01:02:38 Caring for the vulnerable — children, elders, the disabled, all of us on hard days 01:04:47 Loving on the margins — Father Greg Boyle, Homeboy Industries, and radical community 01:07:44 Jamie’s three things, Maggie’s notes, and the words that stayed

CW: Child loss and addiction

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In this episode, Maggie shares insights from her journey with recovery and spirituality, featuring a heartfelt conversation with her first guest, Father Hallock Martin aka Daddy, about the origins of the 3 things and the importance of living authentically.

Main topics:

• The origin and significance of The 3 Things

• Personal stories of loss, recovery, and finding belonging

• The concept of living true to oneself, especially in times of health and spiritual challenges

• The role of community support in healing

• Navigating faith and spirituality amid societal division and political turmoil

• The metaphor of elliptical spirituality and maintaining connection with higher power

• Embracing vulnerability as a pathway to deeper community and self-awareness

Resources and Links:

• The 3 Things: A Practical Path to Collective Recovery by Maggie Boxey

• Out of the Boxeys Podcast w Nick and Maggie Boxey

• What is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)?

• I Am One of the Millions Missing - TEDx talk by Maggie Boxey

Connect with Maggie:

• Maggie Boxey Writes - Thank you to MBW subscribers!! This podcast is listener supported. Paid subscribers get access to exclusive episodes and workshop opportunities.

• Follow Maggie on Instagram

We worry when it’s time to worry. We take action when it’s time to take action. He’s never panicky. Just measured, steady, calm under pressure. And I am not, by default, so his influence has always been a gift.

Then I started to sense a quiet dis-ease below his

surface.

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My Marine who doesn’t panic was troubled by something. My spidey sense engaged.

I started hearing him grumble after each grocery run (I no longer do the shopping because of MEcfs). My favorite protein bars up by $2. Ground beef up considerably. Gas prices up a dollar a gallon at least and rising. And other than a few pictures of gas pump screens and like-minded people online asking whatever happened to everyone complaining about eggs and prices, there didn’t seem to be any alarm. No collective spidey sense. Our news cycle just kept bouncing from insane thing to insane thing, things kept getting more expensive and more strange, and somewhere along the way our sense of normal became the Twilight Zone. The bar is in hell and nobody’s talking about it.

What I had been sensing in my husband for weeks? A retired Logistics Officer with deep experience reading global oil patterns, doing the math on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. And coming up with numbers that troubled him.

I am not an analyst or an economist. But I had to dig into what had this man (who does not flinch) quietly, deliberately, preparing.

Here’s what I found.

Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz carried 20% of the world’s oil. It is now effectively closed, with traffic down to 5% of normal. The last oil tanker from the region docked in Long Beach on May 3rd. There are no more coming.

Diesel is the heartbeat of our food supply. Every truck, tractor, and refrigerated trailer runs on it. When diesel gets expensive or scarce, everything those vehicles carry gets expensive or scarce... usually about four to six weeks later.

Then there’s the fertilizer problem. One third of the world’s fertilizer trade moves through the same strait. Supply goes down, demand stays the same, prices go way up. A Farm Bureau survey found that 78% of Southern farmers can’t afford all the fertilizer they need for this growing season. This is a long-fuse problem: the crops being planted right now (or not being planted) are what will be on our shelves next year.

So why isn’t this everywhere on my social media and newsfeed? The data is public. The International Energy Agency called this the largest oil supply disruption in the history of the global market. I had to dig to find it.

Is it a conspiracy? Maybe. But I think the real answer is scarier than that: a slow-motion disaster doesn’t sell. It doesn’t fit our breakneck news pace. It isn’t explosive or scandalous. So it just looks like business as usual with high prices, and we keep adjusting our sense of normal until we don’t remember what normal was.

I have ME/CFS, which means I have very little energy, and I can’t afford to spend much of it in fear, fear makes me sicker. But uncertainty without action is its own kind of paralysis. So I’ve been leaning into the one thing that actually helps: doing something.

We’re building our pantry. Stocking up on rice, beans, canned goods, gradually, within our normal budget. We’re planting a garden. We’re watching diesel prices like a canary in a coal mine, because when that goes, food transport follows. We’re figuring out where our food actually comes from locally, there are farms all over rural Georgia, and there’s probably a more direct path than Walmart and the Piggly Wiggly. We’re quietly letting friends and family know what we’re doing and nudging them to start thinking about it too. (‘We’ is doing a lot of work here, Nick is doing all of this, I’m the moral support).

I have a thing... I’m almost psychic about knowing when one of my kids is going to get sick in the middle of the night. For a long time I let that feeling run me. Then I learned to just do something with it: put out extra towels, situate a bucket, let the kids know we’re here if they need us. Prepared, so if it happens we’re ready. If it doesn’t, no harm done. (This actually happened just the other night.) That’s the energy I’m trying to bring to this.

I’m not asking you to be scared. But please look, read the primary sources, and trust yourself enough to sit with what you find. And then do something with it. Something small and real and manageable. An extra bag of rice. A conversation with your neighbor. A call to your representative. Something that turns the dread into motion, so that dread doesn’t turn into despair.

My husband (the Marine, the “wait-to-worry” man) is preparing. Quietly, practically, without making it a thing. He is the least dramatic person I know.

That’s the energy I’m trying to find. Not Chicken Little or an ostrich.

Something steadier than both

.

I have had so many ideas for essays lately.

I’ve got to be honest: most of my ideas are reactionary. I want to write about gas prices, impending shortages, and how they’ll affect us, especially rural and disabled folks (go stock up on nonperishables and fuel, y’all, find your community locally... okay, but I digress). I want to write about war, and the lies and propaganda coming from our leaders. About the scandal of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and how advocacy falls on deaf ears, and how the work just makes us sicker while we scream into the void of spaces already full of people with ME. But I’m not an economist or an expert on foreign affairs or governance or propaganda, and I’m already posting nonstop for ME Awareness Month. I’ve done a TEDx talk y’all. I am so tired of writing and hearing myself talk about this damn illness already (it’s so sad that our lives depend on us).

So I started to write an essay about my freshman’s first high school musical instead.

“I was nervous as we entered the auditorium. There are a few wheelchair accessible seats along the back row, but every event I’ve been to since I started using a wheelchair, those seats fill up first, whether due to need or novelty, I’m not sure. We got there early, doors weren’t even open yet. I selected the wheelchair cutout seat at the far back left and started to settle in when the resource officer showed us there were actually more cutouts up front. Oh yes, I’d love for our kiddo to be able to see us right up front.

The curtains opened, and after a few lines the first musical number began, and there was my freshman, singing and dancing, smiling. Immediate tears came to my eyes.

I am just so proud. I had been so worried before the school year started. Middle school was so hard for them, so full of bullying and feeling left out, and here they were on stage, singing and dancing with friends. They have found their community, and seeing them thrive in it was so good for my mama heart.”

But that’s as far as I got. It fell flat, lost its urgency under the constant barrage of the news cycle.

Then yesterday, a dear friend of mine (a teacher) asked to use a quote of mine in a graduation speech. I looked it up to make sure I had it right (it’s hard to remember what I’ve written verbatim). The quote is: “I am raising the future, and the future is raising me right back.”

While I was searching, I came across something else that made me stop cold, another passage from my own book:

“Our future depends on us being part of a family. If we do not start seeing each other as a family, as common humanity, we are going to rip each other apart. Already we are seeing the dehumanization of entire groups of people, Asian, immigrant, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and LGBTQIA+ people. This is not new, it’s happened throughout our history, but today there is a resurgence with a boldness to it.

Our future depends on us being a family. This means honoring all members of our family just as they are, not arguing about their right to exist. We are no longer going to debate whether trans people should have rights (because they do). We are no longer going to debate about gender expression and identity because there is an entire spectrum of existence that is supported by science. We are no longer going to question whether or not Black, Brown, and Indigenous people face racism. Of course they do.

What we are going to do, as members of this human family, is take courageous action to face it and stop it. We’re going to honestly acknowledge the world as it is, so we can imagine the world as it could be...”

Excerpt from Chapter 4 of The 3 Things: A Practical Path to Collective Recovery

I wrote the first draft of that chapter in 2021 and finished revisions in late 2023. I had no idea what was in store after the 2024 election. Reading it now, despair threatens to creep in. Oh, how far we’ve slid backwards in such a short period of time. What seemed to me like plain common decency when I wrote it might now get me added to some kind of watch list.

I don’t know what the answer is, other than doing my best to lean into the writing I’m best at (trying to stay in my lane), and continuing to live the 3 Things:

You are part of a family. Blood relatives, yes, but also chosen family, community... you are not alone.

Be true to yourself. Get still. Get creative. Set boundaries. Get honest.

Glorify God in all that you do. God, higher power, goodness, love, science, intuition, your higher self, the Universe, the stars... whatever is your compass and source of strength, follow that. Find meaning in the mundane and awe in the magical and/or marvelous.

I go much deeper into all of it in the book, but today I just wanted to write about what I’m feeling.

You aren’t alone if you feel a little spirally right now. Being disabled and dependent on caregivers for everything makes times like these feel even more doom-heavy. But today I’m leaning into the 3 Things, and into the hope that they bring.

I love you and I’m so glad that you’re here.

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I remember exactly where I was when January 6th, 2021 unfolded on my television screen. I sat on my couch in a kind of stunned disbelief. And underneath the shock, a question kept rising up that I could not shake loose: how do we come back from this?

Not just politically. But as people. As a collective. How do we find our way back to each other when something that fundamental has fractured?

I did not have a simple answer. But I realized, sitting there in the wreckage of that day, that I was already writing one.

The outline for the book came to me during my morning writing practice after three months of an unknown virus had left me a shell of my old self. I had prayed for my higher power to either heal me or take me because I could not go on living like that. That prayer was not answered the way I expected. Instead I was forced to turn inward, to connect with my higher power and my higher self. I believe throwing myself into writing this book was preparing me for what was to come.

Shortly before the nightmare of the Capitol riot, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor while doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I was so relieved, y’all. Finally, something showing up on a test. I was scheduled for brain surgery and had hope that I would get back to my former self. I knew I had to write this book before surgery. I gave myself three months to get the first draft done, and I did it.

I did not return to my former glory. But brain surgery recovery requires a lot of rest, and so does ME/CFS, though I did not know I had that yet. So I slept around the clock for weeks, listened to my body, and slowly started to improve. We moved back to my hometown and a math teaching position opened up. I had been writing about how our gifts and talents can match up with the needs of our community, and it felt like an obvious choice.

So I was teaching sixth grade. And coaching cross country. And planning school dances. And caring for my father who was sick, while parenting, managing our home, and supporting my Marine husband who was commuting three hours round trip to base every day. I never reached 100% but my brain surgeon told me there comes a point where you just have to push through. So I did. Every day I showed up for a classroom full of kids who needed steadiness and presence, and I gave it to them even when I had almost nothing left to give. I would go home and sleep after school, and entire weekends went to recovery so I could go back on Monday.

I wrote and revised and wrote some more anyway. Because the book felt necessary. Because the question of how we heal collectively felt urgent in a way I could not ignore.

The book was done. The tour was planned. I had a vision for how this would go, how I would finally get to stand in front of readers and say: here, I wrote this for us, for right now, for exactly this moment we are living through.

Two months before publication day, a virus changed everything.

I became disabled almost overnight. The ME/CFS that had been building for years was pushed into a severity I had not experienced before. I could not work. I could not travel. There were days I could not get out of bed, could not think clearly, could not manage the basic tasks of being a person in the world, let alone an author with a book to launch.

Instead of a big city book launch, I held a small, quiet event in our little town. It took weeks to recover from.

The book I had poured everything into went out into the world. And then it went quiet. I grieved that in a way that is hard to fully put into words. It felt like the loss of something I had worked so hard for, something I believed in so deeply, going quiet before it had the chance to be heard.

An estimated 3.35 million adults in the United States are living with ME/CFS right now. As many as 75% are unable to work. Around 25% are housebound or bedbound. (CDC) That is not a small number. That is millions of writers, teachers, artists, parents, creators and thinkers, people with something vital to contribute, who have gone missing from their own lives.

I am one of them. (see my TEDx talk below). And the silence around this disease means that most people have no idea how many of us there are, what we have lost, or what we are still trying to give from wherever we find ourselves today.

I say that not for sympathy. I say it because I want you to understand what it means when someone with ME/CFS shows up anyway. We are not being dramatic when we say it is risky. We are telling you the truth. And we keep showing up because we believe the work matters.

This book matters. The conversation it opens matters. And this community, the one reading this right now, matters more than I can say.

The Birthday Wish

Today is The 3 Things’ second birthday, and I have a wish.

I want this book to find the people who need it. The ones who are still asking how we come back from this, and honestly, how much further down we have gone since January 6th. The ones who are exhausted by division and desperately want a practical path forward.

For this week only, the ebook is available for $2.22 in honor of two years. You can grab it on Bookshop.org or Amazon. And if you have not seen the reel I made to go along with this, you can watch it here.

Every share, every tag, every review is a gift to a disabled author who cannot do this the way she planned. And it is a gift to every reader who has not found this book yet but needs it.

A Way Forward

Two years ago I asked how we come back from this.

I still believe The 3 Things is part of the answer. If anything, that need has only grown.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for two years. And thank you, in advance, for helping it find the people who need it most. 🤍 I love you and I’m so glad you’re here.

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Sometimes the hardest part of writing is starting (especially during times like these).

So let’s start together.

We’ll gather on Zoom, say hello, share what we’re working on, and then write quietly together until 1pm EST. I’ll offer a writing prompt if it helps, and there’s an optional sharing time after the hour.

Camera on or off.
Write a lot or write a little.
Progress > perfection.

Especially welcoming to disabled and chronically ill writers, tired creatives, ADHD brains, and anyone who wants gentle accountability.

Saturday, March 7 noon EST

Meeting ID: 876 6241 1769
Passcode: writenow

Open to all Maggie Boxey Writes subscribers.

Come as you are.

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Share Maggie Boxey Writes

I’ve been in a cocooning space for several months. If you are feeling unsettled, overwhelmed, and unsure how to show up in the world, you are not alone! What we are witnessing right now (politically, socially, spiritually) is not normal.

I’ve been working on a sustainable strategy.

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Here locally, we’ve started a “Do the Next Right Thing” club. We recently held a community clean-up that was a dashing success! (I was there in spirit and supported with marketing and planning help). We had a group of caring individuals who wanted to help make a difference in our community and while we had other ideas for ways to approach it, the next right thing came to us organically in the form of lots of complaints about trash around town, and our aim became clear. We’ll do it again on Earth Day and hopefully continue to address more ways to help our community thrive.

Writing prompt: What can I do, with what I have, where I am?

I’m focusing on my word of the year “connection”- connecting to family, being true to myself, and connecting to my Higher Power. (It’s giving The 3 Things and I love it!).

Do you have a word for the year? How’s that going so far?

Without further delay, Here’s All the Things:

Wild Chicken Festival Pop-Up

OOTB Books & Media is heading out into the wild. We’re having our very first pop-up bookstore at the Wild Chicken Festival, Fitzgerald GA, March 21! (Yes we have wild chickens that roam our town, and a HUGE chicken statue, come see us!)

Featuring:

🦋 The 3 Things: A Practical Path to Collective Recovery + curated book selection
📚’blind date with a book’ bundles
☕️stickers, mugs, bookmarks and other bookish items

I’ll be there for book signing in my zero gravity recliner (MEcfs life). I’ll bring a few extra chairs so you can relax with me and read if you’d like.
It feels wonderful to see this dream coming to fruition. We hope to have a pop up each quarter this year- I’ll keep yall posted of locations.

Not near south GA? Here’s our Etsy shop where I’ll place some of the products we’ll feature at the popup.

✍️ Chronic Moxie Writing Circle (Zoom)

Saturday, March 7 • 1pm EST

I announced the Chronic Moxie Writing Group last year, but I overestimated my capacity and postponed... Now, a little selfishly, I crave a container to hold my craft in community so I’m going to try it as a pop up (that’s kind of my thing these days) situation where there’s no set schedule, but week by week, I’ll let you know if we’ll meet, and when.

What to expect:

gentle co-writing space open to free + paid subscribers
brief check-in + quiet writing time
Optional share time after our hour together

I’ll share the zoom info here next week, please put it on your calendar.

Community spotlight

The Astrology of Healing by Nada Yousif came out this month! Get your copy today! (We’ll have it for sale at the pop up too!) You may recognize her, as we recently had Nada on our podcast for a Side Quest w/ a Guest episode where she read our composite chart. Listen here, I smiled the entire time editing this episode. Use code OOTB for 20% a session with Nada at theastrologyofhealing.com

Speaking of podcasts, next month (HP and energy willing) we’re launching The 3 Things Podcast (more info soon- a whole podcast network!). Nada will be in the line up along with some of my other favorites. Who would you like to hear on the show?

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How are you doing so far in 2026? Do you have a word for the year? Are you interested in writing together? Let me know in the comments.

Thank you for spending time with me, I’m so glad you’re here.

Love y’all,
Maggi

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Yesterday, after a couple of weeks of not putting pen to paper (or ipad) I had a rare and delicious urge to write after reading from Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft by Natalie Goldberg. In the chapter “But Who is Listening?”, Goldberg talks about audience and how who we write to changes over our writing lives. She shares a story about how she’d lost her audience (her class of writing students) and to get them back she grabbed a book of poetry by 8th century poet Weng Wei. Here is one of the poems she read:

Her class was back. She had them do the writing prompt above.

If you feel led, please stop reading here and free write on the prompt for 10 minutes (or until your pen stops, but no less than 10 minutes) before moving on to what came from my free write session yesterday.

How many times can the heart break?

Many times. When I think of something breaking it becomes less strong, more prone to breaking again. Is it the same with heartbreaks?

If I let my heartbreak, will it break over and over again?

Is there a limit?
If the heart breaks and it doesn’t heal but hardens with resentment or unmet grief and scars over it, maybe there will be less pain, and even the high of self-righteous indignation. But there won’t be light (a la Leonard Cohen: the cracks are how the light gets in), and there won’t be gold (a la Kintsugi, the Japanese repair method that turns the broken thing into something even more beautiful).

There is a void where tenderness should be, where we turn inward to love on our own broken hearts. Turning outward to blame is easier.

There is an absence of people turning toward our neighbor and leaning on each other through our broken hearts. It’s easier to turn away or justify (if they’d only complied, why were they there in the first place, there must be more to the story) or bypass (everything happens for a reason).

I’d rather rush by and move to fixing because I don’t like pain. But the light, the gold, the growth would be lost.

There is no limit to how much love or how many times my heart breaks.

My ego and my rationalizations, my willingness/unwillingness, are the only limits to whether or not my heart breaks.

To paraphrase Glennon - Follow the heartbreak, and you’ll find your purpose.

I pray to remain open for my heart to be broken, not for the purpose of breaking, but to show me my bridge to humanity.

May our hearts break open and lead us closer to our community.

When I was heavy into distance running, and illness or fatigue set in on a day that I should have been working out, resting felt like quitting. The idea of being a quitter cued old core memories that I couldn’t finish anything, that I was a pee-pee pants failure, that I wasn’t good enough. Now, I look at it as quitting—a little bit. Today I quit and rest. The deadlines and training plans of tomorrow will take care of themselves only if I take care of myself. It’s easy to forget to play and to minimize the need for rest when we’re out there doing and being productive.

When you need to, drop your pack, the load of day-to-day life. Take your rest. Then pick up your pack and keep marching along when you’re ready to keep going.

Rest and play are important for their own sake—not only so we’re more productive when we do get back into action. Our nervous system unwinds, and we get back to our bodies and connect to our source/GUS/Jesus/God. Rosie Days and “do-nothing” days are important so that we can connect with our true selves, our HP, and we can know peace and serenity.

Listen to good ol’ Southern Gospel, or the Indigo Girls, or the sound of the rain (something I love to do, even though I can’t smell it right now)—just take the time to go internal and plug into your source. Tap into and reclaim your joy and passion. Rest and play are how we learn what it means to “Glorify God in all that you do.”

These days, I am no longer logging miles, but the “shoulds” still circle like vultures.

I should be doing more, speaking louder, fixing what is broken, fighting, fighting, fighting...

Rest still feels like quitting sometimes. With headlines screaming about 100% prescription tariffs (which could affect ALL of my medications), another 4 mass shootings over the weekend, and another round of psychological warfare in the news cycle.

The world says keep scrolling, keep debating, keep fighting.

My body says quit

… a little bit.

So today I lay it down. I rest not just from the physical strain but from the headlines, from the endless chatter of social media, from trying to single-handedly change the world.

I quit the noise so I can remember my true nature, joy, love, hope.

Rest is not giving up, it is an act of resistance, a reclaiming of joy, a way to glorify God in all that I do.

(If you need to know more about “pee pee pants”, Rosie Days and Do nothing clubs, you’ll want to pick up a copy of The 3 Things. )

In the last few days, I’ve been reminded again just how much we live in two very different realities. What follows is not my own story, but a series of screenshots I came across on Bluesky. I haven’t been able to track down the original Facebook conversation, but I found it significant enough to share in full.

Below is the text, transcribed as it appeared in the screenshots, which are also included at the closing.

One thing that has become really clear since yesterday is that we live in at least two different realities. Talking to a friend who only knew Charlie as a Christian motivational speaker because that's all that ever came across her feed. Showed me videos I've never seen before of him saying perfectly reasonable and empowering things.

I showed her videos she'd never seen before of his racism, misogyny, homophobia, advocating for violence against specific groups of people. She was horrified by his remarks about Pelosi's husband's attacker being bailed out and celebrated for his violent act. She was horrified by a number of things that he said, but she had never seen or heard them before, the same as I had never seen or heard the generalized clips of him sounding like a perfectly nice loving man and father.

Neither of us had a whole picture of this man. I mentioned he was a known white supremacist and she thought I was joking. She talked about him giving a speech about finding your purpose and doing good in the world and I thought she was joking.

I saw why this friend was mourning the loss of a person she thought was a good person. My friend, bless her, saw why I feel the way I do about him. We understood each other better. In spite of a multi-billion dollar internet machine specifically focused on keeping us apart. Because we talked to each other with the desire to listen and to learn rather than the desire to change someone else's mind or to be "right".

None of those motivational things he said change my opinion about him because they don't erase the negativity, the subtle calls for violence, the belittling and denigrating of other races religions genders etc. His negative and blaming comments about homeless people, the poor, and victims of domestic violence. His comments about rounding up people who didn't think like him and putting them in camps where their behavior could be corrected. That time he said empathy was a made-up word he didn't believe in. That other time he said the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. The time he said most people are afraid when they get on a plane and see that there's a black pilot. His anti-vaccination rhetoric and his active campaigning against people being allowed to wear masks for their own health. His open support of fascism and white supremacy. To me, all of those are fully unchristian sentiments. Those are undeniable and just one of them would be a deal-breaker for me. All of them together are a picture of a man who was polarizing, enraged a lot of people and rightly so, but even with all of that I would never wish upon him or especially his children the end that he got.

Oh, and my friend had never heard, and God help me I don't know how she escaped the news, but she had never heard of the Minnesota legislators who were shot in June. The husband and wife and dog who were killed, one after throwing themselves over their child to protect the child. The other couple who somehow survived. Politically motivated attacks specifically because they were democrats. She learned about those shootings that happened months ago because I showed her Charlie Kirk's comments about them. The kidnapping plot against a female Midwestern Democratic governor. The assassination attempt against Pennsylvania's democratic governor. All things Charlie had plenty to say about while supporting the Second Amendment and bashing the Democratic party. She didn't know about any of it because we're all living in two different worlds and none of us have the whole story.

I found others on Bluesky are wrestling with this as well:

“It’s absolutely critical to understand in this moment that people aren’t largely reacting to who Charlie Kirk was as a person, but who they knew him as because of what tiny pieces of him got clipped out and stuck in their newsfeeds.” — Robert Evans

and this point could be a whole research rabbit hole in itself:

“I’m seeing some people post this and not realize this is PART of the radicalization. Building an audience from reasonable sounding videos and converting them into the pipeline.” — Dr. Cara Berg Powers

These posts clarify what the screenshots revealed: the “reasonable” entry points are not neutral. They’re part of a carefully designed system that feeds one version of reality while hiding the other.

I’ve been pondering this for a while. I tried to process it some with this writing (We’re Speaking Different Languages) back in June. Last night I vented to Nick about how disturbed I am by this gaping epistemic divide, and woke up this morning to a text from him linking this post.

This exchange shows how fragile it feels to live in two different realities. One never saw the violent rhetoric. The other never saw the polished motivational clips. Neither had the whole story. (I don’t believe the motivational version cancels out the violent rhetoric, but it’s essential to realize that we are truly experiencing different realities.)

That is the heart of the epistemic divide: immersion in completely different information ecosystems. This is not an accident. These ecosystems are engineered by multi-billion-dollar platforms that profit from feeding us what confirms the world we already expect to see.

What bridged the gap in this story wasn’t shouting facts or owning the other side or hurling insults, but talking. They shared a genuine conversation, showing curiosity and a willingness to listen.

We don’t all have the whole story, and maybe we never will, but the work is in sharing what we’ve seen, hearing what others have seen, and remembering that our divisions aren’t inevitable, if we can be open to a third option…a shared reality.

Original Bluesky posts are linked here:

Note: The screenshots came across my Bluesky feed in the above posts, and I haven’t been able to find the original post on Facebook. If you know the source, please drop it in the comments or send it my way so I can properly attribute the writer.

I was lying in my rack between watches. It was around 3 pm our time, out in the Gulf.
I heard MM2 Little scream. Then others made a commotion, so I got out of my bottom rack and went to see what was going on.

On the TV, I saw where the plane had hit the first tower. It was CNN via satellite, but it looked like an action movie. We all sat with gaping mouths as the second plane hit, and by the time the Pentagon was struck, we knew we were not going home.

We had been en route to Rio de Janeiro, around the Horn of Africa (our last port call before home). Up until then, we had called it a pleasure cruise because we had so many entertaining port calls so close together. I saw so much of Europe in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, and England.

By sundown, our Captain came over the intercom and told us what was going on; we were going to war. I can still feel how sharp that turn was as we headed back to the Gulf. We launched the first strikes on Afghanistan. For weeks, we stayed in restricted maneuvering. We could not call home. When we finally could, we had to sign a page saying we would not share our location or mission, and our short conversations were timed and monitored.

We slept with gas masks and chem suits in our racks in case of a chemical attack. In truth, we were safer out there than our families back home, but the urgency of it all made it feel like war. We were at war.

When we arrived home, we arrived to a hero’s welcome. It was beautiful, seeing the banners and signs, everyone waving American flags furiously.

Looking back now, I hold both pride and grief. Pride in serving alongside people I loved and trusted. Grief for the thousands of lives lost that day, and for the hundreds of thousands lost in the years since.

The war that followed was not inevitable. Decisions were made by leaders who used our pain and fear to justify decades of violence. The anti-Muslim sentiment that swept our country in those days was a wound that has never fully healed. Too many innocent people bore the cost of that backlash, neighbors were harassed, communities were profiled, and entire nations were devastated.

What I know now is that honoring September 11 means remembering not only those who died in the towers, on the planes, and at the Pentagon, but also those whose lives were cut short in the wars that followed. It means remembering Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen who never made it home, as well as the thousands who returned forever changed. It means remembering the civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the families fractured here and across the world.

I remember September 11, and I also remember what came after. May we honor not only those who died that day, but also the countless lives lost since, and let our remembrance guide us toward peace instead of vengeance.

Every time a celebrity suicide is in the news, I get rattled. When a fellow ME/CFS sufferer dies from suicide, I feel gutted. (There is a larger conversation I’m processing about ME and dignity in dying for those with extremely severe ME, but I don’t have the bandwidth to go there yet)

Because I have survived it. What if it comes back, and this time I act on the lie that I’m better off gone?

The lie has come back a few times, but with the awareness that something was wrong, that this voice wasn’t true, that I needed help. It happened when I got the wrong birth control. It happened when I was sick for weeks and weeks and weeks and could barely walk from one end of the house to another without needing to rest.

What saved me the first time? A moment of honesty with a therapist that led to intense medical treatment, including psych hospital stays, medication, sobriety (and a program), and a series of shock therapy treatments, when all other interventions were failing. (Alcohol may have been self-medication, or it may have been the cause, but pouring a depressant on depression is deadly, so it’s not an option for me.)

What saved me when it came back (in addition to the health professionals and my family support)? Writing. Painting. Getting honest. Playing. All the things that help me get into the flow of life and out of my mind's isolation. I didn’t have those gifts before I quit drinking and did the hard work of surviving one day at a time.

My higher power has slowly added more and more gifts, hatches to escape the dark whisper, a tool kit for survival, a rope ladder out of pits of despair.

On my wrist is a butterfly with a semicolon for its body. The semicolon has become a symbol in suicide awareness because it means the sentence could have ended, but the author chose to keep going. My semicolon is part of a butterfly. Survival meant allowing the transformation, coming out of the dark with wings I never thought I’d have.

When I look at it, I remember that I am both the author and the sentence. I get to decide to pause, to breathe, to try again, even when it feels impossible.

It’s not a promise that the thoughts will never come back. They probably will. It’s a reminder that when they do, I can choose again. To reach out and get honest about what I’m feeling. To breathe and keep going.

Maybe you are going through a dark whisper time. Take my rope ladder, use it. Join me in the light.

In the U.S., you can dial or text 988 to connect with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, a free, confidential line available 24/7. Sometimes just hearing another voice is enough to remind you that your story isn’t over. You aren’t alone.

I love you and I’m so glad that you’re here,

Maggie

I never thought I’d stop being vegan.

In September of 2012 I went vegan for my health. After a little bit of time and a few documentaries under my belt, I knew it was also for the animals and the environment and for the humans living around and working in factory farming. My diet was a reflection of my values, my identity, my activism, and my belief in doing less harm. I thought I’d be vegan forever. I’ve said that eating meat again would feel like losing my sobriety. I even have a vegan tattoo.

Veganism was how I lived out compassion, environmental responsibility, and justice. I thought I was protecting my body. I first started researching it when Daddy got colon cancer 14 years ago. I felt strongly that my plant-based diet and active lifestyle were a kind of insurance against illness.

I was wrong.

Chronic illness has a way of undoing every certainty you thought you had.

When I became disabled with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or MEcfs, the ground fell out from underneath me. I was flung into a life where fatigue, pain, and neurological dysfunction shape my every decision. Before I was sick, I never had to consider my daily energy, and now it’s a limited, valuable resource that I have to ration and pace very carefully each day.

When I first went vegan, my husband didn’t. That was his choice, and I respected it. Before this he had always done most of the cooking in our household. I was very squeamish when it came to cooking meat, due to emetophobia and anxiety about cooking it “right,” afraid I’d give us all food poisoning. When I made the shift, I started cooking for myself because it mattered to me, and not having to worry about Salmonella juice getting on everything was very freeing. That worked for a long time.

I’m no longer able to cook due to my illness. On bad days standing long enough to brush my teeth is impossible, standing long enough to cook? Not a chance. So now he’s the one preparing most of my meals and for the most part, I eat what he puts in front of me. And there was a tiny part of me that was desperate, maybe meat or eggs would help me feel better… (spoiler: it didn’t.)

I can almost feel the criticism creeping in with the hypothetical, “Why doesn’t he just cook vegan food for you?” He’s cooking for a household of seven, including kids with ARFID who need specific foods to get calories in. He’s doing all the housework. All the parenting responsibilities that I can't manage from my bed. He’s amazing, so if you’re judging him, back off. Pretty please.

I’ve avoided saying this out loud for over a year. I’ve seen the backlash aimed at people who “come out” as no longer vegan. To be honest, I used to carry resentment toward them myself. I assumed their values weren’t as deeply held as mine. I understand something I couldn’t see back then: veganism is a personal choice, and a privilege.

When I was healthy, I didn’t see how much access, time, and energy shaped the ability to sustain a vegan lifestyle.

Living in the Deep South, with no vegan restaurants and limited grocery options, being vegan means cooking meals yourself (other than Taco Bell and The Impossible Whopper). That’s not something I can do anymore.

I had no idea how ableist my “If I can do it, anyone can.” attitude was. I assumed everyone had the same energy, mobility, executive function, and stability I had back then. But they didn’t. And now, I don’t either.

So much of wellness culture is built on that same assumption: that with enough discipline, or purity, health will follow. We celebrate discipline and making good choices, but rarely talk about what happens when illness or disability takes those choices away. And when it is talked about it’s with a tone of personal responsibility or blame.

Then there is the matter of food insecurity, an often unacknowledged part of life with ME/CFS. I’m too sick to plan, shop, and cook. I can’t cut up my own food half of the time. Chewing is hard and takes a lot of energy, so soft foods are a necessity during crashes. I’ve lived on soup and protein shakes for stretches of time because that was all I could tolerate. There are so many who are severe/extremely severe who require feeding tubes or are starving because they don’t have access to them.

When your illness affects both your physical ability and your mental processing, even access doesn’t equal nourishment. There’s a kind of scarcity that comes with chronic illness that most wellness narratives ignore. There’s financial scarcity and food deserts, but there’s also energetic and logistical scarcity, too. Veganism often requires an abundance of energy, time, and resources, which I no longer have.

I subscribe now to the same philosophy I learned from navigating the breastfeeding vs formula debate: Fed is best. Survival comes first. Dignity comes with being nourished.

There’s also another layer I’ve had to reckon with. Vegan culture taught me to question things… ingredients, impact, policy. I’m still grateful for those critical thinking skills. In the years since I went vegan I’ve seen a slide into conspiracy thinking and cult-like rhetoric in many of the vegan and wellness influencers on social media in a sort of “wellness-to-MAHA pipeline”. I’ve unfollowed them all and have had to unlearn some conspiracy thinking I was living in, embracing curiosity rather than certainty that one way was the only way.

I still care about compassion, sustainability, and reducing harm. Veganism taught me how interconnected we all are, how our choices matter. Illness has taught me something equally profound: we are also limited beings, navigating imperfect systems in imperfect bodies.

Sometimes survival and sustainability look different from what we imagined.

I’ve wrestled with sharing this because I know how polarizing food choices can be. Especially when I once stood so firmly in one camp, and very vocally, might I add. What I know now is that compassion has to extend inward, too.

I love compassionate vegans. I’m so grateful they exist. My story may piss off a bunch of people, and that’s okay. If you’re reading this and feeling defensive about my choices, I invite you to sit with that and contemplate if there is space to widen your circle of compassion. Also, please focus some of that anger on the lack of care and research that my community suffers from.

Please watch my TEDx talk, I am one of the Millions Missing if you haven’t already.

If you’ve ever had to shift who you thought you were in order to survive, I see you.

Health Update:

I posted the July issue of All the Things early last month. Then I spent the rest of July and the first week of August in a crash. I was unable to consistently write here and posted very little online. I am out of that crash and improving slowly back to the baseline I had before surgery, which was about a 3.2 on the FUNC CAP 27 (healthy individuals usually score 5.8-6.0). I tested at 3.1 on my recent monthly check-in on my Visible Health app. (For those wanting to give Visible a try here’s my referral link: Maggie's referral link for $20 off)

I’ve started seeing a new cardiologist; the last one was good, but he kept sending me out of my insurance network, and that adds up financially. I’m on a 3 week heart monitor now and go for (another) tilt table test in October to get the root of my dysautonomia narrowed down. Doc suspects a POTS diagnosis, and/or a congenital “wiring” defect that could be improved by ablation.

My brother completed his chemo for chondroblastic osteosarcoma. Now we wait for a surgery date for the affect jaw bone to be removed and replaced/reconstructed. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

The 3 Things Sunday

I had so much fun preaching on The 3 Things at St. Matthew’s Fitzgerald on August 17. I’m not ordained, but there may be an announcement soon ;-) Please see my post here to watch the youtube and/or read the sermon.

Coming soon:

Out of the Boxeys Podcast - Nick and recorded our first episode of Out of the Boxeys: On Life, Love, and Lessons Outside the Norm this past week. I’m editing over the long weekend so hopefully it will be live in the next few days. You can subscribe to Out of the Boxeys here for episodes announcements, and show notes. You should be able to listen on Apple, Spotify, and Google.

Chronic Moxie Writer’s Circle- POSTPONED until 2026. I was very optimistic about launching this but sometimes I overestimate my capabilities. Waiting until January will give me time to master pacing post surgery and test new treatment ideas. Writing with Chronic illness isn’t easy. Feeling icky, executive dysfunction and brain fog, pain- it’s hard to even get started with anything outside of survival. Chronic Moxie Writer’s Circle will be a place for writers of all experience levels to join up and get our pens moving. We’ll have an hour long format: sharing about what we’re working on (blocks, struggles, wins), brief craft talk and/or prompt by me, then writing time in community. I’ll host optional time after the hour for sharing what we’ve written. All paid subscribers of Maggie Boxey Writes (MBW) will have the chance to be included. (If money is an issue though please contact me).

Do Nothing Club: POSTPONED until 2026. In my book I talk about “Rosie Days and Do Nothing Clubs”. I’ll share the background story with an excerpt from the book in the coming weeks. I’ve been wanting to do something like this for months. We won’t have an agenda, we won’t be doing “the work”. The focus will be joy for joy’s sake, rest for rest’s sake, community for community’s sake. It will be a once-a-month virtual gathering. (We’ll “do” fun activities together hosted by me, but not for any purpose other than to find joy.) This is so we’re actually well enough to “Do something”. All paid subscribers of MBW will be invited to attend.

In the media:

I was interviewed recently by Monica from the Invisible Not Broken Podcast. Go follow to get notified when the episode goes live. We had so much fun I’ll be going back again soon.

We’re up to 84,500 views on my TEDx talk I Am One of the Millions Missing. I’m so grateful for everyone who has watched, liked, commented. Please do so if you haven’t yet, my goal is to have as many viewers as those of us who live with MEcfs in the US- 5 to 9 MILLION yall! Spread the word.

I had the honor of appearing on WRITE THE GOOD FIGHT over the summer. Please listen!

Things feel a little “dumpster fire”-ish, let us keep doing the next right thing, and maybe even make some smores…

Your support is so appreciated! Every comment and share here or on social media means so much to me. I love you and I’m so glad you’re here.

Love,

Maggie

St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church – August 17

Opening Joke (For context, daddy always opens his sermons with a joke)
There was a little girl who’s dad was a priest. She came upon him sitting at the kitchen table one Saturday morning. He was writing his sermon in one of those big legal pads. She tapped him on the shoulder and asked
“Daddy, How do you know what to say in your sermon? How do you know what to write?”
He answered “Why that’s easy, God tells me.” She paused for a minute, scratching her head…
“Oh, then why do you keep crossing things out?”

The Origin of The 3 Things
Over 30 years ago Daddy gave the sermon at my brother’s high school graduation. He told those seniors to remember these three things as they went out into the world:

1. You are part of a family.

2. Be true to yourself.

3. Glorify God in all that you do.

This sermon was divinely inspired. I’m guessing there weren’t a lot of things crossed out on his legal pad that day. I won’t go into my struggle to actually apply the 3 things to my own life, other than to tell you this book is based on the wisdom gleaned from lots of experience, not living them.

1. You are part of a family

From the book, Chapter 1, What is Family?

“In rural America, before the Industrial Revolution, the barn was an integral part of the family system. The barn ensured survival through harsh winters and in times of famine. It’s where the animals took shelter, where hay and food and tools were stored. When a family needed a barn but didn’t have the resources to build one, the community would come together for a barn raising. They’d all chip in their time and supplies to get the barn built, their labor unpaid, knowing that when their time of need arrived, all present would return the gesture. Those same families would share bounty from harvests, they would barter and trade goods among them, depending on their individual needs and gifts. Kinfolk would live in the same place, generation after generation, and the community grew along with the families. The old definitions of family always included the community.

Being a part of a family circle means you are a part of something bigger than yourself. It means responsibility and accountability to your neighbors and wider community. “

This isn’t just about your blood relatives. It’s about your chosen family. It’s about belonging. It’s knowing you are loved and also loving others.

I was born into this family, the St Matthew’s family, and the Fitzgerald family. Mama gave birth to me early- tomorrow would actually have been my due date, but I was born on June 25 at Dorminy Hospital. Dr. Hammond, a resident at the time, had the surprise of his life - one that was shared by all - when my twin, Jacob, was born twenty minutes later. They had no idea there were 2 babies. They whisked me away because I was so tiny, and let Mama and Daddy hold me, but they noticed something wasn’t quite right. His heart and lungs weren’t developed enough to make it in this world, and he would die 36 hours after we were born.

“On the day of Jacob’s funeral, Daddy turned back to see cars wrapped around the block showing up for our family in our struggle, our time of need. It was a barn raising of grief, each of our community members shouldering a two-by-four of pain and raising our resilience. Daddy considers that the moment he realized he was not alone and part of a community—a family. He would go on to get sober, accept a calling to the priesthood, and eventually give the 3 Things speech at my brother’s graduation in 1994.”

2. Be true to yourself
One of the greatest gifts I’ve received in recovery (by that I mean not just sobriety, but finding a Higher Power, finding God) is the connection between my truest self and that power greater than me.

From Chapter 5, What is Truth?

Daddy has a metaphor for spiritual seekers. He says that some folks can just skim across life like water bugs. They stay at surface level, busy with the day-to-day business of existing, just content with being water bugs. Then, there are those of us who are meant to be deep divers. We can try to fit in with the water bugs, but it’s likely we’ll feel quite lost up there. So, we dive deep to find what’s hiding under the surface, exploring the depths for meaning. Most of the deep divers I know have been through something transformational, whether it’s addiction, loss, mental health struggles, etc. We have discovered that we have to dive deep in order to survive.

Sitting at my writing table/kitchen table, amid the to-do lists and crumbs, I picked up the phone and asked Daddy what he thought about the words: “Be true to yourself.”

He replied, that old Daddy smile apparent in his voice, “It’s to be clear about who you really are and how you really are, not how people may see you, but who you are at your core. It means that you are a child of God . . . but so is everyone else. There is humility there too. You’re not too pumped up or too small. Self-honesty is at the heart of it.”

We went on to talk about pizza night, puppies, and our weekly plans, but as a good papa and priest, he circled back to the message at hand: “Being clear with who you are and then being true to that can be really hard for all of us, especially for those who have not dealt with their demons. Many of us can’t be true to ourselves and be a water bug at the same time. You have to know who you are in order to dive down deep.”

To dig down deep, we need to learn about the deep collective wisdom beneath the constant internal monologue that plays on repeat in our minds, even when we don’t notice it. And to get down there, we need to get a shovel, a backhoe, and sometimes, a freaking excavator.

He mentioned dealing with our demons… I believe that being true to myself means facing those demons, I don’t mean literal demons; I mean anything that blocks my connection with that power greater than myself. When I make space and clear that blockage, I become a channel of God’s love. Creativity flows. My purpose gets clearer. My intuition and conscience are sharper. I can hear that still small voice, and I don’t have to cross out as much on my legal pad of life. (See, we’ve come full circle to the joke.)

Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. That means if we don’t deal with the gunk, and in doing so we don’t cultivate a healthy love for ourselves, we can’t really love our neighbor well either.

Another metaphor I like is that of fire which we’ll talk about more later… but yall know the controlled burns that happen here in south GA? Burning away the excess debris, junk on the forest floor on purpose, clears it out to prevent disastrous, uncontrollable, accidental fires… but also makes room for new life, for flowers that only come from the conditions that burning brings.

We have to find the right metaphorical shovels to dig out the junk and fire to burn away the overgrown stuff- writing and journaling and time spent in contemplation… and another of them we’ll do in just a little bit with the confession of sins.

3. Glorify God in all that you do
From Chapter 10, God is a Creative, And so are We.

Sitting on my writing desk is a picture of my grandmother, Daddy’s mama. It’s a nineties snapshot—the kind where you had to drop off the film and wait patiently for your prints. The colors have faded, but not her beautiful white hair, laugh lines, and bright smile. She smiled all the way to her twinkly eyes. Clipped to the worn edge of the photograph is her handwriting, elegantly scrawled on a scrap of paper, a quote from St. Teresa of Avila that reads, “God walks among the pots and pans.”

Washing a sink full of dirty dishes, taking out the trash, chopping vegetables . . . these can all be rituals of celebration, of glorifying God, if we allow it. The closer we are to celebration in all the everyday little actions that fill our lives, the closer we are to God.

And I think Grandmother would appreciate the idea that sometimes we have to be disruptive in our celebrations. We can do the dishes AND bang the pots and pans; we can mend the blankets AND disrupt injustice; we can take out the trash AND fight for a world that honors all of us.

We glorify God in the everyday as much as in the big moments. In births and in deaths. In stirring the pot and in hard conversations. Glorifying God isn’t passive. Sometimes it means pushing back against unjust laws, exclusive practices, and narrow ideas.

Scripture Reflection — Luke 12:49–56
Jesus says, “I came to bring fire to the earth… Do you think I came to bring peace? No, but division.” (I didn’t read the entire lesson here because we read it immediately preceding the sermon).

Oooof I didn’t look at the gospel for today when we picked this date but I’m sure Daddy was relieved for me to tackle it ha!

I had a hard time with this verse because it feels so telling of the times. But as I continued to process, I realized it’s not a prediction of doom, it’s a biblical principle playing out.

The love Jesus lived (his radical welcome, his healing, his way of lifting up the last and the least) wasn’t cool with everyone. It challenged the status quo. It pushed back against the powers that be. That kind of love will always cause division, because not everyone is ready to give up privilege, control, or comfort for the sake of the Kingdom, the Family of God, which is all of humanity, whether we like it or not.

We cannot use this passage to justify exclusion. Jesus’ division wasn’t about shutting people out. It was about loving so radically that it upset systems built on keeping people out. And in this time of real and painful division, the call isn’t to match it with fear or suspicion. The call is to meet it with radical love.

The Radical Love of Jesus

Jesus touched untouchable: He reached out to lepers, healing them and restoring them to community (Luke 5:12–13; Mark 1:40–42; Matthew 8:2–3). He touched the sick and disabled who had been pushed to the edges, not just curing their bodies but giving them back their dignity and place in society (John 9:1–7; Mark 2:1–12).

Jesus centered the outcast: He ate with tax collectors and sinners, putting the most rejected people—those considered unworthy of fellowship—at the head of the table (Luke 5:29–32; Luke 19:1–10; Matthew 9:10–13).

He defended the shamed: He knelt beside the woman about to be stoned, faced down the crowd, and turned their judgment back on themselves with, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:2–11).

Jesus challenged the powerful: He overturned the tables in the temple, confronting exploitation in God’s house and defending those whose poverty and vulnerability were being taken advantage of (Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46; John 2:13–17).

He valued the overlooked: He welcomed women as disciples, entrusted them to proclaim the resurrection, and listened to their voices (Luke 8:1–3; John 4:7–30; John 20:11–18). He saw the worth of children, the poor, and those the world tried to silence, and lifted them up as examples of the Kingdom (Mark 10:13–16; Matthew 18:1–5; Luke 6:20–23).

How We Can Be That Fire Today

You are part of a family: We can be that fire today by Making space at our tables, literal and figurative, for people the world excludes: our LGBTQ+ neighbors, immigrants, sick and disabled folks, people living in poverty, those who are or have been incarcerated. Making sure they not only feel welcome, but know they belong.

Be true to yourself: We can be that fire today by Staying rooted in our values, even when it’s uncomfortable. Speaking truth with love. Clearing out the “gunk and junk” that blocks our connection to God so our words and actions match the truth of who we are in Christ. Who we are in God’s love.

Glorify God in all that you do: We can be that fire today by Glorifying God in the mundane and the messy. In washing dishes, in caring for loved ones, and in banging on the pots and pans when injustice needs to be called out.

Closing
When we live The 3 Things the way Jesus lived-welcoming everyone like family, standing in our truth, and glorifying God in all we do-we become that fire Jesus talked about.

Not the fire of destruction, but the fire that burns away fear, lights the path, and warms the hearts of those who’ve been left behind.

So my brothers and sisters and siblings in this one big holy family please don’t ever forget:

You are part of a family.
Be true to yourself.
Glorify God in all that you do.

And do all of these things with the radical love of Jesus.

Amen.

The 3 Things is available here in hardback, ebook, or audio (read by me!)

PS- I live with the disabling effects of ME , and while I feel most in my purpose when I am speaking and teaching, it comes at a cost. I and am not quite back to baseline (which is still mostly bedbound) but I’m continuing to explore treatments for the multiple issues ME causes in my life. I embrace hope, while I grieve the life ME steals from me and all those who suffer from this disease.

Remember in the 90s when WWJD was on all over the place? And when those rubber bracelets were so popular in church youth groups. “What would Jesus do?”, everyone seemed to be asking.

Here is an excerpt from my book called The 3 Things: A Practical Path to Collective Recovery where I talk about it:

… I don’t think he [Jesus] would be happy with how his followers are using scripture as weapons and shields from accountability, picking and choosing which verses will support their worldview and leaving out the parts that don’t. … WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) should be changed to WWJAD (What Would Jesus Actually Do).

The Jesus I want to follow is the table-flipping Jesus. The Jesus that loved the outcasts and the sinners. The Jesus I want to follow fed the multitudes and warned against greed and hoarding possessions.

WWJAD? He would feed and house and minister to the masses unconditionally, and he would fight for things like living wages for all and taxing the rich. I want to be like the hands and feet of Jesus here on earth, teaching and creating and calling for change.

(©2024 Maggie Boxey, Rise Books)

I was raised Episcopalian (a Christian denomination in the US). My grandfather and my father, both priests in that tradition. I am baptized. My kids were baptized. The Episcopal church feels like home to me and I love the familiarity and the ritual, but…

I do not call myself a Christian anymore.

The people that I’ve felt the most uncomfortable around, that I have felt most bullied by, call themselves Christian. The people that are the meanest online do so in the name of their Jesus.

When I was in middle school, my dad was the priest at a small parish in south GA. My brother had an earring and his best friend was gay. He ended up leaving for boarding school because he was treated so poorly by his peers. We were called devil worshippers and witches (the witches part I don’t mind lol). WWJAD?

When I was in high school in South FL one of my best friends lived across the street. She was a really ‘good’ bad influence, which was fun for me as I was just figuring out my love for binge drinking (you’ll see in the book that I have many years of sobriety and spiritual growth under my belt now, but this was then). She had connections of boys and booze so I was happy to go along. Her parents were veryveryvery Christian- everything they consumed from music to their diet was based on the bible. My friend invited me to a banquet (dances were forbidden) at her private Christian school.  My date was Jewish. Before we left for the event they gave him a New Testament Bible and asked him to invite Jesus into his heart so that he wouldn’t be damned. It was very embarrassing for all of us. There was another time where our drunken teenage logic had us out until dawn. My parents greeted me with open arms and wept with relief when we arrived home. Her parents sent her inside and then lectured my family, quoting this Bible verse from 1Corinthians 3:

 “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. ² I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. “  

This they said to my father’s face, my father, who has a Master of Divinity from the University of the South’s School of Theology and had a congregation of his own for many years at this point. They blamed all of their daughter’s behavior on me and my parents’ failings. We didn’t hang out again as she was forbidden. WWJAD?

Fast forward to now, I have my own children back here in the middle of south GA. We decided to settle here after my spouse retired from the Marine Corps after 24 years of loyal service- it’s where my parents retired, and where I was born. I love it here, generally. There are mild winters, beautiful land, and an affordable cost of living. My child is unique in that they are a feminine-presenting boy. (We’ve stopped using the word trans or nonbinary, just that he is a boy who likes girl things. His pronouns are he/they, but we don’t mention that either because, if you wanna set off this brand of Christianity, all you have to do is use the pronoun they). Many of the kids who bully him at school are members of a Christian club on campus. They’ve grilled him on his religious beliefs. on his sexuality (he’s 12, he doesn’t know anything about sex yet), and have told him he’s going to hell (not great PR for the cause, y’all).

WWJAD.

What would Jesus actually do?

Would he scold or mock people whose beliefs differed from his?

Would he care more about a child’s identity than their safety in school?

Would he demand that people prove their worthiness before feeding them or loving them?

Would he support criminalizing houselessness?

Would he think that healthcare was a right or a privilege?

Would he support the destabilization of foreign countries and then turn those who are fleeing those countries away because they are ‘other’?

Would he care about borders? Nationalism?

Would he call government assistance ‘handouts’ and try to limit or make it harder for people to receive assistance?

Would he call people ugly names on the internet?

Would he support the hoarding of wealth and refer to poverty as a personal failing rather than a systemic issue?

Would he expect other’s to suffer because he had to ‘and he turned out okay’?

***
Would he support stripping funding for children’s cancer research?
Would he cheer on the slashing of Medicaid or SNAP?
Would he be okay with masked men kidnapping protesters off the street with no due process?
Would he co-sign the use of Bible verses out of context in Homeland Security recruitment videos?
Would he blame immigrants or poor people for the greed and failure of systems designed to serve the wealthy?

***

The certainty. The lack of humility. The self-righteousness. None of it looks like Jesus to me. (It’s not lost on me that I’m self-righteous on this topic. I didn’t say I was perfect.)

My religion? Goodness, love, serving others, caring about and fighting for others outside of my home, my race, and my country, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, and showing others that they aren’t alone. I believe that in communion, in community, we find God’s (Higher Power, HP, Great Spirit, Gus, Universe) love.

This love is not exclusive to any one church or place, however I’m not opposed to attending churches that are affirming of all. (I love the Hymnal 1982 and many of the prayers from the BCP).

Everything I want for myself, I want for you. I want you to be fed and housed and cared for. I want you to have all of your needs met. I want to love my neighbor as myself. To have humility and to grow spiritually. I want to share this love/light with those I come across by my actions, not by dogma or rules or weaponized bible verses.

I will continue to teach my kids empathy for those who have different beliefs and different circumstances. I will do my best to lead with love and my actions. I will do my best to keep my chin up in the face of bullies and to respond with boundaried kindness. I will keep nurturing my prayer life and growing my contemplative practice. It's okay with me if someone believes I’m going to hell for saying I’m not a Christian. I don’t believe in heaven or hell (other than what we make here on earth) and my HP is big enough for all of us.

I’m just going to keep doing the next right thing and asking WWJAD?

It reads:

“You do realize that the 8 million people ‘losing’ Medicaid and the 3 million ‘losing’ SNAP benefits are not entitled to those benefits in the first place.”

That’s a bold, but also very vague and loaded, claim. I can’t see where these numbers from other than memes and assertions by keyboard warriors.

Not entitled how?
Because they’re undocumented immigrants? Because they don’t meet a new work requirement? Or because someone somewhere thinks poor people shouldn’t be helped at all?

People Who Are Actually Covered by Medicaid

Kids
Millions of children, many in working-class and rural families, get healthcare through Medicaid.

Pregnant People
In most states, low-income folks can get prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care through Medicaid. Some states now cover 12 months postpartum. Because, you know, birth shouldn't bankrupt you.

People with Disabilities
From kids with complex needs to adults with chronic illness or mobility issues. Medicaid helps folks who can’t work, or who need services private insurance doesn’t cover.

Seniors
Elderly people who can’t afford Medicare co-pays or need long-term care? Many are on Medicaid + Medicare (called “dual eligibility”).

Working Parents in Poverty
In non-expansion states like Georgia, Medicaid only covers the very poorest parents, and even then, only if they’re caring for kids.

Low-Income Adults (in expansion states, NOT GA)
In states that accepted the ACA expansion, Medicaid covers any adult making under 138% of the federal poverty level, about $20K/year. That includes servers, retail workers, caregivers, gig workers, etc.

Who’s Not Covered by Medicaid?

Low-Income Adults in Non-Expansion States
If you’re a single adult in a state like Georgia, Texas, or Florida, you may be too poor for ACA subsidies but not poor enough for Medicaid.
Part-Time and Gig Workers
Lots of people work, but not enough hours to get benefits. Many people work multiple part-time jobs because that’s all that corporations will hire.

Immigrants Without Full Legal Status
Undocumented immigrants can’t get Medicaid*- even if they’ve lived here for decades and pay taxes. Some green card holders even have a 5-year wait before they’re eligible.

*some states (like 6 of them) do have medicaid like options for undocumented immigrants but they are STATE funded, not federally funded

People Caught in “Churn”
Many people move in and out of eligibility because their income fluctuates month to month. When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it’s easy to lose coverage just because you picked up extra shifts for the holidays.

If you're mad about Medicaid, don't aim your anger at the people using it. Aim it at the billionaires who won’t pay their workers enough to survive without it, then demand more tax breaks for themselves.

SNAP Entitlement

SNAP is a federal entitlement program. That means if you meet the requirements, you have a legal right to receive benefits (but states can make the process harder through paperwork, red tape, or work requirements.)

To be eligible, you must meet very specific criteria related to income, assets, and immigration status.

Common Misunderstandings

• “They’re not working!” Many SNAP recipients are working, just in jobs that don’t pay enough to live on.

• “They’re undocumented!” Undocumented immigrants are not eligible, though their U.S.-born children may be.

• “It’s full of fraud.” SNAP fraud is extremely rare (about 1% of cases). Most people use it as intended.

• “They’re just lazy.” Many recipients are children, elderly, disabled, or working parents, not lazy. They’re just poor.

If billion-dollar corporations can pay wages so low their employees qualify for food stamps, the issue isn’t entitlement. It’s exploitation.

Work Requirements & Disability

“People should work if they want benefits. Why should I pay for someone who just doesn’t want to get a job?”

The Reality:
Work requirements don’t just target “lazy people.” They create massive barriers for disabled folks, especially those who fall into the cracks of our system.

Here’s How It Actually Plays Out:

Many disabled people aren't officially recognized as “disabled enough.”
They may have chronic illnesses, mental health conditions, or invisible disabilities, but don’t qualify for SSI or formal exemptions.

Even those who are exempt have to prove it.
That means paperwork, documentation, and navigating bureaucratic systems, tasks that are hardest for the people with the least energy, access, or support.

Work requirement systems often assume people are faking.
They treat everyone with suspicion and make the burden of proof extremely high, especially in red states.

People lose benefits while appealing.
Even when wrongly removed, people often lose access to food or healthcare before their case is resolved.

Disabled folks are already forced to fight for dignity in healthcare, housing, and public life. Work requirements aren’t encouraging “independence”, they’re creating more hoops to jump through for people who are already tired, sick, and out of time.

So let me loop back to the question: Who is entitled?

We live in a country where billionaires get trillion-dollar tax breaks with no strings attached, while working people are told they need to “earn” the right to food and healthcare. I hate that our lawmakers can celebrate gutting Medicaid and SNAP, knowing full well that it won’t just touch “fraud” or “illegals.” That’s a lie. These cuts of almost a trillion dollars, will hit disabled folks, parents working two jobs with no benefits, and seniors trying to survive on fixed incomes.

And while billion-dollar corporations dodge taxes and refuse to offer health insurance, they send their workers straight to public programs, then complain about the cost. (Corporations with the highest number of employees on Medicaid: Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds- the real welfare queens, amiright?). These same workers get shamed for needing help, while the richest among us hoard profits without putting a dime back into the communities keeping them afloat.

The truth is, if you’re working and still can’t afford groceries or a doctor’s visit, that doesn’t make you lazy. That makes the system exploitative.

You are entitled. You’re entitled to live. To eat. To be cared for.

And no meme, politician, or billionaire-backed bill should convince us otherwise.

https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/10-things-to-know-about-medicaid/

https://www.medicaid.gov/about-us

https://wholesomewavegeorgia.org/snap-myths-facts/

https://www.aclu.org/news/disability-rights/medicaid-work-requirements-dont-work-they-harm-people-with-disabilities

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-07-01/who-profits-most-from-medicaid-and-food-stamps-big-low-wage-employers-like-walmart-and-amazon#:~:text=The%20beneficiaries%20of%20what%20can,their%20workers%20collecting%20public%20assistance.