Sooki
I met a stunning human last summer, her name is Sooki. It was through award winning novelist Ann Patchett and her essay collection: “These Precious Days.”
My son James said, “You might enjoy this Dad.” I’ve had many, many years of recommendations of music and movies and books from James, and I’m trying to think of a time when he has said those words and it was a dud. I don’t remember one time.
Plus, in this case, his friend Stella had recommended it to him, and given they are Master’s graduates in creative writing, then I would sound quite intelligent if anyone asked me what I was reading, so that was a bonus.
After loving the first essay I read about one of my favourite childhood mentors, Snoopy, I dived into the title essay “These Precious Days.”
Her writing is stunning. If the crime novels I usually read are your standard meat and veggies -this was like going to a five-star Michelin restaurant. It was beautiful, I needed to pause many times and savour it. I felt like I was eating at “The Bear.”
One incredible moment in the title essay comes as Ann writes about her friend Sooki. Sooki stayed with Ann and her husband Karl for a long period of time, many hours flight from her own home, while going through cancer treatment trials. Ann and Karl naturally included Sooki in their lives, and she set herself up in their basement with space and time to paint.
I don’t want to give spoilers, however there was one line that stood out for me. The time eventually came when Sooki could move to her home, and she was torn. The hospitality provided by Anne and Karl, plus the space she had to grow as a painter, had become a haven for her. In her despair over the decision, she came to realise why she was struggling. She told Ann, “I like myself here.”
I’m not embarrassed to say tears welled up when I read it (well, if you were here with me and I was reading it and I cried I probably would be embarrassed. But it’s okay to write it with no one else around). I would also say, as Michele and I were listening to this on an audiobook on our six-hour drive back from holiday, when it got to that moment, I needed to swallow down the movement in my gut, because it’s a hazard to cry while driving.
Isn’t that what we all desperately want as humans? To be in a place, with other humans, that allows us to be the best version of ourselves?
I like myself here.
Didn’t growing up in our culture, and communities like school and sports teams, teach us that we had to act and be in certain ways to be loved and accepted? And most significantly of all, to belong?
And yet here was someone, very simply receiving love from others, and given space to flourish.
I wonder what Church would be like as that kind of community? A collection of people who create an environment where everyone can thrive and be the best version of themselves? I’m pretty convinced that’s what Jesus intends. Although let’s be fair, we haven’t got an amazing track record at that.
Some authors would call that a foretaste of heaven. That’s what the Church could be – diverse communities of people that care for each other. When I look around, churches are quite vanilla aren’t they? Sure, we have different denominations, but let’s be honest, they’re all pretty much the same.
At the end of the day our gatherings usually consist of the majority of people sitting listening to a small group of people talking. Imagine if there were opportunities for individuals to paint (or any activity that brings you life), to relate, to be vulnerable, and come to a place where they can say, “I like myself here.”
Darryl Tempero, 2025.