You’re reading From the Desk, a monthly newsletter by Miles Farnsworth about the arts, spirituality, and the good life. I wrote a book about living in New Zealand as a volunteer missionary. Subscribe below to get my monthly post in your inbox.
Scroll to the bottom to see a few photos from the last month!
The TL;DR version of this month’s newsletter is that we’ve recently moved from Germantown, Maryland to Spokane, Washington to be closer to family, a move that we felt prompted to make.
Though a simple life event, it’s onerous to write about. Not only has moving been physically and emotionally draining (bawling like a dork through a final speaking assignment at church), but my thoughts about the whole thing lack the neat cohesion I’d like a single newsletter post to have. There is sadness about leaving Maryland, hopes about life in Washington, and an attempt to find a meaningful narrative through it all.
Let me start with Maryland. We never really intended to live there. As college graduation grew closer and my job application frequency increased, I still maintained a stubborn insistence that I wouldn’t apply to jobs in Utah. I wanted to move away from my home state but didn’t care where. I had job interviews in Portland, Seattle, Missoula, Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta, New York, and finally, one in Maryland. The Maryland job felt right (it also happened to be the only offer I got prior to graduation), and a few months later, we were driving across the country to our new home.
Neither Mickelle or I could have predicted how much we’d love Maryland. That first summer we arrived, it felt like we’d moved into a permanent summer camp. Fireflies, thick forests, watching thunderstorms on the back porch with a glass of lemonade, boardwalks down by the lake, kayaking, biking, enjoying the humid weather. Daily life in Maryland was full of magical little touches, at least magical to someone not from the East.
We soon appreciated the state’s history and diversity, it’s geographical variety as well, the coastlines, lakes, mountains, dense cities, and pastoral farmland. They say Maryland is “America in Miniature.” Best of all, Maryland is central to the entire Eastern Seaboard. We played tourist to all the East had to offer. My favorites, to name a few, were Savannah, Georgia, Laconia, New Hampshire, and the Great Smoky Mountains.
Our church community made us feel welcome, and it’s where we made our closest friends. I met generous people at work who took on this uncertain liberal arts major and fostered a curiosity for media, digital strategy, and leadership. Luckily, I will continue working for the same company remotely—shout out to Access Intelligence.
We also became good friends with a few neighbors. Two elderly women, in particular, had become rather affectionate with Nelson, my two year old, and saying goodbye to them choked me up. This was a new surprise of parenting—gratitude for others who love your children when they have no obligation to—and I’m sure I’ll feel it again.
Part of why I will treasure Maryland is the familial and personal milestones experienced here. Two kids, my first adult job, a general increased confidence in myself and my interests. The very name “Maryland” has become somewhat of a shorthand in my mind for venturing out into the unknown and finding that I could still be happy.
Moving away from your hometown isn’t a universal life experience, nor is it an event everyone needs to undertake. Yet if you do move away, you find that it becomes a defining life experience, one that teaches you to rely on yourself, your spouse, or your community and opens your perspective to new ways of life.
What worries me most about living in Washington is uncovering who I am away from Maryland. What aspects of my being were visible only in this place and at this time? With any luck, I’ll find that the positive ways I’ve grown endure and that another place to call home will expose additional self-discovery.
Agency or Inspiration
So why move to Spokane? In the first paragraph, I mentioned that we felt prompted to make this move, but how does that actually work? Well, in stages, and it’s that process, or really the process of any big decision and the desire for guidance, that I’ve been attempting to wrangle in my head.
Those of us of the religious persuasion often seek for divine direction—it’s what I mean by a “prompting” or “inspiration”. The belief that God has, if not a total plan, at least a direction for us to follow, requires that we attune ourselves to His will, and by doing so, we may receive guidance through the major crossroads of life.
This is true in theory but not always in practice. In scripture, the Lord said “he who is commanded in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant.” In other words, figure it out on your own, kid.
To date, I’ve rarely received specific inspiration about important decisions. Here are short list of some I made without ever feeling like God guided me one way or another.
Whether or not to serve a Latter-day Saint mission
Where to go to school
What to study
Who to marry
What job to take/where to live.
When to have children.
The general direction always felt right—I knew I should serve a mission, go to college, get married, and have kids, but I determined the specifics. Still, I’ve always felt a little disappointed when I don’t get a stronger prompting.
Maybe I’m a loser for admitting this, but I’ve also always thought that one day I would receive a strong prompting to do something amazing, something with status or prestige attached to it. For example, “Miles, you need to apply to the Columbia Journalism School so you can join the New York Times and document the arts and culture of our great country.” Wow, what a prompting! I’d love to do that.
We’ve all heard stories about people who seem to get inspiration from God to do specific, amazing things. Promptings to apply to great schools or great jobs, promptings to pursue artistic passions or travel to exotic locations. Does it happen? Sure. But often, there’s no prompting at all, or if there is, it’s mundane.
Reflecting on this and my own misguided anticipation of remarkable promptings, I remembered of the story of Namaan, the Aramean commander in the Old Testament. Plagued with leprosy and expecting a grand miracle at the hand of Elisha, Naaman is insulted when the prophet sends a servant with the healing message instead. Even more insulting is the direction to bathe in the plain, old Jordan River. Namaan only obeys after his own servant calls him out, saying “If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean.”
Latter-day Saints often use this story as a parable for following simple prophetic guidance, but it can double as a metaphor for our own lives.
When Promptings Come
After a decade of adult decision-making, a strong prompting finally came, not in the place I imagined nor with the prestige I’d wistfully dreamed of.
It came after the week-long rafting trip down the Selway River I took with my brothers and father last summer. We had a twelve-hour-drive home, eight six-feet tall men crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in a rented Suburban. As we drove through the rain-soaked mountains, the thought entered my head that clearly said, “You should be open to living around here in the Northwest,” specifically the area around Spokane, WA and Coeur D’Alene, ID.
Let me assure you I have opposed this idea in the past. Moving somewhere like Spokane has come up before thanks to the proximity to family in Montana and Utah. However, I had been adamant with my wife that I had no intention of living there. The one time I drove on I-90 between Seattle, WA and Missoula, MT, it was late July, fire season and sun-scorched, not at all the kind of place I could imagine myself.
It was as much a shock to Mickelle as it was to me, sitting on my parent’s couch a day later, when I told her about the impression. “I can’t believe you’re going to hear this come out of my mouth," I said, "but I think I could live in Spokane.” I didn’t feel prompted to move there right away, only that I should keep a open mind about it.
We talked about the possibility for a few days, but once we got back to Maryland, it seemed logical to stay on the East Coast for a while. After all, that’s where my job was, and we were enjoying life despite the distance from our family.
I should add that we had entertained moving ever since the pandemic started. Our apartment was starting to feel crammed with one child, and two kids would have us bursting at the seams. We loved to aimlessly dream about living in some of the fun places we had travelled on the East Coast. At certain points, we were fairly certain that we might move to Connecticut or North Carolina, relatively close to work but with a slightly lower cost of living. Nothing ever felt right, and for about two years, we were left with that classic stupor of restless thought. And so the impression to consider Idaho and Washington was a curious one.
Little did we know that only a few months later, Mickelle’s mom would be diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. Though the circumstances are difficult, there is no doubt this was why I had felt prompted. To make an already long story a little shorter, Spokane was the closest place I could work, keep my job, and still feel like we were near enough to my inlaws.
And now, here we are, five days into our new life in Spokane. I'm happy to report that we're loving it so far.
Who knows the next time I’ll receive such a clear impression? It could be another decade or so. Here’s hoping I’m prepared to listen and act.
Monthly Pictures
Since I don’t post on social media too often, I thought I’d share a few photos from the last month, here.
Hey Miles! I absolutely love reading your posts. Your writing is excellent. This one in particular is one that I identified with. It’s hard to identify times when I’ve felt super strong promptings which has certainly been frustrating. Keep up the good work. Glad to hear you’re doing well.
- Jordan Rawlings.