By Kat Silverglate © 2026
It was a large professional conference at an extraordinary venue. One where the professionals brought their spouses and kids and planned to enjoy the destination between meetings and Continuing Legal Education seminars. She wasn’t on the main platform. The big stage where attendance was part of the program. She wasn’t even in one of the designated “tracks” that mete out 42-minute back-to-back sessions that build by theme. No, she was totally optional. Part of the “spouses forum” where plus-ones could opt to participate while the professionals did their compulsory thing.
At the time, Kelly Corrigan wasn’t a NY Times best-selling author with a PBS special. She was a first-time book writer who had released a very raw [non-PG in parts] memoir called The Middle Place about her and her father’s concurrent cancer journeys: hers through breast cancer; his, through bladder.
I hadn’t read the book and knew nothing about the speaker other than a whisper from a participant who had and did:
“You better bring tissues Kat -- her words have a way of making your heart clench.”
From the moment she opened her mouth, a familiar space lit up inside. Kinda like that dream you sometimes have where you end up in a place you’ve never been, but the people and circumstances are eerily familiar. Like the end of the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy wakes from her dream to recognize the tinman, scarecrow, and lion in the faces of her relatives. Something about the wisdom behind her core premise was primal – rhyming with aspects of foundational truth built into the fabric of this one ridiculous life.
Early in her book and talk, she uses The Middle Place as a metaphor for the place she found herself as she absorbed the first shock wave of news that the seven-centimeter growth in her breast was ‘invasive ductile carcinoma,’ giving her (with her particular nuances) a 38% chance she’d be dead in five years. With a rich sense of humor, she describes herself as grown adult with the papers to prove it – marriage certificate, house deed, birth certificates, tax returns, etc. – who clutches the phone toggling between the need to be a composed adult and the frantic child who wants to rest in her daddy’s lap. When her dad says all the right things about doctors and prayers and getting on a plane, she describes her move from adult into that childlike dependent place.
“… [W]ith each word, I get younger and more dependent until I feel like I am small enough to crawl into his lap.”
The Middle Place (p. 50). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.
For those who may not have, or have had, the greatest relationship with their earthly father, understanding Kelly’s makes this Middle Place metaphor that much more powerful. As she puts it, when others around her might have handled the trauma of life primarily by taking more frequent trips to the refrigerator, sleeping more or going on longer runs, Kelly’s parents went to God’s house for comfort and strength as routinely as one might eat, sleep and exercise. Faith was simply woven into the fabric of daily living. Not as performance. Not as obligation. But as dependence. A man of deep faith and irrepressible hope, she describes his way of relating to her and others like this:
“…His default setting is open delight. He’s prepared to be wowed… something you do is going to thrill him…People walk away from him feeling like they’re on their game, even if they suspect that he put them there… He makes me feel smart, funny, and beautiful… He told me once that I was a great talker. And so I was… He defined me first, as parents do. Those early characterizations… [became] the shimmering self-image [I] embrace[d]… In fact, I’m not even sure what’s true about me, since I have always chosen to believe his version. (The Middle Place, p 3-4).
And to those who didn’t know him well, YET, like the man she eventually married, she goes to great pains to prepare them to understand his unique ways: “…[J]ust remember, when you’re talking to my dad, he starts in the middle of things… And if he does that, which he definitely will, just-hang in there, because he always comes around, he always doubles back and fills in the blanks, so just wait it out.” The Middle Place (p. 157).
He starts in the middle of things? Not at the beginning? Not with “once upon a time” or “in the beginning?” In the middle? Who does that?
You do that. I do that too. We all do that. A new person joins our team. They walk into a room full of chatter about this person’s engagement and that person’s injured husband and the other’s son who just got a job after being out of work for a stretch. They don’t know us. And we don’t know them. We don’t start with “in the beginning, my birth parents decided to have a second child in a small town in New Jersey…” No, that would just be weird. We start right where we are, in the middle of the divorce, the cancer, the promotion, the decline of elderly parents, the weight of moving, the stress of a new job, the craving for community, the personality types.
When someone joins our team, it always starts in the middle of the joyful chaos of getting Mission Packs assembled before a shipping deadline. “Hey, let’s figure out where to place you on your visit here. Are you an extrovert or introvert? Kat might give you an extrovert hangover if I sit you next to her. Let’s not do that to you too soon. Let’s put you over here right in the middle between Marta and Tia. Marta knows all the people and the way we do things around here. Tia just started a few months ago, so her questions might answer some of yours.”
And off they go, beginning in the middle of this ridiculous venture. Becoming beams in the architecture of each other’s lives over time.
The architecture of our awareness of what life is about begins, by definition, in the middle. We are born in the middle of a month, a year, a decade, a century. In the middle of a political climate. A social climate. Cultural norms. Family dynamics. New inventions. Old inventions that are outdated but linger while the next generation pushes valiantly ahead and old-timers hold on for dear life. We are born in the middle of our parents’ limitations and growth and trauma and quirks and sometimes, even their absence. In the beginning, we don’t know if we’re adopted or born in an uber or nurtured by NICU angels while we fight to survive our premature 27-week delivery. We pretty much just know two essential things – we are needy and we are dependent. That’s it. The architecture of our beginning is entry into the middle of this one ridiculous life with absolutely nothing to offer but the ability to receive what we need from those on whom we depend.
One might describe Christ that way to another who has never heard of Him. The way Kelly described her dad. “Just remember… he starts in the middle of things.” When we read the gospels, we imagine that being with Jesus was the modern-day equivalent of getting to a movie theatre 10 minutes after the start of the feature film. You stumble in the dark and the people around you seem to know what’s going on. But you can’t figure out what’s happening, so you lean over to the stranger to your right and you whisper, “can you catch me up. I missed the start. That guy in the boat seems pretty important. Did they explain why he’s snoring like a goose while the boat is about to be swamped by the storm?” “Shhhhh” is the only response you get from the person behind you who’s annoyed by your rudeness.
When Jesus spoke, he often began in medias res, a Latin phrase meaning “in the midst of things.” And not just in the middle of things, but in the middle of ordinary things that his audience would have known much about. Wheat. Salt. Light. Coins. Fields. Fish. Treasure. Seeds. Stealthy birds. Harsh bosses. It’s a narrative style that plunges the listener into a relatable scene. Into a storyline that they start to suspect somehow relates to them. His middle place style pulls his listener in as an active participant. Makes them ask questions like, “am I supposed to be someone in this story?” “Who is the enemy in this parable?” “OK, this ought to be good. How exactly am I like salt Jesus?” His middle march drives a visible path right up the center of our shared humanity where He chose to dwell with us in the flesh.
Years ago, I read a magazine piece by a man who met Jesus in mid-life. He wrote the story hoping that people would realize Christ comes in the middle of every imaginable part of your story. It wasn’t the middle of cancer for him or tragedy or even boredom. Christ came to him in the middle of joy. Unspeakable joy. I wish I still had the article. I probably do, in the middle of one of my piles of paper that begs to be sorted. He said something like this in the piece. I was experiencing so many incredible things in my life. Feeling overwhelmed by gratitude. But I didn’t know who to thank. I didn’t know where to go to say, WOW, thank you. That’s a paraphrase of course, but it’s the heart of what he was communicating. His heart was begging to worship something real other than his own great efforts which couldn’t possibly account for what was happening to him. Not out of fear, but out of delight, his heart turned to figuring out who to thank for his one ridiculous life. Out of his search-like-silver-for-who-to-praise, he found the Christ.
When life started to change for me internally, I was invited to a “small group” by a woman named Karen Ballard. I’d grown up Catholic and was exploring life in a protestant denomination with my newly baptized husband. I was practicing law at the time. The whole small group thing felt very threatening to me. Maybe because I felt the need, like a lawyer, to figure out all the figuraoutables before facing the judge. That’s how I perceived them. That’s how I perceived most people then. People who would judge me if I didn’t have all the answers. Here was God in the middle of my search for growth plopping me in the center of a spiritually mature group who knew a thing or twelve about this faith journey and all I wanted to do was impress them with my ability to figure it out on my own? With my determination to not really need them. Or, God forbid, depend on them for something.
Fast forward many many years later sitting in a seminary class where my Hermeneutics professor had a moment. I don’t know what caused it, but she broke into a rant that sounded something like this [sorry Dr. Harris if I butcher this, you know my heart and how much I love yours]. Paraphrase: You do know, don’t you, that in the beginning you were made to be needy and dependent? Before the fall, you were created to depend on God. You seem to think that need and dependence signal weakness. They don’t. You need the people God is sending your way. You need to depend on the Body of Christ. You will never mature out of it. You will mature into it. We needed to hear it.
Our April Mobile Mission:
Which brings us to our April Mission: In your Mission Pack you have a giant sticker that says “Additional Parts Inside.” If you are not receiving our free monthly mission packs, hit the contact link above and we'll get you going. This month, as we celebrate Easter, we are looking deeply at what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Remember Kelly’s words about her earthly dad -- He defined me first, as parents do. Those early characterizations… [became] the shimmering self-image [I] embrace[d]… I’m not even sure what’s true about me, since I have always chosen to believe his version. Are there ‘additional parts’ to your one ridiculous life. Parts of your identity in Him that you have yet to explore or delight in or embrace. What if you decided to believe His version? To become childlike in your willingness to crawl in His lap and depend on what HE says you are in Him? Will you spend 30 days exploring how His description of you in Him is a shimmering self-image to embrace? Perhaps begin with the premise of 2 Cor. 5:17 – in Him, you are new!
Amen? Amen!
