After a lightning bolt destroyed her home in 2016, the Rev. Jen Crow could have become insular and bitter. Instead, the senior minister at First Universalist Church of Minneapolis channeled her grief and anger into healing those around her. But the evolution was not immediate. Left with nothing but her precious family, Crow spent years reconstructing her life from childhood, pondering what she wanted to carry forward literally and figuratively, and challenging herself to a new mission of helping others through their own trials by fire. Author of the newly released, "Take What You Need: Life Lessons After Losing Everything," she shares more of her journey below.
Q: Some of your readers have compared your traumatic experience to that of fleeing Ukrainians, but the comparison makes you uncomfortable. Might you say more about that?
A: They understand that I know what it means to have to suddenly pack up and go — to take only the most important things. But, whoa, it is not the same. Nobody is trying to kill me. My wife and two children are OK. The fire was a random act. But it did give me instant clarity about what is important.
Q: And you make clear that what's important isn't things anymore.
A: The things that mattered after the fire were photos, jewelry — not because the jewelry was worth anything but because it had been passed down for generations. For the kids, we were looking for their stuffed animals, their comfort items. Our priorities have shifted. We are lucky to again live in a beautiful house and have beautiful things. But at the end of the day, what matters is, is everybody OK? Everything you know can fall away.
Q: You didn't set out to write a book. So, how did it happen?
A: I was writing for myself as a way to heal from the fire experience, to process that. I published an essay and got a great response. The publisher reached out and said, we think this is a book. That essay became the first chapter.
Q: You write that, "God knows I did not want that fire." Ultimately, though, your book isn't about a literal fire but more about the metaphorical fires we all face, "transformational moments, thresholds, portals," in your words, that we all must move through. You're very candid about your mother's struggles with mental illness. For others, there is addiction, or feelings of failure.