For centuries, Christianity has presented itself as an “organized religion” — a change-averse institution that protects and promotes a timeless system of beliefs that were handed down fully formed in the past. Yet Christianity’s actual history is a story of change and adaptation.
-- Brian McLaren
Spirituality is not knowledge, though it includes it — it's engagement.
It’s not your competence that connects you to others after all — it’s your vulnerability.
It is to be understood that nearly all close relationships will hurt you AND that they will bring you great laughter and joy, not to mention…love.
Some people are selling fear — why do we keep buying it?
‘Poem for the week’ — “Fear”:
What is it about fear,
this thing passed down
generation to generation
like a well-tended
but never talked about
Curse?
How have we managed
to give it so much life,
to allow it to grow and inflame
every corner of our tired
souls?
Fear of the other
Fear of ourselves
Fear of loss
Fear of wanting
Fear of change
Fear of fear itself
Is there an antidote,
a way to stop this,
to name and remove
the poison that plagues
even the best of us?
Give me your hand
place your own hand on your heart
put your pen to the journal page
grab onto something, someone,
and ask what might happen
if we let go.
And then, let go.
Fear can only hold on if we are.
-- Kaitlin Curtice
I recently saw a reference to a new book by Luke Norsworthy called, How to Love the Life You Already Have.
While routinely I see such things, the title of this one stuck around with me. Perhaps the title intimates that too often we don't...love the life we already have. That we are often living in a twilight zone of a life we'd like to have, but don't.
I don't know a lot of details about where this book goes. But, what is it about our lives that creates a tension between the life we have and the life we'd like to have. Is it a healthy tension? I'm guessing it could be, if we really engage the question.
How about you, are you living the life you want to live?
I overheard this 'Yoga with Adriene' admonition this morning: "Trust you have everything you need — don’t decide where it ends."
Obviously, put together, there are lots of directions to potentially unpack here.
And then, on my way to work, I heard the NRP Tiny Desk rendition of Philharmonik's "What's It All Mean?" which, among other things, at least got me moving:
Lead yourself, and then you can lead others. And if you're going to lead yourself, you better know yourself. If you're going to know yourself, you better know your strengths and weaknesses.
-- Arthur C. Brooks
Our moms are troves of wisdom — and we can all learn from them:
"My mother taught me that it is never too late to change your opinion and always to be thoughtful about the world around me."
-- Amy P., Eaton Rapids, Michigan
"Don't judge others. Never consider yourself better than anyone else, and don't assume you know what they've been through — you don't."
-- Mary Ann T., Santa Monica, California
"Respect everyone's independence and intelligence — even children."
-- Mitchell T., Winston-Salem, North Carolina
There are things that we simply need to learn over and over — perhaps this is not so much indictment as wisdom.
Sometimes we really have to consider (if not address) what things keep us asleep to a lot of life.
We have to set aside the time to identify the sacred around and within us.
When is the last time you actively considered that there is more than one perspective (yours or mine) that is legitimate?
How much more wisdom is there than that gained from baking bread and tending flowers?
Just throwing that out there....
Of course, there is probably a little more involved. Wisdom, after all, often seems a little more targeted at how to navigate things — what to do, dealing with people, meaning of life...to name a few.
But, what is needed even for those things might likely be addressed by the hands-on learning we gain from rather simple things...like learning how to bake bread and fostering beauty.
After all, at a most basic level, what beyond daily sustenance and enjoyment really is there (besides tragedy, suffering, existential threat, etc.)?
The baking of bread is a simple and mysterious example of such things. Comprised of the most basic elements of life (water, flour, heat), it is a rather smirking example of non-complexity, at least in terms of ingredients. And, yet, something else is involved that is often nothing short of confounding, until you've understand the dynamics (beyond the ingredients) involved. In a rather fascinating way, they even require a kind of submission to effectively cooperate with them.
Which then leads to a kind of enjoyment that seems to nearly touch the most basic elements of our existence — our need for daily sustenance and our ability to relish something like flavor and texture so deeply that groans are about the only means of adequately expressing our enjoyment of it. Fresh baked bread is pretty close to the top of nearly everyone's best-thing-ever list.
Even though there are some pretty basic scientific explanations involved for their effective contribution to a variety of eco-systems, there is also something about flowers that seems extravagant — bordering on wastefully so. Whether it be color, shape, aroma (though some actually can be pretty stinky...or so it seems to us), the way they collect themselves, the seasonality of their unveiling...their list of wonders is also breathtakingly endless. They are a marvel, not only individually, but also collectively. They co-exist with many things almost as if they don't care. Delicate, vulnerable, and resilient all at the same time — they also seem to respond to care, either from that of their environment or the gentleness of human touch. Few can withstand blunt-force trauma (at least in the moment) and they also can merely cease to exist in an environment that no longer supports them.
And, yet, they seem at times larger than life itself. We can almost worship them (or use them to worship something — or someone — else). We have much to learn from the combination of forces surrounding the beauty of flowers — both from a how-to-cultivate perspective to a how-to-let-them-be perspective. They, too, require something from us...for us to truly enjoy them for what they are. In other words, it takes a wisdom to work with and relate to them. And their reciprocity is, at times, more than we could ever have imagined.
Being human takes practice and hard work. Being inhuman, unfortunately, comes all too easy.
-- Simon Sinek
Ever noticed...how much how you feel about yourself (and life) can change over the course of just one day (not to mention, how variable it is from day to day)?
Long-term thinking eliminates a lot of poor behavior.
-- Shane Parrish
When my ego recedes, there’s more room for God.
-- Tony Jones
We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
Prior 4 Observations (from Others).
The impetus for this callout came from an article we published earlier this month. We asked some of the attendees at the Skoll World Forum, dedicated to "accelerat[ing] innovative solutions," what they do to "keep calm and carry on" when things get tough.
A grandmother's advice: 'Listen more, talk less'
Karen Lembo of Morristown, New Jersey, writes: "I try, very hard, to stay curious about people. It is not easy, and it is coming to me much too late in life, but I 'listen more, talk less.' My beloved grandmother, Nana Rete, would quote 'God gave you two ears but only one mouth for a good reason, Karen.' It took me years, but gosh I see how much more I learn daily by asking questions and then listening, REALLY listening."
Lembo adds, "I keep calm by staying close to my grandchildren — their wisdom, joy, humor, love and kindness knows no bounds."
Continue here....
-- Marc Silver
Where do you find joy?
One aspect of joy often seems to be that it includes an element of surprise. We weren't expecting it and...it happened. Perhaps, this is common when we have given up hope about something and then it happens and what we feel is a sudden kind of...joy. What we had hoped for did happen after all. Or, maybe it is a reflection of what we feel when something even better than we hoped for...happens.
But, while this seems like a fairly accurate description of how we often experience joy, I'm not sure it is the only way we do...or could.
What if joy is something we need to seek out? Like, perhaps, we don't have to leave it exclusively to surprise.
Like with many things, it seems that how we have arranged and live our lives significantly impacts the quality of our existence. If we do things that are harmful (to ourselves or whoever or whatever is around us), we reduce our capacity to experience what is good. Likewise, when put or keep ourselves in a position to experience what is good, we often do so. There seems to be a spiral-effect involved, in either direction.
Joy, it would seem to me, operates consistently with this dynamic. If I put myself in contexts where good things can happen, the opportunity for me to experience joy goes up. The opposite also seems true.
We often think that things like joy should be constant and over-the-top. But, few things are really like either of those. More often, it seems, the best things live among the smallest and (seemingly) most insignificant things in life. And, perhaps, they are found most by the way we dwell with those kinds of things.
And, so, I'm thinking that joy is among the wonderfully inconspicuous things that we find when we're most in a position to notice them. Not (at least too often) when we're in a hurry, rushing everywhere, or when we're trying to manage our stress with the many harmful things our society offers us to avoid them. Perhaps, it is when we commit ourselves to simple ways of living, making enough room to discover something already around us that is good for us, that we find valuable things...like joy.
Where do you find joy?
Problems arise when we start compromising our own standards, those we have set for ourselves, in order to earn the admiration of others. Problems come when we choose to focus on what others think and see versus reality.
-- Shane Parrish
I’ve noticed…that I don’t see myself as particularly emotionally brave.
Is that because I’m not? Or, because of something affecting the way I see myself?
True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation.
-- Thomas Merton
When things are integrated, they hold together; when things are dis-integrated, they fall apart — this seems true in many domains.
Beware those who trade in the rhetoric of evil — especially, where dehumanization is involved.
It’s good to see perspectives other people have of the world (especially by the way they live their lives) — it informs our own perspective.
What do we become internally when we constantly saturate ourselves with stimulation externally?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question….
‘Poem for the week’ — “You’re the Top”:
Last night I get all the way to Ocean Street Extension, squinting through the windshield, wipers smearing the rain, lights of the oncoming cars half-blinding me. The baby’s in her seat in the back singing the first three words of You’re the Top. Not softly and sweetly the way she did when she woke in her crib, but belting it out like Ethel Merman. I don’t drive much at night anymore. And then the rain and the bad wipers. But I tell myself it’s too soon to give it up. Though the dark seems darker than I ever remember. And as I make the turn and head uphill, I can’t find the lines on the road. I start to panic. No! Yes—the lights! I flick them on and the world resolves. My god, I could have killed her. And I’ll think about that more later. But right now new galaxies are being birthed in my chest. There are no gods, but not everyone is cursed every moment. There are minutes, hours, sometimes even whole days when the earth is spinning 1.6 million miles around the sun and nothing tragic happens to you. I do not have to enter the land of everlasting sorrow. Every mistake I’ve made, every terrible decision—how I married the wrong man, hurt my child, didn’t go to Florence when she was dying—I take it all because the baby is commanding, “Sing, Nana.” And I sing, You’re the top. You’re the Coliseum, and the baby comes in right on cue.
-- Ellen Bass
From the author:
“Guilt and regret are my familiars, and it’s a continual challenge to pry myself from their grip. This poem encounters a reprieve—a mercy strong enough to throw me into a delirious acceptance of all my past failures—for the moment. And if we write (and read) to be changed—and I do—then I trust that at least a trace of that acceptance will stay with me.”
The real enemy is the one who keeps saying someone else is the enemy.
I am amazed sometimes at what people have strong opinions about, especially when they are about things that don’t seem to affect their lives directly at all.
Sometimes, it seems like people are more interested in the idea of God, than in actual relationship with God.
Don't we realize that the more we do something, the more our brain modifies in relation to what we are doing?
The poet David White once said, What you can plan is too small for you to live. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of plans when it comes to finances, ad campaigns, and organizing events, but when it comes to navigating life, plans prevent us from seeing possibilities as they emerge in real time. The life brief is a practice of permission to hear and heed your voice, allowing it to be your life’s compass.
Clarity is the most important action you can take.
The path to clarity begins with curiosity. When we lean into our curiosity, we unlock insights and epiphanies about what makes our lives worth living. That exploration often reveals latent, buried, or previously undiscovered paths for living that transform overwhelm into adventure. Continue here....
-- Bonnie Wan
Humility seems to be something that needs to be developed.
In that sense, it may not be very natural. Or, whatever the mitigating factors are, they seem to have contributed to it becoming unnatural and, therefore, in need of something to cause, at least the possibility, of humility.
We all know people that don’t seem very humble. How would we describe them? Self-centered? Prideful? Arrogant? Conceited? Of course, these are always other people…. So, theoretically then, how would we describe it when we sense a lack of humility in ourselves?
And, then, there is the person who truly IS humble. Often, those people barely register with us, because there is so little self-promotion involved. We find these people not only easier to work with, but also that we are drawn to them. Perhaps this is because they put us at ease. No posturing is required. We relax in their presence.
As we get to know humble people, we discover something they often seem to have in common — experience that has taught them something that they seem to value for the rest of their lives, even if they have to continue working at it. They’ve learned, often in painful ways, about things they don’t want to be like.
A recent circumstance in our community involved a person that few people would primarily describe as embodying traits of humility. The exposure involved engenders the question, why are certain people humble, while others are not. Personality certainly seems to make contributions to things like humility, but there also seems to be something else that circulates around our question of why.
What has captured a bit of my imagination is how entitlement contributes to a lack of humility. Humble people don’t seem characterized by a spirit of entitlement. So, what is the soil out of which the seeds of entitlement tend to grow? Some might include things like conditioning or specific circumstances from which one has reached certain conclusions about their relationship with others and the world.
I’m a bit hesitant to draw a hard and fast rule on this, but it also seems a bit conspicuous that a kind of relationship with power is often involved — for both the humble and the not-so-humble. And, in our economies, power is often connected in one way or another to money. In other words, the more money one has, the easier it seems to be powerful. Whether that is attributed by others or claimed by oneself, a number of dots connect a perceivable pattern between money and humility. But, there does seem to be something about money that makes us think we deserve it (especially when characterized by concluding we’ve earned it). Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule. And, most certainly, there are many people who have no money (or power), who would also not be characterized by humility, .
But, an intriguing thought to me is how much humility is more than a state of mind or spirit and includes the patterns in choices we make about how we live. Whether money and power are involved or not, choices I make seem to keep me in a position to be aware of my need for humility. Conversely, then — what patterns and choices move me away from that awareness...even from humility itself?
I think the question I’m asking is somewhat connected to this; do I have to choose to live simply enough that my awareness, my dependency on others and the dynamics of life, remains intact? Does the complexity I so often opt for (or, simply end up in) lead me away from awareness and, therefore, humility?
This feels far easier to answer for...someone else, than it is for myself. But, is it?
At the very least, humility seems to be something that is catalyzed by what we learnlearn over the course of lives, and that we need to consciously work at, often in the simple choices that we make as we go about the way we live.
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
-- Albert Einstein
I’m wondering…why does nearly all spiritual practice include conscious breathing?
Perhaps it is because you can't you experience spirituality only in your mind, separate from your body and spirit.
Why do we try to experience so much of American spirituality then, primarily through the mind...or, more simply, through belief systems?
God allows people a great deal of freedom to do evil and ruinous things. Giving humans moral responsibility entails allowing us to act immorally and to suffer the consequences of our actions — or in the case of climate change, to let other people to suffer the consequences, at least at first. Do we really want to find out just how far God will let this go before God “does something”? Or, could we instead perceive that God is indeed doing something, through the knowledge and work of people and through the self-healing powers built into the planet? The question for each of us is whether to resist or cooperate….
-- Debra Rienstra
Life is too short not to stretch yourself — it might hurt a little, but typically not as often as you fear and not nearly as much as you grow.
Be non-partisan, if you want — especially, if it means being more human.
If you really want something to change, you have to do something about it.
At one point or another, doesn't belief and love seem to pull you in opposite directions?
Prior3 Observations & A Question….
‘Poem for the week’ — “Come Let Us Be Friends”:
Come, let us be friends, you and I,
E’en though the world doth hate at this hour;
Let’s bask in the sunlight of a love so high
That war cannot dim it with all its armed power.
Come, let us be friends, you and I,
The world hath her surplus of hatred today;
She needeth more love, see, she droops with a sigh,
Where her axis doth slant in the sky far away.
Come, let us be friends, you and I,
And love each other so deep and so well,
That the world may grow steady and forward fly,
Lest she wander towards chaos and drop into hell.
-- Sarah Lee Brown Fleming
Society is a social agreement.
The agreement essentially is bigger than its ability to enforce itself. In other words, enforcement in a society is ultimately self-imposed or, in the end, the agreement no longer works. It borrows something from the willingness of its citizenry to participate and to cooperate with what has been agreed to.
A (potentially) too simplistic example might be a round-about. You know, the now popular circular traffic management adaptation at intersections of converging streets. Drivers essentially have to agree to know and follow the yield rules that have been established about how they work. If they don’t, there will be accidents. Since society can’t afford to have policemen at every round-about, it largely has to rely on the enforcement that each driver imposes on him or herself. When that happens, round-abouts seem to work pretty well. When it doesn’t (I’ve seen some pretty close-calls), not so much.
Though a small example, there are many like it that make up the collective ability to have what we call a society — a group of people agreeing to work with each other in mostly coherent and cooperative ways to achieve some end that serves the desired good of the group.
If a society, then, primarily functions with self-regulation for some common purpose, what happens when the society forgets what it, after all, is regulating or, perhaps more importantly, why it is doing so?
Why, for example, do vaccines even exist? Is it not for common good the society desired? Or, what about the purposes of government (what it should and shouldn't being involved in)? Does a society need certain kinds of protections (pollution, predators, rogue businesses that take advantage or harm people, etc.)? Does a society need mechanisms to promote certain ideals it values (safety, community, public-service, fire-stations, parks, etc.)?
Without such questions, we seem to end up with a narrative that focuses on whether or not things are perfect, as opposed to the purposes that need to be identified or maintained. Both, in the end, are important. But, without addressing the purpose question, it seems quite easy to get collectively lost. And, when that happens, something else breaks down about what a society is and how it functions. Chaos (at least persistent forms of it) does not enhance a society's sense of well-being (or that of its individual members).
Criticism has an important role in a society. It tests the assumptions that are often involved in society-making. But, though often resisted, it is actually the easier part of what is needed in aggregate. It is only half of the real work involved — constructing, maintaining, and perfecting what needs to be served, in order to have a healthy society.
If a society, intentionally or not, defers its ideals to enforcement mechanisms rather than to the collective action that is comprised by its members, it will head towards no longer being a society (because there is, in essence, no real functioning agreement).
When that happens, we are forced back to focus on the core question, what do we want to be...together (as a society)?
As I’ve gotten older, grayer, and, arguably, wiser, I’ve come to understand that the things that drive me to live out of balance, de-prioritize my own life and well-being, are more often internal drivers that misread the world and make me think that I can only be worthy of love if, ironically, I deplete myself so much that I disappear (or, worse, end up wanting to disappear). The answer is simple (but hard): Say no. Say no to even the most fearful parts of ourselves that say, ‘my success depends on my killing myself.’ That’s a lie which, thankfully, I have outgrown.
-- Jerry Colonna
Ever noticed…that people have different strengths (not to mention, appreciate that they do)? Some are strong physically, others are strong of mind, and yet others seem strong in spirit.
Perhaps, we should honor and respect this, rather than try to coerce them into singular definitions of what people's strength should look like.
Walk; walk or wheel yourself outside if you can; seek out green, where furred or feathered things might be.
To be alive is to look up at the stars on a dark night and to feel the beyond-words awe of space in its vastness. To be alive is to look down from a mountaintop on a bright, clear day and to feel the wonder that can only be expressed in “oh” or “wow” or maybe “hallelujah.”
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
-- William Shakespeare
A grandfather is talking with his grandson. The grandfather says, “In life, there are two wolves inside of us which are always at battle. One is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery, and love. The other is a bad wolf which represents things like greed, hatred, and fear.”
The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second, then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”
The grandfather replies, “The one you feed.”
-- Cherokee parable
