Mother Nature is a great teacher. Trees don’t try to produce fruit year round in an absurd attempt to be more productive. They lie dormant through the fall and the winter, shedding their leaves and conserving resources. Without that period of dormancy, they couldn’t bloom in the spring.
Humans also have seasons. The artist Corita Kent, during one of her own dormant periods, would sit idle and watch a maple tree grow outside her window. “I feel that great new things are happening very quietly inside of me,” she said. “And I know these things have a way, like the maple tree, of finally bursting out in some form.”
Being idle isn’t the same thing as being lazy.
A vacuum isn’t something to be automatically filled.
As the saying goes, it’s the silence in between the notes that makes the music.
So if you’re in between projects or jobs—or even romantic relationships—resist the tendency to immediately fill the void with the next thing.
Great new things are happening quietly inside of you.
Give them the time they need to bloom in all their glory.
Knowing what matters most to you and having the courage to pursue it is a good start, but it’s not enough. You’ve got to act on those values over and over again. In the words of philosopher Terry Patten, you’ve got to “make a practice” out of living.
In his latest book, A New Republic of the Heart, Patten writes that life satisfaction is a byproduct of transitioning from being a seeker, or someone who wants a certain lifestyle, to a practitioner, or someone who lives that lifestyle day in and day out. “Practice,” Patten writes, “is about waking up again and again, and choosing to show up in life in alignment with one’s highest intelligence,” or what matters most.
Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. “A whole life of regular, ongoing practice is necessary,” writes Patten. “We are always reinforcing the neural circuits associated with what we are doing. Whatever way we are being, we’re more likely to be that way in the future. This means we are always practicing something.” It behooves us to live more and more of our lives taking actions that are in alignment with our core values—to make a practice out of living.
These days, this year, 2020! Oh, how we the people, the created ones, we who have seemingly given so little thought to all the many, many days which preceded today. We who have been like sleeping babies, we who are living as though we have been suddenly awakened. And indeed, we have been awakened by the labor pains of our own birthing process. Yes, we are being born again into a brave, new world; a world which has been made by our own sleepwalking lives. Today, yes and every day hereafter, we are living the day as though it is our final exam. We have been tested and are even now being tested and pressed. Look around, our sanity is pulling away from us. We are pulled apart from our better selves and our communal bloodshed testifies against us. What shreds us to pieces? What dislodges us from our moorings, from the safe harbors of our former complacencies? Is it not our combined complicity and greed to blame the other one(s), the other side, those ones outside of our beliefs and traditions, which when combined with our self-righteous, impoverished, and dull thinking only births and extracts more hateful behaviors. Atrocious, stunning, inexcusable, vile. These are the outcomes which abound in today’s headlines.
When the tentacles of hate have reached their full maturity, there can be no more life as we know it. No more civility…no more peace. Hate, fully overgrown into our hearts, the one true source of all cancer, can only go stronger every day in our midst while we demand our rights to be heard and our right to be freed from our past. Hate will indeed choke, blind, and silence us all to the doom of our own making.
It is LOVE, human and divine which overcomes death in nations and generations and in all horrors of our time . Death is given power over everything finite especially in our period of history. But death is given no power over LOVE. LOVE is stronger. It creates something new out of the destruction caused by death; it bears everything and overcomes everything. It is at work where the power of death is strongest, in war and persecution and homelessness and hunger and physical death itself. It is omnipresent and here and there in the smallest and most hidden ways as in the greatest and most visible ones, it rescues life from death. It reaches each of us, for LOVE is stronger than death.
Paul Tillich – The Boundaries of Our Being
Oh, how we are being tested, pressed, and yes even pulled apart from every one of our perceived safe places; our moorings and safe harbors are nowhere to be found. There is only ONE ANTIDOTE…ONE CURE for our current sickness: REFUSE TO HATE the other! Refuse it and we shall make ourselves well. This tonic is not an easy one to take, and we will have to dose ourselves liberally, daily, moment by moment…but take our medicine we must. There can be no other remedy for our survival. We must choose to sacrifice our need to be right in order to become healthy again…otherwise we will be consumed by the monster in our midst. The monster which can and should be slain because it brings us only death and suffering.
What does it mean to be nonviolent? Coming from the Hindu/Sanskrit word ahimsa, nonviolence was defined long ago as “causing no harm, no injury, no violence to any living creature.” But Mohandas Gandhi insisted that it means much more than that. He said nonviolence was the active, unconditional LOVE toward others, the persistent pursuit of truth, the radical forgiveness toward those who hurt us, the steadfast resistance to every form of evil, and even the loving willingness to accept suffering in the struggle for justice without the desire for retaliation.
The battlefield in which we currently inhabit our struggle for well-being is waged in one venue only. Lest we think it is someone else’s fault and not our own. Lest we think and believe this fallacy, then we are without remedy. But if we were to realize that our battlefield engages only one solitary combatant, then perhaps we have found hope for a peaceful future. Our hope may be rescued when each one of us, lay down our weapon of right and privilege. Because our survival (individual and collective) is dependent upon the battle being waged for each of our singular hearts and minds. Wake up we must to the war set before us. The war we wage is fought against and within the confines of our own thinking and believing. On this battleground we must refute the desire and the need to be right whereby we give hate for another any purchase in our thoughts, words or deeds! Check yourself today…check the pulse of your thinking and feeling…of your posts on social media and in your conversations with your close others. Check yourself please, I implore you! There can be no higher nationalism, no better self-indulgence than to love…one another…the good…the bad…the ugly…the undeserving…and yes, even the enemy. How far we have wandered from our homeland…LOVE!
We think fear, anger, divine intimidation, threat, and punishment are going to lead people to LOVE. Show me where that has worked. You cannot lead people to the highest level of motivation by teaching them the lowest. The sacred scriptures of all faiths call us to LOVE as we have never loved before. This requires effort, vigilance, and radical humility. Violence is easier than nonviolence, yet hate only perpetuates hate. The wisdom teachings remind us that LOVE—active, engaged, fearless LOVE— is the only way to save ourselves and each other from the firestorm of war that rages around us. There is a renewed urgency to this task now. We are asked not only to tolerate the other, but also to actively engage the LOVE that transmutes the lead of ignorance and hatred into the gold of authentic connection. This is the narrow gate Christ speaks of in the gospels (Matthew 7:13). Don’t come this way unless you’re willing to stretch, bend, and transform for the sake of LOVE.
Kindness: First, Last, Always! What if each one human, would decide each one and every moment, with each and every thought, word, or deed, to first cause no harm…to oneself or to another? Would not all creation resound with music round the sphere?
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
-The Dalai Lama
If we no have peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. -Mother Teresa
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. -Louis L’Amour
I’ve just begun reading Anam Cara by John O’Donohue, and I am not new to O’Donohue’s work, but within the first few chapters of this book, I had highlighted more sections of text than any book I’ve read in the recent past. This book of poetic Celtic mysticism has stunned me to the core with…
“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” — James Baldwin
Unprecedented, provocative, onerous…whoa this! These days are full of novelty for our generation. This is our collective reality, and it is frightening and unsettling for all peoples living on Earth under Heaven. Even so, I believe these times have provisioned us with an advantage if we might avail ourselves of it.
If during our collective time-out we endeavor to center and quite ourselves in genuine introspection and reflection, then perhaps we might see our way clear. For much will be required of us, in the days ahead, given our present circumstances. Whether we are able to grow, heal and move forward, together, peaceably, is our most urgent connumdrum. Might these novel days allow us to reconstruct our human relations for the better? Might we become our very own heros, and beakons of hope for the generations which follow behind us? Only the unfolding of the days ahead will inform whether this novel illness has made us better or worse for one another.
Perhaps the following insights and wisdom from some of our esteemed poets, authors, performers and spiritual leaders will provision and enlarge our thinking as we navigate these days of COVID-19.
There is nothing like calamity for refreshing the moment. Ironically, the last several years my life had begun to feel shapeless, like underwear with the elastic gone, the days down around my ankles. Now there is an intensity to the humblest things–buying paper towels, laundry detergent, dog food, keeping the household running in Rich’s absence. Shopping contains the future. As my daughter Jennifer says, shopping is hope.Abigail Thomas – A Three Dog Life
It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though limits to our abilities do not exist.Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
What you learn is often determined by what you need to know. If you think you’re weak, you will learn that you are strong. If you think you are indestructible, you will learn that you are fragile. In the end though, you will learn that you are human. You are no more and no less than all those who are learning their lessons as you learn yours. John Bingham
Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Eckhart Tolle
We are often deluded by the idea that only big things can change the future. We feel overwhelmed by problems that demand impressive solutions, universal buy-ins, and large infusions of cash. We forget the power of simple acts of influence, of moments of compassion, of small stands for justice — how teachers, parents, friends, and even strangers can redirect the trajectory of history in a moment. If we truly believe that everything is connected, that we live in a sacred web, then every single action has influence over every other action. We are enormously powerful when we act to do what is good and beautiful and just — and in how we choose to react when something or someone threatens or shames us. Fr. Richard Rohr
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences — and all events are blessings given to us to learn from.Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
The most powerful weapon against adversity is having a sense of choice. When we don’t have control, we lose the capacity to cope. We were born to choose, so let us learn how to do it. If we believe we have some degree of control over the outcome, then we are more likely to choose to persist, to find a way through whatever adversity we face. Steve Magness
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished…that will be the beginning.Louis L’Amour
Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.Jackie Joyner-Kersee
As a runner, you don’t have decades of improvement, unless perhaps you are reading this book in your elementary school classroom . You’re always on the precipice of decline. Acknowledge that and perhaps we can think of it more like the happy elderly people. Love where you are, love who you are with, and be happy in the present. The finish line is coming for all runners and no one wants to be the first to break the tape. The Happy Runner
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? Albert Einstein
Winning has nothing to do with racing. Most days don’t have races anyway. Winning is about struggle and effort and optimism, and never, ever, ever giving up. Amby Burfoot
It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though limits to our abilities do not exist. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
For me, success in running wasn’t about how far or how fast I was going — it was about making a commitment to accomplish something hard, and then putting in the work to follow through. Emily Abbate
It’s about getting better…about becoming more valuable…about becoming exquistely useful and sought after. Like a fine wine, aging well requires each of us to embrace the passing of days as our very own priceless gift.
Aging is an activity. It is something you do, not something that happens. When you age–active verb–you are proactive. If you really age, you become a better person. If you simply grow old, passively, you get worse. Chances are, you will be unhappy as you continue the fruitless fight against time.
Thomas Moore ~ Ageless Soul
Surely each new day given, whether we believe and receive it as such, is a gift. Rather than perceiving the days as pushing us towards old age, we may turn our perception inside out when we wake up to the alchemy of fine-life making. Every day provides possibility for growth and improvement.
And now I have to wonder…is a life well-aged meant to benefit myself alone? Or is a well-aged life more closely related to the fine wine analogy? After all, does a fine wine delight the one who drinks or abstains? Likewise, if we purpose to age well through our years, will we not only benefit ourselves but also pleasure those others with whom we share our days?
Active aging promotes the vision of all individuals—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or health—fully engaging in life within all seven dimensions of wellness: emotional, environmental, intellectual/cognitive, physical, professional/vocational, social and spiritual.
Source: International Council on Active Aging
So I say this to myself and my readers: do not be afraid of growing old…be afraid of going through the years and changing not for the better. The passing of days is opportunity to become a better version of me and you. Every new day is our gift, if only we receive it as such. Let’s engage the wonder and delight of youthfulness by unwrapping today with wide-eyed, expectant delight!
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