There is a lot of anxiety about the “what nextness” in life. Anxiety can look like excitement, and it can also look like worry. As the social world opens up more and more, many of us are uncertain as to how to move about in the world. Our bodies are habituated in a certain way, and vaccinated or not, we don’t have operating instructions for moving forward. The people we are relying on for them are also going through this for the first time. This is a literal case of building the boat as we navigate the waters.
It ain’t easy, y’all.
Psychology has called this last year a time of languishing. LANGUISH: verb | to lose or lack vitality; grow weak or feeble. In Ordinary Life we hope to contribute to flourishing, a state of growing luxuriantly. We will not return to the way things were. We can’t. But we want to help us get to where we are going with a little more wisdom and maybe even (dare I say it) hope. If we can hold all the anxieties, worries, hopes, and dreams in community, we lessen the burden for any one person. I feel buoyed by trying to hold it together and shape something new.
A few references from the podcast:
We both recommend the meditative book by Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song, from which I read this:
“Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against such evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here.”
We also both recommend re-visiting the webinar with John Tucker, now available on our website HERE. He was a delight to be with.
And for some playfulness with deeper messages, watch the movies: “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” and “Paddington 2.”
Thanks for listening! See you Sunday.
*Editorial note! I mentioned the evolution of the horse to the buffalo…but I should have said the COW to the buffalo. This is a real time example of a languishing brain. Ha.
