What if every experience is meant to complete you?
To make you more whole and more holy?
How might you navigate life differently?
I am anticipating that my word of the year “beyond” is challenging me to circle these questions.
To go beyond stress, distraction, superficiality, division, dualism…
To seek connection, meaning, depth.
“When we act wholesomely we reach for something beyond, something more. We reach past the artificially induced tears of the theatrical production for wisdom about life, past sensual pleasure to intimacy with another human being, past grief over a loss to gratitude and renewal of purpose. That is how human beings are meant to function, how things work when all is going well.” -Zena Hintz, Lost in Thought
So much of our live is spent skimming the surface. Bouncing from experience to experience. Believing that if we just have more: love, rest, stuff, adventures, skill, etc. then we will be content. In reality, it’s not more but going deeper on what is here that brings what we are looking for.
When we choose to want for nothing and appreciate what we have, make meaning of the experiences we live, and love the people right in front of us…then we truly have it all.
Every circumstance can refine our character and build strength of spirit and breathe life into us. Every person can teach us, love us, and give us something we are yearning for if we let them.
If only we can move beyond expectations, beyond control, beyond desire. Not in a way that doesn’t allow them to exist, but that pairs them with their counter.
Expectations + Surprise
Control + Acceptance
Desire + Peace
We live each day trusting with hope in the potential of what could be: a better tomorrow, while surrendering completely to the reality of what is: today exactly as it exists in its brutality and beauty.
Grit, Gratitude, and Grace 