Near our home is a building boasting a large-lettered sign with the name MarginEdge on top. I assume this is an office of some sort and I have no experience with with them other than seeing their sign, but what a curious idea that sign calls to mind. The demands of life (both real andContinue reading “The Edge of the Margin”
Category Archives: Attentiveness
Adversary or Enemy?
So, consider for a moment that person one might disagree with… How we engage them and the story we tell about that interaction turns them into an adversary or an enemy. An adversary is a sparing partner, a worthy rival. An enemy is someone you behold with hostile contempt from whom nothing can be learned. Continue reading “Adversary or Enemy?”
Healthspan
I recently heard “heathspan” (how many years one is healthy) contrasted with “lifespan” (how many years one is alive). It’s a generative distinction, helping us focus on the health and quality of the years we live. And what kind(s) of health are we talking about? Bodily, certainly. That is the assumed definition. But also spiritualContinue reading “Healthspan”
The Confederacy of the Humbled
Count Rostov, the uniquely charming protagonist of A Gentleman in Moscow, experiences the loss of stature, influence, and the world he has known. (Not a spoiler! It happens on page 1.) By way of recovery from this loss, he casts a new narrative and describes his inclusion in the “Confederacy of the Humbled”:
“a close-knit brotherhood whose members travel with no outward markings, but who know each other at a glance. For having fallen suddenly from grace, those in the Confederacy share a certain perspective. Knowing beauty, influence, fame, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed, they are not easily impressed. They are not quick to envy or take offense. They certainly do not scour the papers in search of their own names. They remain committed to living among their peers, but they greet adulation with caution, ambition with sympathy, and condescension with an inward smile.”
When live’s losses come for us, we have a choice. We can rehearse and resent them, living within their confines. Or we can pray for the grace to acknowledge and integrate them, reengaging life as wisely as the Count.
How
The things that we dedicate ourselves to… how do we go about them? Passionately? Frantically? Avoiding commitment and conflict? Relationally? While condescending from the moral high ground? With faith, hope, and love? How we go about what we do means a great deal.
Missing the Meaning
It is possible to have an experience that means to teach us – be it something wonderful or something difficult – and to miss its meaning. Maybe our attention is fragmented or stretched too thin. Maybe we willfully resist the lesson. We should not be surprised if life keeps offering us this lesson because weContinue reading “Missing the Meaning”
Leading for Lent
I’ve heard that action is the antidote to anxiety. Recently, I’ve been wondering if it is not a little more specific.
What if agency, exercising intention and leadership in an uncertain situation, is in fact the way that uncertainty becomes less intimidating and more manageable?
And in situations where we seem to have no agency, we can learn to see that we do have a quite powerful opportunity: the possibility of gathering people together. More than we know, we are capable of convening a meaningful gathering serving a need of people we live, work, or pray with.
(I’ve recently picked up this book again to get better at this skill.)
Committing to convene a group of folks who need you is a cool thing to do for the liturgical season that started this Wednesday.
That is, what if we chose to lead for Lent?
Wanting What We Want to Want
What, in our lives, do we want to want?
Do we want those things / that life now and consistently?
If not, what is keeping us from wanting what we want to want?
What is the 15% we can choose today to move toward that desired life?
Don’t Erase Mine!
Last week at Sunday School, as our son’s class prepared for First Reconciliation, the instructors invited the students into a simple and illustrative activity.
There was a big heart drawn on the board, and the students were invited to fill it with habits and attachments that are not of God.
The point was to show that the sacrament clears our hearts of these things, so that in our hearts might grow the fruits of the Spirit.
When the instructor started erasing the words and narrating the metaphor, one rather exuberant young colleague jumped up and yelled, in full seriousness: “Don’t erase mine!!”
This is, of course, hilarious and the perfect reaction to illustrate why we need to be invited to the sacrament. We want this freedom from sin… buuuut maybe not yet.
Let’s pray for the grace to act with the Spirit now and not later.
Pause Game!
Often, when are sons are in the midst of a rollicking game (often involving an imaginative world of stuffies and legos and a yoga-mat-as-naval-vessel and running amok in our apartment) one of them will yell: “pause game!”
Maybe the energy was too high. Maybe one boysensed that they were out of sync. But the call is always heeded by the other and they take a moment to recalibrate.
In all instances, the pause enhances the play.
This is also true of our lives. Be it sabbath or a daily period dedicated to not doing.
Pausing is what makes our life and work fruitful, enjoyable, possible.
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