Category: Spiritual Development

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The Practice of Becoming Whole Again

the practice of becoming whole again cracked bowl

I found a bowl in the cupboard the other day as I was transitioning my home altar from spring to summer for the Summer Solstice.

The bowl was still in 3 pieces from when I dropped it months ago.

I love this bowl. It’s one of my favorite seafoamy colors. It’s the perfect size for holding keys or change or offerings (as it is in my new altar). And it was my Mom’s.

I’m not sure why I haven’t tried to put it back together before.

Perhaps I thought it was too broken, so was saving it for a craft project?

I stocked up on super glue recently and I’ve been gleefully glueing everything back together—my trail running shoes, my faith stone—why not this bowl?

I glued two pieces together. Then the third wouldn’t fit!

Argh.

Turns out, it would have fit perfectly if I had glued all three pieces together at the same time.

Tricky but doable.

I jammed it in there the best I could. It’ll still work as an offerings bowl etc. but there’s a big jagged edge. Like a crooked scar.

Too Broken to Be Whole

When I was 20 years old and my Mom died unexpectedly, it was my heart that broke into pieces. Similarly, I set it on a shelf because I didn’t know how to deal with it.

I sort of put my heart back together, but it took me years to put the last piece in—to fully grieve, to forgive and to be whole again.

No right or wrong, just is.

And no coulda-woulda-shouldas, though I often sensed the now lesson learned that “glueing” all the pieces back together at once—as hard as that is—would create more immediate wholeness.

Tricky but doable, indeed.

After I glued the bowl back together, I shared this lesson learned on Facebook and some folks reminded me that: “In Japan they add ‘gold’ to the cracks, to highlight that the cracks are part of its history.”

Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique.

Becoming whole again with beautiful golden cracks.

Healing the deepest hurts

This is what it felt like happened to my heart last week when my family spread my mother’s ashes in a place that was special to us and to her—a nearby mountain she had climbed 15 times by the time she was 28 years old and started having the three of us kids.

Losing her was a sudden and deep wound. And the recovery was long and deep.

So many years later, my eyes and heart sobbed as deeply as the day her spirit left us.

As the ashes lingered on my finger tips then caught the wind in a tiny poof, I could feel the solid mountain beneath my feet.

Deep breaths. Still moments. A blessing shared out loud sealing a universal ritual in a sacred place.

“May perpetual light shine upon
the ashes of all who rest here.

May the lives they lived
unfold further in spirit.

May all their past travails
find ease in the kindness of clay.

May the remembering earth
mind every memory they brought.

May the rains from the heavens
Fall gently upon them.

May the wildflowers and grasses
Whisper their wishes into light.

May we reverence the sense of presence
in the stillness of this silent mountain.”1

The crack was painted with gold.

I was able to easily flow from this moment into the next—sharing snacks and champagne on a picnic table with the grandkids—recovered to a seemingly normal state.

This is what we patiently seek.

Really Seeing Ourselves

What all is healing in you?

Is it getting the space and attention it needs at the stage that it’s at?

We are all healing.

We all have cracks that can be painted gold.

They don’t make us stronger, but they can give us strength.

The world needs you to repair what is divided.

Healing is a process of becoming whole again.

We think of it as slow or fast, but it’s actually timeless.

Sometimes healing takes years before we reach integrity again—for us to be unimpaired, undivided.

Start The Process

Since becoming injured in a bike accident in several weeks ago I’ve been acutely aware of the stages of healing wounds:

  1. Shock Stage: Triage
  2. Immobility Stage: Protection
  3. Growth Stage: Rebuilding
  4. Mobility Stage: Recovery

That’s my own words, not the terms medical professionals use, based on how I’ve experienced them whether it’s been my body or spirit that’s been healing.

With this recent wound, I’ve watched in awe my body doing what it naturally knows how to do. My job: to stay out of the way. 

“The healing process is remarkable and complex, and it is also susceptible to interruption due to local and systemic factors…When the right healing environment is established, the body works in wondrous ways to heal and [revitalize itself].” Online Source

Now that the scabs are gone, skin grown back, bruises faded and I’m walking and running again it appears that I’m all better.

But, I’m not.

There is still pain with certain movements, fatigue from too much use and instability in my balance.

More patience, more healing.

That’s why the recovery stage is such a surprisingly difficult stage in healing. The process of returning to a normal state.

But what is a normal state?

When everything is so healed that there are no cracks, no weakness? As if it never happened?

I don’t think so.

Perhaps the normal state is when our renewed strength is challenged, yet remains stable.

This does not mean we are unbreakable. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But we are whole again.

Whole with beautiful golden cracks.

The empowering and discouraging truth

Whole doesn’t mean finished. How could it be?

There is no finished state of life.

Not for nature, not for humans.

While my knee is on the mend, I am just now moving into protection mode as the shock wears off about the financial reality and compounded debt I’ve discovered as I’ve been doing my 2017 bookkeeping and preparing taxes for the extension deadline.

We are constantly in flux between healing one thing or another.

This can be discouraging or empowering. You choose. 

It’s key to not get stuck in any stage, especially shock, like the broken pieces of bowl I left sitting on the shelf for months.

Give each stage it’s time to be, then move on.

Stuck is different than immobility. Immobility has purpose.

For instance, my knee swelled up immediately to protect itself and stabilize. Then I stopped moving for a few days to give the knee time to adjust and start rebuilding once it settled down. The swelling needed to recede in order to actually heal, so that I could move again.

Stuck is uncomfortable because you feel “broken.”

You’re not. You’re just not making progress toward wholeness.

Once you start, the healing accumulates. And so does the resilience.

You come back easier, sooner, faster.

You don’t get stuck in a stage.

You glide through the healing process with energy to spare, focusing on recovery. Recovering wholly and soulfully.

So that even amidst the continuous and constant healing process of living, you feel glued together—not broken.

1 Blessing adapted from original by John O’Donohue from To Bless the Space Between Us, a beautiful compilation of blessings to consecrate life’s transitions and heartfelt moments

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Guest Post: Practicing “The Sabbath”

By Lee Ngo

Ever since January 2016, I practice “The Sabbath.”

My work is great. It’s flexible, applicable, and thoroughly engaging for my personality type (in case you’re wondering, I’m an ENFP. Also, a Cancer.).

However, I have to switch work off eventually, even when it’s fun.

A while back, a good friend of mine and educational community-building colleague Julie Williams of Everyday Integrity (our feet leisurely pictured above) taught me about her practice of “the sabbath”  during one of our breakout sessions at the 4.0 Schools Community Summit in January 2016. It changed my life.

Traditionally a religious practice re-conceptualized to be about personal wellness and fulfillment.

We did an exercise where I listed all the things I do, and then I listed all the things I really want to do. Here’s what I wrote for the latter:

  • Be with my wife (laugh, love, embrace, etc.)
  • Eat somewhere I haven’t tried before
  • Draw something
  • Learn something new
  • Spend more time with family and friends

For the second list, she decreed, “take a day to do just those things and nothing else. See what happens.”

The results were instantaneous. My attitude heading back into work improved. I felt a closer relationship with my wife, who perhaps works even harder than I do as an academic. I stopped feeling guilty about being happy and in the moment.

The amazing part — when I went back to work, everything was fine. Nobody got hurt because they had to wait until Monday for a response. The world kept spinning since, to my surprise, it didn’t revolve around me.

For this post, I’d like to go into more detail about my philosophy, my practice, and some of my struggles.

Philosophy — Why do I do this?

The Old Testament features multiple mentions of The Sabbath, but most people quote what Moses overheard and paraphrased after coming down from an epic conversation with God on Mount Sinai:

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8)

I’m not interested in getting into the debates over how God wants to us to interpret that line — that feels counter-intuitive. Instead, I’ve been trained and heavily influenced by sociology, so I look at The Sabbath in purely structural functionalist terms.

We need a day out of the week to not do things that stress us out. That includes anything resembling work, even if you’re passionate about it.

That, to me, is the function of The Sabbath — a day of release, mindfulness, exhaust, cleansing — a treat to yourself and vicariously to the world around you.

So remember it, and treat it like it’s a gift from a higher power.

Practice — How do I do it?

Choose a day out of the week when you consistently don’t work. For me, it’s either a Saturday or a Sunday. For others, depending on their schedules, it could be any day of the week, as long as it’s one day.

During this day, do the things you really want to do and/or have wanted to do for quite some time but feel held back for some reason.

Things that don’t qualify for The Sabbath
  • Anything directly related to work. Responding to an email, finishing that one report, prepping for an easier Monday are all examples of over-extending yourself for the sake of feeling fulfilled.
  • Anything indirectly related to work. Corporate training, meeting with friends from work who talk about it constantly, even volunteering with organizations that are associated with work. No matter what you do, there will be this underlying compulsion to gravitate towards what you actually need to avoid.
  • Chores. The word alone invokes stress. Some people find therapy in doing choices, and some are just necessary when you get the window to do so. The same logic applies, and I ask that you find a way to let go.
  • Long-term priorities. Taxes. Doctor appointments. Trips to the DMV. Cleaning out the rain gutters. These are all things you can do on the “other” day you have free. Put them off for just one day.
Things that might qualify for The Sabbath
  • Going on a trip to a place unknown. Don’t let the news fool you — the world is a beautiful place, and it’s worthy of exploration. I try to plan an international trip every year — I work hard just for that opportunity.
  • Visiting that restaurant you always wanted to try. Even if the experience ends up being sub-par, I’ve never met a person who regretted the exploration. There are many who share their passion through food — indulge them.
  • Sleep. Don’t overdo it, but wow, sleep is awesome and important for resting your mind. Try shutting off the alarm clock on The Sabbath and optimizing your sleep environment for comfort and sensory deprivation. See what time you really need to wake up.
  • Making love. Usually requires at least one other person, but hey, no judgment here. This could be sexual, but sometimes just a long cuddle session with a platonic friend does wonders for your self-esteem. Or do this exercise.
  • Exercise. I don’t particularly enjoy exercise because I frame it as the high-impact, steroid-raging versions you see in the media. Exercise could be a long walk, a hike up a hill, some light yoga, etc. The important thing is to force your brain to focus on other areas and give the nerves a break.
  • Picking up a hobby. This Medium blog is my hobby. It started on The Sabbath, and it’s transformed into my 1–2 hours per day of pure, unbridled, mindful self-expression. I haven’t drawn consistently in years, and now I can say that I have in 2017. That makes me feel awesome.
  • Watching a movie — in a theater. We tend to watch a lot of media while distracted by other gadgets — phones, tablets, and laptops in particular. Go somewhere where you’re forced to be completely immersed.

There are plenty of other possibilities. Offer yours below in the comments!

Struggles — What’s still holding me back?

I do want to acknowledge that it’s not so simple to adjust 1/7th of your life in such a way, and that there are internal and external factors holding everyone back, including myself.

Costs. Leisure time is privileged time, and there are many of us who have to work every day just to stay afloat.

I’m able to do a lot of these things now that my wife and I have steady incomes, but two years ago our breaks consisted of staying in, watching TV, and eating Top Ramen.

That was long before we re-conceptualized our behavior for the better.

Addiction. As I’ve mentioned before, this prompt was in response to my addiction to work, which started to contribute to some serious health problems, even requiring surgery at times.

Since making those adjustments, I’ve learned to switch off, enjoy the moment, and appreciate the things that matter the most.

The short version: work is ephemeral. Friends and family last longer, and they do more for your survival than you realize.

Fear. I remain fearful or anxious about some things that inhibit my practicing a true Sabbath.

Maybe I want to ice skate or try roller skating again, but after my last attempt, I’m terrified of the possibility. I could go bungee jumping or skydiving, but I have a perfectly rational acrophobia.

Some other fears are financial. Shouldn’t I save for a rainy day, especially in Seattle where there are so many of them?

I know what it’s like to live on the edge of poverty, even applying for Medicaid at one point. How can I rationalize a day of enjoyment when confronted with real struggles?

Practicing The Sabbath is not easy, but nothing worth the trouble ever is.

I’ve been making small but deliberate changes to the way I live my life because, frankly, I’m always interested in hacking it for the better.

On the Virtue of the Weekend

Now, I’m not sure if I’m getting older, wiser, or both, but I’m pretty adamant about keeping my weekends to myself.

I’ll occasionally pick up a side project that’s creative or socially-conscious, applying my unique set of skills. Other than that, I’m out having fun with friends and family.

I know I’ve written a lot on The Sabbath here and here, much inspired by my friend and colleague Jules (who launched The Sabbath Course, a 7-week program designed to help you rest and realize a sense of everyday integrity). Yet I still return to this issue because I still feel overworked.

In truth, I could blame the multitude of stress variables in my world, but that would be incorrect.

I am making the active choice to be busy and even bite off more than I can chew, and I’m starting to see things suffer as a result.

Even as I write this post, (and yes, I wrote this post on The Sabbath) I do so with the assertion that it is actually what I want to do today rather than what I’m obligated to do. There needs to be a designated time for that, and hence — the weekend.

This guest post is a compilation of three previous posts by Lee on Medium.

Lee Ngo is a global community builder using his extroversion for good as a champion of education, tech and startups based in Seattle, Wash. Lee spends his weekdays doing operational strategy to support a mission and programs that engage young people in historically underrepresented communities with careers in technology, leadership, and entrepreneurship. He uses his creativity to relax by writing and illustrating his blog on Medium. You can find him on Twitter and on Instagram.

Previous to his current role as Chief Operating Officer at The Greater Foundation, Lee has built passionate communities on- and off-line, for instance as host and facilitator of Demystifying Data Science, a 12-hour online conference that had over 10,000 signups and 3,000 live viewers from over 100 countries, as a MeetUp founder with an aggregate membership reach of over 15,000 and as lead organizer, as well as facilitator, for too many Startup Weekends to count.

Lee completed his Bachelor’s of Arts in Sociology at Yale University in 2005 and then received his Master’s of Arts Degree in Cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine in 2008, during which he spent two summers in Vietnam to further study in the language and conduct fieldwork on the film industry.

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My Spiritual Path: Part 1 | Discovering Wholeness

discovering wholeness

What was my path to get here—to a place of wholeness—today?

What a loaded question, right?

Beautifully so, I’d say.

A co-facilitator and I posed this question at the opening of our intergenerational, interfaith women’s group when we were facilitating a session about “Spirituality and You” last fall.

We meant to stir up a conversation of breadth and depth. And the answers about paths to get here ranged from the commute to the pub to one’s religious upbringing.

I went with the easy out, a brief summary about how my bandwidth had shifted in the previous few months allowing the opportunity to step up and lead the session. In truth, I wasn’t sure how long it would take to truly answer that question.

Definitely not a minute. Perhaps I can sum it up in five blog posts?

In this blog series, “Discovering Wholeness,” I’ll attempt to distill 15 years of searching, growing, becoming into five posts, including this one, about my spiritual path to get here today.

What was my spiritual path to get here today?

Here:

  • Where I deeply know my inherent dignity and worth.
  • Where I forgive and embrace my imperfections.
  • Where I eagerly spend time with myself and with what (not who) I know as God.
  • Where I also deeply know it’s not about me.
  • Where my purpose is first and foremost our purpose: to live in harmony with nature.
  • Where living each day to the fullest means being as true as possible, not doing as much as possible.
  • Where I bring loving attention to everything I do.
  • Where I can’t imagine going another day not living this way.

Do I have it all figured out? Oh heck no. Far from it.

Turning Inside Out

But I have it figured out. I have peeled back every layer of the onion until I got to the kernel of my core where my deepest fears and deepest desires reside. And I stayed there, getting to know them.

I turned myself inside out as I had the sense I needed to do. And then I started anew.

Technically the same person—the same fears, the same desires, the same weaknesses, the same strengths. But, with a totally different relationship to the world.

A relationship grounded in the sense of a personal spirituality “cultivated, nourished, and harvested” along the way.

Most simply, spirituality refers to direct experience of the sacred, said Dr. Roger Walsh, a longtime practitioner and professor of philosophy, anthropology and psychiatry who wrote Essential Spirituality in 1999 about seven common practices of the world’s great spiritual traditions for recognizing the sacred and divine that exist both within and around us.

He describes spiritual practices as those that help us experience the sacred —that which is most central and essential to our lives — for ourselves.

Another scientist, and renown atheist, Dr. Carl Sagan said, “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined is surely spiritual.”

And as Michael Singer, author and devoted buddhist practitioner, says in The Untethered Soul:

“When you contemplate the nature of self [and soul], you are meditating…It is a return to the root of your being, the simple awareness of being aware…You woke up. That is spirituality. That is the nature of self. That is who you are.”

And so, personal spirituality, or “a religion of one’s own” as former monk Thomas Moore calls it, forms “the fundamental precepts by which we guide our life are cultivated, nourished, and harvested in time,” as poet Wendell Berry says.

Understanding, Accepting, Releasing

A year ago there was a series of events starting around the Spring Equinox, including a fateful retreat, moving to a new cottage home, and a blessing hosted by my spiritual communities around Beltane (a mid-spring celebration of abundance on May 1).

It was the beginning of the end. In the very best way possible.

I sensed that my journey over a decade plus years of active searching, growing, becoming was coming to a close.

Perhaps it culminated due to the position of Jupiter in transit?

As my astrologer friend tells me, that’s a rare element on a chart that represents a process of rebirth within one’s lifetime.

Perhaps the journey was part of my soul’s mission in order to get to the life’s work I’m really here to do?

For me, the path to get here today is a braid of spiritual, entrepreneurial and personal experiences. Intertwined, not separate.

The details and results of the experiences are extensive and unique to me. Tales for the next posts in this series.

While I do believe many lessons must be learned alongside others — partners, children, communities, students, teachers — ultimately our learning journeys are our own.

From our intuition and wisdom to deeper places within.

Perhaps that’s why sometimes it takes us many times to finally grasp a certain lesson?

Even as others provide sound guidance. Even as our inner teacher provides sound guidance.

Until it’s heard, understood, accepted and released, it remains unlearned. At least that’s been my experience.

Universal Lessons, Unique Path

The practices and tools I’ve discovered and absorbed into my “spiritual portfolio” as I like to call it are also extensive, so I’ll also save specifics on those for later posts.

But the process—the process of using these practices and tools throughout all these learning journeys along my spiritual path—isn’t that unique to me?

Me and the other millions of seekers and students and teachers in the world?

Well, I’ll leave that as a rhetorical question.

So, here’s the story of my journey to get here. Here’s my story of my journey. Which may or may not be the truth.

It’s the truth as I sense it, now, in my head, my heart and my gut, based on the information I currently have.

This is the first in a five-part series about my spiritual path and how I came to live from a place of wholeness into a space of sufficiency. Raised with New Age roots and inspired by world religions and native cultures alike, I have built a portfolio of interfaith spiritual practices that sustain me. I currently worship in nature and at a Unitarian Universalist church, find fellowship with the Sacred Fire Community and Bras, Bibles & Brews, and have active personal practices including Sabbath, yoga, prayer and seasonal retreats.

[To be continued]

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The Shape of The Soul

shape of the soul

All of my learning journeys, growing in and growing out, carry me along my spiritual path.

Along this path, I have studied many traditions, practices and rituals to help me discern what aligns with my personal spirituality, my current understanding of the universe and my presence in it.

So far this has been a never-ending process of continual growth and ceaseless seeking. At least in this lifetime.

There is one constant everybody seems to agree exists.

I have collected notes and quotes from countless others describing this thing we call the soul.

And, they seem to agree that just as the divine source, the something greater that many call God, is perfect, complete, and I’d add incomprehensible, so is a soul.

The soul is indescribable and when I try, I fall into paradoxes, truths that seem unable to coexist and yet they do:

  • it is not a thing and yet it is everything.
  • it is without self, feelings, personality and yet uniquely me.
  • it makes me weep while filling me with love.

My soul connects me to the universe, to everything, to all beings, to life — this deep community.

While I’ve only sensed that mystical connection of “touching my soul,” once or twice, the truths I received have remained.

My soul is, and thus requires no growth. My soul is always with me, thus requires no seeking.

“As time goes on, we are subject to powers of deformation, from within us as well as without, that twist us into shapes alien to the shape of the soul,” wrote Parker Palmer in A Hidden Wholeness. (italics in quote added for emphasis)

“But the soul never loses its original form and never stops calling us back to our birthright integrity…we are invited to conform our lives to the shape of our own souls.”

Growing in and growing out helps reveal the shape of our own soul.

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Growing In and Growing Out, Not Up

growing in, growing out

When you hear someone say, “that person needs to grow up,” it doesn’t usually sound like a compliment or even an objective observation.

No, it sounds like a judgement.

They are not mature.

They have not grown up.

They are not a so-called grown up.

Growing up is the term we use in American culture to describe the process of maturing.

This is typically coupled with the aging process. One gets older year by year, and theoretically wiser.

There are so many examples and metaphors of how we equate up with better.

And better with superior.

It creates a sense of better than/less than.

But, if life is a process of maturing, then when is one ever grown up?

Don’t Grow Up

In some aboriginal cultures, one does not age just because there’s been a full rotation of the sun from their birth date.

One ages and celebrates a birthday party of sorts as a rite of passage or once they feel they’ve developed as a person or increased their mastery. Often specifically related to their vocation and role in the tribe.

This sounds more like how Buddhist’s ascend levels of enlightenment over the course of many lives. The ultimate level, where they have finished maturing, is liberation from the cycle of rebirth and death, what we commonly refer to as nirvana.

How do they grow up, er, ascend?

By following the Noble Eight-fold Path each lifetime.

How do they follow the path?

My guess: by growing in and growing out, not by growing up.

Growing In

Growing in, we come into integrity with ourselves.

We gain knowledge and wisdom about who we are, who we have been and who we will become.

In Essential Spirituality, Dr. Roger Walsh describes the three parts of knowing oneself.

I imagine it as concentric circles:

  • The center circle, what’s deep within us, is our truest “self,” our soul.
  • The next circle is our inner self where our secrets, hopes and fears lie, as well as our beliefs and self-image.
  • The outside circle is our outer self, our surface emotions, habits and personality.

Through discernment, the process of obtaining spiritual direction and understanding, we regain a sense of knowing.

In seeking answers or clarity, we often look within through meditation and prayer. And we look without through discussion and study.

According to Walsh, we seek wisdom:

  • in nature
  • in silence and solitude
  • from the wise
  • in ourselves
  • from reflecting on the nature of life and of death

Discernment reminds me of research and experimentation. Testing a hypothesis, a current idea, to grow new understanding.

My discernment has presented itself in this way: as a learning journey, similar to the “personal legend” in Paulo Cohelo’s fable, The Alchemist, toward the next thing I need to learn about being.

Each journey may last a few months or a few years, yet has a cycle beginning and ending at the next learning journey.

Sometimes it directly relates to big life decisions, but often it’s the daily choices related to being in the world as it actually is.

As former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said, we decide “to accept the fact that [a person] must be what they are, life must be lived as it is and you cannot live at all if you do not learn to adapt yourself to your life as it happens to be.”

The end of Mary Oliver’s poem “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass” speaks to these journeys of growing in:

I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know? Love yourself.  Then forget it.  Then, love the world.

Growing Out

Growing out, we come into integrity with the world.

As Oliver says, we love the world.

“I want to see myself at once at the center of the universe—influencing its course with every word, thought, and deed—and at the same time a minute instrument of the cosmos acting in harmony with others,” wrote Robert Greenleaf in his essay about “The Requirements of Responsibility.”

We can exist in this cohesive state of opposites that Robert Greenleaf describes.

Often, my learning journeys have required some amount of both growing in and growing out at the same time.

And yet, there seem to be cycles to growth that do require one lesson before another.

Or some self-awareness prior to participating in a greater collective state.

For instance, many believe in astrological periods of a Saturn Return, the ~28 years for Saturn to complete its orbit around the Sun coinciding with the time of our birth, relating to cycles of learning journeys.

Some native cultures believe that the first seven years of the cycle are about mother, the next seven about father, the next seven about self, the next seven about community.

Just as growing in connects closely to self, growing out connects closely to community.

We discern, we test and learn, how to love the world through the way we live our life and our choices, as well as the way we show up in it, the energy we are bringing forth through these choices and actions.

Only recently have my learning journeys shifted from having a deep focus on growing in toward an emerging focus on growing out.

With fewer experiences and far less study, I know less about this process.

I sense that just as growing in is more introverted and reflective, growing out is more outgoing and active.

As such, we can seek wisdom:

  • in nature through interacting, not observing
  • in exchange and engagement
  • from the wise
  • from fully living with others

We love the world through our full presence and through engagement in deep community, “a special sense of community that embraces not only every other human but other species and things, as well,” according to Thomas Moore in A Religion of One’s Own.

Photo Credit: Evan Cohan

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Keeping Sacred Space

keeping sacred space

How much sacred space do we find in our lives these days?

For many, not much.

Especially if going to church or hanging out in libraries is not your thing.

Does that mean we can’t or don’t keep sacred space?

I think we can. And do.

What is Sacred Anymore?

Everything!

Sacred comes from the Latin word for holy.

Nowadays, we define sacred as connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving great respect.

For some, that comes with a lot of baggage.

Sanctuary also comes from the Latin word for holy and means a sacred place. A place one is safe. A place of respect. A place to be.

Just as a sanctuary can be one’s home or favorite park, we can create sacred space and times and practices and rituals anywhere in our lives.

We set the intention, we eagerly express our love and pay close attention. Committed, respected, honored. Over and over and over again.

While these are integrated into our everyday, that does not make them secular.

In his TEDTalk and book about The Art of Stillness, Pico Iyer describes his evolving practice of a secular Sabbath.

Right now, this doesn’t make sense to me. Secular meaning “attitudes or activities that have no spiritual basis.”

For me, Sabbath and my other spiritual practices are absolutely about connecting with my spirit and the Spirit, the life force that runs through everything, and with my communities.

This divine connection is sacred and holy. And present every moment of my life.

Especially on Sabbath.

Sabbath Time

Iyer reminds us of how Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called Sabbath “a cathedral in time rather than in space.” He further described it as the one day a week we take off becomes a vast empty space through which we can wander, without agenda, as through the light-filled passageways of Notre Dame. It’s like a retreat house that ensures we’ll have something bring and purposeful to carry back into the other six days.

“This is what the principle of the Sabbath enshrines,” Iyer said.

Sounds pretty sacred to me!

So how do we keep this time sacred?

We keep this time sacred by defining and refining what brings us closer to the Source.

“Often what seems necessary in the moment can often wait, making way for a day that is holy, set apart and different,” wrote Shelly Miller in Rhythms of Rest.

The day becomes celebratory and special, revered and desired.

And, so we set boundaries that help us and others to be in this sacred time – together or apart, as needed.

“Sabbath restrictions on work and activity actually create a space of great freedom; without these self-imposed restrictions, we may never be truly free,” said Wayne Muller in Sabbath.

Miller agrees that it’s not about specific rules, but rather boundaries that allow greater flexibility. She offers the reminder that with practice, over time, we achieve a Sabbath heart and resolve remains steadfast whatever the context.

When we can speak clearly and from the heart about why Sabbath time is sacred, is special and different, then others will understand, respect and support us in keeping sacred space.

And, if they don’t, that says a lot too!

What to Keep Out

The universal tradition in this break, this pause, this sacred time of being gone sabbathing looks different for everybody nowadays.

The main ways this time becomes holy, set apart, different is:

  • Not working, including paid work and informal work, domestic work, caregiving, volunteering
  • Being offline and disengaged from technologies like the internet, email, and often social media
  • Disengaging from measured time, schedules and planning

Easier said than done. Absolutely.

Especially if your spirit leads you along a spiritual path that is outside of one formal organization or community, like me.

While I have many spiritual communities, none observe Sabbath in the way that I do.

I have made this sacred time my own. As many others are doing as well.

In his book The Promise of a Pencil about his rapid and successful entrepreneurial journey to create schools in third world countries, Adam Braun talks about his own practice.

He doesn’t call it Sabbath, but given his Jewish roots, I have a feeling it is similarly inspired.

He described, instituting a personal policy of going off email from Friday night until Sunday morning. He used the weekends to rest, rejuvenate and reconnect with those he cherished most.

This was tough to do in the passion-driven and all consuming startup and nonprofit worlds Braun exists in. It required clear boundaries around work and online activity.

His email response to a colleague is a great template for explaining these boundaries to others:

“I just want to be open with you. I recently put a practice into place where I go off email from sundown Friday to Sunday morning, to make sure I stop working and spend quality time with my loved ones. I also find it makes me more energized for the next week ahead if I’m not on email over the weekend, and it help to avoid burnout.”

Now, what coworker wouldn’t understand that?

And, if they don’t, that says a lot too!

The key is to be forthright with others about when our sacred time is, what it looks like, and why it’s important, so that they can respect and honor it.

What to Keep In

Who knows, maybe they’ll want to join in?

For many, the invitation to rest and reset has never been offered or modeled.

Or there is a bad aftertaste from past experiences with organizations, rules and sacrifice. It is a sacrifice!

Sacrifice also comes from the Latin for holy. It is an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.

As Wayne Muller said in Sabbath, “It is too easy to talk of prohibition, but the point is the space and time created to say yes to sacred spirituality, sensuality, sexuality, prayer, rest, song, delight.”

The universal tradition in this break, this pause, this sacred time of being gone sabbathing looks different for everybody nowadays.

The main ways this time becomes holy, set apart, different is:

  • Being, celebrating, worshiping, rejoicing, feasting, playing, loving
  • Giving our undivided, loving attention to those in our lives and within touch, whether partner or child or cat or garden or self
  • Living in the moment, going with the flow, unbound by schedules and planning

Rituals, or a series of actions, help set this time apart just as intentionally as boundaries.

Just as Miller said, as continued, dedicated practice becomes rhythm becomes tradition, these rituals become less learned and more intuited.

For many, Sabbath includes ceremonies to enter and exit this sacred time.

As well as special candles, prayers, spices and/or foods. And special activities like bathing or making love.

Inspired by Muller’s book, Sabbath, which includes lots of ideas for rituals, using a Sabbath box is something that’s new to my practice in the last year.

This box holds matches, a candle and a poem to enter Sabbath. Index cards with my fundamental precepts of what matters most, poems, a pen and special pocket notebook for capturing divine musings during the day. A bag of spices, a tiny bowl and prayers to exit Sabbath. Often, I turn off my phone and put it away in the box for the day, as I would with a watch if I wore one.

And, my box can even travel with me when I’m away on Sabbath!

Sabbath Worthy

“When I ask myself if the activity is easy and if it makes me feel lighter, my answer determines how I choose to spend time on Sabbath,” wrote Miller.

I completely agree.

I find this applies to finding restorative “activities” and especially to who I spend time with on Sabbath.

Is this person easy? Do they make me feel lighter?

Here Anne Morrow Lindbergh is reflecting on life in general within her book, Gift from the Sea, though is especially true on Sabbath:

“I shall ask into my shell only those friends with whom I can be completely honest. I find I am shedding hypocrisy in relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life I have discovered is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting, one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.”

This begs the question: if someone is not “Sabbath worthy,” then how (and why) are we fitting them into the rest of our life, or our “shell” as Lindbergh says?

My tolerance and interest for activities and people, feelings and habits that do not align with this rhythm of balance has changed dramatically.

Sabbath has shown me what to keep out and what to keep in during my sacred time set apart each week.

And, over the years, these lessons have seeped into the rest of my days, into the whole of my life.

Join others from around the country in the next Sabbath Course as we explore and practice together, inspired by an interfaith, personal approach to this universal tradition. This 7-week course includes fun weekly activities, weekly community gatherings online and your own practice. You’ll experience what students describe as a “positive and significant impact on my personal growth and spiritual exploration.”

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The Art of Being, Not Doing

art of being, not doing

When I look back on the year, my favorite days were usually the ones when I was doing nothing.

I was just being.

Not just as in “barely or by a little.”

The way it seems just gets used or referenced most of the time nowadays.

Just as in “simply, only, no more than.”

But for a long time, I thought this way of being was a luxury, something only accessible on vacation.

Actually before that, I forgot that this was my favorite way of being.

And before that I forgot this was a way of being at all.

Busy Beings

But how could this be? How could one forget that we are human be-ings?

Because nowadays we feel more like human do-ings.

In Overwhelmed, Brigid Shulte interviewed a researcher who studies Christmas Holiday cards who discovered, “My God, people are competing about being busy. It’s about showing status. That if you’re busy, you’re important. You’re leading a full and worthy life.”

We have slipped into the cult of busy. I know I did.

I spent the better part of my teens and 20s being an active member.

Too many commitments and expectations, I lived back-to-back and double-booked with a ton of worry and anxiety gluing it all together.

I thought I was “living life to the fullest.” I wasn’t.

My life wasn’t full, it was just compulsively busy.

Busy doing, not full of being.

Loved for Doing

“The difficulty of always feeling that you ought to be doing something is that you tend to undervalue the times when you’re apparently doing nothing, and those are very important times. It’s the equivalent of the dream time, in your daily life, times when things get sorted out and reshuffled. If you’re constantly awake work-wise you don’t allow that to happen,” said musician and producer Brian Eno within Scott McDowell’s essay in Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind.

“Most of our current work and life structures have been devised to emphasize production and how much we can accomplish rather than the nurturing of the soul,” wrote Tami Lynn Kent in Wild Creative.

“Because of the general emphasis on production, achievement and building a career, we typically learn to create by becoming self-sufficient and actively doing whatever needs to be done.”

Our culture models and celebrates self-sufficiency, doing everything for ourselves instead of relying on help from others, which makes a lot more work or doing for us.

It’s a slippery slope to always doing as Brian Eno describes, and/or to over-doing.

Economist Juliet Schor argues that with the introduction of the clock in the thirteenth century and the rise of manufacturing time became money, as Schulte shared in Overwhelmed. 

Add productivity and competition to self-sufficiency and independence and you quickly get a value for achievement.

More, faster, better, best.

This state of achievement celebrates us for what we do, not who we are.

It’s a pretty easy detour to mis-interpret this as the recipe for worthiness and love:

“As long as we are working hard, using our gifts to serve others, experiencing joy in our work along with the toil, we are always in danger…” wrote Lynne Baab.

In danger of believing we are loved for what we do, not who we are.

Loved for Being

Baab said that only in stopping, really stopping, do we teach our hearts and souls that we are loved apart from what we do.

For me, as soon as I was paying attention to the rest of the world in high school, I picked up on this message: doing = love.

I longed for love. Always had.

And always had it. But, I didn’t realize that back then.

I just sensed that I was different and misunderstood. By others and by myself.

In looking for models of love in my life, I saw the celebration of achievement – on the news, at school, at home – and I took that to heart.

Along the way, I lost track of my favorite way of being: my true nature.

Reconnecting with my being and shedding layers of achievement accumulated over the decades has been transformative. Relearning that I am loved —always— and especially for who I am has been one of the biggest life lessons for me.

I believe we all still inherently know how to be. Just as we are all loved for being. But, we are often too distracted to notice or remember.

So, first we have to stop.

Easier said than done.

Being

“The popular assumption is that no skills are involved in enjoying free time, and that anybody can do it. Yet the evidence suggests the opposite: free time is more difficult to enjoy than work. Having leisure at one’s disposal does not improve the quality of life unless one knows how to use it effectively, and it is by no means something one learns automatically,” said Mihaly Csikszentmihali.

As one of the leading researchers of flow, or that ultimate state of being, he should know.

Point taken: just being can feel lonely, boring, and/or uncomfortable when infrequent because of too much doing.

Or when one does not first feel connected and loved for being.

In her research about overwork, Schulte also explored leisure which often creates flow when practiced frequently.

“In the purest sense, leisure is not being slothful, idle or frivolous. It is, in the words of leisure researcher Ben Hunnicutt, simply being open to the wonder and marvel of the present. ‘The miracle of now,’ he calls it, to choose to do something with no other aim than that it refreshes the soul, or to choose to do nothing at all. To just be and feel fully alive.

“…a time not just for play, recreation and connection with others but also for meditation, reflection, and deep thought…Throughout the course of history, in this leisure time away from toil, elite men…came up with some of the most brilliant innovations, enduring art, and soaring discoveries humanity has ever known,” wrote Schulte.

Oh, the irony: in not doing, we find our greatest achievements.

Once upon a time, a third of the year was dedicated to days off, eg: festivals, Saint’s days, milestones like births, deaths and marriages, Sabbath and other official rest days.

Further back in Roman times, almost half the year were public festivals—days of being, not doing.

This is what I find in my Sabbath time each week.

Time to put all the doing aside with lots of space for relating, dreaming, being.

And being inspired. Some of my most original ideas have been showing up on Sabbath even as I’m trying not to think or do.

Ways of Being

When I’m just being, life is full of:

  • Mindfulness
  • Intention
  • Attention
  • Clarity

I discard what’s distracting or disintegrating me from the world.

I reconnect with what matters most and with my true nature:

  • Being outside or at the beach.
  • Reading inspiring poems and books.
  • Napping and dreaming.
  • Sitting by the fire and telling stories.
  • Savoring beautiful works of art.

My true nature really likes being with myself. I get recharged in solitude. I also enjoy solitude in community. And groups of people I know well.

For others, it’s different. There are many ways to access our own being.

“Sabbath time offers the gift of deep balance; in Sabbath time, we are valued not for what we have done or accomplished, but simply because we have received the gentle blessing of being miraculously alive,” said Wayne Muller in Sabbath.

Being Today

As Baab reminds us in her book Sabbath Keeping, “what we choose to do on the Sabbath needs to bring us rest and life over time. The challenge is discernment, experimenting to find what works for us and the people we love, what helps us catch our breath and remember who we are.” (italics added for emphasis)

Remembering the Sabbath each week has been an important part of reconnecting with myself over the years.

As rich as those days are, they’re only a fraction of my year. The other days contain a lot of doing.

Schulte asked and I often wonder as well:

What, when you really come down to the quotidian details, does it look like every day to have time to do good work, to spend quality time with your family and friends and to refresh your soul?

To be in flow throughout life and not only one day a week, I imagine life needs to look differently. A lot less doing, I bet.

And also probably a different kind of doing: less effort and more energy.

More of the art of being—in our true nature, a state of integrity—everyday.

Join others from around the country in the next Sabbath Course as we explore and practice together, inspired by an interfaith, personal approach to this universal tradition. This 7-week course includes fun weekly activities, weekly community gatherings online and your own practice. You’ll experience what students describe as a “positive and significant impact on my personal growth and spiritual exploration.”

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What Matters Most

what matters most jules speaking to grandmother ocean

This was the moment when I really felt it: this.

“This is bliss.”

“This is what matters most.”

Why?

Because it was a combination of what’s important to me and how my soul glows.

These moments used to be fewer and farther in between. Accidental connections to my truest nature. I wanted more. 

Nowadays, I have found the words to define my personal guidelines for living a whole life. Living wholly and soulfully. Not accidental, but intentional.

That doesn’t mean life is perfect. Far from it. 

I am always practicing and I have a light to guide the way: my personal guidelines for the day-to-day and my inner guide for when things get really tricky.

Everyone has this light, though not everyone has the words.

How does one learn what matters most?

By preparing for the answers: keeping sacred space, knowing your inner guide and asking the big questions, and then, living into them.

Start with Perspective

In one of my favorite movies, About Time, the lead character can time travel.

He doesn’t need a machine like Bill & Ted. He can just close his eyes, focus on a moment, and go there.

The most powerful thing he discovers? He has do-overs.

He can go back and re-do every day, savoring the moments:

  • Acknowledging the clerk at the market with a smile.
  • Noticing the beautiful windows as he’s running to catch his train.
  • Greeting his crying, messy child after work.

Eventually, he stops time traveling and literally only lives in the present.

Feel free to stop reading and go stream it (it’s so good).

Then, you can come back to this post and learn about how to live this way. 

Why isn’t life only about what really matters?

According to the movie, life is only about these precious moments—what really matters—it’s just about our perspective on it.

Yes, and, you might be thinking.

There’s actually a lot in our lives that doesn’t matter. More so for some people than others.

How do we know what does and doesn’t matter?

“To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make. Ironically in [our] culture these things—space, listening, playing, sleeping and selecting—can be seen as trivial distractions,” wrote Greg McKweon in Essentialism about the disciplined pursuit of less.

How do we find space and time and permission and wisdom?

We practice.

Keeping Sacred Space

I find the best time for me to practice creating sacred space is when I’m backpacking, when I’m on retreat and when I observe Sabbath, my “weekly retreat.”

In his book, Sabbath, Muller writes, “Sabbath is an incubator for wisdom. When we allow the rush and pressure of our days to fall away, even for a short period of time, we are able to discern the essential truth of what lies before us.”

Poet Wendell Berry, who has a longstanding practice of Sabbath, wrote:

During the Buddhist Sabbath, lay people and monks gather to recite the precepts that govern their practice. There are hundreds of these precepts for monks, concerning everything from how you meditate to how you eat your food and how you wash your bowl.

But more than the specific precepts, it is a time to reiterate what is ultimately important, sacred. Whether the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Five Pillars of Islam, or the Ten Commandments, most religions consider certain precepts to be guiding lights to help us find our way through darker times.

Berry often writes poetry about what’s ultimately important, sacred, on the Sabbath. There is a sense of divine inspiration in his observations of the world and its interconnectedness.

“Sabbath is a time when we retreat from the illusion of our own indispensability. We are important in that we are part of something larger,” adds Muller.

Something larger that’s often hard to comprehend without some guidance.

Knowing Your Inner Guide

“Whether we choose spirituality or religion, we need a system of experiences and beliefs that is true to our own experience. We must once again look at our own lives and discover what we already know,” says Cecile Andrews, author of The Circle of Simplicity: The Return to the Good Life.

Anthropology Professor Roger Walsh wrote:

“We know more than we know we know. The inner source has been called by many names: for example, the Hindu’s “inner guru,” the Tibetan Buddhist’s “personal diety,” the Christian Quaker’s “still small voice within,” or the psychologist’s “higher self.” Whatever the name, the implications are the same. We have within us remarkable wisdom that will guide and help us if we learn how to recognize and draw on it.”

Just that simple.

Ultimately, yes, and…

From my experience the learning how to recognize [and listen] and draw on it, is a lifelong quest for the monks and us lay people alike.

Over the years, I’ve come to know and listen to this.

My inner guide is the filter for what is true to me, at any given time, on my path. 

As I’ve quieted and settled what Walsh describes as “the outer self” of surface emotions, habits and personality, and then “the inner self” of secret hopes and fears, self-image and beliefs, the listening grew easier, the voice grew louder and clearer.

This so-called voice lies within our “deep self,” or soul.

For some this conversation comes through deep, committed practices with meditation or yoga.

For me this conversation comes mainly through intentional practices of:

It is in these sacred spaces and times when I’ve become acquainted with my inner guide, my deep self, my still small voice within.

It’s always been there, I just hadn’t asked or hadn’t really listened before.

Asking the Big Questions

Listening starts with asking. The curiosity to receive whatever shows up.

Questions like:

  • What inspires me?
  • What is it like when I’m “in my element”?
  • What is love?
  • What do I believe?
  • What do I fear?
  • What’s always been important to me?
  • What connects me to Source?
  • When do I feel whole?

I’ve been amazed at how often it’s in the most minuscule moment of awe, perhaps examining a worm slithering through the soil, that my inner guide reveals my deepest knowing, the answers to these questions.

“Sabbath honors this quality of not knowing, an open receptivity of mind essential for allowing things to speak to us from where they are,” wrote Muller.

It is a lifelong conversation to recognize our own wisdom.

There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom.

In Essential Spirituality, Dr. Walsh said:

Knowledge informs us, wisdom transforms us.
Knowledge is something we have, wisdom is something we must become.
Knowledge is expressed in words, wisdom in our lives.
Knowledge empowers, wisdom empowers and enlightens.

Wisdom is our deepest knowing.

As such, often our most heartfelt questions are more of a feeling than a thought.

They don’t always formulate into neat, little sentences.

Because it’s not about figuring things out. That’s knowledge.

This is about feeling things out as our being connects the dots and then the answer emerges.

Wisdom.

The wisdom, courage, and clarity we need are already embedded in creation—in nature, in the world, in our lives. The solution is already alive in the problem. Thus, our work is not always to push and strive and struggle. Often we have only to be still, and we will know, wrote Muller.

The Tao Te Ching asks us:

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?

In other words, until the right answer arises by itself?

Moments Matter Most

Once you start having the conversation, you can discern what is truly essential, what matters most, as McKweon describes.

You’ll know what is important to you and how your soul glows.

You’ll know what this feels like and you’ll be able to start putting the words together to define your personal guidelines for living a whole life.

Once you name it, you can live it even more intentionally. Remembering and practicing these fundamental precepts each week, they become your every day.

“When I am fully aware of clouds moving, birds trilling, insects buzzing and downy feathers floating on the still lake, I lean into the portal from this moment, beyond next week, and into the grand scale of things, weighing the collection of meaningful moments holding my life together,” wrote Shelly Miller.

This is living life to the fullest.

Join others from around the country in the next Sabbath Course as we explore and practice together, inspired by an interfaith, personal approach to this universal tradition. This 7-week course includes fun weekly activities, weekly community gatherings online and your own practice. You’ll experience what students describe as a “positive and significant impact on my personal growth and spiritual exploration.”

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Gone Sabbathing

gone sabbathing

Just as a fisherman makes new bait and packs up his tackle box so that he has what he needs to peacefully sit in his boat and do nothing while he’s “gone fishing,” I’ve noticed that preparing for Sabbath makes the time so much sweeter.

Over the years of observing the gift of Sabbath there have been days when everything was ready and days when everything was in disarray.

And even a day or two when I skipped Sabbath because I wasn’t “done” with the week yet.

The following week was even harder to get through, not easier.

Happy (& Unhappy) Sabbath

When my cottage has piles of good intentions and undone to-dos scattered around when the weekend arises, I’ve ended up in a vegetative state of “rest” on Sabbath.

I’d watch movies or read for hours on end.

Technically, I’m not doing anything, so still “sabbathing,” right?

Yet, the following day I’ll feel empty and drained instead of full and invigorated.

Other times, I’ve escaped the mess, spending the day out exploring in the world. I return feeling full, but still a bit spent.

I understand the intention behind many traditions having specific guidelines (or often very specific rules) about how to enter Sabbath.

It’s true, the day is more accessible and sweeter when my life is ready to take a break.

And, interestingly, my mindset matters more than the mess.

When my body is ready to take a break as well, when I’ve emptied my mind and heart of grievances and concerns, then it doesn’t bother me as much.

Acts of Service, Acts of Love

As Shelly Miller writes in Rhythms of Rest, “when we run errands early in the week, clean up the house, prepare food for the weekend, these are acts of love at the root.”

She says that preparation is an act of love and rest is an act of faith.

I usually think of errands, cleaning, cooking etc. as acts of obligation.

But, when they are in preparation for something special, like a holiday or a holy day, they do take on a different motivation.

I sense the devotion to myself and my loved ones as I double down on the housework or email.

In his book, The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman describes this as Acts of Service: “doing things you know ____________ (name of someone you love) would like you to do.”

In other words, Chapman says, you seek to please them by serving them, to express your love by doing things for them.

And, I think this starts with ourselves.

But, I think the idea of self love is misleading. Self love doesn’t exist.

There is always love there.

A love that is whole and keeps me whole. Because, the whole cannot be whole without all of me.

But, when my devotion is lacking, when there are holes of fatigue or hurt or disappointment or fear, it is harder to do these acts of service, acts of love.

This is where the faith comes in.

Preflight Checklist

Knowing, from wisdom and intuition, what will make things better for later.

Knowing that the satisfaction, joy, elation later will be far greater than the effort now.

And, it can be even more effortless when done already feeling joyful anticipation.

What will make Sabbath easier?

This list can get very long, but I’ve noticed that there are usually a few key things that really matter.

If undone, they’ll hang over me or get in my way. Or create a gap that jerks me out of my flow.

Like not having anything in the house to eat.

Everybody’s checklist of priorities is different.

For me, it is:

  • An empty sink,
  • A tidy home,
  • Groceries and optimally pre-made meals,
  • Critical emails sent

And, if I’m really in a groove, what will make the day after easier?

  • Errands run
  • Quick look ahead to following week
  • And in my current routine, my next blog post done and newsletter prepped

Acts of service go beyond showing devotion to ourselves and to others, and include receiving service.

Which begs the question: Who can help with these preparation priorities?

Asking for and receiving help may actually be the greatest form of satisfaction, joy, elation.

And this is all before Sabbath!

Weekly Wind Down

“As I prepare on Saturday by cooking meals and completing chores, the process becomes a door slowly closing on distractions in order to be fully present with my people. The day is aromatic with anticipation as the kids hover around me in the kitchen, salivating over the smells simmering on the stove top and bread baking in the oven. Joy is an undercurrent of Sabbath when we make the day celebratory. And rested people make for a peaceful home,” writes Shelly Miller.

Whether Sabbath falls on Saturday or Sunday or some other time of the week, whether it’s seen as the end of the week or the beginning of the week, it is a transition.

A way to digest what was and pause before entering what will be.

In order to more fully pause, it is an opportunity to digest, process and release.

Worries, misbeliefs, concerns, joys, questions, discoveries.

And that opportunity starts in the preparation.

In Jewish traditions, varying greatly per movement and especially between Orthodox and Reform from what I’ve learned, there are specific rituals or steps to Sabbath preparation.

For example: shopping for ingredients then cooking, baking or picking up the challah, bathing, cleaning and beautifying the home with flowers, for example.

There is a bit of hustle to it, but these steps go beyond effort, they slowly get one out of the mind, into the body and back into the soul.

Join others from around the country in the next Sabbath Course as we explore and practice together, inspired by an interfaith, personal approach to this universal tradition. This 7-week course includes fun weekly activities, weekly community gatherings online and your own practice. You’ll experience what students describe as a “positive and significant impact on my personal growth and spiritual exploration.”

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The Cult of Busy

cult of busy

I was a full-fledged member of the cult of busy. We all are.

I don’t recall when, but it probably began before I started using a planner in high school (that I designed for optimal homework, goal and activity tracking).

Or was voted “Most Involved” in the yearbook our Senior year.

And it just got worse from there: overcommitted, overachieving, overwhelmed for the next 15 years. Welcome to “adulthood”!

A vicious cycle of apps to optimize my time and practices to mitigate my stress.

Constantly acknowledged with awe and trepidation by others: “I don’t know how you do it all!”

I had become the epitome of a busy body filling in my life with busy work.

But as Henry David Thoreau asked in the 1850s, “it is not enough to be busy (the ants are busy), we must ask: what are we busy about?”

Why was I so busy?

Compulsive Busyness

“…much of the busyness that we see around us everyday is compulsive busyness. Somebody is avoiding something…[The busyness] can involve us in the most worthy of good works only to distract us from entheos and deny us the privilege of being really useful,” wrote Robert Greenleaf back in the 1970s.

That’s a mouthful, but it is exactly how I was living before I started this blog. How?

I was “compulsively busy” – constantly doing to be doing.

Multiple service and leadership commitments, multiple client projects, running a business, spending time with my family and so many friends – all over the country, traveling all the time, personal growth projects and groups, extensive spiritual practices, hyper-organized home, baking from scratch, driving friends to the airport and the list goes on somehow.

Still “Most Involved” in seemingly the most worthy of good works.

Living life to the fullest, right?

Then, what was I avoiding?

Entheos, the Greek word for the God within, the way the divine creative energy moves through us toward what the world really needs.

In other words, my personal mission: I am in the world to change the world with my creativity.

And as Greenleaf says: the privilege of being really useful.

Everything is Work

What does really useful look like?

My sense is it has little to do with time or effort or money. The resources we measure our lives in.

I think it has to do with our other main resource: our energy.

Or as Julian Gresser describes as our “creative emotion or vitality” when speaking to the relative value of these four resources in Piloting Through Chaos (time, effort, money, energy).

In his TEDTalk and book about The Art of Stillness, Pico Iyer shares that after a 30-year study of time diaries, two socioligists found that Americans were actually working fewer hours than we were in the 1960’s, but we feel as if we are working more (underlining added for emphasis).

Perhaps because everything is “work” nowadays.

And/or we approach everything with the attitude that it is work, that it is labor – taking time, requiring effort, costing money. And draining energy.

In preparation for a session about work and spirituality I was leading in 2015,  I audited my own work.

All of it. Paid work, unpaid service, leadership and pro bono work, domestic work (including caregiving and housekeeping) and informal work (including favors). Pretty much anything that didn’t feel like play or leisure.

I was shocked.

Adding in caregiving, housework, volunteering, commuting, grooming etc. and it seemed like 80 percent of my life was “work.”

For some, sleep is the only time they’re not “working.”

No wonder I constantly felt depleted, my energy in frequent flux of high highs and low lows, and completely burning out every few months.

Why did everything feel like work – so effortful, instead of effortless? Or simply neutral?

I was drawing my energy from an empty well.

Like one researcher who studies Christmas Holiday Cards discovered and shared in an interview with Brigid Shulte for Overwhelmed,

“My God, people are competing about being busy. It’s about showing status. That if you’re busy, you’re important. You’re leading a full and worthy life.”

Taking a Break

“Without time to reflect, to live fully present in the moment and face what is transcendent about our lives, we are doomed to live in purposeless and banal busyness…It creates this ‘unquiet heart,’ as Saint Augustine said, that is ever desperate for fulfillment,” said another researcher in an interview with Shulte.

It was a few years ago when I was asked, “But, when do you rest?”

In a quick, instantaneous audit of my life, I could only think of one example.

Going away on retreats every few months.

Cherished times of being, of following the divine energy, of feeling full, of feeling whole.

I saw these times as an exception, not accessible in “real life,” on a weekly or a daily basis.

So deep in the belief that busyness was the way that I was being really useful.

I needed more time to reflect, to live fully present in the moment, to face what is transcendent about life.

I needed a break.

And on a regular basis.

As I started to peel away the worthy distractions and set aside time for not doing each week, it became more clear how I was called to be. How I have always been called.

But, had also come to most fear: creating, writing, designing, teaching.

Resting the Whole, Resting the Soul

“In the 1950s, some prominent thinkers predicted that the post-World War II boom in productivity and the ever-rising incomes and standards of living for Americans and the industrialized world could only mean that we were entering a new age of unprecedented leisure,” describes Shulte.

“All our basic needs would be met. Free from toil, we could begin to savor its fruits. True to the Greek ideal of the good life, we would spend our time cultivating the mind and the soul.”

It was just over a year ago on a Circle of Trust retreat facilitated by The Center for Courage & Renewal when I was asked, “What in your life needs a pause? A break? A rest?”

I had been giving my life a break each week, a whole day of stepping out of the busyness, for several years by then.

The question seemed familiar and yet a completely fresh perspective.

But, this question seemed bigger, broader.

Taking a day off per week away from routine and schedules had started giving time a break. And I had been taking a break from money for almost a year by then. And I had started to step back from commitments and focus my efforts.

So, what in my life needed a break?

My soul. My life force. My energy.

Not a break from being (not sure that’s possible), but a chance to simply be without all the resistance.

I am paying especially close attention to my energy. Devoted to being in the sweet spot.

There is still some resistance, and thus tensions, but now it’s to the rest of the world’s busyness, not my own.

Things are feeling more effortless, including doing my “work.” The other work is still work, though I have way less interest in it, so there’s a lot less of it and now feels more neutral.

Not a one time fix. Now, I commit to this intention everyday.

As Naomi Shihab Nye writes in her poem, Red Brocade, from 1952:

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.

Join others from around the country in the next Sabbath Course as we explore and practice together, inspired by an interfaith, personal approach to this universal tradition. This 7-week course includes fun weekly activities, weekly community gatherings online and your own practice. You’ll experience what students describe as a “positive and significant impact on my personal growth and spiritual exploration.”

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