LIFE #NOFILTER

| Anne C. Williamson | Originally posted January 20, 2015

I'm sitting here listening to my husband try to teach our daughter how to calm down through breathing. The source of her exasperation: bread. She loves it and usually has to wait for it to toast and get smeared with peanut butter. This lapse in time often proves too much, and she begins to meltdown. Of course, her response is disproportionate - as her parents, at least one of our jobs is to make sure, as an adult, she doesn't erupt in tears at the bagel shop; but, I do relate to her passion, even admire it a little.   

This struggle echoes in my spiritual journey: I want peace, wholeness, the "undistracted state" as Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön calls it, but I also fear this state will tamper my passion. I love bread too... er, I mean life and justice. Can we be both passionate about life and "zen"? It's confusing because both eastern and western spiritual philosophies have taught life itself is the distraction. But, isn't life also the joy? Isn't it the people and environments, the food and good fights that offer us meaning, that offer purpose? 

This is where I love when Pema Chödrön, in the below video, talks about being wide-awake. Yes, life can distract; this is undeniable. But, detoxing from these distractions doesn't mean the end of joy, passion, purpose. Instead, the undistracted state means we're wide-awake to experience life more deeply, to taste more acutely, to fight fairer, to love better. It's life #nofilter.

FINDING MEANING

| Chase Tibbs |

Has the contemplation of your own existence ever left you feeling anxious? Every wonder and worry about the purpose and meaning of life, your life? Me too.

I’ve wondered what life, the actuality of existing, means. What does it mean to say life has purpose? On the flip side, what would it mean for me, and every human being, and the animals that cover the land, and the fish that care for the sea, and even the atoms that work beyond my knowing…what would it mean to say that all of this, all of living, is meaningless?

I know; kinda heavy stuff, right? In my past, I’ve either been afraid to ask the question or have jumped to find an answer. It’s this mystery, complexity and depth of life that makes me shutter; while it’s also the mystery, complexity and depth of life that has inspired me to imagine, and wonder, and ask challenging questions....

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THE DANCE OF DISCERNMENT

| Anne Williamson |

Whatever word to which you're drawn - vocation, purpose, meaning, work, calling, etc. - most of us believe its creation is at least a joint one. That is, our life is not wholly predetermined. If this is the case, then, how do we, as our vocation's joint, if not sole, creators, discern what to create?

There appears to be a common theme in the collective thinking around vocational discernment: it's a dance between being and doing, letting go and pursuing, listening and to borrow Martin's words in last week's reading, "[putting one's] butt in the chair." It doesn't matter whether we believe the inspiration is g/God's, our own, or some combination of the two; the dance is the same....

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DOES OUR LIFE HAVE A VOICE OF ITS OWN?

| Anne Williamson |

Less than 100 pages in, I knew The Invention of Wings would be a favorite. It tells the stories – separate yet entwined – of Sarah Grimke and, her slave, Hetty ‘Handful’ Grimke in the American Deep South in the nineteenth century. The two form an impossible friendship as they each struggle to find voice, find wings, in a world built upon their grounding. 

One of my most beloved excerpts from the book shares Sarah’s story right after she experiences hearing the Inner Voice, or voice of God, for the first time ...

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WE'RE GOING TO DO SO TOGETHER

| ANNE WILLIAMSON | 

In the Kurt Vonnegut version of the biblical Genesis story, man politely asks God, "What is the purpose of all of this?" God's response is perhaps less than satisfactory; essentially, God replies, "You decide." God's response is not the part of the story I find most interesting, though. It's man's question, or rather according to this story, man's first assumption: that there is one purpose and it applies to everything.

Now, I like this idea. I like believing, underneath all the micro purposes, there exists one - one purpose that if comprehensively integrated would bring not universal peace but much, much more of it. I don't know this to be true, of course. And, I don't know what it is. I simply - or most days, incredibly not simply - have faith in it. 

What I do know to be true, though, is how necessary the presence, stories, ideas, questions of others has been on the journey to finding the one. Just when I think I've got it figured out, a new story shatters my confidence. Right when I feel solid in humanity's purpose, nature reminds me to think bigger, less anthropocentric. I know I've got a clear picture now until an unexpected question turns and blurs my lens just enough.

Is this frustrating? Sure. But, mostly, its grace. It's not up to me to determine the purpose of all of this. It's up to us. We need each other to find our purpose. Without a multitude of voices - strange and familiar - we become echoes who don't realize it. We settle into our perspective, and often, sometimes violently, force it on others.

This is one of the reasons we do what we do every week in WAYfinding. We create spaces where people with diverse ideas, beliefs, stories, gather to wonder aloud and honestly about "g/God" and how to live deeper and love better. Do we do this perfectly? No. Are we as diverse as we'd like to be? Absolutely not. But, it's our intention, our heart. Because we know we need each other. If there is a purpose to all of this; if "g/God," some sort of connective pulse to life exists, and we can know something about i/It; if we're going to live deeper and love better; we're not going to do so in silos, only hearing from voices like our own. We're going to do so together.   

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LIFE #NOFILTER

| ANNE WILLIAMSON |

I'm sitting here listening to my husband try to teach our daughter how to calm down through breathing. The source of her exasperation: bread. She loves it and usually has to wait for it to toast and get smeared with peanut butter. This lapse in time often proves too much, and she begins to meltdown. Of course, her response is disproportionate - as her parents, at least one of our jobs is to make sure, as an adult, she doesn't erupt in tears at the bagel shop; but, I do relate to her passion, even admire it a little.   

This struggle echoes in my spiritual journey: I want peace, wholeness, the "undistracted state" as Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön calls it, but I also fear this state will tamper my passion. I love bread too... er, I mean life and justice. Can we be both passionate about life and "zen"? It's confusing because both eastern and western spiritual philosophies have taught life itself is the distraction. But, isn't life also the joy? Isn't it the people and environments, the food and good fights that offer us meaning, that offer purpose? 

This is where I love when Pema Chödrön, in the below video, talks about being wide-awake. Yes, life can distract; this is undeniable. But, detoxing from these distractions doesn't mean the end of joy, passion, purpose. Instead, the undistracted state means we're wide-awake to experience life more deeply, to taste more acutely, to fight fairer, to love better. It's life #nofilter.

LEARN, LISTEN, LOVE...

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