Weekly Soul. Week 9 - Change and Risk
Today's meditation from Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living by Dr. Frederic Craigie.
-9-
All changes are a risk… but change makes you know that you’re alive. You’re
exploring, you’re stumbling- almost certainly stumbling if my past is any
indication- but there is a certain exhilaration, too. You can’t wait to see
what happens next… What I like most about change is that it’s a synonym for
“hope.” If you are taking a risk, what you are really saying is, “I believe in
tomorrow, and I will be a part of it.”
You are alive as you extend yourself on
behalf of something new.
Advocating for ideas and causes is one
type of risk, but the experience of aliveness in risk and change is much
broader than that. You are alive as you venture out of your accustomed and
comfortable ways of being—we use the modern phrase, comfort zone—to take
up something that you haven’t done before that expands a little bit the scope
of who you are.
There are big ways of doing this, like the
archetypal story of the investment broker who forsakes the corner office on the
33rd floor in New York to move to Colorado to herd cattle. (People
really do come from the Big City to Maine, I should say, with stories like
this, seeking a more peaceful off-the-grid life.)
Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest
and theologian who held prestigious appointments teaching at Yale and Harvard
Divinity Schools and was the author of over 40 books of spiritual commentary
and reflection. His academic life gave him opportunities to explore very
different communities, spending several months at a Trappist monastery in
upstate New York and later accepting the invitation of a friend to visit the
L’Arche community—providing homes and services for people with intellectual
disabilities—in France. Nouwen was so touched by the service and spirit of
mutuality in being in community with people at L’Arche that he eventually made
his way to the L’Arche community in Ontario, where he remained for the rest of
his life. His relationships there provided him with a sense of aliveness—his
phrase was “at-homeness”—that he had not experienced in his more conventional
and prominent public life.
Perhaps you have had some similar
experience of a big life change—taking a different job, moving to a different
community, or choosing a life partner. But is there not aliveness in the
smaller, day-to-day ways that we all take on some risk to extend ourselves
beyond our up-to-that-point definition of who we are?
One of my students recently told the story
that she had led a sedate and bookish life growing up and had never been
especially interested in athletics or outdoor activities until her new husband
“got me into running.” She started slowly but quickly found that she was
becoming “hooked,” working up to the point where she completed a half-marathon.
“I never would have guessed,” she says, “but running gives me a real sense of
accomplishment and, actually, joy.”
I can think of countless other examples:
- learning a new language and
haltingly talking with a native speaker;
- doing something on a public
stage: speaking, singing, reading poetry;
- trying out a new recipe when
Chris and Barbara come over for dinner;
- finally, after all these
years, taking piano lessons;
- painting the kitchen cabinets
a new and vibrant color;
- trading in your Ford Taurus
for a little spiffier vehicle for your commute;
- setting the alarm to get up at
3 AM to see the lunar eclipse;
and
- getting down to eye level with
a little child and really listening;
- Having coffee with someone who
is at a different place in their political views; and/or
- telling someone whom you love
that you love him (or her).
You get the idea, and you will certainly
have your own examples. The caveat, of course, is that it is important not to
take yourself too seriously. It doesn’t matter if you can’t learn to play
Chopin within six months. It doesn’t matter if you don’t write poetry like
David Whyte or Mary Oliver or speak like Mme. Zephir in high school French. It’s
about your intention and your commitment to take on a new experience that goes
beyond where you are. Aliveness.
Reflection
- What’s on your list? When have
there been times when you have taken on some risk—big or small—on behalf
of extending yourself beyond where you are? What have been your experiences…
might there have been some sense of aliveness, even if your risks didn’t
turn out just as you expected?
- What’s on your list going
forward? What’s holding you back from taking next steps with “Maybe
sometime I’ll…” “It would be really cool to…” “I’ve always wanted to…”?
Author
Linda
Ellerbee (b. 1944)
is an American journalist and writer. Beginning in radio, she transitioned to
television news in the early 1970s, holding reporter and anchor jobs at both
major broadcast and cable networks. She is particularly noted as the host of
the long-running Nick News, a Peabody-award-winning news program for children
that addressed important social and political issues and invited perspectives
and commentaries from young people from around the world. Ellerbee has written
three personal memoirs and several works of fiction. She is active in advocacy
and support for women with breast cancer, arising from her own experience. The
quotation comes from a book of interviews of notable women by Bonnie Miller
Rubin, Fifty on Fifty: Wisdom,
Inspiration, and Reflections on Women's Lives Well Lived (Warner Books, 1998).
For more posts by and about Fred and his book, click HERE.
To purchase copies of this book at 25% discount,
use code FF25 at MSI Press webstore.
Want to buy this book and not have to pay for it?
Ask your local library to purchase and shelve it.
VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ALL OUR AUTHORS AND TITLES.
 |
Follow MSI Press on Twitter, Face Book, and Instagram.
Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC?
Check out information on how to submit a proposal.
Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start? Our author au pair services will mentor you through the process.
Want an author-signed copy of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.
Julia Aziz, signing her book, Lessons of Labor, at an event at Book People in Austin, Texas.
Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our Authors' Pages.
Check out our rankings -- and more -- HERE.
Comments
Post a Comment