Category: General Learning

I recently shared this with my son, embarking on a rite of passage journey. It was a moment of father’s advice.

I’ve met a lot of people that are good at figuring out the whole plan, every detail. That’s impressive. However, one of the skills you can master further, and that I believe is even more important, is just figuring out the moment in front of you. It requires a deep faith. You’re actually very good at this. Paying attention to the moment in front of you is a way of listening. It’s a way of being inspired. It’s a way of being directed. From one moment to the next. It’s a freedom to just start where you feel inspired, knowing that all is a contribution. 

There are times when only a few things can be said. Only an essence. I find this as a father. I find this also when I am working with groups and teams who are trying to live into a different paradigm, perhaps their own rite of passage.

For me these are times when I hope that I’m getting it “right.” That thought itself is worth some attention — it’s rather nerve-racking to think of needing to get it perfectly right.

But, back to the beginning. Turn this on self. “Get it right for the moment,” I try to remind myself. Or the best sense of “helpful” for the moment.

Fear of all the other moments can be far to distracting.

“The alchemical woodcut says
that a child will not become an adult
until it breaks the addiction to harmony,
chooses the one precious thing,
and enters into
a joyful participation in the tensions of the world.”

Robert Bly

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I’m grateful to my friend Quanita Roberson who shared this Robert Bly quote. Quanita is a rather wise person, whose friendship I’ve enjoyed for the last 2.5 years, though the depth of it feels like 25 years.

It is the maturing that comes with entrance, with willingness to “participate in the tensions of the world,” that really catches my attention. I don’t want that maturing everyday. But I do most days. Realness is freeing.

Today this quote is poignant in particular as I send my son off to begin mission service. There is a separation, which evokes in me a hope that he will find his way, even in the struggle. It evokes some fear in me too. Will he be OK? However, I would rather he, and myself, grow into this participation in the tensions.

Today, that’s what love between me as Dad and he as Son looks like.

Earlier this week a friend invited me to get together with her. For conversation, which I know with her, is usually provocative and inspiring. A part of me really wanted to do this with her. However, another part of me, this time in my belly, knew that I needed additional emptiness. Space that isn’t filled, even by good things and good people. A space for nothing.

Saying no to a good thing is a discipline that I’m still learning about. It is ever to easy to fill all available moments in time with one thing or another that is “productive.” There is an adrenaline hit in it for many of us, isn’t there. And there is praise for many of us, that is rather satisfying. I thanked my friend but told her no. I told her why. I love it that she is a person that doesn’t need justification for one’s desire for emptiness.

I shared in a previous post that one of the books I’m reading now is Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. I continue to enjoy the impressions I’m getting from this book. In a chapter called, “Escape: The Perks of Being Unavailable,” (which in itself is provocative, right) is this invocation: “I’m talking about deliberately setting aside distraction-free time in a distraction-free space to do absolutely nothing other than think.”

This author had me at “to do absolutely nothing.” Even without the call to think. Now, to be clear, I love time to think. That’s a gateway itself that is crucial. But, my experience is that the “absolutely nothing” part is inherently valuable in and of itself. It isn’t easy. Oh, how the mind wants to get productive even with the nothingness. Plan the day. Plan the meal. Plan who to call. Plan the visit to the neighbor. These are all good things, and, to be clear, I use silence often to notice these kinds of things showing up.

However, the “absolutely nothing” part goes one step further I believe. It restores a kind of balance. A kind of third space. A memory that changes the experiences of “absolutely doing.” An emotional and physical release, that reminds us of an essential state of being that has been trained out of most of us — whether by philosophy of life circumstance.

Arg, it’s hard to describe. I join with other mystics and spiritual devotees to try to offer a few words. They can fail so quickly. But maybe that is the point. Just as not all experiences are fit to be put into words, not all “nothingness” is meant to be put into thought.

In a way, I suppose I did meet with my friend. On the figurative couch of “nothingness” that inspired these reflections today.

Last Thursday, my friend Kinde Nebeker and I hosted an evening gathering on the Inner and Outer of Evolutionary Leadership. There were 20 of us in total, an impressive group of smart, skilled, and inquiring people.

Our format included some opening ritual, invoking a center in the circle of our twenty chairs. A candle. Flowers. It included some context on why inner and outer matter. It included a check-in, inviting all to share some of why they chose to come to this gathering. Kinde and I offered some teaching and sharing story, some thinking out loud to help set additional context. Then we turned to one another, a leadership move to the outer — what does this have to do with you? — a fundamental sense-making together.

One of the things I noticed over the last few days since the gathering is that I have been paying more attention to inner condition. For me, to the pause that so often helps more than my tendency to want to plow through a few more accomplishments. The “less is more” part. Funny to think that in contemporary culture, a pause is often an accomplishment, isn’t it. I’ve felt a bit more encouraged — the kind of courage that a community, found even in a temporary evening of honesty and authenticity together, can offer.

One of the harvest sheets is captured in this photo. It is responses from the group to what this inquiry about the inner and outer has to do with us. You may see some things you’d expect here, and perhaps a few surprises:

• inner and outer are not separate
• caution against the overuse of dualistic language
• invocation to reclaim a narrative of more potential
• practicing gratitude
• notice how inner and outer change through the arc of life
• listen, meditate, dream work
• the cycles of renewal that many of us encounter
• the deep hunger that many feel to bridge to more of a whole self
• pain is sometimes a doorway into discovery of the inner
• how many of us are remembering something we were born with but have forgotten
• how the quality of any intervention depends on the state of the intervenor
• territory of feelings feeling us and us feeling feelings

We finished with a round of naming pearls and practices — one key insight and one thing that each person felt inspiration to do, to practice. A simple practice to begin or to continue. We ended with an invocation of permission, a ringing of the bell, to do those very practices.

Kinde and I have intent to continue this inquiry together and to offer it out to others. There are indeed, many people hungry for this territory. I’m grateful to those that joined in Thursday.