Turning Up (vol. 6, no. 10)

Here are a few things I’m sharing this month:

1. Question:

• “But all of us are struggling to be here. One of the great theological questions is around incarnation, which simply means being here in your body — not anywhere else, just here with life’s fierce need to change you, and the fact that the more you’re here and the more you’re alive, the more you realize you’re a mortal human being and that you will pass from this place. And will you actually turn up? Will you actually have the conversation, given that is so? Will you become a full citizen of vulnerability, loss, and disappearance, which you have no choice about? – David Whyte (On-Being Podcast)

2. Quote:

• “Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I’d languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.” – Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet)

3. Poem:

Excerpt from Three Treasures by Lao Tzu (translated by Ursula K. Le Guin):

Everybody says my way is great
but improbable.

All greatness
is improbable.
What’s probable
is tedious and petty.

I have three treasures.
I keep and treasure them.
The first, mercy,
the second, moderation,
the third, modesty.
If you’re merciful you can be brave,
if you’re moderate you can be generous,
and if you don’t presume to lead
you can lead the high and mighty.

4. Something Inspiring:

• “My father…told me a Howard Thurman story I will never forget. When Thurman was a small boy, he saw an elder, man who must have been in his eighties, who was planting pecan”…He said, ‘Sir, you’re not gonna be around. You will not live long enough to taste the fruit from these trees.’ And the old man paused and said, ‘Son, all my life I’ve been eating from trees I did not plant. It’s my job to plant for somebody else.’” And my father said, “Just plant. There will be trees that you will never see grow, that someone else will eat from. And it’s their responsibility to plant for somebody else. And so we don’t have all that we should have, we’ve not reached the goals that we are supposed to reach, but we have started the race, and you’ve got the baton, son. Pass it on.” – Rev. Ottis Moss III (On-Being Podcast)

5. No new project updates…it’s football season!

Thanks so much. And, have a great day! – shawn