[It’s a double post day due to WordPress and train signal sabotage I was unaware of yesterday.]
I started the day pressed up again half of NYC in train delays. The air is crisp— and we are thriving despite the multiple avenues of sabotage, which we are reframing as changing the pace. We are slowing down. Opening our fists, and letting go. *exhale and release*
This morning, I woke up wanting high frequency music that adds pep. It made all the difference. Naturally, I went to the Journey Greatest Hits album. It’s wild how music changes the energy in the room. And something about Journey makes me euphoric.
When the song below came on, a smile plastered on my face. I started bopping. I knew it was going to be a good day no matter what.
“Creativity requires us to become interested in something more than the version of reality we already know. It asks us to listen long enough to be surprised.” Rainier Wylde
By: Gabriela Yareliz
[Yesterday’s post which did not post through train signal sabotage]
It’s autumn. 🍂 The sky is dark and stormy, and there is a chill in the air. So exciting. [Sit in this excitement with me].
Today at lunch, I was listening to Dr. Edie talk about enchantment— how to approach life with enchantment. How to live life looking for the songs in the rhythms of life; looking for the miracles.
I find that a large piece of approaching life to find enchantment is to approach it with curiosity and creativity.
As we enter this new season, how can you use curiosity and creativity to listen a bit longer to the music playing underneath?
I am reading a book that talks about a lot about parenting. Isn’t it odd that we aren’t given the ability to have children once we are older, wiser and are all set up in life, I thought.It all happens in a very messy stage of life.
By: Gabriela Yareliz
I was thinking about stages of life the other day, prompted by the book I am reading— Habits of the Household. I was thinking about how messy we are when we are young. How wise we can be when older. (It’s also true we can reach old age doing the same stupidity we did when we were younger).
It’s interesting that each stage has its own things that are in season. And they don’t necessarily make sense to us from the human perspective. For example, having children is something the young do. It’s also so interesting because it’s a time when most (especially those who have children young) are still figuring themselves out. A lot of stupid stuff is done in youth. Bad judgment calls and relational hurt, and still, even in a stage of potential immaturity, we are entrusted with high responsibility as humans. In this case and example— other humans.
One would think, logically, following this whole childrearing example, that maybe someone with more wisdom should do it. But by the time we have ample perspective and stability, you can be a grandparent biologically.
In having children young, there is a lot of potential for a lot to go wrong, and yet, that is how God designed it. I guess it keeps us all humble.
As I was reflecting on life’s seasons, generally, it was a reminder that God isn’t afraid of messy situations. He isn’t afraid of us growing together, even across roles and age differences. Across seasons and having (or lacking). He isn’t afraid of the messes we can make at each stage of life and maturity (or lack thereof). He can work with all of it. He allows us to life. (A crazy control freak would do things differently, you see. Trust me…)
God makes things work, even when they seem like they shouldn’t. There is provision when the math isn’t mathing.
I also think it places a high calling on us as humans. We aren’t excused to be idiots. In the childrearing example, it means we are called to a level of maturity and wisdom even in youth. This whole idea that young people can cause havoc and be reckless (and the idea that this is ok) doesn’t match the level of responsibility and potential at the age. We are also not excused from the consequences of our actions. A young person can create a lot of good and also a lot of damage (and damage with repercussions that can affect generations).
There is a lot that works this way in life. Each season has its ripe fruits to pick from, and it’s a responsibility on us at that season. Doesn’t have to be childbearing/rearing to carry the same weight. We are faced with a lot of choices that reveal character and eternity.
Our behavior and who we choose to become through our choices matters. The responsibility entrusted to us matters. Our selfishness and degree of selflessness matters. All of it has repercussions felt down the line like an echo.
It all matters.
It’s not foolproof or even designed to what a human would logically think of as “ideal” or “safe.” The messy work of becoming doesn’t seem to scare God. He meets us in it at every stage and in every choice if we allow Him to come close. He gives grace to us mere mortal idiots.
Whatever stage you are in, know that it matters. There is no stage of insignificance. Know that your choices have weight and consequences. Understand that the complexity and messiness doesn’t scare God. He is the God that meets us in the messiness called life. He meets us there because it matters, and He doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves. All that matters is not easy. Life shows us this truth.
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.
We are allegedly in for rain and cooler temps, after today. We’ll take it. So done with summer.
A closet sweep still awaits me.
The week has felt eternal (last week blurred into this week), the weather fluctuated wildly, and we have finally reached the culmination of it.
Florida v. Auburn, this weekend. (Legendary rivalries entering the chat). Hockey starts next week. The Paper is still certifiably hilarious.
This week, I was deep in the following book:
It still shocks me, on these trains, as I see men just sit while all the women stand. It really reveals something disturbing about today’s society.
I felt pretty spent this week, but despite my fatigued energy— here are some of the favorites that caught my attention. I hope you have a relaxing unwind to the week. Cooler weather is on the other side.
“The heart always follows the habit.” Justin Whitmel Earley
“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.” Donna Tartt, The Secret History
“Creativity is more than making things. It’s actually a way of meeting reality on its own terms.
You look at what’s left. You resist the urge to call it failure. You stay curious. You ask what this strange stew of random events and accidental disappointments might be asking of you now. And then you make something from that.” Rainier Wylde
Jenna from Feeling Magazine! is lovely.
“Living life as an artist is a practice.” Rick Rubin
“Maybe freedom isn’t becoming someone new. Maybe it’s realizing how much of yourself was there all along, underneath everything you collected.” Alyssa Lynch
“Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.” Haruki Murakami
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway
“Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.” Fred Rogers
This week’s song (felt feisty this week):
(When I hear this song, I am 12 years old again with my church friends in a Pizza Hut parking lot on a Saturday night. Me rolling my eyes while they try to do parkour off cars like they are in the (at the time) new Jackass movie. We all felt like we were on top of the world).
I was reading the piece on Annie Dillard’s life and recent death.
It made me think a lot about writing. About life. How many hours does any of us have left? We spend so much time in unconscious living; engaging in habits and actions we do on autopilot. How much conscious life do we have left? I heard a whole podcast about this, recently— the things that steal life away. Eeh!
I am also reading this book, Habits of a Household, about turning ordinary moments into liturgical moments. Turning habits into worship. Creating space for sacred moments.
The book I am 1/3 of the way through.
With all these thoughts swirling through my head and coming to me, repeatedly, in different ways, I then encountered the obit piece on Annie Dillard. (RIP)
I loved the quote in there, and you can apply it to just about anything you want to be in life. Doesn’t have to be writing.
She wrote:
“How many of you, I asked the people in my class, which of you want to give your lives and be writers? […]
And then I tried to tell them what the choice must mean: You can’t be anything else. You must go at your life with a broadax.”
There she goes quoting Walt Whitman; someone she was compared to for years.
What does it mean to go at life with a “broadax”?
Be bold, fierce, committed, present, and full throttle.
People love to be helpless. People feel comfortable being assholes.
By: Gabriela Yareliz
People do a lot without consequence, now. People hide behind their delusions, phone screens, AI slop, and handles and screen names that lend anonymity. People sue others for the decisions they made and responsibility they share. People hate responsibility and ownership. They hate others, conveniently. They strive for false righteousness and superiority.
Perhaps the past is filled with hypocritical people who lived off of appearances, but let me tell you something— the people who pretended went to great lengths to do so. It took effort. Nothing takes effort anymore. People don’t even think for themselves.
In many ways, technology helps information spread like a wildfire. In other ways, it cloaks and deceives. It’s a double-edged sword that people are willing to surrender to if it means flinging their agency and intelligence off a cliff, and being able to abdicate their responsibility to one more thing.
I think we were better people back in the day when you had to face life and face someone to say something. Where saying something had consequences. Where your actions had consequences. You’d get popped in the mouth or feel its weight. (Some people out there haven’t been punched in the mouth, and it shows…)
How do we go back to moral clarity? Do people just start punching others? Kidding. But also, not?
How do we return decency to the human race? How do we return responsibility to where it belongs?
