“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
― Rumi
In my listening this week, I heard an idea that has been buzzing in my head for days. Joy is found through lowering the bar.
What a paradoxical idea.
Joy comes from the Greek word chara. It means inner gladness, and one definition I found ties joy to the delight of spiritual realities. Honestly, I’m not sure what that means, the delight of spiritual realities? In my Spiritual Director reading, I stumbled on a definition of spirituality that might help.
“The word ‘spirituality’ comes from the Latin word “spirare’ which mean “to breathe.’ The word’s origin reminds us that spirituality is not an optional extra, something added to our lives, but is at the very core of what it means to be human.” (emphasis added)
-Sue Pickering
Spirituality is breathing. Apparently, 12-16 breaths per minute are average for most humans. Does that mean that we have 12-16 opportunities every minute for joy?
I wonder if Rob Bell was right, the invitation to joy is found when we lower the bar. Joy is waiting for us when we see the half-melted snow or in the small daily delights: the first cup of coffee, the first breath breathed in the cold morning air, or a cozy hoodie and comfy pants at the end of a long day. Maybe our days are filled to the brim with joy; it’s just a matter of spotting it, savoring it, or just plain seeing it? What if joy is the air we breathe?
What if we agreed to lower the bar? What if we made peace with doing less with intentional attention instead of doing more?
This week as you live through your days...
May your breath be joy-full.
May you find joyful freedom to lower the bar
May the paradoxes of your week be luminous
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
I have been curious about this book for quite a while. It finally came up on my library queue, so this was the week to finally read this popular book. I really enjoyed it. It’s categorized as “speculative fiction” and “thought-provoking.” Both descriptions are very accurate.
It’s the story of Nora, a young woman who is very unhappy in her life. She visits the midnight library, which contains The Book of Regrets from her own life, and every possible variation of her life had one single decision been made differently. It’s a very mind-bending book. However, it’s very engaging and thought-provoking and ultimately redemptive and beautiful. I see why it’s a best-seller, and I’m sure it will be made into a movie at some point. It just feels like something that should be a movie.
“Never underestimate the big importance of small things”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
My haiku buddies Michael, Davin, and I had two conversations this week. On Monday, we were interviewed by Brian Allain from Writing For Your Life. It was such a fun conversation. Brain asked great questions, and learning about what our Haiku practice has become was enjoyable to uncover (for me at least!)
You can watch it here if you are interested!
We also had our monthly Haiku Conversation. This is the 21st recorded conversation. These are genuinely contemplative conversations. I recently read a definition of contemplation as ‘taking a long look at the real.’ (Walter Burghardt)
Audio Divina is the practice of listening slowly and intentionally (Like Lectio Divina, only with audio). These conversations lend themselves well to an audio divina practice (in my humble option!).
A way to listen: (Audio Divina)
Listen for a phrase that “sparkles” for you. A phrase that sparkles is something that catches your attention, that causes you to pause, that invites you to deeper reflection.
Pause the video and jot down that phrase.
Let those words be a guide for prayer, reflection, conversation, inspiration for your own haiku, reflection, or even art.
View our conversation and haiku cards at Profound Living.
I try to pay attention to words or phrases that stand out in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that collects short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and puts them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
(I’m sharing in italics the lines that stand out to me in these passages. Maybe it’s the same, or maybe it’s different, there is much food for thought in each of these passages)
“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
― Rumi
“The things that brought me the most comfort now were too small to list. Raspberries in cream. Sparrows with cocked heads. Shadows of bare limbs making for sidewalk filigrees. Roses past their prime with their petals loose about them. The shouts of children at play in the neighborhood, Ginger Rogers on the black-and-white screen.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Year of Pleasures
“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
I cannot cause light. The most I can do is put myself in the path of its beam.
-Annie Dillard
