I know the calendar counts August as the eighth month of our twelve-month cycle, but August feels way more "new year" than January. New pencils, unmarked notebooks, the smell of fresh crayons, and the return of a more predictable schedule. There is a fresh, new, expectant energy in August that I don't feel as much in January. Change is the air, days are noticeable growing shorter, and tomatoes, cucumbers, and cantaloupe are reaching their peak. August feels like we are collectively on the precipice of a new start.
My kids have another week and a half before school starts. Still, we are having lots of conversations about classes, teachers, friends, calendars, backpacks, and all the exciting and sometimes scary events that are just around the corner. We hold many competing feelings and emotions in a delicate tension. Excitement, wide-eyes hope…
… It's going to be the best year!
…how much have my friends and I changed over the summer?
…will we still get along?
…who will my teacher be,
…will they be friendly?
…balanced by nerves and questions about all the things that will be the same and different. Newness is exciting! Newness is scary. It's always both. A new school year is also the ending of summer plans: pools, golf (so.much.golf), sleeping in late, and snow cones.
The energy of August is a reminder that even in the middle, we can start again. As I've watched and talked with my kids about starting school soon, I'm reminded that they know how to hold two seemingly competing ideas in a way that serves them well. One minute can be filled with anticipation and hopes for all the adventures this school year will hold, and the next minute can be overwhelmed by fears about what might be.
Of course, they know (we all know) it will hold both. This school year will contain multitudes. There will be fantastic moments and memories, and there will be memories they will try to forget that will shape what comes next. It's always both.
I've been following from afar what's been happening at the Anglican Lambeth conference1over the past two weeks. As the conference started, it looked like an explosion of ideas and dearly held convictions would fracture the communion. And yet, it seems like, through thoughtful, wise, delicate engagement, fractures and division were averted. These men and women from around the world leaned into the tension, suspended judgment (voting), silenced outside voices (didn't let the media in), sat in circles, listened, and prayed. I'm sure there were tears, knotted fists, flashes of anger, rolled eyes, shared laughter, and begrudging head nods.
Turns out we all are skilled- experts even- at holding two competing ideas in tension. On a micro level, we do it every day. The start of school is so exciting and so scary, both at the same time. It's not one or the other; it's both.
In our culture, the words we consume in the news, on social media, casual conversations-even, it's easy to believe we've lost the ability to hold ideas in tension, to listen with compassion and curiosity to the person who holds a belief that's different from our own. It's not true. We all know how to keep seemingly contradictory ideas in compassionate wholeness. To be human is to live in a complex tension of ideas, beliefs, and practices. We practice holding two views in balance every.single.day.
August, it's like the start of a new year. It's fresh; it's unsullied. It's also a month where we hold seemingly competing ideas in wobbly wholeness and remember that we don't break when challenged, that suspending judgment, sitting in a circle and engaging curiosity are skills we use daily. Sometimes we need to be reminded that we know what to do, August seems like a month to remember and restart.
"Caught in the doldrums of August we may have regretted the departing summer, having sighed over the vanished strawberries and all that they signified. Now, however, we look forward almost eagerly to winter's approach. We forget the fogs, the slush, the sore throats an the price of coal, we think only of long evenings by lamplight, of the books which we are really going to read this time, of the bright shop windows and the keen edge of the early frosts."
― Denis Mackail, Greenery Street
“The spiritual journey is a constant interplay between moments of awe, followed by a general process of surrender to that moment. We must first allow ourselves to be captured by the goodness, the truth, or beauty of something beyond and outside ourselves. Then we universalize from that moment to the goodness, truth, and beauty of the rest of reality, until our realization eventually ricochets back to include ourselves. This is the great inner dialogue we call prayer.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This
Let these words from Richard Rohr be a practice this week. Notice when you are in a moment of awe. Surrender to that moment and be captured by its goodness, truth, and beauty. Let it “richochet” back to you.
Notice all the ways you hold competing ideas in wholeness and balance daily. Find a way this week to apply your skills and expertise to an idea, comment or social media post that challenges you.
Recently Finished
The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan
I have enjoyed every book I've read by Jennifer Ryan (The Chilbury Ladies' Choir, The Kitchen Front). This book was no expectation. In this book, Mrs. Braithwaite goes to London to visit her daughter in the middle of WWII. She is surprised to find her daughter is missing, and no one seems to know or really care where she is. This was an easy book to read and enjoyable too. In the author's note, Jennifer Ryan said she wanted this book to illustrate women's unexpected opportunities in WWII to do things outside of their comfort zones and expectations and to demonstrate what vital roles women played in the war efforts.
Currently Reading:
Breath Prayer: An Ancient Practice for Everyday Sacred by Christine Valtners Painter
This is a book of daily readings (short chapters) with different ideas for the practice of breath prayer. I'm really enjoying the suggested prayers and her reflections on each moment of pause. She includes breath prayers for drinking hot coffee or tea and looking in a mirror.
I’ve chosen some passages from Ryan Holiday’s book Stillness is the Key. I read this book last August. It was one that surprised me. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. As you read the following selections, take your time, see if any word or phrase stands out to you. Sit with that phrase for a few minutes and see if there is an invitation for you.
To Seneca and to his fellow adherents of Stoic philosophy, if a person could develop peace within themselves—if they could achieve apatheia, as they called it—then the whole world could be at war, and they could still think well, work well, and be well. “You may be sure that you are at peace with yourself,” Seneca wrote, “when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself, whether it be flattery or a threat, or merely an empty sound buzzing about you with unmeaning sin.”
-Ryan Holiday Stillness is the Key
In English: stillness. To be steady while the world spins around you. To act without frenzy. To hear only what needs to be heard. To possess quietude—exterior and interior—on command.
-Ryan Holiday Stillness is the Key
Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections. It slows the ball down so that we might hit it. It generates a vision, helps us resist the passions of the mob, makes space for gratitude and wonder. Stillness allows us to persevere. To succeed. It is the key that unlocks the insights of genius, and allows us regular folks to understand them.
Ryan Holiday Stillness is the Key
The CNN Effect is now a problem for everyone, not just presidents and generals. Each of us has access to more information than we could ever reasonably use. We tell ourselves that it’s part of our job, that we have to be “on top of things,” and so we give up precious time to news, reports, meetings, and other forms of feedback. Even if we’re not glued to a television, we’re still surrounded by gossip and drama and other distractions. We must stop this.
Ryan Holiday Stillness is the Key
“If you wish to improve,” Epictetus once said, “be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.”
Ryan Holiday Stillness is the Key