Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. – Robert Louis Stevenson
School starts tomorrow morning, back to packing lunches, packing backpacks paired with the dreaded emptying backpacks at the end of the day (or week), and all the excitement that goes with this new beginning. The past two weeks have been filled with shopping for school supplies, new shoes, and finding the extra pens, erasers, and pencil sharpeners from last year. As we have been squeezing every last bit of summer, we have been preparing for the new start that a school year offers.
The start of a new school year feels way more like a new year than January first in my world. I’ve decided to embrace my new year now. As we start new rhythms and routines tomorrow, it seems like a good time to renew other parts of life.
Renew is the word I’m choosing to guide this “new year” time. I considered many words: reset, restart, and beginning, to encapsulate the season we enter tomorrow. Renew feels best.
Renew sounds so lovely. It feels like such a gentle yet meaningful invitation to refresh, return, recenter. It feels approachable. It feels gentle. Renew feels like something that is not overwhelming. It doesn’t require a complete overhaul.
Renew is to restore freshness. Freshness is lost over time with air, dust, and use. Habits and patterns can become tedious and no longer bring the joy they might have had at the start. The invitation to renew is an opportunity to look at what has become stale, tedious from overuse. Where do I need to restore freshness? When we have fresh eyes, we can see things from a new perspective. Renew is permission and encouragement to scan our lives and look for places that maybe aren’t really broken, but perhaps they aren’t really working either.
As we start school, I’ve been cleaning out closets. Letting go of clothes that don’t fit or just don’t make me happy. I have one t-shirt that is fine. It’s cute. I like it, but the seam itches. I can’t figure out how to fix it. I don’t wear it because it makes me frustrated all day with the itchy seam. It’s gone; maybe it will work better for someone else.
With the help of my talented daughter, my pantry is now ready for school lunches. She renewed our pantry to make it work for what we need it for in the upcoming months. Lunch stables are easy to see, so we can grab them quickly and see when to restock.
The physical parts of renewing are easy. A little bit of time invested in tidying and dusting, and the space is restored and ready for what comes next.
I know that some spiritual and mental places in my life need renewing. We savored summer. Somewhere in the middle, my morning routine was lost. Waking up in different places and getting people to early tee times has that effect, apparently. I’m asking myself how I can restore freshness to the first, quiet hour of the morning. Looking at it through a lens of restoring freshness and renewing is such a graceful invitation. Instead of beating myself up for the things I haven’t done this summer, I’m reframing the question. I’m asking myself what gives me life and feeds my soul. Writing, reading, and quiet are three pillars. But maybe it’s time to read something different? What kind of writing would serve me? Do I need to write more blog posts? Journal? Morning Pages? Haiku? Do I need a guide? The frame of freshness makes the questions light and fun rather than weighted down with expectation. What will make my first hour of the morning feel fresh?
It is also time to restore freshness to the information I let in. I feel bombarded at every minute with information. It’s time to unfollow the social media accounts that aren’t adding freshness, vigor, flow, grace. I get to choose what information (news, social media, perspectives, and options) are part of my intake. It’s good to have different perspectives, but we have access to so much information, it’s not always helpful. I’m going to go smaller with the information (news, ideas, thoughts, etc.) that I let in.
Renew feels like a perfect small practice. It’s approachable, easy, light, and even a bit fun. It’s not asking for a complete overhaul of anything. It’s just asking where things are stale? How can freshness be restored?
Where do you need to restore freshness? What needs renewal in your life?
Is there one small restore freshness step you can take this week?
Unfollow 10 social media accounts that create stress or just take up worthless time.
Dust a room (or just a shelf) that needs dusting.
Throw away outdated food in your pantry.
Add one life-giving activity to your morning (slowing sipping a cup of tea while sitting outside, watching a TED talk, sketching, writing a Haiku)
Clean out one drawer or closet.
Take a nap
Recently Finished:
Recipes for a Sacred Life: Ture Stories and a Few Miracles by Rivvy Neshama
I really enjoyed this book of essays. It’s precisely what the title says, “recipes” for a sacred life. Rivvy shares stories, ideas, and things she has read that helped her live a sacred life. The essays are short, meaningful, small, and actionable. In one piece, she talks about adopting the phrase “just like me.”
“With everyone you meet and every encounter,” Annie said, “you can say to yourself, ‘Just like me.’ Especially if you’re feeling judgmental. So with that guy you just met, you could say, ‘He’s trying to make a living the best he can . . . just like me.’ Or, ‘He needs money . . . just like me.’ Or, ‘He’s self-focused . . . just like me.’”
Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections on Reading as Sacred Practice by Vanessa Zoltan
For several years I listened faithfully to the podcast Harry Potter as Sacred Text with Vanessa Zoltan. I was excited to read her book. This was a good book. Zoltan writes about choosing Jane Eyre as a sacred text and spending a year (or more) reading it, learning it, being challenged by it, just as one might read the Bible or other sacred texts. This book challenges me to be a better reader.
I love the idea of sacredness. I want to be called to bigger things outside of myself. I don’t want my life to be a matter of distractions from death and then death. I want to surprise myself and honor the ways in which the world surprises me. I want to connect deeply to others, to the earth, and to myself. I want to help heal that which is broken in us.-
Vanessa Zoltan
A practice from Praying with Jane Eyre that I’m incorporating into my renewed morning routine is jotting down phrases that catch my eye as I’m reading in a notebook, one after the other. She shared about a man who wrote quotes down in a collection and then used the collected quotes as his own sacred, reflective text.
I’ve italicized the lines that sparkle for me.
“We cannot hold on to things and enter. We must put down what we carry, open the door, and then take up only what we need to bring inside.”
― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have
“Every night before I go to sleep I say out loud three things that I am grateful for, all the significant, insignificant, extraordinary, ordinary stuff of my life. It is a small practice and humble, and yet, I find I sleep better Holding what lightens and softens my life ever so briefly at the end of the day.”
― Carrie Newcomer, A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays“
Life is sacred—for everyone, not just monks and mystics. But to feel it and see it, there are things you can do, things that bring out the wonder and connectedness of everything in life. It begins with your intention, looking in. And it’s furthered by your attention, looking out.”
― Rivvy Neshama, Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles
For Belonging
by John O'Donohue
May you listen to your longing to be free.
May the frames of your belonging be generous enough for your dreams.
May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering in your heart.
May you find harmony between your soul and your life.
May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.
May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time.
May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.
May you never place walls between the light and yourself.
May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.
