Expansive - A Word that Keeps Showing Up

Since last Tuesday morning, there’s a word that I cannot seem to get away from right now (not that I really want to as it is a beautiful word with a beautiful meaning). The word?

Expansive

This all started on Tuesday morning with what historian

Heather Cox Richardson

posted on her site. Normally, Dr. Richardson shares insightful commentary and context on the current political situation and the historical connections but Tuesday was different.¹ She started out by sharing that she had just planned to go out for a short paddle in her kayak but the beauty of the evening kept her out a lot longer and so a longer post could wait. Then she wrote this:

As I paddled under a bright blue sky with the sun setting beside me, it became clear to me that I needed a break from the cramped confines of our daily news.

July 21, 2025 (Monday)

Expansive is the word that came to my heart and mind as I read that sentence. Expansive is the word that connected to me not only the image that Dr. Richardson shared but also the contrast between getting pulled into the cramped and doom-scrolling realities of our daily news and being out somewhere with a wide horizon and water reflecting a beautiful early evening sky. Having been out on a kayak at times like that, I could totally imagine the experience she was having and why it is so easy to lose track of time in a moment like that - time feels like it expands.

Maybe it was a situation where, since the word was circling around in me, I kept finding Expansive in many other places through the week. It was in a chapter of Ross Gay’s Book of Delights. It was in a meditation that I listened to. It was there on a morning I went out a bit cranky and angsty and within about 30 minutes, there was a releasing and renewing in me. It was the frame for my first newsletter article at my new congregation. It was in a line of tie-dyed tshirts on a clothesline. It was in a movie I saw with my wife and one of my daughters on Friday afternoon.

So I think I’m going to spend the next bit of time (week, two weeks?) reflecting here on expansive in different ways. I’ve been collecting some photos from the last week that have spoken expansive to me and I’m sure there will be more to come. So look for some posts coming up about this from that chapter in Ross Gay’s book, on the movie The Life of Chuck, and some theological thoughts I’ve been stirring around the last few days.

But for today, I’ll start with Dr. Richardson’s sentence once again and then a photo from the morning before I read about her night on the water.

As I paddled under a bright blue sky with the sun setting beside me, it became clear to me that I needed a break from the cramped confines of our daily news.

This moment below was Monday morning at Winton Lake. It was literally a window of about 5 minutes where there was color in the sky. We had just gotten a ridiculous amount of rain the preceding few days and more was forecast for the day ahead. It was all clouded over except for this one window of time and color where I just happened to be in the exact right spot at the exact right time.

As Scout and I walked toward the water, one of the herons was walking along the one part of that edge of the lake that wasn’t under water. The pieces of the beam that edge the path. The heron was slowly walking along it with both gentleness but also with unflinching balance.

I was so drawn in by the perfect reflection of the brief moments of color in the sky, the gentleness and steadiness of the heron, and the stunningly unique look of the glassy water on either side. The phrase that came to me as I watched this was “walking along eternity.”

It was a truly expansive moment. After a weekend of a lot of clouds, storms, and rain and a some days where we nearly had another basement mess (thank you Apollo services for arriving just in time), this was truly an expansive moment. It was expansive as I felt like I was walking along eternity right with this beautiful and elegant bird.

Here are a few others from that same moment:

As I said above, there’s more that I’ll be sharing on this in the days ahead but I want to simply invite you to see how this word settles in your life. Expansive. What does it stir in you? Does it connect with you? Does it feel possible? Does it feel unrealistic?

More to come.

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

PS - Here was Scout in the car as we headed home after this moment with the heron...

1. I cannot recommend her site highly enough. I don’t know how she does it but nearly every morning it seems she is able to connect the current events of the day to ones that took place decades (or even centuries) before us. She reminds us that “all this has happened before, and all this can happen again” along with the truth that “those who forget, don’t learn, or ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”