Chapter 3 of Hope: A User's Manual - Hope on the soul level is patient. Hope invites us to cradle the past, rest in the present, and dream a beautiful future—however long it takes....I love this waterfall. I have shared photos and reflections on it several times before. It is a simple waterfall at a nearby park and it is sadly largely dry currently. It is the creek that draws from the drained lake I shared about when I first introduced this series.
After recently discovering your substack, I just bought the book and am playing catch-up on these posts. This chapter resonated with me in my current situation as a seminarian. Having completed my first year of seminary, it was harder than I was prepared for. Not the work so much as everything else: balancing family and work (I am in a hybrid program so I'm still working full-time) with school, maintaining spiritual disciplines, engaging in ministry in new ways, and all the deeper work that seminary brings up. It is easy to fall into the trap of looking forward to graduation and ordination, but I try to stay rooted in the present. To really take in and absorb what I am doing now and the way I am being formed in this moment. The quote she shares about "winning deep" from Pippa Grange at the end really resonated: being "attached to the joy and the struggle...to the mess...done from a soul level."
Thank you for this Brandon - While I didn't have the balance thing with family when I was in seminary (I was single at the time and in seminary residential full-time), I remember the challenges that the first year (and the whole) of seminary brought. Goodness there were many times that I wondered ... why am I doing this?
And I wish I had the practice of finding myself in the present moment at the time. Looking back, I was so rarely centered in the moments at that time in my life. It was very much like Yoda to Luke in Empire Strikes Back..."All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. "
It wasn't until about 15 years after seminary that I started to find the shift to getting more able to be in the present moment (which is still REALLY hard for me)...
After recently discovering your substack, I just bought the book and am playing catch-up on these posts. This chapter resonated with me in my current situation as a seminarian. Having completed my first year of seminary, it was harder than I was prepared for. Not the work so much as everything else: balancing family and work (I am in a hybrid program so I'm still working full-time) with school, maintaining spiritual disciplines, engaging in ministry in new ways, and all the deeper work that seminary brings up. It is easy to fall into the trap of looking forward to graduation and ordination, but I try to stay rooted in the present. To really take in and absorb what I am doing now and the way I am being formed in this moment. The quote she shares about "winning deep" from Pippa Grange at the end really resonated: being "attached to the joy and the struggle...to the mess...done from a soul level."
Thank you for this Brandon - While I didn't have the balance thing with family when I was in seminary (I was single at the time and in seminary residential full-time), I remember the challenges that the first year (and the whole) of seminary brought. Goodness there were many times that I wondered ... why am I doing this?
And I wish I had the practice of finding myself in the present moment at the time. Looking back, I was so rarely centered in the moments at that time in my life. It was very much like Yoda to Luke in Empire Strikes Back..."All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. "
It wasn't until about 15 years after seminary that I started to find the shift to getting more able to be in the present moment (which is still REALLY hard for me)...