Hi sweet friends.
I've been thinking about you and about this little space online lots these days. My pen has been flowing and my keyboard tap tap tapping, but so few of the words pouring out have landed here lately. Sometimes I forget to link up what I'm writing and sharing in other places online. One of the pieces I'm most proud of lately is over at The High Calling. I think it speaks to where we've been and where we are going as a family in New York- and the shift in my heart to stay and invest here and dig deep roots to make it home. This little blog is my (preverbial) home too and sometimes I forget that! Sometimes I get so exhausted with deadlines in other places that I forget how much I truly love this space and want to put it first.
I'm always amazed at the ease at which I begin prospecting. I forget to hunt and seek beauty right where I am and start looking for fullness all around me, outside of my current life and in every direction. I'm Apparently I'm not alone in this.
Experts tell us that millennials more than any generation before us will struggle to stay put. Where my parents and grandparents defined risk as embarking on new adventures and settling in new places, my generation struggles to embrace the value of a life lived in one place. We are always on the move, on the lookout for the next big thing: a new occupation, another person, or even a better place to call home.
Wonderful qualities are born through this transience: a spirit of adventure and innovation, an entrepreneurship and independence that soar. The dark side, however, can leave us all dry, as the value we place on everyone and everything around us is reduced solely to output—what can be counted and measured. So we push and squeeze to get the most out of everything before it fizzles and steams in screeching decline, soon to be tossed aside into the pile of people and places, jobs and experiences that fill our resumes and round out our anecdotes. What we may not realize is that the more we blaze through and the more we consume, the more we toss our own souls right into the pile among all we are done with.
Sustainability becomes impossible when we are on the prowl for what will serve us next. When we aren't getting what we need from a thing or a place or perhaps even a person, when we feel we are expending too much of ourselves and receiving too little, what we once defined as sacred becomes disposable. Our affection and attention shift back to … ourselves.
I'd been striving for so long to make New York fit. I'd been striving so long to make a life of written words that would settle into hearts, to make a home of beauty for my family. I was so desperate to see my life bear fruit, to see New York water my work, to shine on it and make it grow. I'd placed the value of my own life on what I could produce. My own soul was crushing under the system I had created where I wanted more and more and more. I could never be satisfied. Striving in my own strength had finally produced a fruit that settled foul in my gut and left me utterly hungry and impoverished in heart.