I was listening to a podcast (The Habit) where the host, Jonathan Rodgers, was interviewing Tish Harrison Warren and Doug McElvey about their writing on the ordinary. We can see that word as "boring, mundane, no impact" or as "daily, particular, real." Life is so daily; life is so ordinary. Doug McElvey said that he was raised in a "tradition" that had no tradition and that emphasized doing something big and influential and dramatic on the world stage for God. He seemed to say he had a personal crisis where he realized he didn't love--God or people. And that became his goal. I like that testimony. I am facing it now a bit. "I Came to Love You Late" would be my spiritual biography's title. It's actually the title of book from the '70s about Martha. I can relate.
A colleague sent me this quote the other day. He said that it had really helped him through life and as he faced changes and retirement, and it also helped him follow his bliss and find what he really wanted to do. “The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from myths. What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light? Or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle? One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another— but it’s predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness rejoins consciousn...
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