Good Medicine
“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.” – Orison Swett Marden
“Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul.” – Dorothy Day
What we fill our minds with, what receive, what permeates our being binds or releases.
Empty to filled, again and again.
To be made new right where you are now.
Nourished and held.
Feed your soul.
Kate Bowler’s podcast Everything Happens kicked off season 8 this week. The introduction and the blessing at the end are poignant, honest and worth sharing as we enter year three of “pandemic” living.
Seek things to feed your soul, shift your mindset and prompt your unfolding, growth and understanding. Go easy on yourself and others. Hope, not shallow optimism. Kindness and light.
“Oh my gosh. Year three. We are going to need some fortifications, some fresh supplies in this time of endless attrition. We are going to need hope, but not shallow optimism. We are going to need courage to live here inside our actual bodies and limitations and relationships, and we are going to need to tell each other the truth. Life is a chronic condition. And if you already know that, first of all, I’m so sorry, that kind of understanding comes at a cost and it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It just means that you’re human, again, today. This is a podcast for all of us who understand that we are more limited than we may have realized. Those of us who are trapped by fragile bodies, commitments, dependance, geography and money and circumstances. For many in the midst of this pandemic, life has shrunk to the size of the room we’re in. Everything is no longer possible. We have to learn how to build a beautiful life inside new limitations. We have to learn how to find hope and courage and beauty by setting aside the promises of self-help gurus and Instagram influencers and making peace with our beautiful, terrible finitude. Because there is no cure for being human, but we are all good medicine.” – Kate Bowler
Blessing for Trying and Stopping
“Here’s a blessing for the courage to try and the wisdom to know when to stop. Blessed are you, faced with the impossible. You do not take your eyes away from what threatens to swallow you whole. You who stare down reality, though your heart quickens. You for whom action comes swiftly as you chart the next step or bulldoze a new path yourself. You know how to turn hope into action and bless you for it. And blessed are you who when you’ve come to the end of what is possible find the courage to live there too, accepting the things that are unchangeable and finding that beauty and meaning and love lives there too. You know what it means to have a life held together by so many loves and so much to lose. Blessed are we who are learning how to hope and how to let go, when to act and when to stop. Balancing the impossibility of so much love and so much to fear together.” – Kate Bowler
