There is a folk tale of an aboriginal tribe that runs great distances. They run for days on end. Then, for no apparent reason, they stop. When asked why, they respond, “To let our souls catch up with us.”

To let our souls catch up with us. That voice, little at first in the din of busy life, that builds and builds until it almost shouts, “Stop the bus!” That craving for gentleness, grace, beauty, peace – not apart from the world, but in the world, every day. That desire to be the best version of ourselves, which we know is there, underneath a few layers of “it’s gotten complicated.”

This past year has been a journey of letting my soul catch up with me. I had a sense early on in the year that was the mission, but the collection of experiences, readings, learnings, and discoveries was happenstance. With wonder, I watched one lead in close connection to another in surprising ways – stars align, grace happens, we discover “God in all things”. Enough dear friends have smiled at the thought of letting their souls catch up with them that I suspect the following might be of use to some.

Notably, “curriculum” suggests a linearity that is completely misplaced here. Reveling in life’s twists and turns is actually an important part of letting our souls catch up with us – so much of the rest of life tells us to be on a path, to solve problems in specific ways, to climb, to “progress”… and yet, richness emerges when we look around, take in different thoughts, make new friends, eliminate the ego of the climb.

Yet, “curriculum” also implies activity and intentionality, which are critical. Our souls do not catch up on their own if we keep running ahead. What is below are all different types of experiences that we can intentionally bring into our lives by seeking out beauty, making community happen, and learning. Hopefully they provide some inspiration.

Seek out beauty
Have you ever watched a thunderstorm hit dry, parched land? The water runs off quickly. But a gentle, soft rain pervades the soil, making it fertile for growth. The following are gentle and beautiful pauses that can soften the soul. Whether these appeal to you or you find others, make time to soak in beauty.

Ghibli films – The Japanese animator and story teller, Hayao Miyazaki, creates artistically beautiful movies with gentle, deep stories. You leave feeling simple delight.

Wisdom tellers – Very special writers can speak of matters of the soul in ways that could be no other way once we have read them – they capture in words what lies in our hearts, even when that seems counter-cultural. One of the best examples of this must be Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince. More current authors could be John O’Donohue (To Bless the Space Between Us), David Brooks (The Road to Character), Brian McLaren (The Great Spiritual Migration).

Nature – Wendell Berry writes of “The Peace of Wild Things”: “For a time, I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” The soaring peaks or the minuteness of a wildflower or the sound of the ocean have a way of making us feel part of something much larger than ourselves. Some particularly awe-inspiring US options: the Redwoods, Glacier National Park, the Grand Tetons, the ocean (just about anywhere).

Music: We all have our go to music – often we make the “Power up” playlist, but we should also make that “Gentle” playlist too. And if we are so inclined, we can mix up the genres to remind ourselves that beauty comes in many flavors. Mine includes Alison Krauss, Johnny Cash’s last album, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Leonard Cohen, Waylin’ Jennies, Lyle Lovett, Pink Floyd’s “On the Turning Away”, Hamilton, and a little Springsteen

Make community happen
One of the most enlivening joys can be connecting more deeply with people – new friends and old friends and old friends in a new light. Drop that note, make the invite, accept the outreach – it never fails to renew and grow us. Here are some starter ideas that generate gifts of community :

Social justice “actives” – We can be thankful for activists, people who courageously put themselves “out there” to shake things up and call out what needs to change. For letting our souls catch up, the quieter work of “actives” can work magic – people who have been dedicated to a place, or an issue, or a set of people for decades; who have a long-term perspective; who work day in and day out to make each day a bit better. What is magical about these folks is that they have found hope to sustain their work; they are joyfully energetic; they will share that gladly with anyone who asks; and they are everywhere, if we look.

World Affairs Night – Think book club, but diving into a topic going on in the world, with three questions: What are the facts and history? How does this link to other topics? What personal perspective can we each bring to the topic? In other words, creating a community with whom we can engage in the world at a deeper level than 140 characters.

Spontaneous discussions of faith – We can know someone for a decade, and then trip into a discussion of faith that launches the friendship into a new realm. Or a new friend can become a close friend in an instant when we hit on a shared aspect of faith. These conversations take space, but if an opening through a shared book, or a question, or an invitation to a worship service, or the story of a trip creates an opening, go there – gently, but go there.

Friends and family – What simplicity we feel when we are with people for whom neither our accolades nor our barnacles are particularly relevant in their love for us. For so many of us scattered away from our home towns, these encounters take some extra thought to create. But in them, we find comfort, encouragement, challenge. I cherish Friday nights at our lifelong friends’ house, when the kids are playing and the guitars come out. Just as magical are the impromptu “You are here too?!” Facebook messages that turn into brunch in a city foreign to both of us. And the gatherings of extended family that find new forms in new places, yet always remind us that family love is uniquely special. And the trips we plan to see high school or college friends, which never really fit perfectly into life, but always, always return us to our life as more perfect versions of ourselves.

Learn
How we engage our minds can play a big part in the openness of our souls. New ideas, historic context, different cultures, and well-honed counter arguments all serve to enrich us, and particularly to influence the eyes through which we see our next, new experiences. Here are some though-provoking pieces and experiences that might be of interest. Or find others to let your mind work in new ways or on new topics.

Read – What a treat it is to find works that go into real depth and from multiple perspectives. For example, Evicted, by Matthew Desmond, is not an easy read, but it is the rare issue book that draws you into the lives of “characters” (real people) while illuminating all sides of a fundamental aspect of society (housing). In a magazine format, The Economist provides the depth of insight allowed by a week’s worth of preparatory thinking and long form articles, rather than the few hours or minutes and short snippets that most of our media devote.

Travel – Any travel that allows us to see more than the inside of a conference room offers opportunities to learn. Road trips are particularly good for letting the soul catch up, often giving long stretches of quieter time and uninterrupted vistas. We get to see places and ways people live that are impossible to really experience otherwise. And somethings may surprise us. For example, city life gives us little expectation of the hundreds of wind farms we will see on a cross-country drive. Or suddenly 6-7 hour drives seem short as we marvel at the vast expanses of land that make up much of our country.

Dip our toes into something new – If we drop the need to be an expert at every turn, our souls can feel the fun of learning something new and marveling at the knowledge and brilliance of others in other fields. Maybe it is an article written for someone not in that particular field – for example, the Economist‘s “Reflections on the fine-structure constant” brings to life for those of us who are not astro-physicists the awe-inspiring ways our universe is fine-tuned to support life. Or it is taking a class in a skill we lack (e.g., cooking, photography), which often is a gift that keeps on giving as we make new friends in the process and then delight others in the future with our new skill. Or it is trying our hands at creating something artistic like a poem or sketch or story. With all respect to Master Yoda, it is sometimes ok to just try.

Letting our souls catch up with us. John O’Donohue captures this all so well in his poem:

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come, to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of the rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.

In my simpler words: Seek beauty. Make community happen. Learn. A curriculum of sorts to let our souls catch up with us, to prepare us anew for the world we want to embrace.

A few weeks ago, Bryan and I sat around a table with former homeless women and men – some of whom had been incarcerated, some of whom had been sex trafficked, all of whom are now working at the organization where we were sitting.  We worked together on what a new jobs program for the neighborhood should be.  We were there to learn – childcare during training is crucial; an opportunity to work during training is important since daily expenses don’t take a hiatus; people will feel ashamed of their clothes and lack of comfort with reading and numbers – and no one wants to feel ashamed; the first question many will have is whether the jobs will turn them down because of priors…

Then, about two hours in, we turned to recruiting and one woman quickly said to our advisory group, “Well, you sure shouldn’t be the ones to go door to door on your own!” Everyone laughed out loud.  And then she added, “Don’t worry. We’ll help you recruit everyone, and you can come with us.” And in that moment, two things hit me: in serving and loving our neighbors, we need to learn so much more than substance – we need to learn the how. And there are always guides available if you look for them – even for learning the how.

Why do we treat the act of loving our fellow human beings as if it were an innate ability, as if we are born knowing how to love each other well? In his new book, The Great Spiritual Migration, Brian McLaren presents an idea that is powerfully simple and true, and at the same time rather new to me: we must learn how to love our fellow human beings well. We (try to) learn to parent, and we consume reams of books to do so. We learn our professions, how to cook, refinements to natural talents, how to play a sport… Why do we not think about the pedagogy of learning how to love others?  From practicing the discipline of showing up, to learning how to listen, to ritualizing the reflections we need to energize us, to finding our voice to articulate our love for our fellow humans in daily interactions, to building communities to sustain us, and so much more… there is so much to learn.

This concept has all sorts of implications, which I am enjoying thinking through and beginning to develop.  Let me know if you want to join the conversation.  In the meantime, here are four poems that would be required reading in the syllabus for “Learning How to Love Our Fellow Human Beings 101”.  In their hope, history, energy, peace, and awe, they overflow on this most precious of subjects.  Interestingly, they all also are centered around the metaphor of day – from greeting the morning to praying at sunset – which seems particularly appropriate for the New Year.  Enjoy.  (Excerpts here, with links to the full poems – worth every line)

On the Pulse of Morning: An Inaurgural Poem, by Maya Angelou

The final stanza of this sweeping, powerful poem:

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

On the Pulse of Morning

I thank You God for most this amazing, by E.E. Cummings

An excerpt from the awe-filled, waterfall of a first stanza:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day… for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

I thank You God for most this amazing

The Gates of Hope, by Rev. Victoria Safford

The opening of this beautiful recommendation for what love’s voice should sound like:

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.

Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of
“Everything is gonna’ be all right.”

The Gates of Hope

Praying the Sunset Prayer, by Jacob Glatstein, translated by Ruth Whitman

From the opening stanza, peacefully ritualizing reflection at the end of the day:

I’ll let you in on a secret
about how one should pray the sunset prayer.
It’s a juicy bit of praying,
like strolling on grass,
nobody’s chasing you, nobody hurries you.
You walk toward your Creator
with gifts in pure, empty hands.

Praying the Sunset Prayer

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As so often happens when we get out of whatever our normal world is, I have had several of my assumptions about how our society works challenged, and even a few upended, over the past six months. This goes beyond the election, and has mostly been a very positive experience. It has led me to reflect on how we treat assumptions in our society. My observation thus far: we have gravitated into dangerous waters of elevating assumptions to beliefs, rather than treating them more like working hypotheses.  The podcasts and writing listed below are a subset of those I have experienced this year that have challenged my assumptions, or challenged the primacy that we give to assumptions more broadly.

A few thoughts that these writings have triggered:

I was reminded of one of the few jokes I ever manage to remember. A chemist, an engineer, and an economist are stuck on a deserted island with a single can of food. In the searing heat, they begin to argue over the best way to open the can. The chemist proposes leaving the can in the sun until the contents hit a boiling point and the can explodes. The engineer suggests throwing the can at the lone rock at a certain angle to pop the can open. The economist says, “Assume a can opener…”

This joke is usually good for a few laughs. But of course, it is only funny if we think that the economist’s assumption is his belief. If he believes he has a can opener, he is clearly delusional – and it makes us chuckle thinking of that time someone told us something with great authority and then we realized the emperor had no clothes.

But what if his assumption is a working hypothesis, rather than a belief? Does it help the others realize that a can opener would conserve much more food in the can than exploding it through their methods? Does it make them look around and see if there is anything they could jimmy together to make a can opener?

Beliefs are important. They have an air of the sacred about them. “I believe in God like I believe in the sun: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” (C.S. Lewis). They powerfully influence many of our daily behaviors. And we are willing to defend them strongly, and in some cases, with the ultimate price.

But we are privileging assumptions into stridently held beliefs in all sorts of areas: who makes the best teachers, what makes food healthful, what different types of people can accomplish, whether substance abuse is someone’s fault, whether quarterly earnings reports ensure executives act in the best interest of shareholders, and so on. “Everyone knows x, y, or z is true, or will happen, or could not possibly happen.” With each bounce off the echo chamber’s wall, the certainty of the assumption is amplified.

We get lazy: We do not know the history behind the assumption to know if conditions have changed. We too quickly dismiss as ignorant the few who do not believe, and do not demand and then examine their fact-base. We fail to watch for and fix unintended consequences from oversimplification. We forget that there can be many more ways to reach an objective than one methodology – and in fact many circumstances require different solutions. And we do not push beyond the assumption by continuing to imagine “what if?”.

Let’s think about treating most of our assumptions more like working hypotheses. “Working”, meaning that we act on the hypotheses; we do not wait for indisputable proof. “Hypotheses”, meaning that we continue to examine the fact base around the idea or solution. Working hypotheses allow us to funnel resources to societal challenges with the hope and, over time, increasing evidence that a solution works. At the same time, we continue to look for counter-proofs, elements of truth in naysayers’ arguments, or changes in circumstances in our world that help us improve the solution.

This is enlivening and creative way to engage in society too – it has personally been an enjoyable and mind-expanding journey of late. Below are some podcasts and readings that I have found particularly thought provoking in challenging deeply held assumptions. If you are finding yourself trying to adopt more of a “growth mindset” or you just failed a “Do you live in a bubble?” test, I recommend these articles and podcasts. Please recommend others back.

How to Become Batman: Does it seem a safe assumption to say that the blind cannot “see”? Invisibilia’s podcast will make you think again. This lively listen demonstrates how expectations can radically define what others accomplish. It is a great introduction to the Invisibilia series, which has at its heart upending assumptions about how we perceive how the world works.

The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession: Dana Goldstein’s deeply researched examination of public schools in America makes its biggest contribution in sharing the history of public education debates. You quickly realize that every issue debated today about teaching has existed since the start of our public school model. Understanding that history helps to blur what were seemingly bright lines in the debates. For example, tenure, which certainly has its major drawbacks as currently administered in many school districts, originated as a way to ensure teachers would not be subject to politically motivated firings. Suddenly current events in Turkey – or the specter of politically-inspired curbs on free speech – make the underlying issue more salient, even if the specific fix is inadequate.

The Inner Life of Rebellion: In this On Being podcast, “Quaker wise man” Parker Palmer and young journalist Courtney Martin explore with Krista Tippett the inner conditions that allow for individuals to make sustainable societal change over time. One is the ability to hold paradoxes – to seek but not force reconciliation, even in our own minds. Another is that disruption is really about creation, not about destruction. Both of these resonate with the idea that working hypotheses are far more powerful than ossified beliefs.

“Cynicism versus Skepticism“: Dan Rather has been a thoughtful observer and call to conscience for many this past year. He has long held the credo that journalists should be skeptics, not cynics. Skeptics question, cynics dismiss. In his Facebook post of November 4, 2016, he calls on us all to adopt the same credo.

It is time to get our collective soul back in order, America.  The onslaught of the past 18 months has left our nerves rawer, our jaws permanently dropped, our hearts saddened by what we saw from some of our own friends and family, and our trust in our institutions bruised.  For many, if not most, on both sides, this experience has been deeply personal, and the distress is very real.  We are longing to feel again that our neighbors and fellow Americans are good, that we all share a common humanity, that we can work together to improve our collective society.  And that we can be proud of America in the fullest and widest sense of what that word can mean.

The gentler spirit we need is not just going to happen on its own.  And there are few rays of hope among national leaders who will be inspiration for our collective souls.  We need to do the hard work of righting ourselves, our families, and our communities.  Much of that will need to be face-to-face with others.  But sometimes we need to get right with our own souls first, before we can contribute to the collective.  Get back in the saddle of grace-filled, joy-filled, we-can-do-it thinking.

If you too are in for this, here are some books, podcasts, and soundtracks that might start to restore the faith – or at least reflect the love and tenderness our souls need.  These came my way through highly diverse paths – it was a surprise to find that each has at its heart a celebration of goodness in each other and humanity, from completely different perspectives.

Please add your suggestions.  We can all benefit from collective wisdom, when offered from a place of kinship.

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion – Father Greg Boyle’s stories of building Homeboy Industries in gang-ridden neighborhoods of LA will break your heart and fill it with complete joy, while somehow making you laugh loudly too.  This book is right – about God, about kinship with those at the margins, about joy, about love.

On Being with Krista Tippett in discussion with David Brooks and E.J. Dionne – On Being is always a beautiful listen.  Krista Tippett’s discussion with writers David Brooks and E.J. Dionne about faith in our public sphere is perhaps the most poetic and civil of all discourses of the past year between differing view points.  They eloquently argue for privileging the better, hopeful narrative that actually does exist in the daily good works in communities throughout our country.  They speak with hope of the energetic faith communities they see filled with young people.  They argue for the increases in and respect for common experiences that bind us as Americans.

Hamilton, the Musical – Listen to the musical.  Laugh at the irony of two complicated New York politicians doing battle over two centuries ago – often sordidly and always viciously. Marvel at the sheer brilliance of Lin-Manuel Miranda – and the success that brilliance can produce when dedicated for 6 straight years of creation (a millennium in our rapid fire society).  As you fall in love with songs written in styles you never thought you would like, enjoy the realization that music is a great connector across cultures.  Hear the common humanity of the characters as they spell out their dreams for their children, wrestle with their birth lottery, and walk through grief.  And most of all, stand in awe that out of all of the messiness, of which there was much, these very human people created our nation.

The Gene: An Intimate History – Pulitzer Prize winning Siddhartha Mukherjee writes fascinatingly of the history of our understanding of the gene – the most common foundation of humanity.  Sweeping in scope, he reaches from Aristotle to the present, encompassing science, politics, ideologies, policy, and what it means to be family and even human.  His writing is beautiful, intertwining story-telling with history.  You feel like you are back in your favorite college course, while remembering with every page that we are all made of the very same stuff.

The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens – Hasn’t your intuition always told you that humans do not act purely to maximize their self-interest?  Well, you are right.  Samuel Bowles provides fascinating experiments and research demonstrating that not only are we wired toward pro-social behavior, but that incentives can even crowd out that instinct.  This has big implications for policies, laws, business, and even parenting.

There are many other older books that are worth brushing off for a re-read right now:
Dorothy Day, of course.  The Duty of Delight has you from the title.  Wonder, by R.J. Palacio, is required reading for many kids – and should be for adults.  And there are brand new titles sitting on my nightstand, in line to read: Richard Rohr’s The Divine Dance with the radically simple idea that God is community and flow, as represented in Rubelev’s icon of the Trinity.  And Brian D. McLaren’s The Great Spirtual Migration: How the world’s largest religion is seeking a better way to be a Christian.

And so many more…. Please add your suggestions for books that celebrate the goodness.