Pause, Purpose, Possibility

Episode 2.6 Gratitude and the Tractor: A Thanksgiving Reflection

This Thanksgiving episode invites you to reflect on the possibility that gratitude and calling are both primarily a matter of noticing, of paying attention.  Along the way I share the story of some days with my oldest son, trying to get the tractor started.  Spoiler alert: we succeed!  And that's just one of many things to be thankful for.

Episode 2.5 Harvest, Store, and Scatter: Practicing Autumn

This episode invites you to dwell for a few minutes in the wisdom and beauty of autumn, this season of transition and paradox, the shoulder or hinge season here in the northern hemisphere between the hot, abundant, active, playful, energetic summer and the cold, dark, hazardous depths of winter.  What does autumn mean to you?   What does it convey about life?   What images, memories, sensations feel rich for you? And with the poet David Whyte we'll ask, "What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky?"

Episode 2.4 Reemergence after Devastation

The last in a series exploring grief, this episode looks at the possibility of reemergence after devastation -- as manifest in the resilience of the natural world after the destruction wrought by a hurricane, or the coming of spring after the pain of deep winter.  Drawing on Parker Palmer's wisdom around the difference between "heart broken apart" and heart broken open," I point to the ways that a broken-open heart can have room for MORE: Grief AND hope, grief AND love, even grief AND joy.

Episode 2.3 The Sacred Work and Geography of Grief

Grief is incredibly hard work.  And it's sacred work, not just something frivolous to indulge in while neglecting the "real" work that we're "supposed" to doing (like "getting past it" or "staying strong" or "making a living.")  And the contours or "geography" of grief can resemble actual geological landscapes, from soaring and plunging, wild, dramatic mountains to endless, flat, monotonous plains -- each of which has something to teach us, questions to pose.

Episode 2.2 Where We've Been: Kim's Story

Last time I noted that the podcast had been on hiatus for almost a year and a half because of the death of my wife Kim. This episode begins to unpacks that reality a bit, to honor her … and to honor the reality that everyone, each of us, is touched by grief at some point in our lives. Each of us faces loss, heartbreak, devastation, suffering, loneliness.  It’s universal, unavoidable, inescapable – and each of us experiences it in our own way.  This time I’ll tell the story, the basics of what happened, by way of sharing with you a letter I wrote last spring to the multitalented performer Mandy Patinkin, star of stage and screen whose one-man show Kim and I went to see over in St. Paul, on what turned out to be our last date.