A recent review of my new book The Way Home, available now:
Once I started I couldn't put it down because I resonated with Ben's personal journey so closely. His vulnerability and authenticity are so compelling you can't help but be swept up by the narrative. It's a beautifully written personal story that serves as a guide for fellow wanderers and wisdom seekers from all traditions.
QUOTE
You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.
A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.―John 16:20-21
REFLECTION
In lieu of writing this week, I offer this one-minute reflection I recently shared on TikTok because it seems to have resonated with a lot of people.
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COLLECTION
“Don't Hesitate” by Mary Oliver
I’ll let Mary Oliver bring the written word this week:
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate.
Give in to it.
There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.
We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left.
Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.
It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.
Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty.
Joy is not made to be a crumb.
When Breath Becomes Air
Two weeks ago I shared that I listened to Sebastian Junger’s book, In My Time of Dying. The following week, as I drove from patient to patient and on my way to my son’s weekend baseball tournament hours from home, I stuck with the same reflections-on-dying genre—Paul Kalanithi’s searching and powerful memoir, When Breath Becomes Air.
What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.
Thank You, Big Quiet
My friend Jesse Israel officially ended his nine year journey of creating and leading The Big Quiet. He shared the video below to celebrate and remember.
I never attended a Big Quiet gathering, but it has profoundly shaped my life. I met Jesse at an event he attended because of the meditation and community work he was doing with The Big Quiet. Jesse introduced me to 1 Giant Mind, through which I would learn the meditation practice that has changed my life and become a certified meditation teacher, leading to the work I’m doing know bringing meditation to the incarcerated through the WITHIN Project. The Big Quiet also directly inspired the STILL LIFE meditation and community gatherings I led in Seattle in 2019.
I share this with you as a small token of my gratitude to Jesse and The Big Quiet team!