Friday Thoughts are back!
After taking the summer off, it’s time to get back into weekly reflections.
But before I do, I wanted to share a quick update. In hopes of exercising my personal discipline of reflection, I have started posting Daily Thoughts, Monday - Saturday. If you’re interested in seeing them, please follow me on Facebook or TikTok.
Now, a Friday Thought:
Often times it feels that things break and crumble much faster than it takes to build them. And that, for me at least, is super frustrating. Especially when it’s something I care about.
Sometimes, our humanity is responsible for the destruction. Be it from our selfish nature or limited understandings, we make decisions that have destructive consequences - for ourselves and for others.
Other times, however, the destruction experienced is just part of life.
Over the summer my son broke his arm. It happened instantly, and for a 15 year old boy who was anxious for the adventures of summer, it was devastating. And not because of the pain, but because of the time it would take to heal.
And he is not alone.
Whenever we experience brokenness, be it of body, mind, or spirit, we - like my son - are eager to heal. And just like my son, we are anxious to heal as quickly as we were broken.
Wendell Berry, the legendary American novelist and poet, understood our desires, which is exactly why he warned us against them.
The temptation for us all is to believe that the solution needs to be as large as the problem itself; that we need a positive and equal reaction to every negative and destructive action.
The problem with this line of thinking, according to Berry, is that large-scale solutions rarely produce the desired and much needed outcomes needed or desired. In contrast, the best solutions are often small and meaningful decisions, made consistently over time. Fast and large reactions often create greater problems. Slow and portioned decisions allow for healing. Just like our human bodies.
As of today, my son’s arm is healed. It took a second to break and over 10 weeks to heal. Which, for many of us enduring our own brand of brokenness, doesn’t seem fair. But that is not for us to decide.
What we can decide is what to do with our time of healing.
We can keep showing up, we can keep trying and stepping out, and we can keep discovering new ways to help and notice others.
It takes a long time to restore things. It takes even longer to restore GREAT things.
But in the end, the wait is always worth it. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about this week.
Happy Friday!
#doGREATthings!
Give. Relate. Explore. Analyze. Try.
For more on . . .