Interconnected

Interconnected

Spending time in nature has been my solace during this pandemic.

One of my favorite places to visit is the University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison, Wisconsin, a 1,260 acre preserved area that serves as a research and teaching site for ecological restoration. The Arboretum was founded in 1932, and its first director of research was the famous naturalist author Aldo Leopold who lived in Madison at that time.  

Leopold’s most famous book, A Sand County Almanac, has sold over 2 million copies. I first read this eye-opening book as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. It forever changed how I view the importance of land preservation and our interconnectedness with the natural world. I even remember taking my copy of the book to read when I visited the UW Arboretum some forty years ago.

A quote from A Sand County Almanac seems especially appropriate to our current time, where the pandemic has made abundantly clear how interconnected we are with one another and with the natural world. 

“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively the land.”

We are indeed each a member of a community of interdependent parts. No one of us can affect the course of this pandemic by ourselves. It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. It also most certainly takes a village, a community of interdependent people, to contain a highly contagious and life-threatening virus.  

If you feel a bit exhausted by what I recently heard described as the “Coronacoaster,” I highly recommend spending some time in a park or nature preserve in your community. Not only will you find solace in the calm and peacefulness of the natural world, but you will also be reminded of the interconnectedness of all of life.  

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We Make the Path by Walking

We Make the Path by Walking

 “Traveller, the path is your tracks

And nothing more.

Traveller, there is no path

The path is made by walking.

By walking you make a path

And turning, you look back

At a way you will never tread again

Traveller, there is no road 

Only wakes in the sea.”

I have always loved these lines written by the early twentieth-century Spanish poet Antonio Machado. A slightly different version of the third line is one I often share with people these days, “We make the path by walking.”

As the pandemic grinds on, losses are piling up for all of us. Staying with the image of a path, we have all experienced a few, or maybe even many paths in our lives that have been changed, blocked, or ended. Weddings, graduations, vacations, reunions have been canceled, are dramatically changed, jobs have been lost, health concerns have increased, and loved ones have died. All of these are paths that have been altered or changed forever by COVID-19. And all of this is happening at a time when our ability to physically connect with our supportive friends and family has greatly diminished.

As we wonder what new paths will emerge during and after this pandemic, I find Machado’s words helpful. Because we have ever experienced anything like this, there are no clearly defined paths forward. We are all feeling our way around in the dark. We will make our new paths by all the day-to-day choices we each make going forward. “We will make the path by walking.” 

While many of the choices we make right now are individual and particular to our own lives and circumstances, the pandemic also highlights the importance of the collective decisions being made. The choices that we make as a society directly affect the path that this virus will take in the weeks and months ahead. We have ample evidence of this already, and so it is truly the case that we will determine the path that is ahead by the choices we make.  

I am a member of the Sierra Club, and I have often been attracted to invitations I receive from them to join one of their week-long trail repair trips. These trips offer participants free room and board, usually in a National Park, in exchange for volunteering with others for a week to help clear hiking trails that have become blocked with fallen trees due to storms. Some trips even focus on building completely new trails because the old trails are judged not to be salvageable. 

As attracted to the trips as I have been, I have not ever committed to join one. However, I feel as though I don’t need to sign up for a Sierra Club trip to get this rebuilding experience. This pandemic is inviting me, and all of us, to sign up for a different kind of trail building work. This work ahead is both individual and communal, and we each have an essential role to play in both rebuilding and building anew our neighborhoods and communities, even though we are not quite sure what this will look like or what it will take. 

May the wise words of Antonio Machado console and inspire us when we find ourselves wishing that there was a clear path that we could simply follow at this time. We can, and we will make this path by walking—together, one step at a time.  

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Integrity

Integrity

    Take a moment to bring to mind some people who have inspired you, and who have had a significant, positive impact on your life.  

  As you reflect on who came to mind just now, whether they were a parent, friend, sister, brother, family member, teacher, coach, boss, spiritual leader, or political leader, I imagine that there is something they all have in common—each of them was a person of integrity.

  The word integrity shares the same root as the word integration. A person with integrity has a high degree of integration between what they say and how they live. Such a person “walks the talk” and embodies in their actions what they say with their words.  

  Integrity is based on the highest spiritual values of what it means to live a good life, transcending political, religious, and other differences. People from different perspectives will be open to listening to and learning from a person of high integrity. Without integrity, a person’s voice will rarely be taken seriously.

  If you watched the funeral for Congressman John Lewis this week, you witnessed the honoring of a person by people of all political perspectives. The theme that ran through the remarks at the funeral, as well as the tributes that have poured in since his death, was of Lewis’ integrity. Lewis preached the path of love, mercy, and justice just as clearly as he walked that path in is life. And as evidence of how his life of integrity did transcend politics, I share with you words spoken by former President George W. Bush, one of the many speakers at Lewis’s service in Atlanta Thursday. I invite you to read these words thoughtfully and slowly as it describes so well the essence of a life lived with integrity and love.

   “He always thought of others; he always thought of preaching the gospel, in word and in deed, insisting that hate and fear had to be answered with love and hope. John Lewis believed in the Lord, he believed in humanity and he believed in America. He’s been called an American saint, a believer willing to give up everything, even life itself, to bear witness to the truth that drove him all his life. That we could build a world of peace and justice, harmony and dignity and love. And the first crucial step on that journey was the recognition that all people are born in the image of God, and carry a spark of the divine in them. 

   John’s lesson for us is that we must all keep ourselves open to hearing the call of love. The call of service. And the call to sacrifice for others. Listen, John and I had our disagreements of course – but in the America John Lewis fought for, and the America I believe in, differences of opinion are inevitable elements and evidence of democracy in action. We the people, including congressmen and presidents, can have differing views on how to perfect our union while sharing the conviction that our nation, however flawed, is a good and noble one. We live in a better and nobler country today because of John Lewis and his abiding faith in the power of God, the power of democracy and in the power of love to lift us all to a higher ground.”     Former President George W. Bush. 

    In anticipation of his death, John Lewis wrote an essay in the final days of his life and requested that it be published the day of his funeral. I close with an excerpt from this essay, hoping that in these difficult times, we may find strength and inspiration in his call to live a life of integrity, a life where, in Lewis’s words, we “let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.” 

    “Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.   When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.” From a final essay from Congressman John Lewis.  

   May we each strive to walk with the integrity and example of Congressman John Lewis.

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Eating More Than Our Share of Radishes

Eating More Than Our Share of Radishes

   In 1996, psychologist Roy Bauermeister conducted a fascinating experiment on will power. He invited a large group of people into a room filled with the smell of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. He sat them at tables and then brought to each table two bowls. One bowl contained radishes and the other chocolate chip cookies. Half of the people were told they could eat only the radishes and to use their will power to avoid eating any of the cookies. The other half of the group were told they could skip the radishes and eat as many cookies as they wished.

   Ten minutes later, everyone was led to another room where they were given (unknown to them at the time) an unsolvable geometry problem. The group of people who had just eaten the cookies worked an average of nineteen minutes trying to solve the problem before giving up. The group of radish eaters gave up after just eight minutes.  

   Bauermeister concluded that the radish eaters gave up earlier on the math challenge because they were suffering from “ego depletion,” which is a fancy way of saying they had exhausted their will power muscles as they refrained from eating the cookies. The will power of the cookie eaters, on the other hand, had not been depleted, and so they were able to concentrate more than twice as long on the math problem.  

   I believe that the results of this experiment help explain what I hear many people (including myself) now reporting regarding the challenges they are experiencing as this pandemic continues. People are noting that they and others are more impatient, irritable, distracted, and exhausted. And many report having trouble with focus and concentration, as well as impulse control related to eating and drinking.

  If you are experiencing any of these challenges, perhaps Dr. Bauermeister’s experiment can offer a little comfort and self-compassion. The pandemic has forced all of us to give up many of “the cookies” in our lives, those things that bring us the greatest pleasure. We are all having to “eat a lot more radishes” than usual, and our will-power muscles are tired.

  And speaking of self-compassion—that’s something we all can probably use a little more of these days, as we realize just how much emotional energy we are using to get through each day. 

   So pass the radishes. We can do this, and we will, one radish at a time—until the day comes when we can all once again sit around a table, shoulder to shoulder, faces uncovered, enjoying as many chocolate cookies together as we wish.

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True Mental Strength

Real Mental Strength

  Acting tough is about external appearances. It involves creating a persona that convinces other people you're impervious to pain. True mental strength involves working on your character.  Mentally strong people are willing to be vulnerable, and quite often, people confuse their openness and honesty with frailty.  Amy Morin

  We live in uncertain times that present daily challenges to our emotional well-being. If you are wondering how to cultivate the mental strength to move forward, I recommend an insightful book by psychotherapist Amy Morin. Her book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Train Your Brain for Happiness and Success might be helpful. If reading a whole book on emotional well-being creates more stress, then you will be pleased to know you can find the “Cliff Notes” version of her book in an article she wrote for Inc.—you can read that article at: https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/10-signs-youre-a-mentally-strong-person-even-though-most-people-think-these-are-weaknesses.html

  Morin’s primary point is that we often mistake acting tough with being strong. Real strength, especially in times of extreme uncertainty, manifests in the ability to be vulnerable, flexible, and willing to change one’s mind in the face of new information and facts as they are revealed.  

  Here are Morin’s top ten signs of mentally strong people

1. Be kind.

2. Changing your mind.

3. Acknowledging your weaknesses. 

4. Being patient.

5. Asking for help.

6. Being comfortable with failing.

7. Expressing emotions.

8. Walking away.

9. Improving yourself.

10. Staying calm.

  This list presents very different ideas of strength than what I was taught to believe growing up. Pretending to be tough and in full control, I now know, is actually a false or pseudo-strength, usually present in direct proportion to the fear that someone is trying to hide. As I have aged, I have learned that real strength is grounded in what Amy Morin writes about in her book and article.

  How about you? How do you think of emotional strength? As you read the list of these ten attributes, is there one that “has your name on it”? What do you need to enhance as you seek to stay emotionally healthy in the midst of all we are facing right now? For me, 4 and 5 are revealing themselves to be essential for me to practice as I deal with all the unknowns regarding how this pandemic will continue to unfold.  

Take comfort in knowing that if you are feeling tired, weak, or vulnerable in some way, and willing to accept and embrace these feelings, you have taken the first step in enhancing your emotional strength and well-being. Then look at the list and consider what might be others you could practice to grow stronger in this challenging time.

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