Beliefs that remain unexamined can get stuck, calcified like a fossil or a relic. Instead of being living and responsive, they become throwbacks to outdates ways of experiencing the world.
When have you realized that a calcified belief was holding you back?
Around the world today, our Muslim siblings are celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan. It is the holiday of breaking the monthlong fast that has focused Muslims on what is most holy. It begins with prayer, recognizing the holiness of God.
What would you hold up as most sacred and holy today?
“Change will come whether we work for and celebrate it, or distrust and resist it, or simply wait. Our history says it will come whether we want it or not. For that we can be thankful.” -Mark Morrison-Reed
When have you learned to stop resisting change?
“The season of mud begins with thunder and announces change; it is the season of transition. Transitions are times when the thick skin of habit that protected us surrenders to the possibilities of growth and renewal. The inner thawing renders us sensitive and vulnerable to the unpredictable, until we emerge comfortably into new ways of being. We aren’t sure who we are or where we will end up.” -Sarah York
When have you experienced the thick skin of habit surrendering to the possibility of growth?
“Forty to one. That’s the ratio of sap to maple syrup in the long, slow process of creating the amber sweetness my family used to boil and bottle every spring. It’s a ratio that tells you something about the time and determination required to make syrup, but it gives no hint of the longer arc of transformation that makes it possible. It offers no nod to the long summer days when maple leaves drink up the sunlight. It makes no mention of the way that sweetness seeps into the sap in winter’s deep sleep, slowly settling into the dark interior of trunk and root. It pays no homage to the early spring weeks when strengthened sunbeams charm the sap back up into the branches and crown. The tree makes its sweetness all year long. We humans show up for a month in the spring to tap it and make a lot of noise about the effort of hauling sap to the fire and the time invested in round‐the‐clock boiling to reduce it, forty to one.” -Karen Hering
Tell us about a transformation that requires a longer arc of time and determination than is evident.
