Radical Sufficiency

77% Weekly Newsletter

Human nature seems such that we’re never truly satiated or satisfied with our life experiences.
enough
The status quo is never quite good enough. We want even our best moments to be repeated, repeated again and then improved.
We want to live in an eternal, exaggerated state of well-being.
And, we know we can’t.
We know we can’t fill ourselves with money, beauty, power, or material things.
And, yet we try to get more.
 
Are you satisfied with what you have accomplished in your life so far?
Chances are you’re not.
Hardly any of us are.
I’m going to urge you to practice. The notion of taking a Sabbath is a chance, once a week, to take off from your usual way of doing things and for you to experience radical sufficiency. Once a week rehearse (fake it until you make it) what you have, what you do, and what you are is enough. Enoughness.
As a spiritual-religious professional, I’m going to assign this to you as homework. I want you to take one out of seven days this week off from striving.
(And, I’m willing to go easy on you… if you just want to start with being content with what you’ve accomplished for five minutes, that would be fine.)
The author Franz Kafka once said,

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

In other words, we don’t think we’ll ever be done. I’ve seen enough people die (and I’m sure you’ve known enough as well) to know that the truth is we are all “done” at some point. We need to be satisfied. We need to be satiated.
This week’s #wisdom_biscuit:
Be filled with what you have.
At least for right now.

See Me.

Shoes.Shoes.Shoes.  The long glass wall separates me from a display of more than 100,000 shoes at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Men’s shoes and women’s shoes and children’s shoes and baby shoes.  Everyday shoes and work shoes and formal shoes and boots and sandals and slippers and high-heeled shoes and orthopedic shoes.  Woven sandals and wooden-soled shoes and leather shoes and cloth shoes.  Shoes

Read More »

Last Tuesday / This Tuesday

Last Tuesday. I’m sitting in an Adirondack chair, my feet resting on a well-weathered log here in Sisters, Oregon. It’s my family’s annual week-long vacation at the same beautiful house we’ve rented for the past four summers. My favorite spot. Just above the little creek. Most of my worries are 153 miles away. ✧✧✧ This Tuesday. I’m sitting in my

Read More »

Five More Wisdom Biscuits

  1. I know garbage “You should put the garbage bins back where they were before you remodelled,” I tell the managers of the Grant High School construction project when they host a neighborhood forum. “Funny thing, that,” the lady in charge says, “It’s a bit counterintuitive.” She explains something city planners learned about beaches. “If there is a garbage

Read More »
77% Weekly Newsletter
77% Weekly Newsletter