Making Our Own Choices
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It’s been said that better questions lead us naturally to better answers, and that it’s in not knowing that we open the doorway to knowing. I’m Scott Lennox and you’re listening to The Beautiful Question, a consideration of things that truly matter in a complex world.
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The past year and a half has changed our lives in unprecedented and unimaginable ways. And yet, in the midst of it all, there are choices we can make every day.
Join me this week as we consider what some of those changes might be. Stay with me.
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This week’s podcast will be shorter than most, but I think you’ll see the point of it.
Driving to an appointment several miles south of my home in Fort Worth early one October morning, I watched the clouds being torn to ragged whisps by the racing wind as they passed over the fields ahead of me and out to my left.
As I watched, I thought of some of the things I’ve survived and what it was like to be figuratively and literally taken apart and then put back together in a new way.
Here’s a one-line poem I wrote about what I witnessed that morning. I call it Shredding.
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Just before sunup, the wind opened the stacked sheaves of clouds, tossed them out onto the threshing floor and beat them hard, tearing them to bits before it flung them, low and wide and far, a pandemonium of vapor that raced across the Texas morning sky.
(Shredding, from Uncollected Poems, by the author)
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On days when my heart feels like those clouds and my thoughts are just as scattered, it’s good to remember that there is always a hidden and natural order to things. In moments when I’m feeling shredded, it helps to stop and be still for a while, just watching and listening as clarity returns.
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We like it when things are going smoothly, but we often forget that disorganization and reorganization are part of the natural way of things, and that in the middle of even the most dynamic shifts, there are still choices we can make.
For example, as my body ages and changes, I can lament that it no longer works the way it did when I was twenty-seven, or I can treat myself with greater kindness, accepting and even celebrating things exactly as they are. I can fight the process, or I can choose to be with what is instead of working against it.
Across the world, changes in the climate are shifting the ways that nature functions. As temperatures slowly rise, storms grow more frequent and more violent. We can continue to deny and debate and hypothesize, or we can choose to work together to create the necessary and effective changes that are still possible to heal the planet.
Divisions of every kind are taking place socially, politically, and economically. In the face of that level of change, it’s easy to feel afraid and unable to act. Yet we’re also free to intentionally lean into the light of what is good. From there, it becomes easier to take the steps that are the most right for us and for those around us.
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Instead of giving you more examples, and for the sake of brevity, I offer this week’s single Beautiful Question as a way of encouraging consideration of the choices you can make.
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Regardless of the nature or magnitude of the changes you’re facing right now, and regardless of the toll the last year may have taken on you, what simple and effective choices can you make to enrich your life and the way you are living it?
As always, I’d love to hear what comes as you sit with this question. May your next steps provide you with exactly what you need. You deserve that.
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As I say each week,
My Light with Your Light!
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Thank you for joining me in these podcasts as we keep doing the things we can to respond to life in increasingly effective ways. As always, I’m open to your comments and feedback.
You can be further inspired by visiting my friends at Kosmos Journal. That’s K O S M O S Journal. Their mission is to inform, inspire, and engage global transformation in harmony with all life. You can easily find them online at Kosmos Journal dot O R G.
And at thebeautifulquestion.com, you can read the illustrated transcript of each podcast as you listen. You’ll also find an archive of all previous podcasts, including episodes three and four, guided relaxation audios that can help you practice letting go on a daily basis.
If you find these podcasts useful, don’t hesitate to share them or tell others about them. That’s a great way of helping me get a voice of calm and collaboration and balance and encouragement out into the world.
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I’m Scott Lennox, and this has been The Beautiful Question.
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The Beautiful Question is a One Light production, written, produced, and engineered by Scott Lennox at HeartRock Studios in Fort Worth, Texas, as a way of paying forward to life, being fully present, becoming better engaged with things that truly matter in a complex world, and committing to a healthier future for all of us.