I have been reposting older content lately. I like going back and reading my own posts. They make me smile and they make me think and I hope they do one or the other for you, too. If they do both, all the better!

But I am committed to a bit of a new thing: I am going to be more honest about what's true for me now. What I am wrestling with, what keeps me stuck and closed, what questions I carry around in my heart.

I want to be more honest about:

Fears, sorrow, deep joy --- all intertwined and twisted together.

Questions, doubts, some certainties --- woven together in the same strand.

61 is a weird age to be. No longer young (or even middle-aged!) and not yet old. Just in-between. A liminal space between here and there. Some of my friends are doubling down on work, starting businesses, pushing harder in their professional lives. Others are stepping away from their paid vocations and into new interests; a reinvention, of sorts.

I am in a liminal space in the world of work, too. The call to preach still strong, while a new invitation (or set of invitations) is whispering its way into my soul.

Alice, seek joy for joy's sake.

Do less of what you feel you should do, and more of what you love to do.

Slow down. Cease striving for approval. Get real quiet, real attentive, real centered. And see what's there underneath the hurry, the worry, the noise.

There is fear bubbling up in me as I listen to these new invitations, of course. Fear of irrelevancy. Fear of fading away. Fear of insignificance. I mean, who are we if we aren't hustling? Marketing ourselves? Putting ourselves out there, whatever the heck that means?

But the fears are not strong enough to keep me from walking both bravely and tentatively toward whatever unfolds next.

Do me a favor as I practice being more honest here: Do not call me or text me to ask if I am alright. Do not tell me you are praying for me. Do not treat me any differently than when I post a happy bit of writing. I have a strong aversion to that. It is sometimes what keeps me from writing honestly.

Understand that when I share from the depths and not only from the heights, I pray I am doing a favor for anyone reading my thoughts.

Because the truth of the matter is the particular is more of the universal than we know.

My doubts, fears, sorrows, regrets are---in many ways---yours as well.

Let's be honest together, shall we?

Let's, as poet Mary Oliver wrote, be:

"determined to do
the only thing [we can] do—
determined to save
the only life [we can] save."

Photo by Charan S on Unsplash