<\/p>\n
She sat next to me on the park bench,<\/p>\n
warm morning sun<\/p>\n
shining on her face.<\/p>\n
She shared about a funeral she attended<\/p>\n
where story after story was told<\/p>\n
about an old woman who<\/p>\n
lived life large<\/p>\n
all over the globe<\/p>\n
producing concentric circles of influence.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My friend said she wanted a life like that.<\/p>\n
I asked, A life like what?<\/p>\n
One of significance, she said.<\/p>\n
Tears welled up<\/p>\n
in both our eyes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t that the fear that drives all fears?<\/p>\n
The fear that prompted that first bite<\/p>\n
so long ago?<\/p>\n
The fear that undermines our motives,<\/p>\n
daily interactions,<\/p>\n
and haunts us on our death bed?<\/p>\n
That fear that says being human is<\/p>\n
Not<\/p>\n
Quite<\/p>\n
Enough,<\/p>\n
where enough looks like significance,<\/p>\n
and significance looks like being God?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You know, that glittering god<\/p>\n
of perfection and holiness,<\/p>\n
that we strive tirelessly to grasp,<\/p>\n
as we meticulously check off the shoulds<\/em> and musts<\/em>,[1]<\/a><\/p>\n buying into the hype,<\/p>\n becoming a commodity<\/p>\n of the neo-liberalist machine called the Good Life,[2]<\/a><\/p>\n and thus, the antithesis of human,<\/p>\n or more simply,<\/p>\n and increasingly,<\/p>\n un-human,<\/p>\n whose fear driven endeavors<\/p>\n disintegrate into dust along with our<\/p>\n fleshly remains.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But what if significance is found in the small,<\/p>\n the still,<\/p>\n the silence?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What if significance<\/p>\n is seen in the baby that never takes a breath<\/p>\n but whose mother’s breath held it<\/p>\n in her womb?<\/p>\n Or in the children who care for loved ones<\/p>\n working long hours for little pay?<\/p>\n Or in the widow who walks alone,\u00a0eats crumbs,<\/p>\n but gives generously to the overworked children?<\/p>\n And in the man, a bed ridden mute<\/p>\n who exists in space and time,<\/p>\n wondering if there\u2019s more than this place<\/p>\n and these people whom he\u2019s dependent<\/p>\n upon for all things?<\/p>\n What of humans whom the world will never know,<\/p>\n names only spoken in the most minuscule of concentric circles,<\/p>\n mere pebbles dropped in shallow puddles<\/p>\n that eventually dry under the<\/p>\n glaring afternoon sun?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Does our significance not come from<\/p>\n our simple act of breathing,<\/p>\n where each exhale leads to dependance<\/p>\n and each inhale gives Life?[3]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How might our world look<\/p>\n if we stopped<\/p>\n fighting for that perfect inhale<\/p>\n in order to drive the Good Life machine forward,<\/p>\n and instead<\/p>\n allowed our bodies<\/p>\n to effortlessly exhale to the point<\/p>\n where nothing is left<\/p>\n but our anticipation of being filled<\/p>\n with Grace,<\/p>\n upon Grace,<\/p>\n upon Grace,<\/p>\n which transforms<\/p>\n us into the beautifully significant humans<\/p>\n we were created to be.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Diana Renner and Steven D\u2019Souza. Not Doing: The Art of Effortless Action<\/em>. (London, UK: LID Publishing, Ltd, 2018) 108.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid., 97-98.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Jer Swigart. 2020. \u201cInhale and Exhale\u2026Which comes first and Why it Matters.\u201d DMINLGP blog. Accessed September 20, 2020. https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/inhale-or-exhale-which-comes-first-why-it-matters\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She sat next to me on the park bench, warm morning sun shining on her face. She shared about a funeral she attended where story after story was told about an old woman who lived life large all over the globe producing concentric circles of influence. My friend said she wanted a life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1878,1867,1866,1879],"class_list":["post-26735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-human","tag-not-doing","tag-renner-and-dsouza","tag-significance","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26735"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26746,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26735\/revisions\/26746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}