Category: Personal Reflections

Is it spring back/fall forward? Something like that I guess. Anyway, it’s time again for one of our great wastes of time: the semi-annual changing of the clocks around daylight savings time. So, my chums, do remember to adjust your clocks appropriately so that you’re in sync (not the band) with everyone else. And think about the lost hour while your whiling away your Saturday evening. The wee hours of the morn are a bit more wee than last weekend.

Later today I’ll be giving a lift to one of the teens at my taekwondo studio, and tomorrow to one of my son’s friends for a rugby game. I’m often pinged for last minute rides, sometimes that involve a fair amount of driving. A few friends question why I make myself that accessible for such, “am I just being a sucker”? The short answer is “no”.

One of the things that I deeply value is helping people connect with their passions. The thought of someone not being able to participate in a passion out of a simple transportation issue bothers me greatly. Well, sometimes the easiest way to assist with that is simply facilitating presence. If my gift of a few minutes of driving helps connect someone to their passion, then it’s a glorious investment in the communities that I love.

Most of my life I’ve loathed shoes. Remembering Jeremy Irons’ priest in The Mission walking barefoot into the jungle, something about his barefootedness struck me. Immense humility, a comfort with a deliberate choice of poverty, and, most powerful to me, a direct connection to the earth.

Those comprise elements I’ve tried to interweave throughout my life, with varying success. Yet they reflect my deepest values. Consider the time I spent trying to minister to the needs of Seattle’s street people, though my shoes remained on. I tried to adopt a life of focused poverty, to mixed success. The fact it was a choice, on my part, isolated me. I deeply felt myself to be a interloper, though not by any action of unwelcome. But my simple ignorance of their life, of the basics of survival within that world, eventually proved too strong a barrier.

I still deeply believe in voluntary simplicity. The world cannot support all humanity with the West’s level of affluence. Backing away from our immense consumption is critical for creating a truly just world. Though I’m not terribly humble, I’ve at least developed a flair for understatement and a non-confrontational style that sort of passes. And I still avoid shoes as much as possible, though wearing flip-flips instead of baring my feet. So, perhaps, I’ve captured these pieces. At least, I hope, their essence.