Ordinary Is Beautiful – An alt.Sunday
Hey folks – I’m sending this on the last day of January, before midnight. However, I feel hopeful that we’re going to make it through what is / has been for many people in our community and around the world, a difficult month. Last week in our in-person gathering, I quoted Amy Lin, the author of “Hereafter: A Memoir”, as saying that “grief is the last act of love”. It’s a reference to her own sudden experience of bereavement as a young newlywed, and a kind of distillation of the hard-won wisdom she shares in her memoir. It’s an acknowledgment that we can’t have one without the other – that love always carries with it the necessity of grief. Darkness and light, love and grief, winter and spring…
Well…that’s pretty heavy, isn’t it? If we find ourselves able to consider these things at all (and that’s not always possible for us in any given moment), how might we respond? When we do suffer, and we all do, what can help us find our way through?
This week, we’ll be engaging with a short film called “Ordinary Is Beautiful”, a touching personal reflection on the possibility that connection with others and with ordinary things is part of the answer. Come prepared to reflect on who is precious to you and what sorts of ordinary experiences help you connect more deeply with others.
My hope is that an experience like this can offer a few moments of respite and reflection, not in denial of suffering but in calm, safe musing on the connection between what is challenging and what is beautiful and hopeful.
I’ll see you on Sunday.