Day 30 of 30: Unity Day
Here we are on day 30 of 30 of writing. I’m calling it unity day because our project has reached completion, has reached a numeric value of unity, of one-ness, literally 30 / 30 = 1. The other math is less fun, since day 20 I’ve increased from 57 to 60 followers… underwhelming to say the least. No Brené Brown repost boost to my article about Hope being the Near Enemy of Faith… No getting followed or reposted by anyone with k’s of followers… so be it. It wasn’t the point, but it would have been nice. I had someone say to me recently, “They’re just not ready for you.” Which felt good, felt affirming… but, by the same token, and applying the same paradoxical lens that we’ve been exploring in the last few articles… my writing can’t be about ‘waiting for them to be ready for me’ — it must be, if it is the catalyst that it understands as its raison d’être, something that reaches out to find people where they are. So, I take the results of the experiment as the greater teaching that they are — a failure of a kind. But not failure as self-flagellation, failure as learning, failure as recalibration. So, for me, unity symbolizes this too — closing the loop between an experiment or practice and the learning that comes from it, so that the next iteration moves us closer to the source, closer to unity.
When I write for oral delivery, it usually takes me a few run-throughs before I find the cadence and the emphasis and the pauses and the space that the words I’ve written need and want… It is, for me, a second phase of the composition, a further development of the texture and nuance and impact and weight of the words… Perhaps it is also a result of my shift to audiobooks as a primary form of reading, perhaps it is a nod to my own theatricality, or my draw to writing in a ‘sermonic’ style… Whatever it is, I’m taking a few weeks off — first for a solo spiritual retreat, then for a family vacation. When I return, I suspect it will be in the form of a podcast or YouTube channel, with parallel publication of the written version on Medium… With the increase in production time I won’t be able to cover ground at the speed which writing alone allows… but perhaps that will invite deeper pieces. If you’d like some idea of what live performance pieces have looked like recently, you could check out these links (minutes where my pieces start are in parentheses for those inclined to scan):
- Homily “Why Church?” at First UU Austin — 7/23. (minutes 32, 49)
- Gary Hallock Memorial Service — 7/21 @ First UU Austin. (minutes 12, 28, & 1:43)
- Sermon “The Evolution of Humanism” — 6/4 @ San Gabriel UU. (minutes 5, 9, 17, 1:00)
I’m looking forward to being on Pamela Benson Owens’ podcast Rooted — we’re recording near the end of August, so stay tuned for that & gratitude to PBO for the kick in the pants to do this writing stint. It has been helpful for me, helpful in finding my voice, helpful in quelling any fear whatsoever that I’d run out of things to say or to channel… I’ve got more unpublished article threads and stubs and ideas in my Medium-drafts folder now than when I started, and I got some of the ones that were stuck out of there and into the public domain where they might yet be ‘discovered’ in a ‘many readers’ kind of way.
To you, the few, the brave, the followers who take the time out of your busy lives to read me, thank you — just, thank you. Imagining you reading, wrestling with the question of how I can honor your readership with something that might be of value to you… well, that means everything and it has kept me going when the less-supportive voices in my head looked at the numbers and wanted to throw in the towel. I’ll take quality over quantity any day. And today, unity day, is a great day for quality.
On that final note: I invite any readers to reach out to me through comments here or on any of the social platforms I broadcast on (LinkedIN, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) if there is a topic etc. that you’d like me to write on. Your curiosities are welcome and real conversations are even better than imagined ones.
See you Space Cowboys…
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