It’s high school basketball season, and I’m organizing my life around my daughter’s home games. We’ve been sitting next to another family who we are just getting to know and found out recently that the father is a basketball referee on other nights of the week. We would have never known. He’s not all riled up like many other parents in the stands, he certainly doesn’t shout things at refs or educate everyone around him on the rules of the game. He’s there to cheer his daughter on and keeps his opinions (and considerable knowledge) mostly to himself. My respect for him has gone up immeasurably.
As the year draws to a close, I feel the pull of silence, I’m noticing my intolerance for the constant exchange of opinions that’s the backdrop to our public and relational lives. If I’m on a walk with a friend and they say they hate Christmas music, I’m likely to say I love it, and that will take up 10 (boring) minutes of conversation. Many media formats are people loudly exchanging opinions with one another while we watch and form our own opinions. The ads showing up in our social media feeds proclaim that we should be obsessed over certain household cleaning products or leggings.
Meanwhile, our world is desperate for us to respond from the heart. We need liberation from war, consumerism, addiction, and policies that are destroying our planet. We need liberation from social isolation, racism, homophobia, ableism, poverty, and the profound scourge of having too much choice as many comfortable people do. Creating, packaging, and exchanging opinions keeps us too busy to actually do anything.
In reflecting on what I want for 2024, I remind myself: I value awe over opinions, and I value outcome over opinions. Can we make space to stand under the stars at night and remember our place in the universe? Then, can we diligently work for things we care about, be in “principled struggle,” as adrienne maree brown says? One characteristic of principled struggle is to “engage tension, don’t indulge drama.” Opinions often lead to drama when what we need to do is engage tension for the sake of liberation.
Here’s a solstice reflection from John O’Donohue that we will be meditating on at Wild Within Sunday morning (still time to register here!): Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of dark.
Whatever this season holds for you, may you “creep back into your own nature.” May you be guided by your inner wisdom, may you be blessed with energy to give and receive care, may you feel loved. May you be released from the marketplace of opinions and set free into awe and principled struggle. Thank you for being with me here so many times this year.