This is the second of a Saturday-long Conference I attended with Adam Young and a guest speaker. This was held on February 4, 2025. The Conference was entitled: "On Fear and Failure: From "My life is an Endless Struggle" -- to -- My Life is a Compelling Story." In this lecture, Rob talks about how creation actually works and how we don't hold ourselves to the same standard we hold nature.
Draw a tree. Draw seeds falling from that tree and landing on the ground. Did you know that a birch tree drops 2 million seeds in its lifetime. And, listen to this, roughly two of those seeds will actually become fully grown birch trees.
(Unless you are an IVF baby like my Pomegranate. Than it isn't really a matter of winning. Ha!)
Two questions:
1. Are those extra sperm and those extra seeds ... waste?
2. Is that failure that the other 1,999,998 seeds didn't create a tree?
When leaves fall from the trees in Autumn, do you think: what a waste?
Of course not!
You think, "How beautiful!"
You celebrate the death of the leaves because it would be beautiful. It's how nature works!
Creation does not share our obsession with production and efficiency.
Creation doesn't need to nail it on the first try. Nothing in nature nails it on the first try! And yet we try something once and think, "I can't do it. I tried and I failed."
What if you instead called it an abundance of attempts. What if we gave ourselves the same freedom we give to the birds of the air and the trees on the mountains.
Pre-Industrial Revolution, they had SIXTY feast days a year. They would run their lives around the seasons. Around what was growing. Around what time the grapes needed to be harvested. And then, suddenly, we are in the Industrial Revolution and we have a work-week that isn't contingent upon the seasons whatsoever.
No longer is it "how much is the harvest producing?" Instead it has become: "I do this many hours and I get this much pay for an hour and I know how much money will buy me that much stuff." Time then became understood for what you could get out of it. An hour of time gets me this much pay which gets me this much stuff. Time used to be arranged around the seasons. And in the winter, we'd rest for the harvest season. But we don't do that anymore.
In the Industrial Revolution, time became what it produces. We've drifted away from seasons.
You are now extracting things from time which then taps into scarcity. We only have so many hours. Perhaps you came from a world when you grew up that "if I am to care for myself, I am selfish." If you were to actually rest, the word you would use is lazy. I can't just take care of myself and book the trip I want to book. I have to go to Hawaii on cheap tickets and then I deserve it. I can't just decide I can take a trip to Hawaii and not cut corners. I am not worthy of that.
Just notice how deep this wiring goes. Notice the images about time:
Steal some minutes
Carve out time
Squeeze in some time with someone
Waste time
This is the stuff that matters, and you have to steal it? These words are about violence or thievery. As if your time belongs to someone else.
We must heal our relationship with:
1. Time
2. Production
3. Efficiency
You are "wasting time" if you aren't doing something. Instead, we should be resting for what is coming next. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, time becomes units. Instead of "how much is the harvest producing and how do we receive it and bless it?" to this new way of thinking. Time became understood in the human psyche for what you can get out of time!
What if, before we go to check fifteen emails, we instead go for a lovely walk and have our brain sorted before we check the emails. Would we possibly be more efficient? If we take care of ourselves, we are able to handle the fifteen minutes of time wasted at that meeting discussing third quarter numbers, and maybe even get right to the point. Being more tuned-in will actually help you be more efficient.
I should be farther along by now (compared to when?)
That is the mind placing a template on your life that is 100% artificial and judging it by that template and then creating our own suffering.
I shouldn't be this tired (said during the Pandemic -- compared to when? Another Pandemic?)
This is taking too long.
I should be more patient by now.
By now I was supposed to be ...
What does the word suppose do at the physiological level? This creates an illusion of an ideal you that fails to exist in reality and then it wonders why it is suffering? We can only live in reality. Reality always wins.
So ... we are aligning ourselves with how all of creation actually works
I got stuff that I need to get done.
Yeah, so does the mountain. The river needs to flow!
Quit shouldin' all over yourself.
How about: less fight ... more flow.
How about: less fit it in ... more finding our way.
How about: not worrying that we missed our chance. The invitations will keep coming!
Let's stop saying: It was supposed to be and instead move with what is.
Why does that anger you like it does?
Why do you feel injustice?
What is tugging on your sleeve?
Should you take a class on that?
Should you book that trip?
Lean in. Be curious. Notice that. So much of my healing has been to see the world differently. I am not running from emotions. I am looking at them and observing them.
Can you align your thinking with creation? Extra seeds is not waste. Are the three years you spent in theology school if you end up not being a pastor a waste? Were those seasons a waste? And was it a failure? Looking at creation is holding up a mirror and seeing 2 million seeds, and 2 trees.
Is ...
that ...
waste?
It's a different way of looking at the story that has been my life -- the circuitous path that has been my life. Was it really failure? I've thought that to myself during this last year. Why did God wait until 2024 to reveal himself to me? Why not sooner? Why force me to traverse and live with such debilitating anxiety for so long? Why couldn't he have taken me on this route earlier.
Are the curves in the river of your life actually failure.
It may have taken that long to see it clearly, but you know what, that's how long it took.
Take a pen and paper each day and say:
Dear Wendi, what would you have me know today?
And then start writing and see what your pen says. Often, the pen might tell you: You can just rest. Creation is not obsessed with performance-driven productivity. You don't need to be either.
If I rest, I feel like I am doing something wrong. Part of that is our family-of-origin story.
What did your family tell you about your permission to rest?
The message you received comes from your nature and also from your nurture. Many of us received the message: I must always be ON. But that is not the way creation works!
Where is your body in alignment with creation? And where is there a demand for efficiency? And is the fact that you are the 1 in 250 million worth anything to you? Each of us have made lots of attempts at different things in our life. And what is your posture toward the fact that you might be willing good at trying.
Are you judging the birch tree?! Are you saying, "Man you are a failure!?"
Of course not! So what is keeping you from living in more alignment with the way it is happening, according to the way the Lord made the world?
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