I’m hosting the next week. A group of 15 pastors. On the theme of Relational Leadership. My friend Travis and I will host. Teach. Convene. Listen. Guide. Adapt. Dwell. With methods. Maps. All toward the basic and yet needed practice — going well together for the things that we most care about.
Last year it looked a bit like this.
In a sensing way, prepping for this group of pastors, I found myself going back to an intro that I wrote of the collection of poems, Most Mornings.
It was good for the book. Honest words. Good for this group too, this week.
I love invitations to context.
For many of us these days, so sincere in our attempts to live awake, there is much volume and scale that seeks our attention. We read articles. We skim news headlines. We listen to podcasts. We sort varied social media teasers that algorithm us to interest. It’s a lot.
Yet despite such volume and scale, I believe that most of us seek to remember one or two things that are important, and then go about living our lives of personal and communal commitment. Most mornings, most of us seek what is grounding, and then go out to do our jobs.
I believe that most of us want to contribute good, whether to the circumstances near us, or to the circumstances further away that we read about. Most of us want to keep appreciating the value of similarities and differences. Many of us want healthy and respectful communities, be they in revolution or in small but significant steadiness of change.
This collection of poems comes from some of my sense-making that so often happens in the morning, nurtured by overnight sleep. These poems sample practices. They sample learnings. They sample insights and discoveries. They sample dilemmas and concerns. They range from simple and clear appreciations to more complex and murky wonderings about how to be in the world of these times.
I offer these verses to invite essences to lead, as poetry often does, and to invite discovery of what can only live between the lines. I offer these poems to bring reflection and waking, to bring phrases and images that might help you, me, and us find morning light and guiding paths.
