The Slow Way Newsletter: Making Meaning, Having Adventures, Pursuing a life of Order
a weekly newsletter for all the frantic strivers, serial doers & weary achievers
unhurried thoughts
Finding Adventure, Making Meaning, and Ordering the Life
I have a sign in my office that says, “I like adventures, and I’m going to find some.” It’s Louisa May Alcott’s words. But actually, those words belong to Jo March, my favorite of all the March sisters in Little Women. Jo is a sparkly thing, full of fire and beauty, as all sparkly things are. And she’s always on the hunt for the adventurous life.
I have that sign in my office because I’m tilted the same way, always searching for something more. My perspective on adventure, though, isn’t quite Jo March’s idea of “bashing around London.” My hope for adventure has always been in the making of meaning. I wanted to “do something special” with my life. I still do. I want everything to count. I want everything to feel valuable and significant. I want my life to sparkle: fire and beauty.
I think that’s why motherhood threw me for a loop. I just wasn’t ready to give up the meaning, the adventurous way of spreading myself around, having deep conversations with all the people, working to make the world truer and kinder. I had babies. And the meaning making felt like it melted away, replaced with the mundane: dishes and diapers and playing cars. It took me a long time to understand why the small parts of motherhood were so difficult for me. I wasn’t counting it as adventure, as meaning. I was counting it as the stuff keeping me from meaning.
The transformation of my life was discovering the meaning inside the monotonous, the adventure in the ordinary. I thought of that yesterday when I listened to Emily P. Freeman’s recent interview with Megan Hyatt Miller on her podcast The Next Right Thing.
Now, listen, Megan Hyatt Miller is a CEO of a Leadership Development Firm, all words which would usually give me the heebie jeebies. I don’t expect Leadership principles to speak to my soul, and usually, despite my need for more life organization skills, my longing for meaning and adventure send me in the opposite direction. But Megan recently cowrote a business book about freeing yourself from “the cult of overwork,” and I thought I owed this interview a listen.
She talked about raising five kids, some with significant needs, all while being a CEO, and the sense she had that her kids at this particular moment of their childhoods needed her to be there for school pick up and therapy. How did she do that all while CEOing? She looked for a third way. She decided she’d only work until 3:30. Everyday.
Now, the part of me that usually tunes out when any human says something like “Five Principles for Success” tuned back in. And even though I was alone in the car, I raised my hand, especially at the *kids with extra needs* part.
She had some great lines. Like, “your ability to contribute in a significant way is actually aided by attending to other parts of your life.” And, “work and the rest of our life don’t have to be in conflict...They can actually be mutually reinforcing in a way that’s really integrated and healthy and fulfilling.”
Integrated and healthy and fulfilling. She went on to talk about the sorts of how-tos that typically send me into skin splotches: Defining your non-negotiables! Planning your day strategically!
But at the end of her twenty minute conversation with Emily, I was left with this thought: there is a way to do significant meaning-making in the steps we take to order our lives. Just as in those early years of motherhood I learned to find God’s presence in the dishes and the hours of Lightning McQueen play. There’s meaning to be found in ordering my own life, even when that requires to-do lists and strategic thinking.
I wonder whether or not you’d say your work and the rest of your life are integrated and healthy and fulfilling? Chances are if you’re overwhelmed, something’s off with your rhythms and rituals and your prioritization of meaning. One way to honor your hours is to look at them like braided hair. Every once in a way those braids need to be unmade, gently pulled apart, and combed out. What’s underneath the decisions we’re making? Why are we prioritizing the things we’re prioritizing? What needs to change?
I like adventures, sparkly ones full of meaning and presence and transformation. But we don’t find our adventures when the days are full of overwhelm and chaos. We find them in the intentional pursuit. Let’s do it that way.
a slow practice
In my piece “A Prayer Against Efficiency” in Sarah Bessey’s A Rhythm of Prayer, I ask God to order us, “that we may stand within time holding your hand. That we may know we are enough, not because of what we make of these hours, but because within these hours--with you--we are being made.”
Take a minute to reflect on what it means to invite God to order your life, understanding that the way you spend your hours and days ultimately builds the life you’re living.
Write down your schedule and then pray as you look at each aspect. Imagine you are unbraiding your mornings, your afternoons and your evenings, pulling apart each requirement and priority of your day. Comb each section through in your mind. Where does the comb stick? Where is there stress, overwhelm, and lack in your day?
Now ask God to show you why those tangly moments are difficult. What does it mean to find meaning in the monotonous moments in your day? What are you giving time to that is bringing anxiety? Do you need that thing?
Take a few minutes to imagine each of those parts of your day combed out, tangle free. And now braid them back together. Spend some time asking God to give you clarity to notice what needs to be prioritized, integrated, or taken out of your day.
Close by reminding yourself that you are enough, and you are ordering your day so you can live in joy and rest and stability.
“God, teach us to pause in this moment, to tuck ourselves into the curve of your slow arm, that we may know the miracle of now, the gift of this moment: you beside and beyond us, welcoming us outside of all we measure, and standing with us in it.” (From “A Prayer Against Efficiency”)